Hung Up On The Stars • ChenJi

five

Chenle and Jisung are in a huge testing time now. The ball was in their court but the victory was in the opposite team. Jisung is humble enough not to label him the best basketball player despite his long height but his wish to contribute the best to the team always remained content. Chenle, being one of the most recognized and remarkable players, put all of his sweat and soul making it possible for the school team to win.

Unfortunately, today wasn't their day, however. With the peak majority of the other team with the score 13-0, it seemed like a horrendous task to them to even lose with a decent minority. Winning was out of the question.

Huddling with three-pointers, Sungchan tossed the ball to Samuel and ran in the process but a boy with a blue Jersey tackled his pace by throwing his leg on his path. Samuel fell off hurting his knee. This caused the ball to get into the other court and even the victory. They received a goal and Jisung's team got none.

If they were honest, all the members almost gave up on the match because of the most obvious result. The hot sun blazing right above their heads and filthy sweat damping their whole upper body exhausted their energy to even try anymore. The next serve was by the counter team and this time with the collective effort of Shotaro and Jae, Jae was able to throw the ball in the basket earning their first point.

The next time, Jisung tripled the ball as fast as possible and got through most of the court until another boy smartly got the hold of the ball, too fast for jisung to even calculate the task. All he could do is run behind him, run until the ball finally falls into the opposite basket and until they lose their final match against another school.

Heavily breathing, Jisung and their team members just had the most absurd look on their faces processing "what even was today's match?"

"I am so lost. Are we this bad?" Jae says, putting his hands on both sides of his stomach.

Nobody answers and straight away glances at their coach's unreadable expression. She was an excellent teacher for all of them and gave awesome training to all the students and it was certain that she would be disappointed with the horrible performance.

When they go towards her, nobody speaks at that moment until Samuel breaks the silence, "That guy came in between my path causing me to fall. He should get a yellow card, to be honest."

Chenle retorts, "Mam, then we should inform the authorities-"

"Exactly. I knew something was off when Sam slipped. This is cheating. We must rematch."

"No," she immediately told the whole crowd, putting them into a state of consternation.

"Mam but- how can they?"

"Look at your scores, dear. You were way behind. There was no chance for us to win today."

"We all really worked hard for today," Jisung suggests with pity.

"By cheating, they don't become less hard working. Today was just their day. We can't do anything about it. I am not punishing you, but yeah, you could have done better."

"We are sorry," Shotaro leads his head down.

"Look, we have no right to speak against them today because you have been at fault too. And always remember, even the moon hides itself at the time to thunder to pay respect to the dark clouds. If we don't appreciate others' accomplishments, we have no right to be proud of ours. Everybody rest well today and don't fret too much for the match."