Summary: He is a rookie, a basketball sensation, loved by many and revered by all. She is a nerd, a geeky joke on legs, scoffed by many and bullied by all. No wait—scrap that…now, reverse.

Author: Hana Rui

PROLOGUE

Shouts of cheer were all that filled the gym.

It was deafening.

It was suffocating.

But he was finding them all quite electrifying. Strange as it may seem for someone like him, he was actually enjoying the game.

He had never really been much into sports. If it had been at an earlier timeframe, it was doubtful you would even find him here. Most probably, he would be in his room, his nose buried in another 10-inch thick book he had bought cheap from some second hand store. One that he dug out of some bargain box with thick layers of dust encrusted on its cover, its pages tattered like his grandmother had been at 80 and that which told of things only guys with glasses as thick as the book itself could actually comprehend.

Boring, huh?

What else could you expect from a geek being his normal geeky self anyway?

Although that had been a long time ago and he was in all ways a changed man now—a far cry from the hormonal teener he had so long dislodged in some arcane corner of his past—there would still be occasions wherein the dogged essence of the boy he once had been would come knocking at the door of his present and remind him of everything he had ever thought, felt, said and done during those days—when he felt almost twice as vulnerable as a neonate infant.

Sometimes, he really couldn’t help considering the possibility that perhaps his apathetic parents, in wanting to keep up with their carnal duties to each other attempted to have sex in their sleep, and instead of conceiving a normal kid got him instead—a boring yawn that accidentally grew a body. Though it had been such an artistically pathetic allegory, it wasn’t really something he would confess on spawning even at gunpoint.

The humiliation would kill him soon enough anyway, so why delay the worst?

No, that joke had come from some group of guys, varsity players they all were, who gave their drabby school the gift of life and laughter by staining every inch of his existence with ridicule and contempt.

They never did tire mocking the ground he walked on.

And he never did find enough courage to fight them back and shove their pathetic humor back up their ass. It had always been the “what-could-I-get-from-fooling-around-with-fools” excuse that got him from launching into a vengeful assault of sorts that’ was bound to end in vain before it could even begin.

He always knew he was no match for them—he had always been a precautious kid.

Besides, it was all too obvious that the absence of a brain to fill their double-sized heads was liberally compensated by the amount of brawns these jocks displayed on court. And who knew what those brawns could do to him once he attempted to grow a heart brave enough to challenge them?

He may not live long to regret such a thoughtless act.

So, he had remained silent. A passive pushover of a geek hating his detractors from a distance. Hating the ground they walked on, the people they acquainted themselves with, the game they played…Because that was all he could really do to redeem some self-dignity without breaking a single bone.

But all of that changed ever since he met that person.

Everything that he was today—how much he had changed, how much he had gained—he owed them all to that one breath that made all the difference.

A goal was successfully made.

Half of the gym howled out in victory as a shrill whistle signified the end of the game.

Ah, yes. The scene was pretty nostalgic. He couldn’t help getting reminded by an event years ago bearing the same intensity of triumph. The scenes were quite the same…and yet very, very different.

For this was pure victory.

What he remembered was bittersweet success.

For at the tail of the respect their school gained in winning that year’s basketball championship, was a lost no one had ever really seen coming—except for him.

It had always been a tormenting journey. One that was more than likely bound to leave him crying for days, but which he was willing to take part on just for the sake of seeing that person once again.

For even in his memories, she never did fail bewitching him with that rarely completed smile.

He closed his eyes and willed the reminiscent frames to reel in...

Shouts of cheer were all that filled the gym…