Chapter 1
Scott exhaled and ran full-force for the net, his arms swinging behind him for momentum. He stretched as high as he could, and his eyes flicked from the net to the volleyball—and then to a person straight out of his dreams.
Scott lost track of where he was in the air, and his feet never found the ground.
His hands slapped against the ground, and he barely caught his weight before his forehead did any more than tap the floor. Luckily, he didn't seem to have a bloody nose, and his braces hadn't cut the inside of his lips—blood meant going to the nurse and, dear lord, he didn't want to leave the gym. Not if his eyes weren't deceiving him and the new person by the door, definitely not a member of his volleyball team, actually existed.
Scott's teammates surrounded him in a split second with gasps and shouts of, "Scott, are you okay?"
"I'm okay," Scott reassured them. He pushed himself up on his red, scraped hands and clambered to his feet.
Scott rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment and redirected his attention to his captain and the new person in the gym.
The new guy stood looking at Scott with a camera clutched in white-knuckled hands. His entire body tensed, and his face drained of blood.
Scott felt more dumbfounded looking at him now than he had when he'd been face-down on the gym floor.
Scott didn't think a person that gorgeous could exist in the mortal world, much less twenty feet away from him in a high school gym—despite his shocked expression from watching Scott's grandiose fall. Slight frame, long black hair half tied back, with dark glasses framing dark eyes.
"What was it you needed?" Kenneth, the captain of the team, asked the new guy at the door.
The new guy took a second and blinked before responding. "I'm from the yearbook staff, and I wanted to see if it would be okay for me to take some pictures of your practice." His voice was quiet, barely audible between the squeaking shoes and hitting balls—even to Scott, who clung to every word.
"Yeah, that's fine. Just be careful of any rogue balls flying around," Kenneth said with a grin.
The guy with the camera nodded shyly. "Thank you."
"Scott, you should sit down for a few minutes," Kenneth said and clapped his hand on Scott's shoulder.
Scott broke out of his mesmerized reverie. He winced at a sharp twinge in his knee, switched his weight to the other foot, and forced an overly enthusiastic, "All right!"
"Want some ice for your knee?" Kenneth asked, his brows knitted with concern, carefully walking beside Scott as he ambled his way to the bleachers.
"Uh—" Scott tried to put most of his weight on his right leg and inhaled sharply in pain. "Yes, please."
Kenneth called out to the rest of the team that he would be right back, and jogged out of the gym.
Scott dropped heavily onto the lowest level of the bleachers, gritting his back teeth as he slid his kneepad down to his ankle.
He sighed, shutting his eyes. Awareness seeped into him: just how extremely uncool he must have looked in front of the yearbook staff guy, who stood cautiously distant from the side of the volleyball net with his camera covering his face. Scott fell into deep regret for every single decision in his life that led him up to that moment. What an awful first impression.
Scott was drenched in sweat and a wet sweatband pulled his troublesome hair back into god-knows-what mess of a style by now. He rubbed at the tender spot in the middle of his forehead where it'd hit the ground and then rubbed his sore palms the same way. His eyes scanned the gym for the yearbook staff guy and spotted him again. Scott wondered who he was and, more importantly, how the hell he hadn't ever seen him at school before.
Granted, he'd only been in high school for a couple of months, but the fact that he'd never seen the yearbook staff guy the entire time felt like heresy.
Scott watched the guy work, charmed at how timid he seemed moving around the team's practice. He looked tiny compared to the towering volleyball players, so very out of place in his baggy navy blue t-shirt and fitted jeans in a pool of sweaty practice tank tops, shorts, and knee pads.
Kenneth returned with the ice pack; he eyed the swelling in Scott's knee. "Should I go grab one of the coaches?" he asked; both of the coaches were in a staff development meeting.
"No, I'm okay," Scott said, shaking his head without looking at Kenneth, trying not to lose sight of the yearbook guy.
Kenneth slid a chair over for Scott to prop his leg on. "Are you even paying attention to practice, Scott?" he asked, amusement in his tone as he held out the ice pack.
"What? Yeah," Scott said too defensively. He pressed the ice pack gingerly to his knee and grimaced against the cold.
Kenneth pursed his lips, unconvinced, and all Scott could offer him was a guilty smile. Kenneth returned to practice, smiling and shaking his head.
The yearbook staff guy made his way around the gym, snapping photo after photo. He seemed to disappear behind the athletes, weaving on and off the court—flinching slightly at the team’s sudden movements or the balls flying his way—until he landed just steps away from Scott.
The yearbook staff guy glanced behind him and met eyes with Scott for the first time.
Scott jolted in place, heart jumping into his throat.
With an unsure expression, the yearbook guy made his way toward Scott.
Anxiety bubbled relentlessly in Scott's stomach. He sat up straighter in his seat and he wished that he didn't have a fucking ice pack on one knee and a knee pad on the other—so brutally uncool—or that he knew what his hair looked like, or that his cheeks didn't feel as hot as they already did.
"Um—" the yearbook guy began, standing just on the other side of the chair where Scott's foot rested. "Are you all right?"
The rest of Scott's face filled with heat and his throat felt strange, like he wouldn't be able to speak properly ever again. "Yeah, uh—" He cleared his throat. "I'm fine."
The yearbook guy fidgeted with the camera in his hands, met Scott's eyes again, and then looked away just as quickly. "It looked like you fell really hard." He had a bit of an accent, Scott noticed now that they spoke directly.
Scott shrugged, trying to seem cool about the whole thing while his insides twisted with embarrassment. "I've had worse."
The yearbook guy's eyes widened again.
Scott averted his eyes to the ice pack on his knee so his glowing face didn't become a light source. "Do you want to sit here for a minute?" he asked in a fell swoop of confidence.
"Um, sure," the yearbook guy said, and moved to sit next to Scott on the bleachers, far enough away that he wouldn't be able to smell how sweaty Scott was—or at least Scott prayed as much.
"What's your name?" Scott asked, faking casual confidence better than he ever had before in his entire life. Up close, he could see the black elastic holding the top half of the yearbook guy's hair loosely away from his face and all of the wispy strands that had escaped around his hairline.
"Min," he said, holding the camera in his lap, scrolling back through some of the pictures he'd taken already. "Min Cho."
Scott repeated the name a million times in his mind. "I'm Scott Keller," he said, forcing a smile despite the nerves twittering in his gut. "Uh—It's nice to meet you."
Min glanced over at Scott, a small smile on his lips. "Yeah, nice to meet you, Scott Keller."
Fuck, Scott wasn't going to make it out alive. "Are you a freshman?"
Min nodded and adjusted his glasses on his nose. "Are you?"
Scott nodded as well. He readjusted the ice on his knee and tried not to flinch too visibly at the new patch of cold against his skin.
"What position do you play on the team?" Min asked. He tucked a piece of loose hair behind his ear, and Scott was damn near close to fainting.
"I'm not officially on the regular rotation yet, but in middle school, I was an outside hitter," Scott said. He tested his ability to lower his knee off the chair. It a little seemed better now, less swollen.
"I don't really know what that means," Min said apologetically
"I basically pass, spike, and block," he said. "And serve and stuff, too."
"That seems like a lot," Min said, eyebrows rising.
"It is a lot, but it's fun. And I'm good at it." He felt an instant wave of regret for his boasting. "I think so, at least. I don't know if I actually am or not, I just meant that—" He broke off when he saw Min hide a snicker behind his hand.
"I bet you're good at it."
Scott's heart went into overdrive and he bit back a huge, goofy smile. "What do you do on yearbook staff? Do you like photography?" he asked eagerly.
"Not really," Min said with a shrug. "It's just a class. Visiting a sports team's practice and taking pictures is part of our grade."
"So, yearbook isn't your true passion?"
Min laughed, and Scott swelled with pride. "No, just an elective credit." He set the camera beside him on the bleachers and then nodded towards the practice in session. "Are you going pro?"
Scott laughed as well, heart leaping. "No way."
"No? You're not going to the Olympics?" He paused and furrowed his brow unsurely. "Volleyball is in the Olympics, right?"
The face Min made, brow scrunched, lips pursed, was so fucking cute Scott didn't know how much more he could handle before he melted into bubbling, nervous goo on the ground. "Yeah, it is. But I definitely wouldn't be on the team." He hesitated before the next part. "I want to go to art school."
"Yeah?" Min asked, his brows raising again. "That's cool. I want to go to dance school."
"You dance?"
Min nodded, looking down shyly at his hands.
"Like hip-hop, or what?"
Min grinned up at him, and it just about knocked Scott backward. "No, like ballet."
"Oh, no way! That's really cool." He meant it honestly, but he felt like he was trying too hard to sound genuine and it came off just the opposite.
Min snorted good-naturedly. "No, it isn't."
Scott grinned. "I think it's cool. I draw comic book characters for fun," he admitted, feeling himself flush again. "I would definitely know what's actually uncool."
Min laughed again, and it was music to Scott's ears. He felt himself melting and becoming one with the bleachers.
"Scott, how's the knee?" Kenneth called out to him.
Scott's head whipped around, and he was abruptly reminded of the world outside of his and Min's conversation; the world that included his volleyball team, and his responsibility to practice with them. He considered lying, just for a chance to sit and talk with Min a little longer. But he couldn't will himself to do so. "Better, I think."
"We need you for pairs. And don't keep him from doing his job for the yearbook."
Scott heated up; he wondered if it was really that obvious how immediate of a crush he had on Min Cho. He stood tentatively on his knee and sighed with relief when it felt normal. "Uh—I—It was nice talking to you," Scott said, cursed himself for stammering, and gave Min a wave before walking back to the middle of the court.
"Yeah, you too," Min said with another small, shy smile that made Scott weak.
Knowing that Min was photographing the practice made Scott want to show off, while also making him so self-conscious that he couldn't. He tried to pay attention as the balls flew towards him, but he couldn't stop his eyes from darting around to find the navy-blue shirt amongst the red and white practice jerseys.
Scott managed to hit every pass served to him, at least. And he didn't fall on his ass even once. And he didn't let any balls hit him in the face. And that was as much of a win as he could count.
"Uh—thanks for letting me take pictures," Min called from the gym doors after a few more minutes of practice.
"Yeah, no problem," Kenneth called back with a wave.
Scott met his eye a final time and gave him another smile and wave.
When Min smiled in return, Scott's heart leaped all the way out of his body.
Just as the gym doors shut behind Min, Scott heard Kenneth worriedly yell, "Scott!", and he turned his head just in time to dodge a ball coming straight for his head.
"Jesus, Scott!" Kenneth yelled through laughter as Scott cursed under his breath.
He jogged to get the ball and, with a grin, passed it back over the net. "Sorry, captain."
