Seoul of Soccer | myungtae

⭒ 02 ⭒

⭒

"First practice... You feelin' nervous?" Riwoo slung his arm around Taesan's figure, guiding him through the doors leading to the outside field.

They were about to start their first official practice as Seoul's Shining Boys—Seoul Institute's volleyball team. It would be stupid for anyone to not feel nervous, honestly. They were stepping into an already well-established world as complete noobies, unsure of anything and everything there was to know.

"Of course I am..." Taesan shivered, dropping his duffle bag on one of the benches near their region of the field. "We have to share the field with the soccer team too. Who knows how many haters we already have?" he murmured, unzipping his bag to take out some kneepads.

If Taesan was being honest, he was shit at volleyball. He didn't know the first thing about how to serve the ball or the proper formation. Luckily, he had Riwoo by his side. His mutual friend Sungho who played volleyball as a hobby also happened to be roped into the scheme.

Other than those two, Taesan was sure the team would be degraded into a pile of dung. He and the other three players, whom he'd never even seen around before, apparently played like they had two left feet.

It was safe to say that the reputation of S.S.B. had already fallen to hell before it even settled on the middle ground.

"Hey, don't be so pessimistic." Riwoo patted the younger's shoulder and soon separated from him to do his pre-practice rituals.

"It's hard to not be when the soccer team already looks like they hate us..." Taesan spoke with his teeth gritted, very obviously trying to avoid looking up at the aforementioned team.

Riwoo, forever the odd-one-out, did the complete opposite of whatever Taesan was trying to accomplish and snapped his gaze to look right at the soccer team. Of course, he locked eyes with his one true love—Leehan.

"Oh, Leehan looks so good in his soccer attire..." He fanned himself, feeling his body temperature start to rise at the sight of his handsome boyfriend. Taesan would have gagged if he weren't already feeling nauseous from anxiety,

"At least Leehan doesn't hate us." Taesan tried to cancel out the bad with the good.

There were some people on that team who didn't hate them—take Kim Woonhak for example. The guy had only talked to Taesan once for a school survey but it was one of the most enriching conversations the latter ever had.

"Yeah, don't worry about them." Riwoo finally detached his gaze from Leehan (who also seemed to struggle with moving his focus) to give Taesan a reassuring look. "As long as they don't bother us, they're basically nonexistent. Maybe we'll move fields by next practice, who knows?" He shrugged, already moving to the court to socialize with the others.

Taesan breathed in deeply and tried coercing himself into doing the same. He was struggling to figure out how to get the confidence to so much as pick up the damn ball. However, it was extremely hard to do that when his thoughts were racing at a hundred miles per hour.

They had all the time in the world—at least that's what Riwoo had told him the night before. Taesan was still trying to figure out how that could be possible when they were supposed to have their first official game within two months of forming the team.

Nonetheless, Taesan gave in to the thought and closed his eyes. As long as he could breathe a little, he would be fine.

At least that's what he thought.

He was at peace for only a couple of seconds before he heard a ball hitting the fence so roughly that the sound resonated throughout the infinite space around him. How that was possible he did not know, but what he did know was that he needed to find someone to blame.