Letterman

Chapter 8

Saturday morning begins with a storm of chaos.

All of the Vipers that walk into the gym that day run into the same strange predicament: their feet seem to be glued to the floor. At first, Jisoo mistakes this problem as nothing more than a side effect of her being particularly tired and her feet moving more sluggishly than usual, but as she takes several more steps, she finds that her sneakers feel unusually sticky. The floor is coated in a thick, golden substance that smells faintly of sugar. Out of curiosity, Jisoo cautiously dips her finger into it. She nearly grins.

Huh. It's just honey.

This is the Seahawks' doing, Jisoo guesses. A little revenge in return for the vandalism Jisoo's team went through with a couple of days ago. It's fair.

Jackson seems to be the most put-out by all of this, having been the first one to enter the gym. He'd somehow managed to trip and catch a faceful of honey. "Damn it. What the-"

"Language, Wang." Coach barks, wandering off to go check the field.

"Yeah, Pooh Bear." Seulgi smirks and swipes her finger delicately across his cheek. She waves two sticky, golden fingers in front of his face. He scowls.

Shortly after, Coach returns with a slight frown on his face that indicates that the field is in a similar state. They wait quietly for him to give instruction, but it quickly becomes apparent that he's at a complete and total loss. It's around this point that Jisoo feels her annoyance spark.

"Well?" Jisoo demands. "We have to practice. What are you going to do about it?"

"I'm figuring it out." He promises, but Jisoo very much doubts that, judging by the clueless look on his face. A second passes and a lightbulb seems to go off in his head. He hurries to get his phone out of his pocket. "I know someone who has a perfectly good field and gym..."

Jisoo doesn't like the sound of that.

***

Yep.

Jisoo definitely doesn't like the sound of this.

The Vipers and the Seahawks stand on opposite sides of a field for the second time this month, except now it's not for a game. It's for practice together. Ugh. Jisoo would rather blow off her own arm than be here and she reckons her team feels the same.

Not that Coach Moon notices. The guy looks as jolly as ever.

"Now, I know there's been some tension between you two teams. Neither of you have been the... friendliest, but I'm going to ask you both to try to be nice to each other, or at least civil, especially now that we're no longer rivals. The Seahawks are doing us a great favor by letting us play here, so I expect thank yous from all of you." Coach stops to level them with a stiff look, then repeats, "I said I expect thank yous from all of you."

Her team mumbles a chorus of unenthusiastic words, not all of them positive, some of them mere grunts or groans of displeasure. Jisoo says nothing. She's not happy about being here, but she finds herself strangely unwilling to mindlessly criticize the other school.

"Kill me now." Mino mutters under his breath and Jisoo smirks at the ground, silent. "Hey, how'd they get their field cleaned so quickly?"

Jisoo looks up. To her surprise, Mino is right. If she hadn't been the one to personally spray-paint the grass herself, then she never would've guessed any harm had come to it. The field appears to be squeaky clean, almost brand new, no trace of the inappropriate drawings in sight.

"I don't know. You could always ask them, if you want." She shrugs.

Mino scoffs. "Ask them? I would rather-"