Daredevils

She is very beautiful. She has gorgeous, dark, wavy hair, that goes from a heart shape atop her forehead to her back, just above her waistline. And the girl has got quite the curves, whenever she shifts her usual pencil skirts for tight jeans. She enjoys sneakers and oversized baseball hoodies, she’s a bit of a tomboy. It’s the cherry on top of the cake, to be honest. She is everything a guy could ever dream of.

Her skin glistens like an evening sky, and she’s proud of the freckles splashed on her nose and cheekbones. Her eyes are vividly dark, and so are her top lip and the corners of her mouth. So kissable…

Joon Yeong flutters every time his eyes lose themselves too much on her doll face, and cringes so hard he wants to stab himself with his stick. The only time of the day, indeed, when they get to face each other—or at least, when he gets to stare at her among her sizeable bunch of girl friends—is during lunch. Today, she has held her long hair in a ponytail, two cornrows on both sides, and the more he shamelessly fixates her face, the more he notices the not-so slight changes ; her brows are more defined, and her freckles are unusually blurry from afar. Her lips, full and plain in average, are now painted a faint, gleaming pink. She wears a dark green pencil skirt, with white sneakers, and a neutral blazer atop her basic shirt. Not different from her usual outfits, but she clearly dolled up. Joon Yeong has got mixed feelings about the makeup touch, but he doesn’t know better anyway. May be because he has always known her in her more natural, poised self—and has loved every bit of it. He doesn’t feel like she should add anything else, but it’s her choice to have, at the end of the day.

She is the one animating the lunch table and loudly debating with her friends all the time Joon Yeong had been focusing on them, but she is different, today. She keeps her head low, she plays knots with her fingers while adorably churning her lips, and reacts with a wry smirk every time one of her friend pokes her after cracking a joke about the conversation’s topic. It hits Joon Yeong like a truck, a little while in the meal—with his sticks still in the air, waiting to dig back in the food box his grandmother prepped him, the tradition for every school or job day at home, be it for elders or youngsters under her deep and loving care.

Does she have a date ?

All her friends get annoyed at her silence at one point, and Joon Yeong frowns for himself as she endures their teasing. She won’t look up for a good minute, and as the others actually start to bother about the food on their trays and eat in silence at long last, she discreetly peeps at the clock on the wall. Her face then shifts paler, the perfect representation of her probable angst sinking in. Oh goodness, she really is on dating dial, isn’t she ?

Joon Yeong is no longer hungry.

With innate respect, he puts the pair of chopsticks together, on the sealed food box. His grandma won’t appreciate that he headed home with a cold meal, but he can’t help his mood. There comes a time to man up and mourn for his first crush. Joon Yeong sighs, nonetheless wishing her all the best. She’s beautiful, and she deserves the world.

He gets up, and casually turns around after shoving his food box back in the wider pocket of his backpack. He yanks the string on his shoulder, pondering the day after he escaped another meeting at the basketball court with his teammates, that more or less amounts to him silently listening to their antics while attempting three-points from the largest perimeter, alone with the ball on the parquet.

The coach excused himself for a month, and categorically refused to be replaced for some reason. His assistants too are also enjoying the impromptu break and barely show up to train. Joon Yeong thus took the habit to come and have lunch with the rest, in lieu of spending all his free school time over there.

That is how he gradually knew about her…and he would be damned if some ‘tough’ fool at the court ever heard of his secret love story. Keeping an arm-length emotional distance is the way to go, for his own interests. As long as they don’t get too close, they can’t burn him.

At the doors, he hears the ruckus too late. As the footsteps quickly thump in his direction, he turns around, his hand still wrapped around the knob. It’s early for most students to finish eating, maybe somebody has got the urge to ease their bladder, out of all things ?

…

Oh.

It’s her. Out of all people…

“H-hi there”, she smiles, and holds her hand up to his. His palm is moist against hers, and he swears under his breath as it would have been beyond oblivious to wipe it on his pants first. “Roberta.”

“Joon”, he replies, successfully keeping himself from slacking his rows of teeth against each other. “C-can I…help ?”

“Would you like to go out sometime ?” She is surprisingly assured, and he can’t believe he is the one who has to blink several times as his brain processes the input of information. “With me, I mean.” She kicks invisible sand between them, hands now deep in her blazer’s pockets. Finally, she might be just as nervous as he is. “J-just the two of us, you know…”

“Y-yeah. I mean, sure. No problem for me. Should we…exchange numbers, or anything, to keep in touch ?”

The following minute, they exchange Instagram QR codes instead, and she nods, biting her lower lip as she bides farewell, swivelling on her ankles to run back in the lunch room. Her friends are probably the ones welcoming her back with the obnoxious cheers Joon Yeong can hear past the doors.

He can’t keep the purely ecstatic smile that eats up his face as he heads back to the court, clutching his fist as not to let all the emotion burst out the seams.