When Hyerim signed up for her school's newsletter club and was placed in charge of sport photography, she didn't expect to form an unlikely friendship with the captain of the ice hockey team, Lee Haechan.
❆ High School Sport AU
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Two weeks.
It had been two weeks since Hyerim had spoken to Haechan.
At first, they would make eye contact in the hallways, and she would watch Haechan excuse himself from his friends and try to walk over to her, but she would hurriedly look away, and speedwalk in the other direction. She didn't mean to avoid him at first, just wanting to delay their conversation to save some awkwardness, but the longer she avoided him, the more she procrastinated on talking to him.
And his graduation was nearing sooner and sooner.
It was now common news of his prestigious sport scholarship to Korea uni. Sometimes, Hyerim would catch glimpses of him in the hall being swarmed by people congratulating him. Then, they would make eye contact, and his smile would falter, and Hyerim would run away.
Stood in front of her locker, she thought back to when they were still friends. She remembered asking him a question while they were sat in his room, eating krispy kreme donuts.
"Why were you such a bitch about taking photos back then?" She asked him, curiously looking at the boy seated next to her with a donut stuffed in his mouth. His eyes crinkled, obviously finding something funny.
"Just wanted an excuse for you to be around," he had told her nonchalantly, shoving half a donut in her open mouth, and eating the other half.
She looked at the box in her locker. It contained sticky notes that Haechan sometimes left on her locker, or slotted in between the ventilation metal, or tucked in one of her textbooks. He had begun to leave them so often that he bought her a cute little pink cardboard box that she had decorated with stickers, plastic rhinestones and ribbons.
Hyerim had kept every single one of those notes.
Her hand raised to stretch towards the familiar box, but she tugged it back down, shaking her head before leaning down to shove books in her bag. A book fell from the pile that she had on the floor, so she leaned to grab it, but a hand beat her to it. A familiar, tanned, veiny hand with slim fingers, clean nails and a recognisable ring.
She gulped, swallowing before raising her head to look at the familiar hockey player stood in front of her.
"H-hi." She cursed herself internally for stuttering.
"Hi," Haechan said, handing her book back to her. She dipped her head, taking it softly from his grasp and putting it in her bag.
Not sure what to do now, she turned to leave, but the boy stopped her with a tentative touch to her shoulder. She flinched, looking at the black-haired boy warily.
"I think we should talk."
❆
Talk, Hyerim thought to herself bitterly as they sat in his car parked outside her apartment. The whole ride home had been deathly silent, neither of them saying anything. And it wasn't their usual comfortable silence; instead, an icy, uncomfortable, awkward silence.
