Perfect Imperfection| ZCL

²sun rays shimmering

"The try-outs for the basketball team are on Thursday and I barely heard anybody being interested in coming," Jeno sighs while sticking a poster on the notice board.

"Don't worry, I'm sure people will come," I say as I hand him another poster. "The basketball team is pretty cool after all."

"Because I'm part of it," he smiles sheepishly and I punch his arm. "Didn't hurt at all."

I stick my tongue out to him but he doesn't seem to notice.

"Why doesn't Renjun want to join?" I ask him and he shrugs.

"He's actually doing a pretty good job as the unofficial manager so I can't really mind." My best friend says, looking at the posters he has pinned so far. "How many do we have left?"

"About ten," I say looking at the posters in my hands.

Jeno sighs. I wish I could do something to lift his mood. I wish I could make him believe the try-outs aren't going to be crappy, but I am not too sure about it myself. He loves the basketball team so much and he would certainly do almost anything for it. The passion that he has is inspiring, but sometimes, it's too much for his own good. However, I guess it doesn't really matter as long as he loves his job, does it?

"Let's go and stick those at each of the entrances and the notice board from outside," he says and I head towards the entrance of the building.

As I prepare to go around the corner, heading to the entrance hall, I suddenly bump into somebody, making me fall on the ground with all the posters that I was initially holding flying around me.

"Crap, I'm so sorry!" I hear somebody saying and the next thing I know is that I'm being helped to stand up.

The hazelnut-haired boy I met on the first day of school at secretary's office.

Looking even finer than back then.

"Are you okay?" He asks me, waking me up from my thoughts once again.

The warm autumn sun rays were shimmering through the windows behind him, creating a beautiful halo around his head. Am I in Heaven?

I shake the thought away and nod as I bend down to gather the posters. The hazelnut-haired boy rushes to help me, handing me the posters that he managed to pick up afterwards.

"Aeri, what ha-... oh, Jaemin? What are you doing here?" I hear Jeno asking as soon as he approaches us.

Jaemin? So that's the name of the hazelnut-haired boy?

But how does my best friend know him?

"I realized I'd left some books that I need in my locker so I came to take them," the boy in front of me answers with a bright smile on his lips.

God, he's gorgeous.

"Oh, the try-outs for the basketball team?" Jaemin asks pointing towards the posters in my hand. "I'm thinking of giving it a chance, to be honest..."

"Really?" Jeno says, his eyes lighting up with hope. "That would be awesome, we're actually pretty much in need of people at the moment."

"I guess I'll come then," Jaemin chirps. "Ah, do you guys need help with sticking these?"

"Well, unless you have anything else to do, sure, why not?" Jeno smiles, looking at me and reassuring me it's fine.

Fine.

"I'm Jaemin, by the way," he says, extending his hand in front of me, a charming smile plastered on his lips.

"Aeri," I say, shaking his hand.

"Wait, you're the girl from the secretary office, right?" He asks and I feel my face heating in embarrassment.

"Uh... yeah..." I say and he chuckles.

"I was in a rush back then, I didn't even realize that I hadn't stopped to apologize for bumping into you," he says and a small smile makes its way up to my lips.

"Nah, that's alright."

We finish pinning up the posters while having small talk and Jaemin proves himself to be an actual kind and funny guy, which didn't surprise me that much. I could tell by his bright smile and the sparkles in his eyes that he had something special. That he would be somebody worth writing about.

But there was a part of me that couldn't believe him. It couldn't believe his perfect fit for a prince from the fairy tales. There had to be something twisted about him. A hidden side of him. And I was ready to find out what that was about.