I remember the gym lights being too bright that day, humming overhead like they always did before a game. I didn't expect much from the team we were playing — just another win, another step forward. They didn't look impressive anyways. My teammates looked relaxed, chatting like it was already over before it began. But then I saw him — that short, loud guy on the other side of the net with fire in his eyes. He looked completely out of place, like someone who had crashed a party they weren't invited to. And yet, something about the way he stood there, tense like a coiled spring, made me pause.
He was smaller than anyone else on the court, his team looked half-hearted, and I could tell they weren't good. But he never stopped moving, eyes tracking everything, like he was chasing something only he could see. It was annoying, honestly — that kind of reckless energy, so raw and desperate. I was used to control, to precision, to people who knew the game. But he played like the world would end if the ball hit the floor. There was something unsettling about how much he wanted it.
The first time he jumped, I actually blinked. Not because I didn't think he could — but because I didn't think he should. People like him weren't supposed to do that. They were supposed to fade into the background, too short, too weak, too late to matter. But he soared. For one brief second, it felt like the air bent around him.
When he scored that point — that one point — he shouted like he had won the whole match. He looked right at me, too. Not in challenge, not exactly. More like... defiance. Like he knew I saw him and refused to be ignored. And I hated how it made my chest tighten.
I didn't let it show. I just told myself he was irritating, a waste of potential on a team going nowhere. But the truth is, he made the game feel different. He wasn't polished. He wasn't practiced. But he was alive out there, in a way that made me question if I was, too.
I kept watching him after that. Even when I told myself I didn't care, I remembered the way he ran after every ball like it was his last. That kind of passion burns too bright — I thought it would burn out. But deep down, I wanted to see if it wouldn't. I wanted to see if someone like that could really keep going. And I wanted to know what it would be like to play beside that kind of fire.
I didn't realize it then, but that match stuck with me. Not because we won, not because I played well. But because he wouldn't leave my thoughts. That ridiculous, stubborn, jumping idiot haunted me. And I hated that I didn't know his name. He had taken a piece of my attention and just ran with it.
Back then, I thought I was the king, the one everyone else should follow. But when I saw him, that fiery kid with no height and no fear, I started to wonder. Maybe he wasn't the one out of place. Maybe I was. And maybe, just maybe, I had been waiting for him this whole time without knowing it.
The one who jumped higher than anyone — even when no one believed he could.