SPIKE ; juric

chapter 2

As if Eric couldn't imagine how his situation could get any worse, he woke up late for his first volleyball practice as part of the team.

"Shit !" Eric gasped as he woke up and saw what time it was on his phone. He panicked, practice started five minutes ago at seven in the morning. He could have sworn that he had set more than three alarms on his phone the night before so that this very thing wouldn't happen to him, but he must have been so tired from the day before that he had slept right through them all and hit snooze in his sleep (it wouldn't have been the first time that had happened to him).

Jumping out of his bed, he noticed that both Hyunjae and Juyeon weren't in the dorm room. He figured that they must have left early for class, and scrambled quickly through his suitcases he hadn't unpacked yet to find his gym clothes. He silently thanked his old roommate, Haknyeon, for helping him pack everything so neatly so that everything was much easier to find. He hadn't been given a uniform yet, and he was upset with himself that the first impression he was going to give his future teammates was that he was late for practice. The last thing he wanted was to give anyone on the team a reason to dislike him.

As Eric made his way to the gym, he couldn't help but feel incredibly stressed. Yes, he was handpicked to join a prestigious team in the league, but the feeling began to creep up on him as though he wasn't deserving of that position. On his old university team he had many teammates who he thought were more worthy of a spot than he was. Haknyeon described what he was feeling as 'imposter syndrome' -- in which all the emotions he was feeling were due to the fact that he didn't feel as if that spot was meant for him. Eric knew that he must have been right.

Eric couldn't help but wonder if this university had purposely designed the campus to be as complicated as a maze; but after what felt like endless searching, he eventually found the gym, running through the doors to see everyone already practicing with a partner. He looked down at his phone and saw that he was fifteen minutes late. Eric felt a pit of nervousness erupt in his stomach— what if they didn't want him on the team anymore? Would he have to give up his sport on the team? Would he have to leave the university?

"Look who finally decided to show up!" A boy with black hair with white streaks peaking through called out as he caught the ball his partner bumped to him. The boy began to jog over to Eric. He must have seen the look of panic that began to spread over Eric's face at that comment, because he just laughed. "I'm just fucking with you, it's  totally okay that you're late, this gym is a bit confusing to find the first time around." Eric nodded, not sure how to respond. He seemed nice enough, his smile wide and welcoming.

"Yeah, it was kind of confusing, there were too many hallways and staircases. I almost walked into the water polo practice." Eric laughed awkwardly, not sure what to do with himself.

"Is this our new libero?" Another boy popped up next to Eric, admittedly, almost scaring him. This boy seemed to be out of breath from the practice, but smiling nonetheless. He had slightly curled light brown hair, and Eric couldn't help but notice how he radiated such nice energy.

"Oh, uh, yeah. That's me. I'm Eric." Eric stated quietly. Eric immediately felt self conscious. He had just woken up, and was quite literally running against the clock. He didn't have time to make himself presentable; so he was only able to imagine how messy his hair was and how dark his under-eye bags were.

"Well, I'm super excited to meet you, Eric. I mean, it's unfortunate our usual libero got injured, but it's cool that we were able to find a replacement so easily." The boy with white streaks smiled. "I'm Changmin. I'm the main setter." Eric couldn't help but notice how the boy seemed to be extremely cheerful for a Monday morning practice, something Eric respected.