The cafeteria of a university that specialises in sports is both a godsend and a literal hell on Earth. It really depends on the day.
The benefit is a healthy diet through balanced meal plans, each of which are based on the students' respective sports. It makes for easy maintenance, especially during competition periods when training is rigorous and prime health is of the utmost priority. Thus, the inevitable con is that there is not an ounce of sweet-tooth goodness in sight to murder any, "I've had a bad day," binge cravings. Ultimately, this enforces the bad day to become all the more worse.
You stare at your tray of two-thirds bean-based soup, one-third turkey sandwich, and cringe.
"Why does lunch have to look like puke that's been re-eaten and then regurgitated all over again?" you groan, prodding at an offensive-looking vegetable that floats in the insipid brown sludge.
Both Hoseok and Minah, fellow figure skaters from your team and your best friends, drop their spoons simultaneously. Hoseok spits the mouthful of soup that he had not already swallowed back into the bowl.
"And there goes my appetite," Hoseok mutters, raising a brow as he pointedly observes the spit that now floats atop the surface of his food. "Ha, now it really is regorged vomit."
"Both of you are disgusting," Minah accuses with an elbow jab into Hoseok's side, causing him to gasp and keel over. She picks up her sandwich and stares sharply at you, eyes glinting like the edge of a blade. "What's your problem? Is it shark week in the southern waters?"
Hoseok groans, forehead pressed to the tabletop. "Gross. Can't we talk about nice things while eating? It's not that difficult."
"Periods aren't gross, they're a beautiful, natural occurrence, you male," Minah sneers, taking a bite and then continuing to talk around a mouthful of turkey, lettuce and multigrain bread. "Dihd you wannah go to the convenienthe store ahfter thith?" Once she has chewed sufficiently through her words, she swallows, in all of her graceful mien. "They have those jumbo chocolate blocks labelled as two-for-the-price-of-one and bulk potato chips on a 20 percent discount until Monday."
Propping your arms on the table, you lean towards Minah, wrinkling your nose accusingly. "How do you know of this intelligence?"
"Because our cycles are in sync. Stop looking at me like I've committed a damn crime."
"You have. We're training for nationals."
"And no living and breathing female can oppose the desires of the reproductive deity that is Menstruation. Trust me, I've tried, and it only ended in even more bloodshed." Minah dips her lips down to Hoseok's ear. "A lot of the stuff, like a gushing, crimson waterfall of pure femininity."
Hoseok sits up straight as a pole, knocking Minah back in the process, who screeches and nearly topples off the bench. Planting his palms flat on the table, he pushes himself out of his seat. His expression resembles one of a man whose soul has just exited his being.
"I'm going to go dowse my body in a bottle of bleach," Hoseok bluntly remarks, picking up his tray and staring into the faraway distance. He cuts his gaze, very briefly, down to his tormentor. "I hope they've sold out of the barbecue flavour chips, and that your reproductive demon transforms into fucking Niagara this week, Bloody Mary."
"How dare you!" Minah gasps dramatically, delicately placing her hand against her chest in mock offence, though Hoseok has already turned on his heel and stalked away. You both watch as he dumps his mostly untouched lunch into the trash, visibly shuddering before trooping towards the exit. Minah swivels back to you, a dazzling grin colouring her lips. "So, how 'bout it?"
"May I reiterate, we have the national competition," you mumble, reluctance creeping into your tone. "I can't afford to a) put on unnecessary weight, and b) have a pimple the size of Jupiter be birthed on my face. Turkey and puke it is until I place in the top three."
"I feel you, but when Aunt Flo from Red River visits, there's no stopping her needs," Minah shrugs, finishing off the last of her sandwich and dusting her hands. "Are you okay, though? You seem a bit off today."
An involuntary sigh escapes your lips and you cup your face in your palms, dragging them downward as the heaving suspire lowers into an interminable groan. The uncomfortable, prickling sensation that you can only associate with him crawls up your spine, like an ant colony using your bones as bridges.
"I had another run-in with the devil last night," you prompt. Minah nods knowingly; understanding precisely who the supreme spirit of evil is without you even having to utter his name.
"Huh, funny that. I overheard Nayeon from the gymnastics team talking about how she saw Yoongi screaming in the middle of the street, last night," she simpers, batting her lashes at you. "I wonder who on Earth could've caused him that kind of irritation?"
Complacently, you grin into your soup. "I can't begin to tell you how satisfied that makes me feel."
"You don't have to. It's written all over your face."
"Well, it's no hidden fact that I thrive on his suffering. My sole source of energy is his misery."
"Geez ___, you almost make me feel bad for the guy."
"Suddenly switching sides on me, now are we? And after all we've been through!"
"You can't deny that he's as hot as the surface of the sun," Minah clasps her hands atop the table, as if to say: I rest my case. Alternatively, she is praying for her life after making such a bold statement about the one person in this world that you loathe with every inch of your being. You leer at her, resting your chin on your hand and slanting your gaze towards the cafeteria windows. Autumn paints the outside world in the palette of a dying sunset.
"I can't believe you just said that."
"It's the truth! Min Yoongi could bend me over a table any day, any time. I wouldn't complain."
At that, your cheeks and the tips of your ears flood with heat. "I should join Hoseok in his ceremonial bleach bath. You're making me sicker than lunch."
"Stop being so dramatic." Minah stares at her nails, picking them with an air of boredom. "You really must be PMS-ing."
"No, my best friend just happens to be calling my number one enemy attractive. Apologies if that pisses you off."
"Maybe if the aforementioned best friend knew why Min Yoongi, devil reincarnated, is the adversary, she would begin seeing him in a different light," Minah mutters, and the empty remark that brews on the tip of your tongue dies instantly, because she absolutely has a point.
Your attention is snagged from the conversation by the topic itself, embodying in a physical form through the windows. Yoongi strolls by with a handful of hockey players, consisting of half his fellow teammates—Jimin, Yugyeom, Wonwoo and Jooheon—still padded up in gear after practice. His lips move in muted sentences, and they all react in exaggerated roars of laughter that trickle through the wide open doors of the canteen. You wonder what murders you must have committed in your past life to have the misfortune of seeing him twice in the span of 24 hours.
"How many times did you say his name just now?" you accuse, and Minah frowns, gaze lifting to the ceiling as she backtracks her train of thought.
"I don't know, three times?"
"No wonder," you mutter, nodding your head in the direction of the cafeteria entrance that the bane of your existence currently slinks through. "You just summoned Satan."
You both watch on as the boys take jabs at each other and make childish, light-hearted insults while they pile ridiculous helpings of food onto the supplied trays, practically emptying the buffet. Yoongi sweet-talks with the cafeteria ladies as he traverses through the servings of mashed potato and rice. You unabashedly scrutinise his tacky flirting with the middle-aged women until he whirls on his heel and faces the tables, scanning the sparse crowd; seemingly searching.
It is not until his gaze fixes on you that it becomes discernible you are the one he is looking for. The notion becomes all the more apparent when a very sinister smile transforms his features into your demise.
"Why is he smiling at you like that?" Minah coughs, speaking under her breath as though he might hear her from afar. Yoongi does not break eye contact, nor does the wicked grin falter, even as he follows the other hockey players to an empty table.
"What– How should I know? Am I suddenly telepathic? A Min-fucking-Yoongi facial expression specialist?!" you hiss, palms growing clammy with anxiety.
"It's a nasty smile too, kind of like–"
"He just dug my grave and is about to dump my body six-feet-under?" Panic forms a thick film in your throat. "Oh god. What the hell has he done now."
"Filed a harassment report against you," is voiced a few inches above your head, causing you to jump with a surprised shriek, knees acutely knocking against the underside of the table. Whimpering as you cradle your bruised kneecaps, you glance over your shoulder, narrowing your eyes at the owner of the voice that sounds akin to ocean waves made of molasses.
Kim Seokjin, your coach, stares at you like a disappointed parent. His brows are knitted at the centre, his arms are folded, and there is a stapled document clutched tightly in his grasp that you suddenly desire to put through a paper shredder.
"Coach," you acknowledge, sniffing and sitting up a little straighter in your seat. He places a hand upon your shoulder and your chest fills with ice.
"___, let's talk outside," Seokjin speaks quietly, a bitter undercurrent cruising beneath his words. With a brief nod at Minah who, for the first time since lunch began, remains silent, you take your food and follow Seokjin to the waste bins, trashing the remains of your lunch and stacking the used tray.
There is a burn between your shoulder blades, like two hot irons searing into the flesh. It is no surprise that you find Yoongi still watching you with that ever-present grin when you look over your shoulder. A jaguar; all malice and teeth, and you are merely the fresh meat that he is about to devour.
A surge of adrenaline through your limbs urges you to lunge across the tables and tackle him to the linoleum. To sink your canines into his throat; to tear his flesh and bone like true predators, protecting your pride. Instead, you drive your attention towards the honey-gold sunlight flooding through the exit, and channel soothing thoughts towards the fists in your stomach that clench tightly around your insides. Their unrelenting squeezes sicken you to the core, reminding you of a past that should remain subdued, trapped in the brittle heart of a long-lost winter midnight.
You just wish Yoongi would stop picking at it, for it is a healed wound that has already scabbed over. Undeniably true to his persistent nature, his nails come up bloody and the scar reopens, over and over again.
"He filed a report against me? For following the rules?" you scoff incredulously once Seokjin has lead you around the side of the cafeteria building. "Is he honestly that stupid, or just plain desperate?"
Kim Seokjin is an intelligent, sharp-witted man, and the epitome of sheer elegance when he is on the ice. Despite his air of authority, he hones particular nurturing assets that one would associate with their mother; a shoulder to lean on at the hardest of times with words of advice that would earn him a successful career as a therapist. His appearance often fools those who do not know him well—an exquisite, sweet and symmetrical face with blonde hair like beautifully folded meringue—because he is truly as tough as nails, and can be absolutely down the line. He is a frightening spectacle when enraged, though all the more terrifying when he is seething in silence.
Now, he seems to sit at the midpoint of either biting his tongue or blowing his top, though you have always been one to test his patience without entirely stepping your toe over the line. Like true competitors, the pair of you are fiercely contentious at the best of times, and yet the respect between you as a coach and a pupil stays to be mutual. When the university contract has no involvement, he is as much an older brother figure as he is a friend.
Before he has the chance to answer, realisation dawns on you. A thick presence that weighs down your chest, filling the gaps between your ribs with cement. "Did the report get processed?"
"No, of course not, that's why I have it here." Seokjin holds up the stapled papers, offering them to you. "You technically broke no rules, therefore, it can't be entered into the system as a misdemeanour. I think Yoongi tried to register it just to rile you up—some kind of payback for god knows what you said or did to him last night."
"So as long as they're false claims, it should be fine, right?" you say, trying not to snatch the report out of his hands and tear it to pieces. Rather, you modestly reach with quivering fingers for the corners of the fluttering document. You barely spare it a glance, training your eyes on your coach, surveying the vague exhaustion that hints in soft, lilac half-moons beneath his eyes and the minutest sag of his skin.
Seokjin sighs, leaning his shoulder against the brick face of the cafeteria, rubbing a palm against his jaw. "If the reports continue to pile up, then it will be a problem. False or not, the administration will notice their sum and will go to the Board in question of what's going on between the two of you. Which brings me to my point."
"Your point?" Suspicion at the greater incentive behind Seokjin's allocution twists your features into a glower, and his own begin to soften like clay beneath summer sun. "Is this not just about the report?"
"___, it's time for you to forgive him."
A stunned silence encompasses the space between you, sitting heavy in your lungs as you try to remember how to breathe. Forgive him. What an absurd statement; it feels like a knife driving through your back, the blade being the glinting edge of Seokjin's tongue. You wish you could take those words and wring them around his neck, force them back into his throat where they belong—unspoken and unheard. How could you possibly forgive the devil himself when the scars still draw silver pearl against your skin; a constant reminder engraved on your body by his very own doing?
The report crackles in protest against your clenching fist. Blood boils in your veins and flares violently across your face like a lashing of flame.
"How– How could you..." Despite the vitriolic seething that wracks your frame, your voice trips in your heated rage, stammering at the centre of your lips. "How could you ask me... such a ludicrous thing? Out of everyone, how could you?"
If Seokjin is wounded by your forthright attack, it does not show in his iron facade. The edges of his gentle expression strengthen; inured by years of your merciless ways. That is how he has always known you: A girl of virulence to those who do her wrong. And you know he has never once considered it a bad asset, though even you know, deep down, that it is one which holds you back from the goldmines of potential.
But Seokjin, of all people, knows that a naive weakness is hidden beyond the blockade of the belligerent palisades, which guard your feeble heart. An impending fear of being exposed to harm. Often, such as in situations like the current, you wish you had never lowered your defences and let him witness it in all of its dark and ugly.
"You and I both know that what happened to you was never Yoongi's fault. Everything that occurred that night was an accident, neither of you could have foreseen it." Seokjin speaks quietly, yet firm. "Yes, measures could've been taken to avoid it. But they weren't, and it happened, and we all dealt with the consequences. But look at you now! It's almost been five years, ___, and you have come so far. The both of you need to stop living in the past and accept that although bad things happen, you grow from it. You're going to be recognised on a national stage in no more than three months. This competition could land you at the 2022 Olympics, yet you're still devoting your energy to this ridiculous rivalry."
He has a point, nags at the back of your mind in a voice that you murder between your clenched teeth. The scars be afire, scorching so vividly in their permanent tattoo on your bare flesh; an unbounded reminder. But the vehement burn grounds you and smooths out the kink in your throat, eradicates the chains squeezing your bones in a defiance to not succumb for the sake of a man's comfort.
"You used to be such good friends," Seokjin continues to prompt, almost sounding helpless in his silent impetuosity for you to heed his advice. "I'm not saying that you need to be now. But please, at least come to an agreement to be civil, even acquaintances, if that isn't pushing it too far."
Levelly, you stare at Seokjin, relaxing your hands so that your knuckles refrain from bursting through your skin. He can already tell by the placid change in your expression that all hope is lost within the treacherous sea that you reside at the centre of. You have retreated into your castle of safety—untouchable; unreachable.
"Why would I forgive somebody who ruined so much?" you murmur. Before you can concern yourself with the reprimands of walking out on a coach before he has dismissed you, feet that no longer feel like your own drive you steadily away from the scene.
You used to be such good friends, echoes distantly through your thoughts, and you almost want to laugh out of absolute incredulity.
Such a measly word as 'friend' could never describe what you and the devil once had.