A step away from love

05. The badminton competition

After seeing Jiew interested in the tennis club's president, Yong felt a sudden desire to learn how to play badminton and ended up becoming a new member of the University's team. By chance, the tallest one ended up discovering a true vocation in the sport and began to take everything more seriously.

Jiew found this fascinating despite being totally oblivious to his friend's real motives for devoting himself to such a hobby.

That's why he loved to follow the club's activities. Every training day it was possible to find Jiew accompanying Yong as he headed to the court while he remained studying in the bleachers, or at least that's what the first one imagined his friend was doing.

The truth was, it had become a real entertainment for Jiew to see the tall, unexpectedly muscular and focused Yong playing. He was dedicated, very skillful and always showed up dripping sweat and wearing tank tops next to Jiew at breaks. Only good points!

It may be that on one of these occasions, while Yong stole a few sips of the juice Jiew was drinking, the latter tried to disguise his real reason for being there in the bleachers watching everything and hinted that he also wanted to practice the sport. Spoiler alert: he didn't want to.

"Would you like to learn to play?"

"Oh, I don't think I wouldn't be good at it!", Jiew tried to get away with laughing embarrassed and ready to change the topic when Yong's words made his heart melt:

"I can help you Jiew! The club president said I'm doing better and left me in charge of helping the team newbies. If you want to learn, I can help you with it!"

It was rare to see Yong smiling so widely and even more so in a good mood. Jiew eagerly accepted. But the reality is that the shorter one had a little secret about it: in fact, he knew how to play badminton very well, he even won a few titles when playing in championships on behalf of his high school in the past.

But trying to adapt to the new plan that would allow him to spend even more time with Yong, he didn't intend to tell that to the friend who seemed so excited to teach him how to play.

In fact, it was nice to have a new excuse. He started to interact much more with Yong in these training moments and as he exaggerated a little in his acting, he ended up needing extra training by order of the team president. It was common for them to finish their special training much later than the other club members and go home tired after this.

But something unexpected happened: Jiew tried so hard during training that it caught the club president's attention and so he decided to put him in the next competition. The boy was determined to lose right after the first round, but was eventually drawn into the championship. One of the opposing teams was super rude to everyone before, during and after the matches, whether it was with other players, the technical team or even the organizers of the event. This inspired Jiew to continue, it would be an immense pleasure to take the final prize out of their hands.

So the boy started to see red and his thirst for revenge helped him score points, turn games and advance in the championship until the next thing he heard was the the gym sound system announcing that he had won the first place on behalf of the University.

Everyone rushed to greet him, but at that moment Jiew saw only one person in front of him. The very one he wanted the most around had stepped back a bit to give him all the space to enjoy his own victory and was hoping to have his own moment to congratulate him.

Jiew ran off the court and went straight to hug Yong who had the brightest smile in the world.

"Congratulations, Jiew! Congratulations! Your effort was worth it!", Yong said hugging the other tightly.

Jiew had a medal around his neck, but at that moment his greatest prize was the man in his arms.

A few days later, Jiew was surprised by Yong's behavior, who barely spoke to him. The shorter one had tried everything, until he couldn't stand the situation any longer and exploded:

"Why are you avoiding me, Ai Yong?"

"Are you sure the three-times champion of the Chiang Rai's annual badminton competition doesn't know the reason why?" Yong said glaring intensively.

So that was it, he had discovered Jiew's little play. After several futile arguments, many ignored apologies and shed tears, Yong decided to forgive Jiew.

"Don't lie to me anymore, okay?", he said, wiping the tears that rolled down the chubby cheeks of the man in front of him.

"I won't, Yong!", Jiew said throwing his arms around the taller's neck and hugging him "I'll never do that again, sorry!".

"It's okay, Jiew. It's okay…", Yong replied stroking the other's head as he hugged him back.

Often what makes us close to love is very similar to what drives us away from it. We must take into account the feelings of others when making such a choice or our intentions could end up being distorted and ruin everything.