Timeless

All Thanks To Basketball

A/N: Apologies in advance for the questionable basketball lingo. lol.
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She watched the orange and black ball bounce around the court, feeling the wind in her hair.

She could have never imagined the influence basketball would have on her life.

She had never been a particularly sporty person and her parents weren't either (although her brother loved to play).

So besides the mandatory basketball during school (which she dreaded with all her soul), she never played basketball and never really learned to play.

That all changed when she stepped foot into the wondrous world of Meteor Garden and the first time she saw the new Dao Ming Si outside of the promotional interview and the makeup chair.

He was on the courts before shooting began that day, large overcoat abandoned on the side, his hair in classical pineapple-era Dao Ming Si style, easily shooting the basketball into the basket: a smooth whoosh sounding out as it cleanly went through the basket with a loud bounce sounding out as the basketball met the ground momentarily. There was a certain melody to the entire thing and she could remember with clarity how graceful she thought he appeared.

Then he turned towards her and smiled and held out the basketball and asked her if she wanted to play a game.

She failed spectacularly and her cheeks flamed in embarrassment.

But after he let out a couple of chuckles at her expense, he came back and held the basketball out again with another smile on his face (this one more comforting somehow) and told her

"It's okay. I'll help you. You'll be better in no time."

Those words and how he looked at her, instantly made her feel at ease.

He would always have that effect on her, with his gaze, his smile, his mere presence. He would always make her feel at ease.

And so it began, her relationship with basketball. She had a lot to thank it for.

Every day, in between filming or after filming, he kept his promise to teach her how to play basketball. He was incredibly patient though he teased her to the high heavens every so often. These daily basketball lessons taught by the talent himself gave her something to ground herself with. On the days where filming was getting intense and exhausting, she always looked forward to those basketball lessons even though she was dodging basketballs half of the time.

Those lessons helped them get closer both physically and emotionally.

She remembered vividly the day she made her first basket. She had stared almost dumbfounded at the basket, not believing that the basketball she shot went through it. After the shock wore off, she remembered feeling pure elation run through her veins as she turned towards him with a smile on her face.

"I did it! I did it!" She exclaimed.

He had looked at her with a grin on his face as he rushed towards her and grabbed her, spinning her in a huge circle before putting her down, his arms not letting her go.

He looked down at her and said "I knew you could do it!"

And then, a moment passed between them as she felt the energy and the electricity in the air between them. His eyes darkened and his head lowered to meet hers. Once his lips met hers, she was floating on air, only anchored by the feeling of his arms gently tightening around her. The rest of the world faded away as they stood there, never letting their lips go far from each other, exchanging soft kisses.

It was the first kiss they shared off camera and it was all thanks to basketball.

From that point onward, she was lost to the energetic forcefield that was him and to the power of basketball. No, that was a lie- she had been permanently drawn to that energetic forcefield way before that.