Dani and Jae's Ballistic Adventure

Chapter 1

***DANI POV***

My teammates and I were on the plane to Seoul, South Korea, for a training camp with the South Korean national Taekwondo team.

Woah, woah, let me back up a bit. I haven't properly introduced myself. I'm a 19 year old Indian American woman named Dani Pavithra Kumaran. You might ask, "Why Dani?" Well, my grandma on my mom's side is Christian, and she liked the name Danielle. But my parents wanted to find a name that satisfied family members of all religions. So yeah.

I recently made the USA Taekwondo team two months ago, in a brutal spar in the finals against Jenelle Zhao, the national team member of my division. Jenelle and I are cool, though. We brutally spar in the ring, then as soon as the match ends, we give each other an unlimited supply of hugs. That's the spirit of Taekwondo.

But even though I'm on the national team, I'm also a college student at UT Austin. I'm not sure about other sports but with Taekwondo, national team members aren't forced to move to the team headquarters. They can train in their home city as long as the club they go to is recognized and approved by the US National team for a national team member to train at. I train at a school called Austin Taekwondo Martial Arts fitness, and Master Jo is the best.

But yeah, me and Adam Sawyer are the only ones on the national team right now who train from home. Everyone else trains at the headquarters in Colorado. So me and Sawyer got along. (We just call him Sawyer because there's this other Adam on the national team named Adam Healy). It's not like the other athletes are cold though. They are friendly, but they're all close with each other, and, well, this is the first time I've seen any of my other teammates ever since the US open 4 weeks ago.

After the most painful 18 hour flight (including layovers, man this is even more painful than flying to India), we landed in the airport, and we were all extremely jet lagged and airsick, though. Even Ja'ron Brooks, the star player of the team, looked like he was going to barf his guts out. His face looked extremely green, and that neck pillow attached to his head added to his awkwardly painful expression.

Coach Winters immediately took us to this noodle house in efforts to help our extreme jet lag. The hot and spicy broth helped a bit, but the noodles and fresh veggies, which I would normally like, felt nauseating as they went down my throat.

As we finished the last slurps of our noodles, Coach Winters leaned back, a satisfied grin on his face. "Tomorrow, we kick off training camp with the South Korean national team. I want you all to come prepared to push your limits."

I exchanged glances with Sawyer, who seemed equally excited and apprehensive. "Do you think they'll go easy on us?" he joked, though I could see the seriousness in his eyes.

"Easy? Not a chance," Ja'ron chimed in, finally looking less green but still pale. "They train like machines. We're in for a tough ride."

I felt a mix of excitement and anxiety. This was my chance to prove myself, not just to the coaches but to the Korean athletes I admired.

As the night wore on, we settled into our hotel, the hum of anticipation buzzing in the air. I could hardly sleep, my mind racing with thoughts of the training sessions and the possibility of meeting Jae again.

In an... fangirl-turned-athlete professionally respects celebrity crush-turned-co athlete way, of course.

Okay, I have a bad habit of getting to things before filling you guys in on the background. Basically, Kang Jaehoon is an Olympic gold medalist, and people call him the Cristiano Ronaldo of Taekwondo. He's 21 and it doesn't help that he's hot either and that he's South Korea's most eligible bachelor.

But that's not why I like him. I've had a celebrity crush on him since I was 16, and I actually met him when I was 17 at my first USA Nationals. I was sitting on the sidelines, holding my Squishmallow and trying not to cry, because I had trained so hard for this tournament but lost the first round by three points.

Suddenly, a guy sat down next to me. And not just any guy. It was Kang Jae-hoon, the 19 year old reigning Asian Taekwondo champion. And he was even more handsome up close with that artfully messy hair and sort of round, incredibly nicely shaped eyes with long eyelashes.

He asked me if I was okay. I lied that everything was cool, but he said he didn't believe that. So I told him what went on in my match. He patted my shoulder understandingly and told me that's what every athlete goes through, and that he himself lost a million times before he started to win, but that determination separates the good from the great, and that if I never give up, I'll reach endless heights. His English was hard to understand, but hey, at least he can speak English. I can't speak Korean at all.

I thanked him, and we introduced ourselves. I told him my name was Dani, and he introduced himself as Jae. Just Jae. Not Jae-hoon or Kang Jae-hoon. I liked that momentary sense of casualness.

He told me he was here to visit his Korean-American cousins for a short bit then sightsee around. We talked for a little bit about how he likes it here, then some random dude he came with urgently called him for something, then he fist bumped me, said it was nice talking to me, and left.

I've had a crush on him ever since. Well, I was pretty open about my crush on Jae until I opened Instagram and clicked on his story, and saw him with an arm around Jang Hyeri, a fellow Korean Taekwondo athlete, kissing her on the cheek.

I cried for a day after finding out he had a girlfriend, which was when I realized me and him would be impractical anyway, as he lives tens of thousands of miles away. But the thing is, after that, he's never even posted about Hyeri once. He didn't even highlight that story. And Hyeri never posted about him either. The only thing on Instagram that signaled they had some sort of connection at all was a few playful Instagram comments on each others' posts. But that didn't indicate a romantic relationship much.

It's been over two years since... are they still together?