A ball hit the rim, making it vibrate. It fell to the ground with a thud before falling and bouncing up again, right into the hands of the person who threw it in the first place.

“Pass!” Pilsoo, one of the boy's accomplices, said. He got into the stance to throw Pilsoo the ball and was interrupted by the slam of the gym door. “Han Seojun!” yelled the gym teacher, glaring at the boy with the ball in his hand... Or well, that was now falling onto his head. “Aish!” Seojun yelped, rubbing his head. Served him right. “I want to see you in my office, now.” The old man hissed.

A plop was heard as Seojun sat on the chair, a bored look on his face. “What happened now, Coach?” He queried, already ready to leave. “Your grades are what happened.” Coach Baek continued, his hand holding a paper full of numbers. ‘Was he about to do math?’ Seojun thought before taking the paper to get a better look. “Oh! My grade report card is, a thousand times better than before, right?” Seojun mused, a smug grin on his face. “It got worse, Seojun. If you get one more bad grade-"

"Blah blah blah, you know I'll do better next time! I always do anyway.” He groaned, spinning around in the office chair while slumping.

“I'll kick you off the team, Han.” which made Seojun straighten his posture. “You don't actually mean…” He squinted, letting out a hoarse laugh. “No, it's not. Look, you're smart… Kind of. And to continue being on our team, you can't be a kind of smart. We need you to tap into this smart.”
“That's unfair! Pilsoo and-” “Their grades are the bare minimum, yours are approaching the negatives. I'm not having this conversation with you anymore, Han. If your grades don't improve, you're off the team.”

This is how Seojun ended up here in the present. Trapped between multiple people.

He looked around, seeing people with their heads low, eyes focused on the test in front of them with the sounds of scribbles filling his ears. He looked back at his paper. The paper that had his basketball career hanging by a thread. The paper that would decide whether he would get grounded by his mom or not. The paper that he did not study any material for. All the numbers and letters looked gibberish to him, despite still being in Korean. He gripped his hair, tugging on it slightly. And alas, the paper was taken away at the end of the period.

And two weeks later, he'll face his doom. Those two weeks, he spent pondering. He couldn't even bring himself to play basketball anymore with his friends, and they seemed to notice. Unlike Seojun, who didn't see two fingers coming for his forehead. “Ow! Jihoon! Why would you even do that?” He whined, rubbing his forehead soon after. “Because you stopped dribbling… Like you were thinking, it was weird, man!” he explained, a slight fear in his voice. “Excuse me! I think every day because I have a brain!” he hissed, pointing at his skull. “A small one.” Pilsoo quipped. “That's still a brain, at least I have one?” Seojun snapped back.

“Regardless, I am perfectly fine!” Seojun grinned, flexing his ‘muscles’ as if he had any. “I'm the most focused I've ever been!” He added, continuing to dribble the ball before running across the court to shoot it through the net. “But you forgot to do the thing.” Said Pilsoo, making the noirette stop in his tracks.

“What thing?”

“The thing.”

“What is the thing?”

“The thing you said you were going to do.” Added Jihoon.

“Well, what is the thing that I said I was going to do?!”

“The thing you said you were going to do is the thing.” They explained, leaving Seojun dumbfounded. “I don't even know what the hell that means!” To which, they both rolled their eyes at the boy. “You said you were going to see Jugyeong at school this week, and you haven't.” At this point, a little bell rang inside Seojun's near-empty head. “Jugyeong! Dammit!” He cursed, running across the gym to his bag to grab his jacket.

“Tsk tsk, he's been skipping school so much he forgot about visiting the girl he loves.” Jihoon shook his head in disappointment. “Exactly, always skipping class. He's a bad student.” The other one supported. “You both are also skipping class with me. Look in the damn mirror!” Seojun huffed, slinging his bag over his now-covered shoulder. “Later losers!” He called out, closing the door behind him in a hurry.
‘Last period... Last period… What is Jugyeong's last period class?’ He queried himself, looking through the classroom windows, attempting to find the caramel hair-colored girl (of his dreams).

“Art!” Seojun finally remembers, turning around and jogging through the hallways until he found the class. He tugged the door handles, pushing them open before spotting the girl. She turned to look at him, her strawberry-pink lips pursing up into a smile that never failed to warm his heart. Without realizing it, his legs started moving on their own.  “Jugyeong! There you are-” He started before a crash captured his attention.

A slight ache in his chest followed. Some girl spilled water on him. Her paintbrushes and whatnot spread out on the floor. Her black(?) tresses drooped over her face, something dripping from them. Something wet. Which reminded him of the damp feeling on his chest. “Are you kidding me?” He groaned, looking around for some paper towels before noticing one crumbled on the ground.

He grabbed it and wiped his shirt. “Watch where you're going next time, nearly ruined my jacket.” He stared at her, getting a slightly better view of the said girl. ‘God, she looked like she went through it.’ Seojun thought, looking her up and down. He scowled at her and scoffed. The girl said some kind of rebuttal or an apology. He didn't care to listen any further. He dropped the crumbled paper and continued his way to Jugyeong.

“You okay? You made a scene..” She enquired. “Yeah yeah, someone just spilled their drink or something on me for no reason. It's fine, anyway, what're you doing?” He rushed through the first part, his cheeks slightly flushed due to embarrassment. It seems Jugyeong didn't notice because she continued as normal.

“Im working on my art project! We’re supposed to capture the figure of someone's face but only with paint, no sketching.” She hummed, picking up her paintbrush and dabbing it in a cup filled with water.

“Is it difficult?” Seojun asked, cocking his head to the side. “Kind of, to be honest. I didn't think it’d be this difficult…” She let out an awkward chuckle. “I did a test recently in Chem…” He said, pulling up a chair next to her. He plopped his head down on the other side of her desk, making the desk shake slightly. “Do you think you passed?” She asked sweetly, turning her eyes to look at him.

And in that moment, he felt something rush through him. Something influential, like trance. Regardless, whatever it was possessed him to utter the next 6 words.

“Yeah, I passed with flying colors!”

Spoiler: He did not and was promptly put in a Hagwon.