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Tall stature, broad shoulders, long legs.
Every time he swung his racket at a precise angle, the muscles across his entire body moved like gentle ripples. She was the one who had watched from close range exactly what kind of effort he put in every day to become like that.
Bending his knees slightly and fixing his deep blue eyes—dark as lapis lazuli—on his opponent, Hunter wiped a bead of sweat trickling down his chin with his wristband.
‘Was his profile always like that?’
Sweat-soaked brown hair draped halfway over his headband. Beneath it, a straight forehead was revealed. Bordered by thick, slightly upturned eyebrows, the area between his brows dipped like a groove, and a sharp, smooth bridge of a nose rose elegantly.
Thwack!
The ball, driven into the left corner of the opposite court with a forehand slice, bounced in a direction as unpredictable as Hunter's personality. Dmitri lunged into a slide, stretching his arm out fully, but missed the ball by a hair's breadth. Having secured the game point, Hunter clenched his fist and gave a thin smile.
Jiyu felt a sudden, inexplicable sense of defeat.
‘…He really is handsome.’
After knowing him for some nine years, she reluctantly admitted the fact.
Why hadn't she noticed until now? Was it because it was a face she saw every day? Or because she had never looked at Hunter for this long?
Jiyu stared at him blankly, then startled at the sound of the crowd's applause and looked around.
The score for the first set was 6:3.
It was a victory for Hunter, who had started the set with a powerful offensive.
Before switching courts after the first set, a three-minute break was given. Approaching the player's bench, Hunter grabbed an electrolyte drink and twisted the cap open before he could even wipe away his sweat.
Every time he swallowed the strange-tasting sports drink—where salt was masked by sweetness—his prominent Adam's apple bobbed.
Even though she wasn't the one playing, Jiyu felt her throat go dry just from watching him. Swallowing hard, she took a water bottle out of her bag and took a sip.
As the break neared its end, Hunter rose from the bench and caught her eye as he passed the sideline. Then, he pointed to himself with his finger once more. He was telling her to keep watching.
Jiyu lowered her head, avoiding his gaze. She felt as though she shouldn't look at Hunter any longer.
A sense of crisis, as if something too big for her to handle was about to happen.
It felt like déjà vu.
The treehouse on a rainy day. When Hunter had stared intently at her lips, she had felt the urge to run away somewhere, too.
The second set began. Jiyu repeatedly caught her gaze, which kept drifting toward Hunter, and forced it to stay fixed on Dmitri.
Entering the court with a fierce expression and grinding his teeth, Dmitri relentlessly used dirty tactics to provoke Hunter.
Whenever Hunter's concentration wavered and he committed consecutive serve errors resulting in a double fault, Dmitri would shout "Yes!" loudly for all to hear and punch the air. Furthermore, every time he received a ball, he let out a "grunting" sound like a pig being slaughtered, grating on the nerves of the spectators. After winning a point following a long, tense rally, he would leap up, laugh loudly, and even incite the stands to applaud.
Jiyu frowned.
She had heard stories about players who played dirty, but this was her first time seeing it in person. In the junior level, where sportsmanship is valued more than winning, such blatantly mannerless play was extremely rare.
Glancing sideways with an anxious heart, she saw that Hunter looked furious. However, the fact that he was suppressing his anger and not flying off the handle, and that he wasn't retaliating with the same dirty play, was a remarkable improvement.
Dmitri, who had brought the score from 4:3 to a 4:4 tie, eventually turned it around to 4:6 and took the second set.
Each had won one set.
Before the final set to decide the match, a three-minute break and coaching were permitted. As soon as the set ended, Jake rushed toward the player's bench.
Hunter, who had to fight while enduring external factors on top of an opponent who was already overwhelming in skill, was drenched in sweat to the point that his entire body glistened.
He nodded absently to the words Jake was passionately pouring out, while replacing his sweat-soaked, dark navy wristbands and headband with new ones. Then, he looked up, glared at Jiyu, and flicked his index finger.
Watching him with a nervous heart, Jiyu's shoulders flinched. She looked around, wondering if he was talking to her, but the seats beside her were empty. As she hesitated and lingered, Hunter furrowed his brow deeply and glared. He was telling her to get over here, quickly.
Standing up hesitantly, she approached the player's bench with short, quick steps. She couldn't fathom why he was calling her at such a precious moment. However, knowing that every second counted, she couldn't pretend not to notice.
As soon as Jiyu approached the bench, Hunter, breathing heavily, pressed her.
"Where on earth are you looking!"
"Uh…?"
Sweat dripped like rain from the ends of the hair hanging halfway over his headband.
"I told you to focus on me," he spat through his teeth.
It seemed he had noticed that she had intentionally ignored him throughout the second set.
Did he lose focus in the match because of that?
No way… that can't be it.
Flustered, Jiyu nodded her head.
"O-okay. I'll focus."
After glaring at her for a moment, Hunter huffed and rummaged through his tennis bag. Then, he abruptly held something out.
"Put this on. Now."
It was the dampener she had given him.
I gave it to him to tease him, and he actually wants to use it?
When Hunter pushed the racket toward her, she reflexively took the racket and the dampener.
Beside them, Jake pulled on Hunter to get his attention.
"Hunter, listen to me carefully. Improve your accuracy when hitting the kick serve. Don't rotate your forearm too much so the angle doesn't twist. And the battering ram strategy we talked about earlier, remember? Don't forget to send the ball toward the backhand side as much as possible. And above all, don't get caught up in childish provocations. Got it?"
Looking at the large digital clock on the wall, Jiyu carefully removed the blue dampener attached to the racket with trembling hands. While nodding to Jake's continuous stream of advice, Hunter frequently glanced at her from the corner of his eye.
If he was willing to put the dampener she gave him on his racket despite the embarrassment, it meant he viewed this situation as an emergency. Once that thought occurred to her, Jiyu also became urgent.
Under the pressure of having to attach the dampener before the third set began, she tore the packaging clumsily. In the process, she cut her finger on the sharp plastic. It stung, and a thin line of blood soon appeared, but she had no room to care.
Only after attaching the pink dampener—stamped with a lip shape—to the center of the very last string did she let out the breath she had been holding.
"Here."
Jiyu held the racket out to Hunter. And just before he took the racket, she impulsively placed two fingers on her own lips, then lightly touched those fingers to the lip pattern on the dampener.
Having done so, she gasped, startled by her own action. Her cheeks flushed red in an instant.
Frozen like a statue in his reaching posture, Hunter moved only his eyes to look down at the dampener. Then, his gaze slowly rose again and stopped on her lips. Flustered by the blunt, almost explicit gaze, Jiyu covered her lips with the back of her hand and lowered her head deeply.
Just then, the umpire climbed back onto the high chair and announced the resumption of the match. Hunter looked at the umpire and only then took the racket.
It was time to return to her seat.
Biting her lip hard, Jiyu squeezed out her courage. She lifted her burning face to meet his eyes. Hunter was staring at her with eyes like deep blue bullets. Every time his broad, angular shoulders heaved, hot and irregular breaths poured out.
Stepping backward toward the bleachers, Jiyu shouted softly, just loud enough for Hunter to hear.
"Hunter! You have to win!"
She was surprised by the fact that she was sincerely rooting for him. After seeing his desperate heart—to the point of employing a pink dampener with a childish pattern given as a joke—she too no longer wanted to see him lose.
His dark, hardened expression softened slightly, and the corner of his mouth twitched. He quickly pressed his lips together and gave a short nod.
"Of course I will."
Pushing aside the anger and anxiety, a reckless and bold confidence returned to his eyes. Now, he seemed like the Hunter she knew.
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