Chapter 13

Do you know that weird feeling when you get excited? Your heart starts to race, a sudden burst of energy rushes through your entire body so much that your limbs start to shake, your senses heightened and focused, your breathing becomes shallow, and your reflexes just sky rocketed through the roof?

For the first time in a long time, you’ve finally entered an adrenaline rush.

It all just happened so fast—one second you were standing in the middle of the court, and then the next second dodgeballs were just flying everywhere and people were rushing and bumping into one another in a split second. You started to panic, looking for safe areas to run into, but everywhere you looked, balls were flying towards you and the other team members.

Then all of a sudden, you could feel somebody jerk you by the back of your collar, pulling you away from an incoming attack.

“Focus!” yelled one of your teammates, and it’s not long after her scolding that she was rushing to grab the ball that landed in front of her.

With that one word, you immediately snapped out of it. Your body started to move across the court, dodging away from running players and incoming balls. You tried to remember the most important things that coach told you to do—dodge, duck, dip, dive, and most importantly dodge as if it wasn’t mentioned before.

“Alice, grab it!” Jongin pointed at the ball near you as he rushed to grab his own.

As quickly as possible, you rushed to grab the ball in the middle of the court, until that damned moment you faced the other middle man from the opposing team. Knowing that his longer arm would grab it first, you made a sudden, split second decision to dive away from the scene, ultimately dodging away from the ball the opposing team tried to throw at you.

You weren’t skilled in grabbing the balls since it seems that the other students who are much more experienced than you would beat you right to it, but facts showed that you were more than decent in dodging, ducking, dipping and diving throughout the game. You could only thank your quick reflexes and running-away-skills, if such a phrase ever existed.

“Grab the ball!”

“Come on!”

“Move!”

“RUN!”

The excited roars and cheers escalated as the two teams started to lose more members, and the rowdier they got, the more nervous yet thrilled you were. Jongin did his part well, aiming at the students with precision every time the ball made it in his hands. It was only then when the amount of players in the court lessened when you could actually see your mortal enemy clearly—Oh Sehun.

There were only three players left in your team while the opposing team only had two. All of you were slowing down your movements as everybody exchanged glances and shared quiet strategies, giving you some time to pick your breath.

However, just when you thought that you were safe for a moment, you witnessed an opposing player literally standing across you at gunpoint and just hurled the ball towards you. Shrieking out of sheer panic, you tried to move away as fast as you can as you planted yourself nearly flat on the ground.

“Ouch!” the ball hit the side of your forehead, the said object bouncing and rolling away to the ground after the impact.

“Alice! Coach, she was hit on her head!” a teammate that was standing behind you raised her hand, alerting the coach.

“Aim below the shoulders!” the coach reminded sternly before quickly blowing the whistle whilst pointing at the disqualified player. “You’re out!”

“Alice, you okay?” your team captain asked you as he stood in his position.

Giving him the okay sign, you nodded as you rubbed the aching spot on your head. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

After getting your confirmation, Jongin signaled to the coach that it was safe to continue the game. You put your focus back to the matter at hand. Sehun could be seen standing indifferently in the middle of the court, seemingly unbothered that his only teammate has gone. It’s very much like him to seem calm even though he’s the last man standing.

The students watching the game started to divide themselves, some being excited over the final battle and the rest already sure of the results in their heads. You looked over at Jongin who seemed pretty pleased by the results, judging on the little smirk on his face. Your other teammate also seemed ready to wrap up the game. 

Little did they know that their leisure was only temporary.

If only those two had paid attention to Sehun a little bit more. Sehun might’ve looked like he didn’t care and unenthused, even his body language gave off a vibe that he just wanted to leave the court. However, you—albeit it wasn’t done on purpose—took notice of a little strain in his Sehun’s feature.

He’s clenching his jaws—he’s annoyed.

You weren’t sure if you should feel victorious over successfully irritating Sehun, but the challenge wasn’t over yet. You held yourself from being too excited and waited for the coach to blow his whistle to start the final throttle, and boy was it the right choice.

As soon as the whistle was blown, both Sehun and Jongin ran straight for the dodgeball in front of them. With a hair’s breadth difference, Sehun grabbed the ball first and threw it to Jongin. In literally seconds, Jongin was out of the game. There wasn’t any room to react, so all you did was focus on what you can. You managed to grab a ball and aimed it for Sehun. Unfortunately, as you’ve guessed, Sehun dodged it perfectly.

“Missed,” you could hear Sehun snicker.

Pursing your lips, you raced for the ball in front of you. However, before you could reach for it, your teammate beat you to it and quickly threw it towards Sehun. The both of you held your breaths for a short second in hopes that the ball would hit him—but it never did. As soon as the ball landed right into his hands, the results were imminent. 

“Out,” Sehun nodded his head to the side as he ordered your only teammate out of the court.

That was when was your heart felt like it started to drop. It was as if in a snap of a finger, the tables have turned.

“Oh …” you could hear Jongin’s not-so-encouraging voice at the background.

You turned your head back to show him a helpless expression. “Thanks for the encouragement, Jongin,” you muttered loud enough for him to hear.

“No—I mean, it’s okay!” Jongin, who had caught your eyes, attempted to undo the damage. “Just keep dodging, and you’ll be fine!”

“Forget it, Alice,” Sehun clicked his tongue, his voice dripping with mock. You turned your head back to him to see him positioning himself across you. “You can’t escape the inevitable,”

“I dare to be a rebel,” you countered, forcing a smile on your lips.

“Don’t listen to him, Alice!” Jongin exclaimed. “You can do this!”

You detected more sympathy than confidence in Jongin’s words, but you decided to just accept it. Everybody in the room knew that it would be nearly impossible for you to outrun Sehun, or at least not forever. You were lucky enough to have survived this far and as much as you hate to admit it, it seems like this is the end of the line for you.

“So,” Sehun smiled thinly with a hint of excitement in his eyes, “Are you ready to show it to me?”

“Show you what?” you lifted a brow.

“A look of despair.” he answered in a heartbeat, face flat and all.  

Little did you know that all it took were four words and a resting face to make it your life’s conquest in that short time you had to annihilate Sehun’s sorry out of existence right at that point on in the court. It was as if the heavens had just given you blessings to accomplish this, because as soon as that whistle blew, war ensued.

Defense wasn’t even an option anymore. Time was running faster than it felt, and your body was running and dashing across the court as fast humanly possible as you grabbed and threw balls at Sehun as accurately as you could. Sehun, on the other hand, seemed like he was genuinely having fun. A lot of the students could tell that Sehun was purposely not grabbing the balls when he could’ve, but he didn’t seem like he was taking it easy on you when he literally launched those balls towards you as if they were hand grenades.

“You can’t escape me forever, Alice!” Sehun mentioned with a daring tone as he dashed to grab a ball in front of him.

You bit your bottom lip as you hurried to take the ball rolling in front of you and threw it straight to his direction. “Says the one who’s running away from me!”

Sehun ducked right under the ball and he popped right back up to show you a cheeky grin. “It’s funny how you don’t realize that it’s you who’s actually trying to stick with me.”

Refusing to believe the words that went into your ears, you scowled at him as you cringed. “Please, Sehun. Not even pimples want to stick with you, so why would I?!

The students and even the teacher weren't believing their eyes. Oh Sehun, the guy who refused to move a finger last year during dodgeball and purposely stood still so he could leave the court was finally seen running around the court with vigor, even going as far as laughing and cracking jokes. Then there was you, Alice Park, the wallflower who had somewhat built the reputation of being Oh Sehun’s contender, was publicly battling the ice prince by rapidly throwing rubber balls at him.

It's a pretty fascinating spectacle if you ask them.

“They’re really going at it,” a student commented with amusement, chuckling a bit.

“It’s kind of weird to see Oh Sehun running around,” another student blurted out.

“Yeah, but when was the last time you’ve ever seen Alice like this?” the student pointed out. “Do Hwi would die to see this!”

Regrettably, all good things must come to an end. You cursed under your breath when you felt your body giving in, having exerted too much energy. In a desperate attempt to save your remaining energy, you decided to ditch the running tactic and risked the catching method. As long as you could catch the ball, you might actually win this, which unfortunately is easier said than done.

“Just let the ball hit you above the shoulder and be done with it!” Jongin suggested, followed by yells of approvals from your teammates.

You turned your head back to glance at them, showing a look of confusion. “How? He keeps aiming below my stomach!” you told them, attempting to turn your focus back on the court until you noticed a dark, tall figure standing behind your group.

“Alice, look out!”

The warnings from the crowd got you to snap your head back to the crowd, and immediately what welcomed you at first sight was a ball flying towards you. Your quick reflexes immediately got you to move away, but unfortunately, you weren