Chapter 4
nayeon released a deep sigh as she watches mina and jihyo - who seemed to be lost in their own thoughts - cross the field and head to their school parking.
jihyo's usual wild hand gestures as she talks to mina and the latter's small yet genuine smile while listening to her best friend's whines were absent and replaced instead by a tensed silence as they walk by.
nayeon sighs again.
it was obvious.
mina was nervous. maybe even scared.
nayeon saw it in the younger girl's eyes earlier. noticed it in the way mina held her breath when jihyo stepped forward. yet, she didn't say anything. didn't protest. didn't even pull her best friend back. and nayeon wonders if she would've stayed mum and rooted to where she was standing had yerim not arrive.
she wonders if mina would have come clean had jihyo was able to say more.
"hopeless."
she hears sana speak beside her and nayeon tilts her head in her direction but it was momo who voiced out the question that crossed her mind.
"what is?"
"this minayeon ship - and don't you even tell me again not to call you that." sana warns with a glare when she saw nayeon opening her mouth in protest.
even with her best efforts, she doesn't look even a bit intimidating. if anything, she looks adorable with her cheek puffed out. but nayeon has been friends with her long enough to know that the younger means business so she swallowed her protest, closed her mouth and forced her hands behind her back to prevent herself from pinching sana's face.
"as i was saying," she continues.
"you and mina are hopeless. being your ship's captain is a hundred times more exhausting than being a cheerleader, i tell you. i mean, have you seen her earlier? girlie didn't even say anything!"
nayeon hears momo breathes out. an almost laugh or an almost sigh. hard to tell.
"satang. we are co-captains, remember?" she whines then pauses. thinking. "wait, is that a thing for ships? co - captains?"
sana blinks. stares at momo. hard. and nayeon can tell a silent battle happened between the two when momo offers a sheepish smile to sana after a few seconds.
"right. sorry. not the time." momo pushes her black, loosely waved hair away from her face and holds out her hands in surrender before turning to nayeon. "but i do agree, unnie. this ship is bound to sink unless you do something."
"it's about time, don't you think?" sana adds.
"you've waited long enough and mina still hasn't mustered a courage to talk to you. at the rate she's taking, we'd be out of high school and you guys would stil be at the hey minari! and see you around, unnie! stage!"
nayeon looks away from her friends' knowing gazes.
in front of them, the girls are huddled up in groups much like the three of them. some are deep in conversations while the others are dancing to a choreography they did last year.
coach wendy didn't seem to believe them when they said they got hold up in the hallways by a classmate, which isn't entirely a lie, but considering that it was the first time they showed up late in practice, the older woman decided to let it slide. with a warning, of course and gave them a few minutes to themselves while she runs something with the student assigned on their music.
nayeon's eyes land on yerim trying to match sooyoung's, joy, as what the girl prefers to be called, steps.
nayeon can tell that the younger is having a hard time in doing so, after all, she was yet part of the squad when they learned that choreography. but it wasn't yerim's awkward version of joy's moves the caught nayeon's attention. it's the look on her face as she moves along the taller girl that made the cheer captain stare.
it reminds her so much of a certain girl who walks like a penguin.
mina
it's the same look that mina has whenever she's inside the pitch.
a look of someone with stubborn determination.
it's the look that mina always wear when her team is down and badly needs a goal to tie the match. when she pushes past defenders. when she studies the goalie's movement before she shoots the penalty.
and beneath it is pure confidence. a knowledge of what she's capable of.
confidence in the work she has put in every practice and the nights she spent learning the opponents' tendencies inside the pitch. confidence in her teammates. in her coaches. in her game. in what she can do with a ball in her feet.
it's that cloth of determination paired with confidence that mina always slips into when everyone else is running inside the pitch to execute a play while she's just calmly walking with her head turning from one point to the other, eyes scanning the area before jumping into the chaos of moving bodies and flying balls and most often than not, it leads to mina giving an assist, if not, a goal.
to someone else's eyes, someone who doesn't know mina, it would appear that she easily gets exhausted. she walks while everyone else run to buy herself some time, steal a few seconds of rest. it's what nayeon thought the first time she saw her play. but after asking jihyo about it, she finally understood that mina isn't simply just walking. she's reading the opponents' defense all while calculating how to tear holes into it as she does so.
ha! will you look at that!
nayeon now knew even the smallest things about mina when just a few years back, all she ever knew about the japanese is that she is jihyo's best friend whose mom makes the best cookies. the girl nayeon used to play with a few times as she waits for her own friends to come over.
she surely has come a long way.
it just shows how much attention she has been paying to the younger girl for her to notice such details about mina's game.
she's not even sure when she started paying attention. she just walked into their living room one day and felt like something was missing, like something that should be around was no longer there and it brought all the warmth along when it left.
it took nayeon a few days to realize that it was jihyo's boisterous laughter and competitive yelling that were absent. and another few more days for her to figure out that the absence of her sister's usual loudness was caused by someone else's absence.
mina's.
it was all because mina stopped showing up at their house at weekends to play soccer with jihyo. she stopped coming over after classes to play video games and invites jihyo to do it in her house instead. she also started hosting their sleepovers at her place. even their group projects were now done in the myouis unlike before where it was always done in ims.
nayeon didn't know what has changed. doesn't understand it, nor does she know what caused it.
she tried her best to not let the change bother her but she couldn't help it when it became very obvious that mina was avoiding her.
she started wondering what she's done wrong to make her sister's best friend keep her distance. she has even replayed all their encounters in her mind to try and find something she's done that might've offended mina without meaning to but found none. and the more she went through certain memories she has with the younger girl inside her head, the more nayeon finds herself being drawn to her.
she started catching herself looking over her sister's shoulder whenever jihyo would approach her in the hallways. she found herself looking around for a certain japanese girl whenever coach wendy would tell them that they'd be sharing the field with the girls' soccer team at practice. and it was like her eyes have a mind of their own with how they never failed to land on a certain table every time nayeon would enter the cafeteria for lunch.
nayeon reasoned that it was only because she was curious. curious why mina was avoiding her. curious of the change.
she told herself that was the only reason why she started watching mina's games.
unlike before where she showed up solely because her squad has to perform and if not, she was there only to support jihyo. this time around, she was there to actually watch and understand what was happening. it was like she was trying to get to know mina. something she realized she should've done a long time ago. and the more she learned something about the younger girl, the more she wanted to dig deeper.
now, nayeon is smart. really smart. but it still took her quite some time to figure out what was happening with her. what the curiosity was all about. why she always seemed to gravitate toward mina.
and when the realization hit her fully, she took it with open arms. it didn't matter that she was yet to find out why mina avoided her like a plague. she figured that if being around her made the japanese girl uncomfortable, then she would respect it. after all, that's what it's truly about, right? putting the other person first?
so she did just that. kept her distance. sure, she stil watch mina's games, still look for her in a sea of faces. but she never did something that might make the younger girl pull even farther away. that translated to nayeon not speaking a word to mina, stepping out of the room when she and jihyo enter, and going as far as shifting her gaze to somewhere else when their eyes met for even a second.
then that one fateful day happened.
nayeon was simply depositing her books inside her locker after class when she saw it. a - plane, boring, folded in half - note that stood out among the fancy envelopes of letters.
who knew such small thing could stir so much hope. but it did. because even when it wasn't signed, nayeon definitely recognized the neat stroke of pen from the nights she has spent reading jihyo and mina's answer sheets whenever her sister would ask her to double check their homework a few years back.
and just like that, everything became clear to nayeon. like pieces of puzzle falling into place, she finally understood why mina was avoiding her.
and hope was such a powerful thing. it pushed her to take little, but nonetheless sure, steps. just enough to make mina know that nayeon cares but not too much to overwhelm her.
nayeon started conversing with her whenever they were with jihyo even when it meant she won't get any answers. started smiling at her whenever their eyes met even how short the moment was before mina would pull her gaze away. started showing up at practice wearing the gifts mina left for her.
but they've been doing this dance for a while and mina still hasn't have the courage to actually talk to her.
as much as she hates to admit it, sana was speaking the truth when she told nayeon a few days back that they were already running out of time.
mina's a year below her which means nayeon would be leaving for college while the younger stays in this town. a lot can change even in an hour and nayeon would rather that she never finds out how much a year could change them both.
and before her brain can betray her and think of scenarios that would only break her heart, she hears sana grunts beside her. it's only then that nayeon realized she has not said anything yet.
"right." she nods, hoping they were still on the topic they were talking before she zoned them out.
"i can't believe you'd rope jungkook into this! lucky for you he played along."
sana shoots her a disapproving look while momo groans beside her.
"hey, we did what we had to! the opportunity presented itself, it would've been a waste if we didn't grab it. but it didn't make any difference anyway so whatever."
"and that comment is like five minutes late already, unnie!"
"oh." she mumbles. eyebrows furrowed.
"yeah. oh! you're zoning out again. miss myoui really got you good, huh? i said get up. if you haven't heard, coach has been calling for us, captain!"
nayeon looks up and finds their coach throwing daggers at their direction which never happened before.
guess she really spaced out longer than she'd anticipated.
she gets up and takes a deep, long breath.
yep. miss myoui got her good, alright.