Chapter Text
Haewon’s sneakers squeak against the pavement in the silent, dim morning as she tugs them off. She sets the shoes on the bleachers before reaching into her bag and pulling out her bright blue tennis shoes. They have a navy-to-light-blue ombre along the sides with the primary structure being colored a darker blue. The athlete struggles them on, stomping her feet lightly to make sure they’re on securely and won’t slip off mid-game like they did last season.
Her shoes are worn from use despite Haewon only having them for about a year. She tugs off her hoodie that adorns her university’s logo: a blue crest with the initials ‘SNU’ in big, classic collegiate merchandise lettering. Haewon haphazardly tosses her hoodie beside her tennis bag before stretching her legs against the cool metal of the bleachers.
After finishing her stretches, she unzips the largest pocket of her bag, pulling out a light blue racket with orange details scattered across its design. The left side of the racket’s throat wears the “Yonex” logo in large, bold text, with the opposite side spelling out “Percept 97H”.
Haewon gives the racket a small spin in her hands, feeling the equipment out after not using it for a bit to experiment with other rackets (most of them “borrowed” from Sullyoon). She grabs an unopened container of tennis balls and listens to the soft hiss as she cracks the opening, birds accompanying the sound as they start to stir awake with the sun which rises behind tall buildings in the distance.
It’s quiet mornings like these, Haewon thinks to herself, glancing up to watch as dull blues turn into a vibrant orange,
that make me think of her.
Haewon sprints across the court, arm outstretched as the sun stains her eyes. She slides down to the ground, a bright green tennis ball bouncing behind her. Haewon lets out a small huff, slowly getting up and brushing off her knees.
“Haewon, you okay?” Sullyoon asks, bouncing another ball onto the tough acrylic of the court.
The two started rallying about an hour ago with no breaks in between. She came to the courts with Jinsol and Kyujin, the three of them having had lunch together before practice. Haewon vaguely remembers being invited, but declined as she had already been practicing earlier in the morning in preparation for the new season.
“Yeah.” The older girl adjusts her visor, fixing her grip on her racket and getting back into a ready stance. “One more.”
Sullyoon chuckles, putting the ball back in her pocket. “You’ve said ‘one more’ like five times already. C’mon, Bae has an announcement from the coaches.”
“An announcement? Is hers finally retiring?” Haewon asks as they start walking towards the first court.
“No. Something about a change in lineup for fall.”
The older girl’s movement stutters. “‘A change in lineup’? With our current team?”
The two approach the rest of the team. Jiwoo stands along the chain link fence, Bae and Kyujin are looking at something on the taller’s phone, and Lily is gripping her racket on the edge of bleachers nearby.
“Okay, listen up,” Bae instructs the girls. “Haewon’s coach told me to inform you guys of the new lineup for our upcoming season.”
Haewon’s eyebrows furrow in confusion. “Why didn’t she ask me?”
“Sorry captain, they knew you’d be against it.”
The older girl wants to argue, but decides to stay silent so as to not prove the younger’s point.
Bae continues. “Here’s the new lineup for the fall season. Singles: Jang Kyujin. Doubles: Me and Kim Jiwoo. Singles: Seol Yoona. Doubles–”
“...Oh Haewon and Lily Jin Park Morrow.”
“WHAT??” The two athletes exclaim.
A large clang echoes through the courts as Lily drops her racket on the hard, metal bleachers. Haewon stands there, appalled as she processes what Bae just announced.
“That’s all. Practice is over. If you’re staying, don’t forget to lock the courts,” Bae concludes, leaving to pack up her stuff.
Haewon sighs angrily and grabs a small metal hopper of tennis balls. She brings them to the first court, knowing only her and Lily will be staying today.
Haewon hits the ball, aggressively wall rallying as Lily stares at her begrudgingly from just outside the court.
“We could just rally, you know. Hitting the wall isn’t gonna do anything for you at the Korea Open,” the older explains bitterly.
Haewon scoffs, hitting the bright green ball one last time – and definitely way too hard – at the wall before turning to face Lily.
“We are not playing in the Korea Open together,” she responds firmly, the tennis ball flying behind her and catching on the net.
Lily raises an eyebrow in response. “Coach said fall season. That’s the Korea Open.”
Haewon glares at Lily before grabbing the hopper and heading out towards the court gate.
“I changed my mind. I’m going to see my coach.”
“Wh–,” Lily’s eyes widen and she follows Haewon, awkwardly half-running to catch up to the girl. “What? The lineup isn’t gonna change, Haewon. They put us together for a reason.”
“A reason??” The younger athlete hisses. “Lily, whatever reason they have, it’s probably stupid. Literally nothing they say can validate pairing you and me together as doubles partners.”
“Haewon, come on,” Lily pleads, the genuine ache in her voice causing Haewon to stop in her tracks. The younger girl turns back to look up at Lily. “I don’t care about the lineup, you can argue about it after you leave. Let’s just have a few rallies…please?”
Haewon wants to crawl into a hole and combust. Since the first day they met when Sullyoon let Lily join the friend group during a group practice session one day, the two have been absolutely clashing. She barely even remembers how it started. Lily kept giving Haewon looks that she couldn’t read, and when Haewon said something about it, the older girl got defensive. After that, the two would constantly bicker; and as of this year, they’ve barely spoken to each other.
Although Haewon utterly despises Lily…she can’t ignore the ache in her chest as she stares at the pathetic pout on the older girl’s lips. Something strange stirs up in Haewon’s stomach.
“...Fine. Only a few.”
ᯓ⚾︎
As it turns out, the girls’ coaches did have a decent reason to pair Haewon and Lily together.
If Haewon has incredibly precise shots, but not a fast enough reaction time to run cross-court, Lily is the athlete she needs on the court with her, providing quick footwork and insane power shots. In fact, their coaches admitted to wanting to have the two together from the beginning, but hesitated for all these years due to the intensity of their rivalry.
So now, a day later, the two finally compromise and start spending group practice together on the same side of the same court.
Haewon swings a ball back to Kyujin, who served, the younger hitting it to Lily at the net. The blonde fumbles, racket shaking as she raises it and tries to slam the ball down into the service box where Kyujin stands. Instead, it hits the net with incredible force before rolling across the ground beneath her.
Haewon sighs, the top of her racket’s head falling to the ground as she loosens her grip on the handle.
“Lily, let’s switch.”
Lily nods, back-stepping to baseline. Haewon steps up to the net and gets into ready position, opening her legs and leaning forward with her eyes locked on Sullyoon.
Sullyoon tosses the ball into the air and hits it towards the service box by Lily.
The ball bounces off the service box with spin and Lily sprints forward, jumping to her left foot to get into a backhand stance. She pulls her arm back and slams her racket into the ball in a closed position, allowing the ball to shoot just above the net and into the service box directly across from Haewon.
Haewon’s breath hitches, her brain still processing the sound of Lily’s shot as Sullyoon fails to return – or even hit – the ball back. Right. It’s been so long since Haewon last played with Lily that she’d forgotten how absolutely nasty the older is at baseline.
Lily sighs, brushing a strand of hair behind her ear as she stands up straight and catches her breath. The athlete reaches into her pocket and brings out another tennis ball, bouncing it on the ground twice before tossing it up and swinging her racket down, sending the ball flying across the court.
This causes Haewon to break out of her trance and lock in, getting back into an open stance as she reaches her racket upwards for an overhead shot after Kyujin returns the ball. The ball goes to Sullyoon, who hits it barely over the net to Lily.
Lily sprints to the far left of the net and hits the ball back to Sullyoon after the first bounce, and the younger backpedals to slice the ball across the net, the brush from her racket giving the ball enough spin to bounce in a completely different direction from how it was initially shot. Haewon runs to the middle as Lily is on the complete opposite side of the court, backpedaling to hopefully smash the ball into the doubles alley where the two can’t reach it.
However, Haewon notices Lily full-sprinting towards the ball out of the corner of her eye, the older girl’s eyes focused on the green felt. She quickly takes a step back out of where Lily is already preparing to hit the ball, but stumbles and falls to the ground. The ball ends up in – thank god because Haewon would’ve smited Lily if she fumbled just for her – but Lily immediately gets down on the floor in front of Haewon, hands already hovering over her scraped knee.
“Are you okay? I’m sorry– I should’ve called.”
Haewon’s tense expression softens as she notices Lily’s genuinely worried one.
“No, it’s okay. We just started playing together. It makes sense that we aren’t communicating well.” She sighs, getting up and brushing off her legs. Haewon winces as the pain kicks in.
Lily blinks before immediately scooping Haewon in one arm, supporting the shorter athlete against her side. Haewon should push her away or even squirm a bit, but she’s too busy staring at the taller’s sweaty, flushed profile in awe to care.
The older girl helps Haewon to the nearest bench and sits her down before leaving to get a first aid kit. Haewon is left to sit alone with her thoughts, her mind still stuck on Lily’s amazing hits and the sweat dripping off her face as she runs.
Haewon doesn’t even realize she was staring at Lily in the distance until Sullyoon approaches her.
“You’re staring,” she points out unhelpfully.
The older almost pouts, but stops herself as her gaze remains on her new doubles partner.
“She’s…good,” Haewon finally confesses softly.
Sullyoon nods. “She’s the best doubles player on the team for a reason.”
Haewon finally breaks her gaze from Lily as the older girl turns around to head back to her. She instead looks up at the younger athlete with a newfound curiosity.
“Why doesn’t she play singles? If she can run cross-court like that, she should be fine without a doubles partner,” Haewon points out, frowning as she adds. “Wouldn’t having to switch back and forth from baseline to net only cause her to struggle more?”
Sullyoon sighs.
“She never plays singles. I never understood why, but she’s always been in doubles. Not even her couch would tell us why.”
Lily returns with the first aid kit and Sullyoon gives Haewon a small smile before leaving the two alone. The older girl starts to disinfect the wound with a small antiseptic towel before slowly bandaging her knee.
“Thanks…,” Haewon mumbles awkwardly.
“It’s nothing,” Lily responds.
ᯓ⚾︎
Haewon falls to the ground on her knees, weakly hitting the acrylic floor with her fist in immense disappointment.
“I-it wasn’t that bad!” Lily exclaims anxiously.
The two had a few rallies after practice before Haewon decided she wanted to teach Lily how to smash the ball at net. Big mistake.
“Seriously…no one ever taught you how to hit overhead? Not even Sullyoon?” Haewon practically pleads.
Lily scratches the back of her head, still catching her breath from the intensity of the younger’s expectations during practice together. She’s never been great at playing net, still unfamiliar with volleys and dodging tennis balls that fly straight towards her face.
“She tried…?” She admits nervously.
Haewon sighs before slowly getting up off the ground and approaching Lily.
“You’re doing it all wrong,” the younger girl starts, gently grabbing Lily’s wrist in one hand and the racket in her other.
Haewon’s breath hitches in surprise at her own boldness and how close Lily is right now to her face, but she desperately tries to ignore it, instead focusing on this much more important lesson.
“When your racket goes down onto the ball, you tend to flick your wrist down to mimic the motion of the racket tilting downwards.” Haewon lowers the racket, showing Lily the motion of it turning downwards as if hitting a ball.
Haewon’s grip on Lily’s wrist tightens ever so slightly. She can feel the older’s shaky breath lightly fanning her ear and is unsure if it’s due to the exhaustion of practice taking a toll on the athlete’s oxygen intake or something else entirely. Haewon adjusts her grip so it's covering more of Lily’s hand, cold skin gently brushing the warmth of Lily's.
“You don’t want to flick your wrist though,” the younger continues, tilting Lily’s hand upwards to show how it should be stationed. “It’ll make the movement of smashing the ball unstable, which is why your grip keeps wavering whenever you try doing that, and it ends up hitting the net or going off to the side.”
Lily blinks, Haewon noticing the older’s surprise at the levelheadedness of her explanation in contrast to the barrage of insults she threw at the girl earlier.
Haewon slowly lets go of Lily, and the latter raises her racket before making the motion of slamming a ball down, this time without moving her wrist. The younger girl breaks into a small smile, slightly surprised at how quickly Lily was able to understand her instructions.
“That was good. Keep practicing it like that and you’ll be fine at net,” Haewon concludes, waving the older athlete off as she starts to approach her tennis bag.
Lily stands there awkwardly for a moment, Haewon unsure of why she isn’t moving. Then, the older girl walks, although very stiffly, back to the bleachers. The two start to silently pack up their belongings. Haewon glances to the side at Lily, watching as the older girl fumbles with her bag as she pushes her tennis racket inside and zips it up.
Haewon takes a second to think about Lily’s playstyle. Lily uses a burnt-orange Pro Staff 97, which helps with precision, but is a little more difficult to handle in terms of stability. It does give Lily more opportunities to utilize her consistent power shots since it’s head-light, though, which explains why she uses it.
It still doesn’t make sense, though; consistent power shots and quick footwork are a staple for singles players. Doubles is more like…knowing where to stand and how to ragebait everyone around you. Neither Haewon nor Lily belong in this category.
There’s a new tension between the two of them that Haewon failed to notice until now. As the sun begins to set, she can see a shimmer in Lily’s eyes that reflects the sun, and Haewon can’t tear her gaze away for some unexplainable reason.
Haewon sets her bag down once it's completely zipped up and sits on the bleachers beside Lily’s equipment. The older girl finishes packing up as well.
“Aren’t you leaving?” Lily asks.
Haewon doesn’t waver, simply looking forward towards the courts as she responds.
“Thought you could use some company.”
Mid-slinging her tennis bag on, Lily’s movements stutter. She stares down at Haewon with an unreadable expression before avoiding her gaze, also looking to the courts.
“Finally warming up to your partner, Haewon?” Lily jokes, though Haewon can hear the genuine curiosity in her question.
She grins, her expression softening as she stands up and pulls her bag on as well.
“You wish, Morrow.”