Never | Lee Haechan

First of many apologies

A billion thoughts hurdled in his mind as he bounced and alternated the orange ball in both his hands. His father just called to inform there'd been attacks in their foreign branch again before the tanker even arrived in Korea; he had asked Haechan to be careful which he found ironic. He was more worried about how he was behind on so much work and Jiae.

The thought of her puzzled his mind.

He launched the ball towards the loop but missed it by just a bit and thankfully Chenle showed up to shove the ball inside the loop.

"Lee Donghyuck the match is in a few minutes get your shit together!" The coach yelled and he just bowed cause he clearly missed a short distance, easy shot. People were starting to gather around the basketball court and the benches were gradually starting to fill up. He exasperated before heading inside to their lockers to somehow clear his mind.

As he sat down on the bench along the center, he let his head fall while reaching out for his water bottle without looking. It wasn't there.

"Fuck," he cursed realising he probably dropped it somewhere. That's when a bottle of water was shoved in front of his face. His gaze travelled from the bottle then the hands and finally he looked up to see the person holding the bottle. His annoyed expression softened when he saw Jiae standing there but refusing to look at him directly. He had to hold back a chuckle at her adamant behaviour.

"Are you gonna take it cause my hands getting tired,"

He wordlessly grabbed the bottle and opened it to down it's content. He was actually, really, in need of water so he didn't care where it was coming as long as it was drinkable. After he was done gulping down half the bottle at once, he carefully looked at her who happened to also be looking at him.

"Why are you in the men's locker room though,"

Jiae suddenly tilted her head and then looked around in realisation, "Shit,"

He let out a small laugh in the shape of a smirk, "Watch what you're doing, nutjob"
Haechan stood up to leave but she suddenly blurted out.

"I- um- feel s- no I mean I am sorry for-"

The speakers outside blared in announcement of the match beginning. Haechan couldn't hold back the smile he had let free at her literally struggling to word out her apology. He would want to clear this out but right now they didn't have enough time to talk about it intensively so he resorted to something they both would understand.

He grabbed her hand and gave it a small squeeze of reassurance. And she finally looked up at him before squeezing it back.

"Best of luck,"

He gave her a nod of acknowledgement, "You're staying after the match right?"

Jiae sighed discontently, "Yeah. Gotta interview a bunch of jocks, how fun," she spat sarcastically and he chuckled at her reaction.

"It's not that bad, my boys are great," he said, defending his teammates as he stretched out his fingers to prepare for the match and took off his jacket. She moved her eyes away the moment they fell on his biceps. That was the last thing she needed on her mind right now.

"It is bad. I didn't sign up for their chaos and filth. It was hard enough before but I'm dreading doing it after you-know-what,"

Haechan picked up on what she was referring to and took note of how her mood visibly fell. In an attempt to lift her mood he decided to joke around a little, "They won't pull anything funny because most of the team know Jaemin personally. He'd hunt them down,"

Jiae chuckled but shook her head, "Haechan, I told you I don't-" her breath hitched when he suddenly pressed his index finger on her lips to shut her up and leaned closer to her ears, "And you kind of have an exclusive appointment with the captain afterwards. You know- something to do with an apology?"