Chapter Text
Someone must have whacked her in the head last night. Maybe with a hammer. Or a club? That sounds more accurate: somebody snuck into the party, beat her with a club, and then stuck a dead rat in her mouth to rot while she was passed out. Hyejoo tries not to gag on the taste, doing her best to drag herself out of bed and over to the bathroom. She only makes it a few steps before face planting on the cool wood floor. She can’t remember a time she’s ever felt this--this shitty. What did she even drink last night? She has no clue. Will she ever have another sip of alcohol? Not if she can help it. This is a harsh lesson to learn, but she supposes it’s one she was going to receive eventually. Now, if she can just drag herself to the bathroom and wash the funk from her mouth.
It takes her the better part of two minutes to make it the remaining ten feet. She uses the sink as leverage to hoist herself up, cringing as she catches sight of her reflection in the mirror. Her eyes are smudged with remnants of the makeup she had put on last night, and there’s a small bump forming on her forehead from her fall. She has to brush her teeth twice as long to finally feel somewhat clean, and splashes cold water on her face to help wake her up. Hyejoo stares at her reflection a while longer before heading downstairs to get a drink of water.
Surprisingly, she’s not the first one awake. Heejin stands in the kitchen, blending up some sort of smoothie. It’s a brownish-green color, and Hyejoo’s brow furrows in concern when she sees it.
“Good morning,” Heejin smiles, “Want some? It works wonders for a hangover.”
Normally, Hyejoo would say no, but her skull feels like it’s splitting open and she just wants the pain to go away.
Heejin grabs a trash bag from under the sink and sweeps her arm over the kitchen island, effectively clearing all the empty cans and bottles from last night. She sets down two clean cups and fills them both halfway.
“Trust me on this, it tastes better if you chug.”
They clink glasses and quickly down the beverage. It takes all of two seconds for Hyejoo to forget her headache. Unfortunately for her, it’s because a wave of nausea is now all she can think about. She runs to the restroom, barely making it to the toilet before emptying the contents of her stomach. A slender hand flushes for her, and then moves to hold back her hair as she throws up again.
“You drank Heejin’s ‘hangover cure’ didn’t you?” Chaewon says. “Yerim made the same mistake after our welcome party last year.”
Hyejoo spits into the toilet bowl and then wipes at her mouth.
“I’ll go get you some water. You can use my mouthwash if you want.” Chaewon quickly ties up Hyejoo’s hair with a pink scrunchie before exiting the bathroom.
The freshman gladly takes her up on that offer, swishing around almost a full cup of the liquid at once. The mintiness burns and makes her eyes tear up, but she hates the taste of vomit with a passion.
It doesn’t take long for Chaewon to return with the water, and Hyejoo mumbles out a thank you before gulping it down.
“You look really cute right now,” the older girl giggles. “Like a kid that got into her mom's makeup.”
Hyejoo’s ears heat up, and she ducks her head in embarrassment at the compliment.
“Yerim and Haseul should be up soon to make breakfast before we have to leave for the gym.”
“The gym?”
“Yeah…did you forget today was the first day of conditioning?”
“You mean to tell me I have to go run laps and exercise after everything that happened last night?” Hyejoo whines.
“It won’t be that bad. Vivi and Haseul run the drills and they usually ease up on days after a big party.”
“I’m gonna die.”
“Who’s gonna die?” Hyunjin asks as she walks into the restroom. She grabs her tooth brush and turns to the other two, waiting for an answer to her question.
“Hyejoo.” Chaewon grabs her own toothbrush, holding it out for Hyunjin to squeeze toothpaste onto.
“How come nobody told me we had conditioning today?” she sulks.
Hyunjin shrugs, “It’s written on the calendar in the kitchen. That’s your fault for not checking.”
“Alright everyone, go take a seat! Breakfast is almost ready!” Yerim shoos them all out of the kitchen. The bean sprout soup that's simmering away on the stove smells amazing, and Yeojin feels her stomach rumble. She had woken up about 30 minutes ago with a killer headache and the worst dry mouth she’d ever had. Luckily, a quick brush of her teeth and about four glasses of water had helped with both.
“Dear God, thank you for this meal,” Jinsoul clasps her hands together.
“Um, I don’t recall seeing God in the kitchen with me while I was cooking,” Haseul frowns.
“Dear God, thank you for creating Haseul,” the blonde corrects herself.
“Amen,” Sooyoung reaches for the kimchi fried rice, only to have Vivi smack her hand away.
“Youngest eats first.”
“Oh, fuck yeah ,” Yeojin reaches for the pot of bean sprout soup, filling her bowl up before loading her plate with kimchi fried rice and grilled pork belly. Sooyoung and Jinsoul watch with uncontained jealousy as they freshman pile serving after serving onto their plates.
Even with the amount they grab, there’s barely a dent in the food on the table. Yerim and Haseul are a powerful duo in the kitchen, and they never fail to overestimate. The two youngest don’t bother to wait for the rest of the girls before digging in.
“Is it good?” Haseul asks, a look of motherly adoration on her face as she watches her two new children shovel food into their mouths.
Hyejoo nods. She’s not sure if it’s due to the recent memory of the liquid trash Heejin made her drink earlier, but she has to physically hold back tears when she takes her first bite of pork belly.
“I’m gonna die here,” Yeojin dramatically flops down onto the floor next to Chaewon. Her legs feel like jello, and there’s a metallic taste in her mouth. She’s been out of practice for the last few months--with no coach around, it’s been hard to keep up with her drills.
“We’re lucky today,” Chaewon smiles, “Usually Haseul makes us run three miles instead of one.”
“Th-three?” Yeojin squeaks out.
“Just wait until playoff season,” Hyunjin joins them on the ground, “Then it’s an hour straight.”
Yeojin’s close to passing out at the thought.
“Don’t scare her,” Sooyoung smacks her younger teammate upside the head.
“Yeah,” Haseul grins, “You and Heejin are the only ones who I made run for an hour.”
“Ugh don’t remind me,” Heejin whines, “That was horrible.”
“Shouldn’t have pissed me off,” Haseul shrugs.
“It was her fault,” she points a finger at Hyunjin, “not mine.”
“Alright, stay on Haseul’s good side. Noted,” Yeojin mumbles.
The last of the girls finish up their final lap and join their teammates on the floor. Haseul gives them all a five minute cool-down period before Vivi starts them on stretches.
Hyejoo’s not sure how the rest of her teammates are so upbeat. She’s sure she wasn’t the drunkest one at the party, but nobody else seems to be as hungover. Even Yeojin looks semi-decent.
“Pay attention kid,” Sooyoung claps her on the back, “Or you’re gonna end up with a ball to the face.”
Right on cue Jinsoul throws a pass her way, and she barely reacts in time to catch it. She throws it out to Yerim, and the three of them start a passing weave up the court. Heejin, Vivi, and Jungeun wait for them on the other side of the half-court line, ready to start a 3v3 once they cross it. The drill ends pretty quickly, with Yerim sending in a perfect three the second Jinsoul passes the ball.
“Nice one,” Hyejoo high-fives her as they make their way to the back of the line. They continue the weaving drill until all girls have gone through five sets. Then they split off into two groups: forwards and centers in one, guards in the other.
The guards line up for a 1v1 layup drill, while the forwards and centers start working on jump-shots. They remain separated for the next hour and a half, running their own sets of drills on opposite sides of the court.
“Okay, everyone take a quick five and then huddle up!” Haseul instructs.
The girls accept the break with relief, chugging down water before circling up in the middle of the court. Haseul joins them, a mini whiteboard and a marker in her hands. She quickly draws up a tournament bracket, “Okay, we’re doing three-on-threes, first ones to ten points win. Tournament winners end practice with twenty free-throws, second place does thirty, third does fourty, last place does fifty. I’ll choose teams.”
Haseul splits them up into four groups:
- Jinsoul, Yerim, Yeojin
- Haseul, Hyunjin, Heejin
- Vivi, Hyejoo, Jiwoo
- Sooyoung, Chaewon, Jungeun
Jinsoul and Sooyoung’s teams are the first to go up. It’s a close match, and Jinsoul’s team barely wins thanks to a clutch jump-shot from Yerim. She throws up a peace sign and winks at the other team before Jinsoul and Yeojin crush her in a hug. The next match is nowhere near as close, Vivi’s team easily making it to ten before Haseul’s even reaches five. The captain looks pissed at the end, pulling her two teammates aside and whispering harshly to them. ‘-- left on good terms last year, so pull it together,’ Hyejoo hears a snippet of the conversation and cringes.
“They never learn,” Jiwoo sighs, settling down next to Hyejoo to watch the next scrimmage.
“What’s up with them anyways? They seemed like friends at the party…”
“They are friends…kinda.” Jiwoo groans, “I don’t know; they went to rival high schools or something and their chemistry on the court has always been a bit off. The end of last year was like a golden period and they were playing really well together but…”
“ But ?”
The older girl shrugs, “They had some sort of fight at our end of year party. Nobody’s really sure what happened but they’ve been off their game ever since.”
“Oh,” Hyejoo turns her attention to the court, watching as Hyunjin ignores Heejin in favor of a three-pointer. Her shot bounces off the rim, and Sooyoung quickly rebounds, sending the ball over to Chaewon for a break-away. The tiny blonde makes a layup, and her team cheers in victory as they secure third place. On the other side of the court Haseul has to physically restrain Heejin from attacking her teammate. She’s screaming about selfishness and ball-hogging as Hyunjin stews in her own anger, disappointment at missing the shot clear on her face. Jungeun takes Heejin by the arm and leads her over to the bench, making sure to seat her at the end so she’s nowhere near Hyunjin.
“C’mon,” Jiwoo nudges Hyejoo, “Let’s get this over with.”
The final match is just as close as the first one. It’s ultimately Yeojin’s free throw that ends the game in Jinsoul’s team’s favor, and Hyejoo curses herself for accidentally fouling the other freshman.
“No worries. Thirty free throws is nothing,” Vivi places a comforting hand on her back. Hyejoo just sighs, watching as Jinsoul parades Yeojin around on her shoulders, Yerim skipping along behind them.
“Dibs on the downstairs shower!”
Jinsoul barrels past her teammates and into the house, making a mad dash for the restroom before anyone else has time to react. The rest of them (minus Sooyoung who goes chasing after her roommate) play a few civil rounds of rock paper scissors to determine a showering order. Luckily for the team, the house they’re living in has three bathrooms. Hyejoo and Chaewon are bottom of the list, and they choose to go sit outside and enjoy the weather.
“I totally forgot you guys have a pool,” Hyejoo dips her feet into the water, kicking them around a little to make the water ripple.
“Yeah, it’s nice in the summer,” Chaewon smiles, “But not so nice in the winter. Someone always falls in and gets sick.”
“Really?”
“Last year it was Hyunjin--although it wasn’t so much a fall as it was a push.”
“Did Heejin push her?”
“No way. She wouldn’t be alive if she had.”
“Oh,” Hyejoo’s brow furrows as she thinks, “Jinsoul?”
“Guess again.”
“Ugh, you have to give me a hint there’s too many choices.”
“Okay,” Chaewon pauses, “It’s someone you wouldn’t expect.”
“Hm…Yerim?”
“Bingo.”
“Really?”
“Yeah,” Chaewon giggles at the memory, “She jumped in after for ‘solidarity’. Lucky for her, Hyunjin seems to have a soft spot, so she wasn’t that mad.”
Hyejoo smiles at the mental image of her teammate flailing around in the pool. “Did you guys get to live here last year?”
“No. Freshman always have to live in the dorms. But we spent almost all our time here. You guys probably will too; the campus is a bit of a far walk when you’re shitfaced.”
Hyejoo leans back, laying her head on the ground next to Chaewon’s. “So we all have to live here once we’re sophomores?”
“Well, there’s no ‘have to’, but most of the team does. I think Vivi’s one of the only ones who didn’t start living here until her junior year, but that was mostly because she was red-shirting her second year.”
“Wait, so Vivi’s the oldest?”
“Yeah. She’s a fifth-year right now, but she's a winter baby so she’s still twenty-two. Sooyoung and Jinsoul are also twenty-two. Haseul will be turning twenty-two in a week, but right now her and Jungeun are both twenty-one. Jiwoo is twenty, and Heejin, Hyunjin, Yerim, and I are all nineteen; but Yerim barely turned nineteen. The rest of us are turning twenty this year.”
“So Yerim’s technically my age?”
Chaewon nods, “Her parents started her early so she’s a grade above, but she should actually be the same year as you.”
“Ah, okay.” Hyejoo’s quiet for a moment before she processes something else Chaewon had said, “Wait Haseul is younger than Jinsoul and Sooyoung?”
The hot water feels like heaven on Yeojin’s aching muscles. She doesn’t remember ever having such an intense practice, and this was technically just conditioning. The real practicing doesn’t start until a few weeks into the semester.
I guess this is what college basketball is.
Yeojin rinses the soap from her body before shutting off the water. She quickly changes into her sweats and t-shirt, frowning at the hole she finds near the hem. She pokes her pinky through, wriggling it around a bit.
“Heh, worm,” she chuckles to herself.
Hyejoo is waiting outside the restroom when she exits, towel slung over her shoulders and clean clothes in hand. “You take long showers,” she comments.
“Sorry I don’t like to be dirty ,” Yeojin scoffs.
Hyejoo grins, giving her fellow freshman a pat on the back before entering the restroom. Yeojin walks down the hall to Heejin’s room. Although she and Hyejoo had slept in Jungeun and Jiwoo’s room last night, Heejin had offered up hers to them for the rest of the week.
She dumps her practice attire into the extra laundry basket Haseul had given to them before flopping down on the bed. Her headache from this morning has made a reappearance, and she shuts her eyes in hopes that it might take away the dull pounding.
Heejin’s room is facing west, which means that at this time of day the sun streams in through her bedside window. It creates a perfect square of warmth, and Yeojin curls her knees to her chest so her whole body can bask in it. Before she knows it, she’s dozed off.
A phone alarm wakes her up a few hours later. The room is mostly dark, and the only light there is streams in from the hallway through the crack under the door.
The alarm shuts off, and Yeojin feels the bed shift before another back brushes up against hers. Her brain takes a moment to realize it’s probably Hyejoo, and she relaxes again, falling back asleep minutes later.
“Rise and shine sleeping beauties.”
The freshman wake up to Jinsoul and Sooyoung holding flashlights under their chins, lighting up the ominous grins on their faces. Hyejoo grabs one of Heejin’s pillows and throws it at them, knocking the light from Sooyoung’s hands.
“Hey,” she pouts, “That was rude.”
“Waking us up like this is rude,” Yeojin grumbles.
“Just hurry and get up, we want to get the fire started,” Jinsoul flicks on the room lights as the two seniors exit.
“Fire?”
Jiwoo runs around the firepit, double fisting two skewers with roasted marshmallows. Jungeun watches her fondly from a few feet away, beer in hand.
“So how long have you two been together?” Hyejoo asks, munching on a s’more.
“Almost five years.”
“F-five,” she almost chokes.
“Four years, ten months, and six days,” Jiwoo pops up next to them, handing over a freshly-made s’more to her girlfriend. “Jungeun can’t do math, so I keep count.”
“ Hey --” her protest is cut off by a kiss, and then Jiwoo is on the move again--presumably to find more marshmallows.
Across the yard, Vivi, Hyunjin, Chaewon, Sooyoung, and Jinsoul are locked in a heated game of rage cage. Yeojin and Haseul are refereeing (Jinsoul and Sooyoung like to cheat). There’s a bucket of ping pong balls in Yeojin’s hands, ready to be handed to the players if the one of the ones they’re using bounces off the table. There’s only two cups left in the middle, one with beer and one with a drink that the girls had mixed up earlier. Hyunjin quickly bounces the ball into the cup and stacks Chaewon. She grabs the beer cups and chugs as the stack makes its way back around the circle. Ultimately, it’s Jinsoul who loses, and she grabs the last drink with a grimace.
“I regret adding all that tequila,” she mumbles before chugging it down. The rest of the girls cheer, dancing around her in victory.
“Now that your guys’ game is done, are we ready for movies?” Yerim calls out to them from the fire pit.
Haseul gives a thumbs up and Yerim and Heejin make quick work of putting out the fire.
“That was nasty,” Jinsoul clutches her stomach.
Sooyoung rubs her back, a look of concern on her face, “Want a shot to cleanse your palette?”
She gets a shove in response.
It’s close to three in the morning, and they’ve moved onto their third scary movie of the night. Haseul, Vivi, Jiwoo, and Jungeun had all left for their rooms a few hours ago, eyes heavy with sleep. The rest of the girls had spread out on the couch and the rug, grabbing a multitude of blankets from their beds and the closets to create a giant floor mattress. Heejin had curled up on the loveseat, and it took less than half an hour for her to be snoring away. Hyunjin, Chaewon, and Hyejoo were laying in a row on the floor, the two oldest cuddling together as people were hacked to pieces on screen.
Jinsoul and Sooyoung had taken the majority of the sectional, laying head to head at one corner. They were both scrolling through their phones, occasionally giggling and showing the other something that had popped up on the screen. Yeojin and Yerim had squeezed into the third part of the sectional, practically on top of each other due to the small amount of space.
“Do you guys throw parties every night?” Yeojin asks.
Yerim turns her attention away from the TV at the question, “Well, technically this isn’t a party. It’s team bonding,”
“...”
“But no , we’re just getting it out of our system before school starts up.”
“Ah, okay…do we have conditioning again tomorrow?”
“Oh Yeojin, you’ll learn quickly that we always have conditioning,” she gives her a little pat on the cheek, and the younger girl feels her face flush.
Yerim turns back to the movie, and Yeojin watches her side profile for a moment, doing her best to ignore the butterflies in her stomach.