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In hindsight, it shouldn’t have been so easy to distract her.
In her fourth year as a 100m hurdler, she should be dead-set on nothing but reaching the finish line.
But life, of course, will often fall into place in ways you never anticipated. Lily’s warming up for her race when her own life gets primed to fall.
She has a specific pre-race pattern: jog, leg swings, hip circles, hurdle drills. It's served her perfectly well for the past four years.
She's in the middle of her hurdle drills when she sees a gaggle of cheer uniforms start taping posters up on the bleachers: cute, impersonal slogans, written in their school colors of blue and gray. Go track! I am speed! Run run run!
It distracts her enough that her best friend Haewon has to smack her shoulder playfully to shake Lily back to attention. “Ready to do some runthroughs?” they ask, smiling easily.
“What’s the cheer team doing here?” Lily asks. Haewon frowns, pulling their short, choppy hair into a ponytail that falls out almost immediately.
“Not sure,” Haewon muses. “I can ask my buddy Yoona tomorrow when I see her in AP Physics? I think she’s the captain.”
Lily just shrugs—there’s not enough time to care. Instead, she goes with Haewon to set up their starting blocks and run through the start of their race. Two hurdles, three times. Done.
She’s ready.
The official raises the megaphone.
“On your mark.”
She jumps twice, light on the balls of her feet, jostles her leg muscles. Breathing fast and heavy to maximize the oxygen flowing through her bloodstream. She feels nervous, powerful, limber, as she kneels to set in her blocks.
“Set.”
She inhales sharply and pushes up onto her fingertips, just perfectly off-balance.
Gunshot.
She launches forward with the force of a bullet.
Her mind is nothing but the pattern she’s internalized over the years. Two loping strides between each hurdle, her left leg an arrow that soars over the barriers in front of her. She’s the image of graceful, perfect form.
Step, step, jump. Step, step, jump. Stretch forward, snap down. Finish line is in sight.
But today, something is different. The cheerleaders are glittering and golden in the late afternoon sun, their pom poms catching her attention out of the corner of her eye. Despite herself, despite everything she’s learned and trained, she turns mid-stride—
—and makes eye contact with the most beautiful woman she’s ever seen.
Tresses of long, brunette hair frame a small face. Her round eyes gaze curiously back at Lily, who’s left with a singular thought.
She looks really good in blue.
It’s a split second of a distraction, but it’s enough to leave Lily off-balance when she snaps back to the race. She lands wrong, her knee buckling under her, and she tries to recover by stretching her strides as far as she can.
But it’s not quite enough. Forward momentum propels her haphazardly into the next hurdle, and she goes tumbling.
Her hands hit the ground first, then her knees, then the rest of her. The rough rubber material of the all-weather track feels like sandpaper, scraping off jagged lines of skin. It’s jarring. The pain echos through her teeth.
She lay flat on the track, stunned and bleeding, the wind completely knocked out of her.
And so, for the first time in her entire life, Lily Morrow does not finish a race.
Haewon makes her visit the Trainer’s office immediately, even though all Lily wants to do is curl up in a ball and die. The trainer cleans the dirt and gravel out of her scrapes, leaving Lily with instructions to change the bandages at least twice daily. She also leaves Haewon with instructions to make sure Lily follows those instructions.
“I gotta head back and pole vault,” Haewon says, once they’ve both left the Trainer. “Text me later. Love you, bitch.”
Lily laughs, calling back out to them. “Love you too, nerd.”
It’s quiet. Her knee twinges in pain, bringing her right back to that moment of impact. She winces.
And that’s when Lily notices her.
Blue and gray girl, standing just out of the way, fidgeting slightly. She hasn’t noticed yet that Lily’s noticed her.
“Hey,” she calls, and blue and gray girl startles, flushing instantly.
“Oh!” she exclaims, her eyes widening like a deer in headlights. “Sorry, I-uh. I didn’t mean, um…I wasn’t-”
She clears her throat. “Are you hurt?” she tries, gesturing towards Lily’s bandage mess.
“Just my pride, really,” Lily quips. The girl breathes out a laugh.
Lily thinks she’s extremely cute.
“Did you need the trainer?” Lily asks, and the girl blushes even redder.
“Ah-no,” she says, almost bashfully. “I was looking for you, actually.”
She continues immediately upon seeing Lily’s confusion.
“I felt really bad about the race,” she says. “I thought—I didn’t know if the squad was distracting, or anything like that, and I…just felt terrible that you fell.”
She’s adorable.
Lily’s face is stretching into a lopsided grin before she can help it. “It’s alright,” she says, easily. “Hurdlers fall all the time. It’s nobody’s fault.”
She pauses, tapping her chin jokingly in thought. “Unless the cheer team was trying to distract me by putting their prettiest cheerleader right in the center. Then it’s definitely your fault.”
Blue and gray girl goes rigid, her eyes shooting open startlingly wide.
Lily decides to give the poor girl a break before she explodes into a million tomato-red pieces.
“...Jokes aside, I was just curious why the cheer team was even at a track meet in the first place,” Lily says. “Don’t you guys normally stick to like, football?”
Blue and gray girl nods, slowly regaining her normal color. “That’s right. It’s usually only football and basketball,” she explains. “I never thought that was fair. One of the first things I wanted to do as cheer captain was expand out and cheer for sports that don’t usually get the same hype.”
Lily’s heart thuds a little faster. She tries to keep her cool. “Wow, that’s awesome,” she commends. “You guys are gonna be out cheering at our meets this season, then?”
Blue and gray girl pauses for a moment, then nods. “You’ll be seeing me,” she affirms.
They exchange a smile. Lily can’t tell if it’s awkward.
Lily clears her throat. “Well, I need to get going,” she says. “Thanks for checking on me.”
She gives Lily a small smile and turns to leave.
Something in Lily compels her to speak, makes her want to prolong their interaction. She shouts before thinking.
“Will you tell me your name?” Lily calls. “Or should I just keep calling you ‘pretty cheerleader’?”
Blue and gray girl’s lips quirk up. She seems willing to take the chance.
“Pretty cheerleader is fine,” she muses, smiling shyly. “But you can also call me Yoona.”
Yoona. Haewon’s friend. But the realization freezes her for just a second too long, and their cute moment passes.
Yoona clears her throat, having subtly clammed back up. “It was nice to meet you. I’m glad you’re okay,” she says quickly, and leaves.
It’s a few solid moments later that Lily realizes she never got to tell Yoona her name.
***
Her knee heals well enough. She limps around the first few days while the scabs form, then limps around a few more as they crack and heal.
Every residual ache makes her think about Yoona. Her thoughts consist of nothing besides the nervous little deer who made her stumble.
She can’t seem to find her anywhere at school. She’d half-expected that—being a grade older made running into Yoona unlikely—but it doesn’t mean that Lily doesn’t crane her neck during passing periods looking for a glimpse of her.
It’s almost a week later that she finally chances it with Haewon at lunch.
“Did you say you know a cheerleader named Yoona?” she asks, aiming for the most casual tone possible.
But Haewon catches on almost instantly. “That’s crazy. Yoona asked about you in class this morning, too,” they say.
Their eyes widen. “Wait. And she was waiting for you outside the trainer’s.”
Their eyes widen further. “Oh my god. Are you two-”
Lily shushes them emphatically, feeling almost dizzy with embarrassment. “No,” she hisses.
“But you want to be,” Haewon quips, and Lily hides her face in her hands.
“…I wouldn’t mind it,” she concedes.
“Uh, obviously you wouldn’t, dude. She’s gorg,” Haewon says. “And she’s also coming over here right now.”
“What?”
And Lily barely has a moment to breathe before the object of her every thought is standing right in front of her.
“Hi,” Yoona says, tilting her head politely. “Can I sit with you two?”
She’s looking at Haewon, but Lily can see her eyes glimmering. “Hi,” Lily exhales. She shakes herself into focus. “Yes, sit. Please.”
Yoona smiles graciously and sits. She avoids looking at Lily directly, gesturing instead to her knees. “How’s your battle wounds, track star?”
It’s cute. She’s so cute.
“Lily,” she says. “My name’s Lily. I didn’t get to tell you last time.”
And Yoona looks directly at her, then, for one brief, beautiful moment, and Lily's heart flutters.
“I know,” Yoona says, sweetly. "Haewon talks about you all the time."
She straightens, suddenly. “I-uh, forgot that I needed to tell you something,” she says, her brows knitting together apologetically. “I know I said that I…um, the cheer team will be out at the track meet, but I don’t think I…we can make it tomorrow.”
“Oh! That’s no problem,” Lily says, her heart re-emerging from the chasm it had just fallen into. “Our meet’s at another school this week, anyway.”
“That's crazyyyy,” Haewon interjects nonchalantly, playing a rhythm game on their phone. “You guys should totally get each other’s numbers so this kind of miscommunication doesn’t happen again.”
Lily stomps on their foot in response.
…She gets Yoona’s number.
***
During track season, Lily’s world is oriented around Thursdays. Meet days.
She ensures her schoolwork is done ahead of time, that she’s properly hydrated, that the rest of the team is fully trained and stretched and ready to run as quickly and proficiently as they can.
Today’s Thursday has added another item to her list: checking her phone as frequently as possible to see if Yoona has replied to her text yet.
Immediately upon receiving her phone number, Lily had texted her. hiii! it’s Lily :)
No response.
The bus for that day’s Away Meet leaves midway through her last class. She spends the ride there looking at her phone compulsively. Nothing changes. It’s devoid of notifications.
She feels her phone vibrate. Her heart jumps.
she text u yet? Haewon had sent. They were sitting literally right next to her.
They simply shrug and grin when Lily glowers.
They start warming up the moment they arrive. The 100m hurdles fall third in the order of events, giving Lily about half an hour to proceed through her good-luck routine. Jog, leg swings, hip circles, hurdle drills. She goes through it quickly enough that she does the routine a second time.
“Nervous?” Haewon asks. Lily nods, too anxious to speak.
The pre-race jitters were by far the worst part of meet days. It always felt like a gnawing pit, deep in her stomach, that threatened to sap all her energy unless she could keep herself distracted.
Paradoxically, this was also the best part of meet days, because of how euphorically accomplished she feels after the race is over. Such were the epic highs and lows of...high school track and field.
She allows herself to check her phone one last time before her race, a wild hare.
But…it’s different this time. There’s a text. From Yoona.
Good luck on your race, it said.
It was only five words, but Lily feels her heart swell regardless. She laces up her racing shoes feeling lighter than air.
When the starter gun fires, she can feel something is different.
She’s flying over the hurdles. She’s never felt so fast in her entire life.
She not only wins her race by a huge margin, but she also PR’s by almost half a second.
She stares at the scoreboard in shock. 15.4 seconds.
Haewon bounds over to her, ecstatic. “Dude,” they cheer. “Are you joking?? You’ll break 15 by the end of the season for sure!”
They pull Lily into a selfie with the scoreboard in the background. “To commemorate,” they say, already sending it to her. “You better make this your lockscreen NOW.”
She replies to Yoona immediately after cooling down.
thank you!!! haha
i set a personal record!
couldn’t have done it without your support :)
Then, before she could think herself out of it, she sends the selfie of her and Haewon.
No response.
She has to admit it stings just a little. But she tries to compartmentalize it away and instead ride the high of a stellar race.
(She can’t really compartmentalize it away).
It's 2AM when Lily gets a text back.
A flurry of notifications startles her out of a slightly restless sleep. Yoona is replying to her all at once.
omg
omg
i'm so sorry!!!!!
didn't mean to ghost u omg
i got home from cheer practice and immediately CRASHED
so sorry. don't hate me D:
Then, she liked the photo. Lily's selfie.
cutiessss, Yoona wrote.
Lily is all but giggling and kicking her feet as she writes back.
sighhh. i guess you're forgiven THIS time🙄
***
They start texting casually-but-frequently after that. Yoona is far more comfortable over text than anything else. Lily is ecstatic that she seems to want to open up.
do u know anything about minecraft, Yoona asks one day. pls be kind if no. i'm baring my soul here.
i can’t say i do, Lily replies. but i’m down to learn about it, if it’s something you enjoy!!
Three dots. Yoona is typing, deleting, typing over and over again. Lily’s worrying her bottom lip, a nervous habit she’d kicked back in middle school.
i bet you say that to everybody🙄 is what Yoona eventually replies.
no WAY, Lily says. She pauses, thinking.
only haewon, tbh, she adds. theyve been trying to explain fortnite to me for like seven years now.
Yoona replies quickly. LOL
Silence.
Lily taps her leg nervously.
will i see you tomorrow?
yeah, Yoona replies. i’ll be there :,)
Lily spends her warmups looking for Yoona, and can't help but start beaming when she sees the tell-tale blue and grey uniform sitting on the front row of the bleachers.
She jogs over immediately, ignoring Haewon’s snickering.
“Just you today?” Lily asks. Yoona tilts her head, confused.
“The cheer team?” Lily continues. “You guys are cheering for underdog sports this year, like track?”
Yoona’s eyes shoot open. “Right!” she exclaims brightly. “Right. The team…uh…”
She shakes her head. “We split up duties,” she explains. “Everyone’s cheering for different sports individually.”
Lily doesn’t think that makes much sense. But, then again, that’s why she’s track captain, not cheer.
She wins her race with ease. No PR, but hearing Yoona’s voice cheering her makes her feel like she’s flying regardless.
Yoona is staring at her kind of dreamily when she jogs over after the race.
“I didn’t realize you were so fast,” she marvels. “That was insane.”
Lily preens a bit at having impressed her. “Thank you,” she says sincerely. “It seriously all comes down to form.”
Yoona peers down at her, resting her head in her hands. She smiles lopsidedly.
“I’m glad I got to cheer for you,” she says.
The way she says it makes Lily feel like Yoona meant it just for her.
The next two home meets go exactly the same. Yoona shows up to cheer, Lily races excellently. Lily hangs out with Yoona for the remainder of the meet, and they text all night afterwards.
i looked up your times, Yoona says. you’re like college level fast. r u planning to run for whatever school u go to???
ahh tbh probably not, Lily replies. schools in australia don’t rly have sports the same way they do here
Yoona spends a long time typing her response to that.
ur going down under for college then?
Lily replies quickly. thats the plan!!
Yoona doesn’t respond.
She arrives about three quarters of the way through the next meet after that. Lily’s already raced and cooled down when Yoona comes running up apologetically.
“I’m so sad I missed your race,” Yoona says, grimacing. She almost looks like she’s about to cry.
“It’s okay,” Lily reassures, smiling easily, placing a hand on her back. Yoona blushes at the contact as she leans into it. “I ran slower than usual, anyway. I was racing straight into a headwind.”
They amble about the track for the remainder of the meet. Lily describes the field events—shot put, discus, long jump, triple jump, high jump—and they get to cheer on Haewon as they pole vault for a meet record.
The meet dwindles to a close. Haewon comes up to the pair.
"You sticking around?" Haewon asks. Lily nods.
“Catch ya tomorrow,” they say. They wink, punch her shoulder, and jog away.
Yoona’s looking at her in amusement when Lily suddenly gets an idea.
“Yoona,” she begins. “Have you ever seen the press box?”
***
“Coach gave me the keys last year when I was voted team captain,” Lily explains, unlocking the heavy door to the enclosed booth that overlooks the field. “We keep our scorebooks up here, but it’s also an incredible view.”
And, indeed: from the top of the bleachers, there’s a view of the entire campus that stretches all the way out to the ocean.
“Whoa,” Yoona comments. “This is the kind of view that makes you introspective.”
Lily grins. “Exactly.”
They sit quietly, comfortably beside each other, watching the sun set in vibrant streaks of red and orange, the palm trees blowing steadily in the evening wind. They bump shoulders accidentally once, twice, before Yoona fully leans up against her.
Lily’s heart flips.
She feels Yoona trembling against her slightly and wraps her arm around her shoulders.
“My favorite part of track season is running in the wind that comes off the ocean,” Lily begins. She’s talking aimlessly, musing as the thoughts come to her. “Since land heats up much faster than the ocean, all the hot air above land rises. To fill that empty space, all the residual cool air from the ocean comes wooshing in off the water. That’s why we get such an intense sea breeze.”
“That’s really cool,” Yoona murmurs. She’s smiling shyly, her eyes darting quickly away whenever Lily catches her gaze.
Lily’s heart is beating in her throat. She feels compelled to take a chance.
“I’ve always thought this would be a great place to bring someone special,” Lily says quietly. She levels her gaze directly at Yoona to gauge her reaction.
Yoona flushes almost as red as the sunset. She clears her throat. “I agree. It’s gorgeous,” she murmurs. “Why don’t you bring Haewon up here?”
She nudges away from Yoona to look her in the eyes. “Haewon?” she echoes, confused.
Now Yoona’s confused, too. “Haewon,” she affirms. “Someone special? Like the person you’re dating?”
Lily’s seriously never been more confused.
Yoona blanches. “Are you not…dating Haewon?”
Lily’s head spins. “No,” she says, laughing in disbelief. “Not even a little bit.”
Yoona breathes out a fluttering laugh, nuzzling back into Lily’s side. They stay like that, letting the awkwardness of the misunderstanding settle into comfortable quiet, until the sky fades to black.
***
Lily can’t fully tell if they’re flirting or not.
She can admit she’s not the most observant person in the world. But it really seems like the way that Yoona acts with her is sorta…romantic?
She’ll catch Yoona’s eye from across the room and watch as Yoona smiles and blushes in return. She’ll casually drape her arm around Yoona’s shoulders while they’re sitting together at lunch and feel her lean back into Lily’s embrace. She’ll let her arm hang freely by her side in case Yoona wants to hold her hand.
(And her heart skips a beat every time, because Yoona always grabs her hand.)
She thinks about kissing her every chance she gets. Watching how often Yoona’s eyes flicker down to her lips, she can’t help but wonder if Yoona thinks about kissing her, too.
Lily, truthfully, feels like she’s falling for her. Yoona buoys her, grounds her, supports her without really even trying. It all comes sweetly and naturally.
“I want to break 15 seconds by the end of the season. Hopefully at league prelims,” Lily confesses at one point.
Speaking her goals aloud has always been a challenge for her, but Yoona fields her concerns perfectly without even trying.
“I know you can do it,” she says, her eyes sparkling. “I believe in you, track star.”
Lily isn’t quite sure how she’s made it this far without her.
Next Thursday is a bye week—no track meet. The team meets for practice anyway, and Lily swiftly dismisses them. Better to rest up for the following week’s meet against their rivals.
She and Haewon linger around the track for a while, running some quick drills to keep themselves loose.
They’re both about to leave when something else catches Lily’s eye. A blue and gray blur sprints across the football field, so fast that her bow is jostling out of her hair.
Yoona’s confused and breathing heavily as she approaches the pair. "Did I miss it?" Yoona asks, looking stunned. "Is it over?"
"Oh, there's no meet today," Lily reassures. “We have this week off so the league officials can calculate the standings before finals."
Yoona is still dumbstruck. She drops her cheer bag and pom poms in exhaustion.
"Haewon and I were going to run through some hurdle drills, if you wanted to stick around?" Lily offers. "I dismissed the rest of the team, but you're welcome to hang out if you're free."
Yoona seems hesitant, so Haewon falls over themselves trying to convince her.
"Oh Yoona, stay, please," they say, falling unseriously to their hands and knees. "Pleaseeee cheer for us. We can't do it without you."
Yoona ruffles their hair with a laugh. “I’ll stay,” she teases. “Get off the floor.”
“Yippee!!”
Yoona sits on the grass, watching in amusement as Lily and Haewon run through their drills.
“I have no idea how you guys do this,” she calls. “Running full speed at a stationary object seems totally counterintuitive.”
"Do you want to try it?” Lily asks. She’s breathing hard after sprinting, sweat beading on her forehead. Yoona is blushing, trying to look anywhere else than at her.
She chews at her bottom lip. "I don't think I can in my cheer skirt," she says, apologetically.
"I have a pair of sweats I use for warmups if you want!” Lily offers.
She extends her hand to Yoona. “Come on,” she encourages. “I’ll teach you! It’s fun.”
Yoona, finally, looks at her. She blushes even redder as she takes Lily’s hand.
The two stand quietly, smiling at each other.
Haewon looks knowingly between the two of them. “Oh, shoot!” they exclaim, breaking the spell. “I forgot I have to go pick up Kyujin from soccer practice. Bye, lovebirds!”
Yoona chokes on air.
Lily quickly discovers that while cheer is definitely a sport, the skills involved don’t exactly overlap with those required to hurdle. She, wisely, sets up a hurdle on the grass in case Yoona falls.
After Lily tries to show her the motion, Yoona stutters to a halt directly in front of the hurdle, jumps lithely and gracefully about three full feet over it, and lands off-balance, her arms flailing wildly as she stumbles and falls flat on her back.
“I died,” Yoona complains, dead in the grass. She’s extremely, adorably pathetic. “You killed me.”
"Poor thing," Lily says, biting back her laughter. “What hurts?”
Yoona pouts jokingly. “Everything,” she complains. “My knee.”
"Do you need me to kiss it better?” Lily teases. Her heart is about to beat out of her chest.
Yoona juts her knee up. ”I think it's the least you can do,” she says.
And so Lily slides her hand gently behind Yoona's neck and kisses her.
But Lily can immediately feel that she's made a mistake. Yoona tenses beneath her, and Lily springs backwards. Her heart drops.
"I'm sorry," she exclaims, falling over herself to apologize. Her stomach roils. "God. I completely misread—I’m so sorry."
Yoona's tongue darts across her lips. "It's okay," she says. “I…just…”
She stands, suddenly, looking apologetic. “I have to go.”
Lily blinks, and Yoona’s gone.
***
Lily doesn’t hear from Yoona at all that next week, and it feels like she's stopped living.
She barely sees her at school, doesn’t get any text back. Whenever she manages to catch a glimpse of Yoona, she looks back brokenly and apologetically before scurrying away.
Lily tries to swallow it down. It’s hard. She’s heartbroken.
All she can think about is how much she wishes she hadn’t kissed Yoona, and also how much she wishes Yoona had simply kissed her back.
The meet is great. They beat their rivals.
She runs another low-15, her new normal, but celebrating feels hollow. She wishes she could tell Yoona about it.
The next week is a slog of long days and bitten-back tears. League prelims rears its head before she knows it. She’s so low-energy that the thought of racing feels impossible.
It’s the longest meet of the year by far: every athlete from every high school in their league gathers at her school. The top 9 finishers in each event move on to league finals.
The meet passes by in a blur. She runs...fine. She comes in fifth place with a time of 16.07. It's not bad, but it's the slowest she's run all season.
(Except for the race where she fell. Getting disqualified was, technically, her worst time ever.)
She wanders through the rest of prelims hoping, wishing, that Yoona might still appear. She tries to keep her disappointment to herself, but Haewon catches it. They always do.
"You know," they began. "I was talking with Jinsol last night. She mentioned the cheer team’s at the swim meet today.”
Lily takes a beat. "The whole team?" she asks, her brows knit. "That's...I thought Yoona said they were cheering individually."
Haewon stares at her, disbelievingly, for a long moment.
"Cannot believe I'm best friends with the world's most oblivious lesbian," they say, with a heavy sigh. They clap Lily on the shoulder.
"Gotta jet," they say. "Don't mope around too long, okay?"
The meet's over. Yoona is nowhere to be seen. Lily lingers by the bleachers, unwilling to give up hope.
Lily walks a lap. Two.
Then, finally, she sees her.
Yoona.
She's sprinting towards the track from the pool. Lily watches her with a grin, her heart already feeling lighter.
Yoona comes up to her breathless and panting.
“I missed it?” she exhaled, cursing under her breath when Lily nods yes.
“You might as well have come run track this season with all the sprinting you've been doing,” Lily says. She's not trying to be mean, but her tone betrays her hurt.
Yoona looks up tearfully.
“God, Lily, I’m sorry,” Yoona says, her words spilling out. “I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have ghosted like that. I just…”
She takes a deep breath, screws her eyes shut, and confesses.
“I like you,” she says. “So much. So much that it hurts. So much that the thought of you moving away to Australia for college makes me want to die. And it scared me—it still does, like, so much, but I know how important this meet was for you, and I really wanted to come out and cheer for you, and I understand if you can’t forgive me ever again, and…I’m sorry.”
Yoona’s fidgeting nervously, trying to catch her breath after her marathon speech.
Lily’s lips twist into a smile.
She's still wounded, yes, but she can feel the hurt beginning to scab over. Yoona's painfully earnest apology sets her heart back into place. It makes Lily feel like she can begin to heal.
She extends her arms wide open, offering a hug, and Yoona flies into her arms.
“I really missed you,” Lily admits. “It hurt not having you around.”
“I know,” Yoona whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
They rest their foreheads together when they part.
“Was it the kiss that scared you?” Lily asks.
Yoona shakes her head fervently.
“No,” she whispers. “Not at all. And that’s what scared me, because I knew I was falling for you.”
Lily's heart stings and soars. She breathes out a tearful laugh, and Yoona follows suit until they're both doubled over in cathartic, full-body laughter.
“You were lying about making the cheer team coming out for underdog sports, weren't you?" she exhales, once they've recovered. Yoona looks at her with the sheepish smile of someone who's been found out.
“Not fully. We were set to cheer for one meet,” Yoona confesses. “But...just that one. I kept coming out after all the other games because I wanted to see you.”
Lily blinks in surprise. Twice. "You've been doing double duty this whole time?" she asks.
"You deserve to have somebody cheering for you," Yoona replies. “Always."
"Yoona," Lily says, quietly. "Will you please kiss me?”
Yoona beams at her and leans in. "Always."
***
It’s not the exact press-box date Lily had always imagined, but it’s also everything she ever could have wished for. She scrounges up some candy and sodas from the snack bar as a first-date meal and sits with her, overlooking the empty field.
It’s perfect. It’s with Yoona. It's perfect because it's with Yoona.
Well…perfect, except for one small detail. Yoona is absolutely refusing to look at her.
“Is something wrong?” Lily asks, and Yoona covers her face with her hands.
“You just…” she trails off into mumbling.
Lily is immediately endeared. "I just...?" she prompts.
“You look really good in your varsity jacket,” Yoona manages, eventually.
Lily’s stomach swoops.
“You think so?” she asks. She brings her hand softly to Yoona’s waist, and Yoona finally looks Lily directly in the eyes. Her gaze is dark and heavy.
Yoona pauses a moment longer before she launches forward with a frustrated groan. She collides with Lily—lips, hands, body. It makes Lily’s head spin, both the force of it and from her straightforwardness.
Yoona kisses her like she’s forgotten how to breathe, like she’s trying to memorize Lily from the inside out, like if she lets their lips disconnect for a single second she’ll crumble.
Yoona pulls back, breathing heavily. “This jacket is dangerous,” she says, bearing the ghost of a smirk as she toys with Lily's collar. “I think you need to take it off.”
***
The following week is league finals. It's simultaneously Lily's last race, and her first with her girlfriend officially cheering her on from the bleachers.
When the starter gun fires, she locks in like never before. She can feel in her bones it’s the fastest she’s ever run in her entire life.
Lily easily finishes in first place. She’s the league champion in the 100m hurdles.
She graciously accepts her gold medal while she waits anxiously for the scoreboard to update.
15.02 seconds.
She breathes out a laugh, half-disappointed and half-disbelieving.
Yoona’s arms wrap around her, then, and everything else vanishes into thin air. The disappointment softens. The world blurs until it's just the two of them.
“I wasn’t able to break 15,” she murmurs. Yoona grins, placing a light kiss on the tip of her nose.
“That’s alright,” she consoles. “You’re still my number-one-league-champ-gold-medal girlfriend no matter what.”
Lily rolls her eyes fondly. “Shut up,” she drawls, and kisses her.
She pulls away eventually, smiling too widely for their lips stay connected.
“You know,” Lily muses. “You look really good in my jacket. What do you think about keeping it next year?”