https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24yOgzO-8Jg

Luhan - Our Tomorrow

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The conversation that Hayoung had with Sunhwa unexpectedly flew well. Strangely, the coach didn’t mind the intruders in the middle of the practice. It seemed that the works has been backed up by Jongjin on the other day so Hayoung didn’t have any much to do right now. Kris glanced once in a while toward their direction when they occasionally laughed or raised their voices, just like the other girls who loved gossiping. He had wondered what they are talking about. But nonetheless, he tried his head to keep focus on the practice.

“I can’t believe that! Your high school is really awesome!” Sunhwa exclaimed as she clapped her hands. Hayoung just told her that her high school allowed the students to dye their hair and some of other unusual rules they had. But despite it, her high school was always the best private academy in the whole South Korea.

“Now that I am talking about high school, I really want to go back to it.” She sighed, but her lips still curved in a dreamy smile.

“Everyone does. That was always the best moment in entire life, right?” Hayoung nodded, totally agree with her. “Do you have something exciting story back in high school? Like romance, perhaps?” she nudged her side and gave her a knowing smile.

Hayoung chuckled, raising an eyebrow, “Romance? Well..” she thought for something. “I don’t really have any romance story back in high school. I was too busy with my friends, I guess.”

“Really? Now tell me about this friends are. I don’t believe it if none of your friend is just friend to you!”

“Then should I say best friend?”

Sunhwa groaned and threw her arms up, “God bless that kid, he was being friend-zoned for the entire high school.”

Hayoung laughed at her reaction, “Come on, Unnie. My best friend didn’t have such a feeling toward me.”

She wiggled her finger, “Oh nu-uh. You never even asked.” Hayoung grinned awkwardly when she hit the bull’s eyes. “But seriously, is he still around you right now? I mean, do you still contact with this your-so-called-best friend?”

“I don’t know why this topic suddenly switched toward me.” She rubbed the back of her neck and Sunhwa grinned at her. They were just talking about Sunhwa’s college life and the main topic just switched like that. “We entered the same college, same department and yes, he is still with me. In fact, it’s the three of us since High School. We are best friend like that.” She said proudly, totally forgetting the romance topic she had brought up.

“So you are the only girl?” Sunhwa questioned.

She shook her head, “No, it’s two girls and one guy, including me. The guy that you mentioned might be ‘not just friend’ with me, is actually my bestest friend of all.” She smiled. Thinking about how Kai was her best friend just made her elated. Now that she thought about that, she felt lucky to have such a friend like Kai to be her best friend. He was wanted by the girls and all the guys on high school back then wanted to be like him, even piece of him. He was always showered with the compliments, for his looks, his brain, and not to mention also his charming attitudes. “I can’t get any luckier than having him as my best friend.” She whispered under her breath.

Sunhwa smiled tenderly at her sincerity. “Now I really wanted to see these best friends of yours.”

“I will introduce both of them to you, unnie. They are going to be happy to be able to know someone’s sweet as you.”

“You’re too much. I envy you actually. I never ever had a so called best friend in my entire life. Basically, my life was boring. Even until now.” She smiled sadly as she stared down at her boots.

“No way!” Hayoung gasped. “How could anyone missed someone like you?! They are just too blind to notice you! Don’t worry, unnie. All you need is right now, this moment and I will gladly become one.” She grasped both of her hand and looked serious. “If you want to.”

Sunhwa tightened the grips on her hand as she chuckled at her, “That would be awesome if you do. I do feel a lot of fun with you around.”

Hayoung beamed at her and chuckled along with her. She wanted her to be happy just like when she told her the story about her interesting college life, even without a best friend, but she told her that she still managed to expand her friendships and mostly networks to people that might helped her in the future which certainly useful. She managed to get a good work, thanks to the connection she built back in college and Hayoung was so amazed by that fact. She wanted to be like Sunhwa that was why she didn’t have a second thought on offering herself to be –soon to be best friend- to her. It was like she just had a new role model to look up to and the person was Go Sun Hwa.

“Looks like both of you already familiar to each other.” Jongjin spoke up as he saw their intertwined hands.

Sunhwa looked up and grinned at him, “Why? Jealous?”

“Hardly.”

Both of the girls chuckled at him as they released their hands. Jongjin smiled affectionately at Sunhwa as he saw her laughing so freely like that. It was just like looking at the back then when he was still the freshmen and Sunhwa was his one year old senior who welcomed him, along with another senior, but this girl here had a lifetime impression on his mind.

“The boys are finally done.” Sunhwa pointed out at the boys who walked towards the bench players. Hayoung looked at the direction and saw some of the boys were walking to their direction and sat beside them, with their bags on their sides.

“Manager-nim, you’re lucky, you didn’t even break a sweat.” Sanghyuk mentioned as he gulped down the water.

“I’m not a player, of course I don’t need to break a sweat.” She chuckled and handed him a towel which he gratefully accepted.

“But you also don’t have any work. All you do is just talking to Sunhwa noona. No offense, noona. I am just jealous.” Hyuk grinned at Sunhwa which already had the look on her face.

“Jongjin sunbae was generous enough to do my almost entirely work for this week. That’s why I need to say my gratitude to you, Sunbae-nim.” She stood up and bowed several times.

Jongjin flustered at her actions and waved his hand, which made the boys around them chuckled at their captain’s expression.

“Hayoung-ah, why do you still call Jongjin as sunbae? Aren’t you supposed to be in comfortable term already since you already here for more than 2 months, right?” Sunhwa asked.

“Eh?” she gasped. Her eyes widened at her question. “Is it wrong?” She scratched her cheek.

“Of course!” she stood up and looked at the two of them. “You are supposed to call him ‘Oppa’. Try to call him like that.” She grinned.

“W-what?” she flustered.

“You won’t mind, right, Jongjin-ah?” she averted her gaze to him with sweet smile. Jongjin was loss at his words seeing that and just nodded his head.

“It’s not fair! I want to her to call me oppa too!” Sanghyuk butted in.

“Speaking of it, I really wanted her to call me one too.” Hyuk finally popped out of nowhere and joined the conversation. Some of the senior players who were at the same bench player gathered around her and said the same thing. Hayoung just realized that it was supposed to be the senior bench players and none of them were the juniors. The juniors watched the commotion in interest from their bench.

“Try to call us oppa, manager-nim.” One of the boys encouraged her.

“Yes, try! I never heard her speak that word.” Another boy clasped his hands.

Sunhwa chuckled at Hayoung’s flustered expression as she looked at the seniors who gathered around her. Hayoung looked like a lost kitten amongst the tall players and now the attention was all on her.

“O-op..” she tried to speak the word but she bit her lips immediately as she felt awkward.

“Oh my God! She almost said the word!” Hyuk pointed out excitedly.

“Shut up, Hyuk! You’re distracting her!” Sanghyuk slapped his back, hard which made him winced in pain. “Come on, manager-nim. Call one of us with oppa in behind.” He encouraged.

Hayoung looked around the faces as she gathered the courage inside. Kris watched the commotion, along with the other junior from their bench. His tall height helped him to see what happened. He saw Hayoung was being surrounded by the boys and also her flustered expression.

“Hyuk..” Hayoung opened her lips and said the name. Hyuk’s eyes light up in anticipation when he heard his name. “Do I really have to do this?” she asked as fast as she breath out which made the crowd groaned in disappointment.

“She is really playing hard to get.”

“I really want to hear her calling us oppa. It’s been a while since we have a young manager.”

“Hey! Did you say that I was that old to be your manager back then?!” Sunhwa snapped at him as she put her hand on her waist. The boys laughed at him as he muttered apologize to her.

“Let’s don’t force her any further. She will call one of us as you guys wish for when she feel comfortable enough around us.” Jongjin stepped in and defended her.

“Come on, captain! Don’t be such a party pooper!”

“Yeah! She was just about to say it! With my name on it!” Hyuk once again raised his voice with excitement.

“Yes! I agree with this brat here!” The boys voiced out their agreement.

“It’s okay. I do feel comfortable enough around you, so you guys don’t need to push me any further than this.” She sighed but her eyes were smiling. “Thanks for defending me, Jongjin oppa.” She smiled at him.

The crowd felt into silent. Her lips still smiling but soon enough it slipped off when she noticed that no one was talking, nor responding to her. It made her felt more awkward than before. “Err.. Did I say something wrong?”

“God dammit, Jongjin! You should stop playing as hero when it comes to the time like this!” Hyuk punched his shoulder lightly, pretended to be annoyed. “She was just about to say my name first! And look what you did after you played superhero on her. She turned her back on me!” he groaned, grabbing the lock of his brown hair dramatically.

“Once a party pooper, always a party pooper.” Sanghyuk whispered, but loud enough to let the crowd heard him which made they laughed.

“Call me oppa, too!”

“Me too! Me too!”

“Me three!”

“What do you want?! You do realize that you are in the same age as her, even though you are a senior?!”

“So what?! I was born in January and as far as I know that she was born in December!”

“STALKER!” the boys booed and accused him.

“Step aside, losers! She should call me oppa first!”

Hayoung chuckled at their childish wish but eventually granted their wishes as she started to call them ‘Oppa’ one by one. She silently thanked Sunhwa for making this happen, even though it was embarrassing at the sudden attention but at least she felt that she grew closer to the senior members. Sunhwa watched them interact with Hayoung and treated her like a little children who had just learned how to talk by making her calling out their names. She averted her gaze outside the crowd and locked eyes with Kris. Kris had been watching the small crowd the whole time and he felt twitched on his chest, just by looking at how Hayoung interacted with the boys. Kris caught Sunhwa’s gaze and gave her a polite smile. He bowed his head a little and turned around, heading to the shower room. At this rate, I am never going to talk to her privately. He thought in dismay. Sunhwa watched his back which started to going further. Her heart sparked the same familiar feeling as the first time she saw him at the celebration party.

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Kris stepped out from the shower room with fresh clean clothes. He slung his bag on his shoulder. His hair was still damp and the small towel hung on his shoulder, to prevent the cold water to touch his dry clothes. He knew he should’ve dried his hair but he wanted to go out from the shower room as soon as he could and check if Hayoung was still there. The luck was on his side. Hayoung was still at the same place as before, still chatting with Sunhwa and two other senior who already changed their dirty clothes with the new one, just like him. Soon, the two senior left the bench and bid the goodbye to both of the girls. Hayoung watched them go and averted her attention back to Sunhwa again. It looked like she didn’t get tired talking with Sunhwa after few hours and Sunhwa seemed to be enjoying her moment. Kris stopped on his track as he watched both of them from distance.

Would it be good if I just butted in and talk to her? Would she feel disturbed by my presence? What if she still don’t want talk to me. But she waved at me when she came!