BOWLING can't be that hard, can it?
You continue to reassure yourself in that manner as you tie the laces of your sneakers, preparing yourself for the day to come. Even after the whole back and forth between you and Jaeyun of making up excuses to why you think bowling was a bad idea, you still managed to wind yourself up thirty minutes away from meeting him at the bowling alley.
It was not the idea with meeting up with Jaeyun that you are hesitant about. Over the past few weeks, you had actually grown to be rather close with the guy, encountering him in sudden bumps into each other in the hallways of your University which led to going out for coffee in the nearest cafe, or conversations over text that made you laugh out loud. Despite his heavily flirtatious nature, you did appreciate having him as a friend of yours. There was always some way for him to make you end up in a fit of giggles.
However, you were not meeting up with just Jaeyun today. You are practically trembling in the fingers because in around half an hour, you would be at the bowling alley with all of the people Jaeyun had invited along with you. The bunch included all the people you were hoping to avoid for the rest of the semester — Jay and Heeseung. As well as them, you had also been informed that Nari was coming, which made you already sick to the stomach from the future jealousy you were bound to feel.
That's why you had tried to come up with a whole load of excuses to get yourself out of the get together. Jaeyun had howled with laughter when you attempted to get yourself out of the get together (with his head thrown back and everything), tears of amusement brimming in his eyes as he listened to your excuse of being 'traumatised from bowling since you had dropped the ball on your foot once', or how you would put 'everyone in danger' if you came to the bowling alley. In his words, you are "terrible at lying, since you rub at your neck every time you try to say anything false."
God, you hated how much Jaeyun could pay attention to the smallest details.
Thankfully, even though Jaeyun was sure that you had tried your best to avoid attending this get together by all means, he did not press much into it. That means he still is not aware of anything that happened regarding Jay (however he did assume that it was something to do with his best bud Lee Heeseung, which is not so far from the truth).
"Are you sure about this?" Ayaka asks from her position on the sofa, watching you from above her cup of coffee which is held to her lips.
"I'll be fine, don't worry about me." You sigh, fixing the strap of your shoulder bag whilst giving one last look at yourself in the mirror. "Thankfully, there are more people I don't have a problem with there than people who ignore my existence. So it's all good, I hope." Once you have said that last sentence, you do not miss the way Ayaka immediately rolls her eyes, waving you off quickly so that she did not have to deal with you anymore.
JAEYUN: Are you on your way?
"I should get going." You shove your phone into your pocket without replying to Jaeyun's message.
"Good luck, babe." Ayaka says with a chuckle, which is the last thing you hear from her before you step out of your shared apartment.
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"I'm surprised you actually showed up." Jaeyun greets you with a laugh, instantly pulling you towards his body with one arm so he can wrap you into a half hug. He's dressed in a collared striped jumper with the two colours of red and black, paired with the skinny black ripped jeans that he had also worn to the party. Only now do you realise that, just like Heeseung, he has multiple piercings lining one of his ears. When you awkwardly reach out with your arms to reciprocate the hug, the strong smell of luxury and wealth hit your senses like a brick.
Dior Sauvage. Well, fu—
"I'm surprised myself." You reply with a breath, untangling yourself from Jaeyun's body after letting yourself linger there in his hold for a moment too long. "Um—is everybody here already?" The two of you are standing at the entrance of the bowling alley, since you had messaged Jaeyun when you were five minutes away from the venue and he insisted on waiting outside for you to arrive. Even though he had stayed true to his words, you also notice how he's already wearing the tacky bowling shoes, with the worn out laces and scuffed rubber.
"If you're asking if Heeseung's here, madame, then yes he is." Jaeyun bows.
You go red.
"No—Jaeyun—that's not—I wasn't asking about him specifically!" You hiss, punching him in the arm as he booms another laugh.
His smile twinges in the slightest as he responds, "We all know that that's what you really wanted to ask about. But yes, to answer your actual question, I think everybody is here. So, it's best if we get you in and sort out your bowling shoes, yeah? Then we can start the competition." Before you can say anything more, he encloses his hand over your own, warmth spreading like wildfire over your palm. Like a puppy, he cocks his head to the side and stares at you with both playfulness and fondness, using his gaze as a distraction to intertwine your fingers together.
"Um—um—competition?!"
"I'll tell you more when we get to our bowling lane. For now, just focus on telling the assistant guy what shoe size you are."
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When you step into your designated bowling lane, you're scarred by the sight of Heeseung touching shoulders with Nari, murmuring to themselves about something you could not comprehend since you were too far away. Your teeth unconsciously clench when Heeseung's endearing smile appears as she cracks what you can only assume is a joke, teasingly pushing Nari away with a chuckle.
That's when he makes eye contact with you.
When you hold his stare, his smile disappears from his lips, replaced with an unreadable expression that forces your stomach to twist.
Fuck.
Heeseung hastily stands up, walking in over your direction for who knows why, and your mind begins to spin at how you're supposed to cope. Nari steals a glance at his leaving back, her smile also disappearing when she notices you standing there, not even trying to show any words or actions of greeting. You try to find a way to signal Jaeyun, but he's busy speaking to Riki, rambling about some stupid online game you had never even heard about before. You wince, noticing that Heeseung is now getting even closer, no more than five feet away. His lips part, about to say something, anything.
That's when Sunghoon appears out of nowhere, clad in his dark coloured tie dye shirt and light washed denim pants. He's smiling from ear to ear, pleasantly welcoming your presence, so much so that he suddenly picks you up and spins you round with glee. He laughs a little when you squeal as he lifts you off the ground, his touch tickling against the exposure of your skin. As you twirl round with his assistance, you spot Heeseung in the corner of your eye, the shoulders of his visibly rocking forward with a roll of his eyes as he scoffs. After waiting a beat, he hesitantly backs off, returning back to his original seat beside Nari and starting the conversation with her up again. Because of this, your tension quickly eases, thankful for having Sunghoon to steer you away from the disaster that may have happened if you had to talk to Heeseung.
"Glad you made it." Sunghoon chirps, plopping you down back on the floor once he's had his fun. His deep voice strums at all your heart strings, yet he's unaware of his effect on you as he continues to chat you up with his carefree simper. "Jaeyun told me you might've cancelled at the last minute, but I didn't know the reason why, so—so I was feeling a bit sad, a bit worried—well a bit of everything altogether."
"Aww, you missed me?" You grin. "That's nice of you."
"Why would I not?" He winks, immediately sending you over the edge. "Also, I have a new type of ice cream I want you to try. I found it when I was in the supermarket yesterday, and I think you'd like—"
"Right, everyone!" Jaeyun claps his hands together, earning all the attention from everyone in the bowling lane. Like a child listening to their parent, Sunghoon firmly shuts his lips once Jaeyun starts to speak, fixating his attention on him. Thank Goodness. If Sunghoon had talked to you for any longer, you swear you would have most likely fainted from your heart being overwhelmed with swooning over him.
"Since everyone's here, we can now start the game! Erm...for everybody's who already forgotten the rules—Riki and Sunoo, I'm looking at you two!—it's basically simple bowling. Player versus player, everyone is competing against everyone. But, there are some additions. For the newbies here, we actually like to play bowling by allowing anybody to distract the player that is currently having their turn, whether it be back hugging them or whatnot. No physical violence is permitted, though." Jaeyun explains, pacing back and forth the bowling lane with his hands behind his back. You hold back a laugh as you watch the boy act like a television entertainer.
"What about—"
"Not even flicking." Jaeyun holds a finger to Jungwon's lips to silence his suggestion. Your attempt to hold back your laughter fails, and you release a choked laugh from your lips, causing Jaeyun to look over at you with warning, in the zone as he shakes his head firmly to tell you to be quiet. After all, you are probably the only one who needed it.
"At the end, whoever has the highest total of points on the board is granted the permission to make anybody who's playing partake in a penalty that benefits the winner. That can be doing an errand for them, making them calling them a certain name, whatever. However, the penalty can only last for the maximum duration of a week. Everybody got that?"
"Sir, yes sir!" Riki playfully salutes. His outfit consists of a vibrant blue long sleeved shirt with random colourful patterns of shapes on it, which is layered underneath a black tee and paired with matching black leather pants. The choice of clothing makes his blonde hair stand out, which swishes as he turns round to meet your eyes. His hand comes down from above his head to flutter his fingers as he gives you a tiny wave; you cannot help but smile and giggle simultaneously at his efforts.
"Always count on Jaeyun to present anything in such a formal way. It's like we're on a game show." You hear Heeseung laugh, making your gaze wander over to where he's sitting. You curse at yourself when the two of you meet eyes again, but this time, you're the first one to look away. Instead, you draw your attention towards Sunghoon as he begins to talk himself.
"Well, his formal nature's part of his DNA." Sunghoon shrugs.
"Mhm. Physics majors, right?" You join in. You and Sunghoon share a laugh.
"Make fun of me all you want. You two are just in denial that my Major is better than yours." Jaeyun crosses his arms with a click of his tongue. "But, without a further ado—Jay, you're first up."
You gulp when Jay stands up and retrieves a bowling ball. You had no idea where he appeared from, since he was nowhere to be seen when you first arrived, so you had just assumed that he was never meant to come in the first place. Yet here he is, expectantly dressed in a fashionable outfit, saying something to Jungwon you cannot make out as he chuckles.
Everything becomes muted when you focus your attention on Jay, monitoring his every movement as he prances around confidently. You know that Riki is making his way over to you, leaving Sunoo stunned as he's left alone in his seat, but you cannot help but keep your gaze on Jay as he gets used to the feeling of the bowling ball in his hands. His eyebrows furrow, fingers melting with familiarity over the curve of the bowling ball, and he lets out a breath of concentration, his competitive nature beginning to emerge. You maintain your stare even when his gaze wanders over to you, glazing over your face for the briefest of moments.
And because of your joint past that you keep so fondly in your heart, of the memories that you want to make more of, and getting lost in the eyes that you had once fallen in love with—your heart flutters. Even when he looks away, shaking his head to get a grip of himself so that he can focus back on scoring as many points as he can, your heart continues to throb with an ache for him.
Should you even be surprised?
You've always been entranced by Jay. Always.
Smoothly, the ball leaves his grip and gracefully drifts across the centre of the lane. Your breath catches in your throat as the ball easily collides with the centre pin, knocking the rest down in turn to cause an easy sweep of them all. And just like that, a quiet cheer plays from the built-in speakers of the screen above, as the screen displays in colourful letters the word, "Strike!"
"Wow~ As expected from our bowling ace." Jungwon cheers with his hands in the air. When Jay realises that he's scored a strike, he turns round with pride, opening his arms in a power stance to make everybody recognise his talent. The act makes everybody laugh, and your eyes remain trained on the boy as he pridefully gives Jungwon a high five before sitting himself back down.
"Areum? Areum!"
Riki's voice finally permeates your focus, making you jolt with surprise as you find him right at your side. He shakes your shoulder, the act finally allowing you to shift your attention away from your ex-boyfriend and over to the one who actually wants to speak to you. Blond hair swept over his eyes, he smiles at you with all his teeth displayed, the smile all gummy and adorable.
"Hi Riki." You already feel yourself beginning to smile. "I never got round to thanking you for your treat the other day. It really cheered me up a lot."
"No probs, Areum." Riki smiles even wider, scratching at the back of his head. "I'll buy other things from that store for you if you like. They make some really delicious stuff."
"No, please don't. I'll feel so bad for making you spend even more money on me. I've heard that shop's expensive." You even make a gesture to go along with your persuasion, clapping your hands together into a praying like manner and staring up at him (only now did you realise how fucking tall this boy is). The act makes him giggle, a light and delicate giggle that makes you want to cuddle him. If he's the tree, you'd become a tree hugger for him — he's really cute.
"Oh, please. Money isn't important when a girl like you is involved." He smirks.
Oh.
"Yo, Areum—it's your turn." Jaeyun taps your back before you could even finish comprehending the underlying meaning of Riki's words. "Hey, you okay? The tips of your ears are like, bright red."
"Shut up."
You put your hair back into a flimsy ponytail before you make your way up to get a bowling ball for your turn, ignoring Riki's despicable chuckles as you choose one of the lighter balls that you'll actually be able to hold properly without it dropping on your foot. Upon finding the appropriate one, you grip your fingers tightly around the ball and bring it up to your lips, giving the surface of it a light peck before you send it down the lane.
"Um. That's not very sanitary, is it?" Nari comments, crossing her arms over herself. "Why the hell would you kiss the ball?"
"It's something I like to do before I complete my turn." You argue softly. "It's become a habit."
And once you've gotten yourself back into a concentrated state of mind, you slide the ball out of your grip and send it rolling in a straight fashion down the lane. Not even once does the ball waver into another direction, or curve so that it lands in the gutter. Instead, you end up beaming with delight when all the pins get knocked down at once, making everyone gasp in awe at how smoothly you got a strike.
Nari, you can kiss my ass.
"What the actual fuck." Jaeyun splutters with a hand raking through his hair. "I didn't know you were this good."
"Are you secretly a professional bowler, or something?" Sunoo asks curiously with wide eyes, his fluttering eyelashes communicating the genuine nature of his question.
Your eyes meet Jay's before you can even control yourself.
"I guess you could say I got taught."
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FOUR YEARS AGO — SEPTEMBER.
"Wow, for the first time, I've actually found something you're not good at." Jay teases, hand splayed against the small of your back as you sulk.
"Why do you have to be so good at everything?" You whine, staring up at the screen where your scores are displayed. Above your row, Jay has a straight line of Xs, showing the several number of strikes he has gotten. However, compared to yours, the highest number of pins you have knocked out in one go currently stands at 4. That's right. You could not even knock down at least 50% of the bowling pins.
"Be glad that you actually got me as your boyfriend." Jay winks, his hand travelling up to ruffle at your hair as you continue to have a pout etched on your lips. His eyes cannot resist going down to gaze at your cute lips, before retreating back up to meet your eyes and clear his throat. "I'm a diamond in the rough you know. There aren't many people out there who are just brilliant at anything they do."
"Tsk, shut up." You softly push him away. "Please teach me Jay. I actually want to become somewhat decent at this."
"Hmm." Jay taps his finger against his lips as he thinks. "I don't think it's because you don't have the co-ordination..I think—maybe it's just because you're not concentrating hard enough. Like, I think you need something to get you into the zone. Some kind of routine or something. For example—what I do is I take a deep breath to collect my thoughts, then I look at the centre bowling pin, and I just let it disappear of my hands. Just don't overthink it too much. Maybe that's what you've been doing."
Don't overthink it. Okay.
Apprehensively, you collect a bowling ball and fiddle with it in your hands, recognising Jay's pensive stare as you try to come up with something to make yourself concentrate. Despite a thousand thoughts running through your mind of what you could possibly do to make yourself settle, you finally decide on one sole thing.
So you kiss the ball.
"What the fu—"
"Shush. I'm getting in the zone." You interrupt Jay before he could finish his sentence, giving the bowling ball another light peck before looking over its curve to the centre pin up ahead. And just like Jay said, you make sure to not let too many thoughts wander into your action, and you let the ball dance off your grip and down the bowling lane. Your breath holds when you notice how its trajectory is going so much better than it had been before, and your heart leaps out of your chest when the bowling ball collides exactly with the centre pin, allowing all of the pins to fall down simultaneously.
"Yes!" You cheer, smile bright on your face as you turn towards your boyfriend whose awaiting you with a similar smile. He applauds you with a nod, and you rush into his arms so that you can feel the warmth of his company. He chuckles as you cling onto him, not wanting to let go. "Did you see that?! Did you see that Jay!? I got a strike! Now I'm just as good as you are!"
"Of course I saw it." He strokes your hair, making you look up at him. The swirls in his eyes are filled to the brim with fondness, with such admiration for the girl who is tangled in his hold. His head ducks down for a singular moment, planting one of the softest kisses on your forehead. "That's my girl."
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THE PRESENT
It's only in the fifth round of the competition that people start to create distractions during other people's turns.
The first one to initiate it is Jungwon, who skips up to Jay during his turn in a bubbly manner, a wide grin deceiving of his actions as he then proceeds to snake his arms round his waist and tickle his belly. Of course, this makes Jay yelp, hurriedly throwing the ball in an unthought direction down the bowling lane so that he can brush Jungwon's touch off of him. This makes everyone laugh helplessly (including you), Jay screaming in a high pitched manner as he struggles to make Jungwon stop. Regardless, Jay still manages to score 7 points during that turn, causing everyone to curse at him for his skills.
Quickly, everyone else eagerly follows as they enthusiastically distract anyone whose completing their turn. Currently, your favourite distraction was done by Sunoo, when he confidently decided to distract Sunghoon by putting ice cubes down his back. The face Sunghoon made in that particular moment was extraordinary, the corner of his eyes and lips squirming and scrunching up as he begins to shuffle around to try and get the ice cubes out and away from his body. In the process, he sends the ball flying, hitting the ground with a hard bang and going straight into the gutter.
By the end of his turn, your sides were hurting from all the laughing you had done.
When the cycle has repeated and it is your turn again, you anxiously make your way up to retrieve a ball, hoping that your unbeaten streak of strikes will not end because of the distraction of another. Your fingers grab onto the ball you had grown familiar to over your last few turns, peppering another light kiss onto the surface before, and shut your eyes to make yourself concentrate before you complete your turn. As your eyes close, you can only hear the shuffle of someone getting out of their seat, and the heat radiating off a mysterious figure as they hover behind you. Or rather, the hot breath on your ear as this unknown person looms over you.
"Did ya miss me?"
Your eyes snap open to face the direction of the voice, widening all the more when you discover Heeseung cocking his head at you. He smiles a despicable smile, the ends of his lips twitching with glee as he watches you yelp with surprise. Every single one of your nerves are set alight by the proximity of his body with yours, triggering the Fight or Flight system within you as you hurriedly get the ball away from you so that you can get out of this situation, as if the ball had suddenly caught on fire. Of course, this causes the ball to immediately drop into the gutter, making you wince as Heeseung still has not left his position beside you.
"Quit avoiding me. I don't like it, and—I don't think you'll like it when you see what happens if you continue to do so." Is the last thing he whispers, dotting a small kiss on your cheek before backing away.
What.
The.
Fuck.
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"Of course, Jay won." Jungwon sighs at the inevitable outcome. He places his hands behind his head, leaning back into his seat. "We probably should have excluded him from the competition from the start." On the screen that's hanging from the ceiling, everybody looks up to see the final result of the game. And of course, just as Jungwon says, Jay's the clear winner with a score of 276.
"Well, from the beginning, we should have just assumed the competition was between Heeseung and Jay, eh? They're the only ones who are remotely good at bowling, after all." Sunghoon explains, still fidgeting a little in his seat after the whole incident with the ice cubes.
"What do you mean!? I'm also quite good." Riki argues in a higher pitched voice than usual.
"Yeah, yeah, Riki. In your dreams."
"However, Areum wasn't so bad herself. Like—if you had gotten more points in the first few rounds, I think she could have possibly beaten them two if it weren't for the, erm, distractions." Sunoo adds, yet you cannot focus on what any of them are saying because of Heeseung's penetrating stare opposite you, which is still forever present despite the competition having ended a whole while ago. You keep your eyes trained on the floor, because if you look up, there's no doubt you'll make eye contact with him, and that in itself is enough to send you into a flustered frenzy.
"So, Jay...choose somebody to do your penalty." Jaeyun quips.
Your foot taps against the floor as you just wait for all of this to be over.
"Areum."
Now, instead of just Heeseung's eyes on you, everyone has got themselves staring at you, tension in all of their backs because why the hell is Jay mentioning your name, and wondering where in the hell have they actually talked before, or how in the hell do you get yourself to finally bring yourself out of your misery to stare at Jay as he calls for your attention. His mouth twists into a fake smile, and he walks over to you, only to outstretch his hand into a forced agreement.
"Do my penalty for me, will you?"
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Author's Note: Happy New Year! Sorry to keep you all waiting. :)