The Real Final | winrina

An embarrassing night

Minjeong is breathing heavily, and so the opponent on the opposite side. They are fiercely looking at each other. They are on third set right now. She is ready to hit the shuttle in her left hand.

"19 – 19, play."

She immediately hit it right after announced by the coach, who is right now acted as the judge. Fellow squads are simultaneously cheering for her and her opponent, Kudo. Though Kudo is a single men's player, it's their tradition to face each other every day, before training ends, a week before new tournament begins. As biologically women's stamina is much weaker than men, through this match the coach can analyse whether all their training after all this time is worth it or not. How do the coach defines a successful training? For the women's player, firstly is when they win the match and secondly they lose by only tiny margins. If they lose by a lot of margins, it means either they're too tired (weak stamina) or out of creativity (out of idea on how to finish the opponent which at the end tire them out). For the men's player is when they win the match by a lot of margins. Winning by a tiny margins can be a red flag because in real match he will face a male opponent, which is a lot stronger than a female. In order words, high chance for him to lose the game.

"Deuce. 20 – love, play."

In badminton, a match consists of the best of 3 games of 21 points. To win a game, a player must reach 21 points before their opponent. If they do so, then they will have win that set. If the scores are tied at 20 – 20, then it comes down to whichever player manages to get two clear points ahead. If the points tied at 29 – 29 then the next point will decide the winner of the set.

"Game over. Match won by Kudo 16 – 21, 22 – 20, 22 – 20."

All the members rushing to cheer on Kudo, while Minjeong automatically lays on the court, spreading her legs and arms widely right after the coach announced her defeat. Jimin is confused by the team's overwhelmed responses but she joined them anyway. Later she learn that Kudo never win against Minjeong means that it's his first time. No wonder others were cheering on him enthusiastically. They are all excited and as a celebration, the coach's buying their dinner. Minjeong is waiting for others to change their clothes outside the building as she is the fastest one. Well, of course she is. She wears track suit every single day and each day in different colours. According to Ayurveda, white is for Monday, red for Tuesday, green for Wednesday, yellow for Thursday, pink for Friday, purple and black for Saturday and orange for Sunday. She thinks it's quite a hassle to wear pretty clothes until she sees Jimin in a pink, sleeveless pleat neck swing loosely tuck in a ripped denim pants. How can someone looks pretty, cute and hot at the same time?

"To our maknae, our youngest player who shows a good improvement and yet more to come, CHEERS!"

"CHEERS!"

The sound of glass clinking and each of them take a sip. Minjeong sits right at the end and in front of her is Zeha and her partner, Dina, next to her is Jason and Junho but the coach sits in between, in front of the coach is the main character of the day, Kudo and besides him is Jimin. The mixed-double pair sit facing each other right at the other end of the seat.

"Seonsaeng-nim, do you have boyfriend?" Jimin feels attacked at Kudo's sudden question.

"Err.. No..." She answered. Minjeong feels relieved.

"Girlfriend?"

"W-what? No way!" She glared at Minjeong who is looking at her.

"Woah. Relax, seonsaeng-nim. No need to get all worked up." Kudo calmed her.

"Opps. Sorry. My bad."

"So you opposed that, seonsaeng-nim?" This time it's from Zeha.

"Well, I'm not, I guessed but I won't fall in love into a girl, tho."