Getting Closer Through Injuries
“Seoha, Suyeon. Why are they suddenly doing this?”
Teacher Hayoung stared at the two of them, clearly at a loss. Seoha and Suyeon only shook their heads — they were just as much in the dark as she was.
When Yeoncheong offered no answer, Nayun spoke up again.
“I'm asking for a one-on-one. What, don't know how to play one?”
“No, it's not that... it's just so sudden?”
Yeoncheong was simply flustered by how abruptly it had all come up. Nayun, interpreting the words as at least a partial agreement, walked over.
“So that's a yes, right?”
Before Yeoncheong knew it, Nayun had backed her up against the basket, then bounced the ball she was holding off the floor and tossed it over.
“You're supposed to be pretty good. I want to see how good.”
Yeoncheong caught the bouncing ball. A well-maintained personal basketball. She'd already gotten a taste of just how seriously Suyeon took athletics — now she understood what that meant.
She's got her pride hurt.
A classmate she'd dismissed as all talk had turned out to be better than expected.
Naturally, she was curious just how good — curious whether Nayun might actually be better than her.
While Yeoncheong turned the ball over in her hands, Nayun urged her on.
“Done inspecting it? Then pass it back.”
“I'm getting to it.”
Yeoncheong sent the ball back with a bounce pass, then set her feet a little apart and raised both arms into a defensive stance.
No way I'm backing down from this. That's not what a man does.
Technically she wasn't a man anymore, but either way, running wasn't in the plan.
Right hand, left hand. Nayun sized her up with a two-ball dribble before driving to the right.
***
“Just make sure nobody gets hurt.”
There was no answer to the PE teacher's warning. Told that other students still needed their evaluations, Teacher Hayoung shot the pair an anxious look before heading off to another hoop.
It was true that most of the girls had little interest in sports. But this — a classmate, and the basketball club's Nayun at that, facing off against Yeoncheong, who'd shown surprising skill — was a different story entirely.
The students who'd broken off into small groups to enjoy their free time began drifting over one by one to watch the duel.
“What's going on? What are they doing?”
“Nayun and Yeoncheong are playing one-on-one.”
“Who's winning?”
Suyeon, who'd arrived late with Hasol and the others, faltered mid-explanation. Not knowing the finer rules herself, she'd simply been watching in pure, wide-eyed admiration.
“Well, it's...”
“They're alternating on offense. Nayun's made nine, Yeoncheong's made six.”
Seoha, the other friend who'd been watching from the start, shared what she knew.
“Really? Yeoncheong's actually good.”
Hasol watched Yeoncheong with wide eyes. Right then, Yeoncheong faked Nayun out of her shoes, her body springing lightly upward. The ball left her hand in a smooth arc, kissed the front of the rim, and dropped through.
A close call of a shot. Before long, the spectators had started cheering for both Yeoncheong and Nayun.
This is killing me...
For Yeoncheong, running around to a chorus of cheers was pure agony.
She'd felt it during the fitness tests and the tennis club trial, too — her stamina just wasn't what it used to be.
Should I start doing some light training?
In the split second Yeoncheong paused to wipe her sweat, Nayun spotted the opening and drove in. She slipped cleanly past Yeoncheong, whose feet had begun to stick to the floor, and laid the ball gently up onto the rim.
She was basketball club, after all. Endurance built from daily practice was in a league Yeoncheong couldn't touch.
“Ten to seven. One more left.”
Nayun grinned like the win was already sealed and tossed the ball over. Yeoncheong wiped her face with the sleeve of her tracksuit and steadied her breathing.
Finding her rhythm, Yeoncheong swung wide to the right and drove in. Nayun, still fresh, had no trouble staying with her. But Yeoncheong had been waiting for exactly this — she cut her speed hard and threaded the ball between her legs.
The move she'd botched on her first day, never once pulled off since. Nayun's center of gravity lurched backward at the sudden change of direction, her shoes skidding slightly.
Yeoncheong didn't miss the sliver of space — and Nayun cut her off again. But she'd closed the distance in such a hurry that her leg shot out, crossing into Yeoncheong's path.
“Ah!”
Every spectator let out the same cry at once.
The foot came down on Yeoncheong's ankle, which buckled instantly, and she lost her balance — dragging Nayun down with her in the same direction she'd been moving.
Nayun, her foot stepped on, hit the floor first, and Yeoncheong's body came down on top of her.
The loud crash turned Teacher Hayoung's head mid-evaluation. The classmates watching were already on their way over.
***
Nayun had screwed her eyes shut as Yeoncheong came down on top of her. Despite bracing for the impact, nothing hurt. She opened her eyes slowly to take stock of the situation.
The first thing she saw when she opened them was a blue sky. It didn't take long to realize that the cloudless blue overhead was Yeoncheong's hair.
“Are you okay...?”
Yeoncheong forced a smile even as her brows knitted together.
Her elbows braced against the floor, her uninjured left leg holding up her lower body. There was barely enough room for a thin book to pass between them — and in exactly that much space, Yeoncheong had managed to stop herself just in time.
Breath ragged from sprinting, it brushed against Nayun's face.
In those wide, startled amber eyes, Nayun first saw shock — then, quickly, embarrassment. Unlike Nayun, whose face was flushing red, the smile slid off Yeoncheong's the moment she confirmed her classmate was unharmed.
Only then did Nayun get a proper look at her face.
“What's wrong...? Are you hurt?”
Pain flooded into the spot the accident had just passed through. Gritting her teeth, Yeoncheong slowly pushed herself up off Nayun.
Nayun scrambled to her feet and examined Yeoncheong's ankle. Teacher Hayoung also pushed through the cluster of murmuring students gathered nearby.
“What happened? What's going on?”
Yeoncheong, still on the floor, almost met the teacher's eyes. Almost — she darted her gaze away, but her opponent was a PE teacher.
And Hayoung was sharp-eyed about exactly this sort of thing.
She reached out to the right ankle, which was reddening little by little, and palpated it carefully, checking its condition.
A small cry — “Ah!” — escaped from between Yeoncheong's tightly pressed lips.
“That's a sprain. We need to get you to the infirmary. Can you walk?”
Yeoncheong pulled her leg away from the teacher's hands and rolled her eyes.
“Won't it be fine if I just give it some time?”
Hayoung's expression hardened.
“Want to take your lumps first, or get scolded first?”
“What's the difference?”
“First is lumps, then the scolding. Second is the scolding, then the lumps.”
Hayoung cocked her middle finger against her thumb, radiating the energy of a forehead flick incoming any second. Long fingers, too — those would hurt.
Yeoncheong proposed a third option.
“Is there one where I just go?”
“Of course there is.”
Only then did Hayoung's face soften, and she nodded. Yeoncheong took Suyeon's hand and rose slowly to her feet. Watching this, Teacher Hayoung called Nayun's name.
“Nayun, go with her and bring her back.”
“Me too?”
“The kids watching said you fell together, didn't they? Go on, both of you.”
After a brief hesitation, Nayun led Yeoncheong out of the gymnasium.
***
The two arrived at the infirmary without a single word exchanged. Seeing that familiar face walk in yet again, the school nurse, Haeun, let out a small sigh.
“You really don't need to keep collecting attendance stamps in here... What is it this time?”
“I fell during PE. I think I sprained my ankle.”
“Come sit over here. Let me take a look.”
Haeun probed around Yeoncheong's ankle from every angle before giving her diagnosis.
“Yep, it's sprained... though it seems to be a mild one. Rest it for about two weeks and you'll be fine. The swelling isn't bad right now, but if it gets worse, go see a doctor. Understood?”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“I'll give you an ice pack. Keep it on.”
Haeun pulled a pack from the freezer and handed it over. Pressing the cold compress to her reddened ankle, Yeoncheong called out to the nurse.
“Um, Teacher... could you take a look at Nayun too? She fell with me.”
“Oh? Why didn't you say so.”
Haeun walked over to Nayun, who'd been standing there awkwardly.
“Anywhere that hurts?”
“No. I'm fine.”
Her short ponytail swayed left and right with each shake of her head. Haeun's eyes swept quickly over Nayun's body — and then she grabbed her hand.
“Here? You scraped this, didn't you?”
The heel of Nayun's right hand was mottled red and raw where the gym floor had skinned it.
“Didn't that hurt?”
“No.”
With Yeoncheong suffering right in front of her, Nayun had completely forgotten about her own pain.
Haeun treated the wound and returned to her desk. After a glance at the clock on the wall, she spoke to Yeoncheong.
“Keep that on until the bell, then you can go.”
Silence settled over the room.
Yeoncheong perched on the edge of the bed, icing her ankle, while Nayun fiddled with the freshly bandaged hand and stood there stiffly.
For a while the two of them stole glances at each other in the awkward air — until, at last, blue eyes and amber eyes met, and each caught the other's color.
When Yeoncheong tipped her chin toward the space beside the bed, Nayun glanced pointlessly around the room one more time, then sat down.
A situation where both were hoping the other would speak first. Nayun's lips fluttered a few times before she finally made the first move.
“...Sorry. For running my mouth. You really are good, by the way.”
It was an apology for the other day — delivered while staring out the window at the far-off sky for no particular reason.
“It's fine. You couldn't have known.”
Yeoncheong accepted the apology. The quickness of the answer caught Nayun off guard.
This was Yeoncheong, who'd learned through colliding bodies just how seriously Suyeon took sports.
Granted, saying that hadn't been her finest moment. But she'd decided to chalk it up to a bad first impression and an honest misunderstanding.
“Also... I won our one-on-one, right?”
“No, hold on. That's not how it—”
What remained on the ground thawed by that apology was a relationship that had drawn closer through a collision of bodies.
The two fell into an easy back-and-forth about basketball. It lasted until the bell rang and Suyeon and Seoha, on their way back to the classroom, stopped by the infirmary.
Yeoncheong limped painfully back to the classroom and hurriedly changed into her uniform — no help for it, since the teacher of the next period was strict about dress code.
***
After final period, as Yeoncheong was about to head to the club room with Suyeon, Nayun came looking for her.
“Hey... Yeoncheong, here.”
What Nayun held out was a bandage printed with little flowers. Yeoncheong accepted it since it was being offered, tilting her head.
“What's this for?”
“You scraped your left elbow a little. Put it on that.”
“Oh.”
Yeoncheong remembered.
Come to think of it, there had been a small wound on her elbow when she changed into her uniform. Had Nayun been waiting for the right moment to hand it over this whole time?
Yeoncheong smiled and thanked her.
“Thanks for today. See you tomorrow!”
The words came pouring out of Nayun like rapid fire, and then she bolted out of the classroom. Baffled by the reaction, Yeoncheong turned to Suyeon.
“Is Nayun always like that?”
“Whaaat? No? Probably because she wants to get close to you, but your first impression was... like that.”
“But I already accepted her apology.”
Yeoncheong, who'd chatted with Nayun just fine in the infirmary, wore a completely baffled expression. Suyeon offered an explanation.
“Well, she's the one who messed up, so it might still feel awkward on her end.”
Yeoncheong stared down at the cute bandage in her hand and muttered to herself.
Awkward, huh...
Was it just her personality? Or was it the difference between how girls and boys did things?
Yeoncheong had no idea.