I read that post in the school blog, “Mr. MVP” and right then and there I knew it was me. I didn’t know, if only I knew what she did, what she sacrificed to make me happy, to make me achieve my dreams, I shouldn’t have turned my back against her and pretended I didn’t see her everytime we have a game and she is in the venue. I shouldn’t have looked for another girl who would make me feel loved, and right now, I am in a complicated state of mind. Do I still love her? I don’t know, I believed for so long that I have already moved on.

                Despite her telling me to take the crown, I can’t seem to focus. Flashbacks of me and her together keep on appearing inside my mind. And most of all, she was there, in the middle of the crowd, hidden amongst thousands of people, but she’s there, and just like before, I pretended like I didn’t see her.

                We just finished our second final’s game. In the beginning, while warming up, I told myself, I would win this and then talk to her. But that didn’t go as planned. We lost, and I wasn’t even able to make a single shot except for free throws. I’m ashamed to face her, I’m ashamed to face everyone, because I disappointed a lot of people, I disappointed my whole school. The school that raised me to be who I am now. It’s my last playing year, and I wasn’t able to give back the favor to my school. Game 3 is next week on Wednesday, I’m hoping for the best.

                I still remember how I first realized my passion for basketball. My father used to be the coach of our high school basketball team. I was only 7 when he started bringing me to their training session with the varsity players, and then little by little I learned the basics and learned how to play basketball. When I was 10, I was taller than the normal teenager, my school scouted me while walking around on the grounds of the campus. It was then that I realized that playing basketball is my life, and no one can stop me from achieving my goals.

                On my last year in middle school, I met Erica. Back then she was a transfer student, she came from a foreign school abroad but she never had problems communicating. We met through a common friend which is her classmate. She was always so shy and quiet, and when Alice, our common friend, which is the girlfriend of my team mate, brought her to our lunch table, she flinched because of the rowdiness. While everyone was speaking loudly she was just staring at everyone, probably trying to make sense of the situation. When I first saw her, I didn’t really notice her, so it wasn’t that love at first sight kind of thing. I fell for her little by little and a couple of months passed before I courted her. Courting her took longer than I expected but it was worth it, because she gave me the yes right after the acceptance notice of being on the high school basketball team was distributed. I still remember carrying her by the waist and twirling her around.

                She was the opposite of me, while I was outgoing, noisy, and not too good at school, she was shy, quiet, and a straight A student without any effort.  When I got the news the we passed the college entrance exam for the same university, and the same course I was so happy. I was also able to join the Engineering department’s basketball team. On our third year in college I was scouted by the EAU coach and was offered to join the university’s basketball team, in the condition that I needed to live in the quarters and shift to another department. Little by little, my time with Erica became lesser and lesser, so I resorted to secretly escaping the quarters and skipping training whenever I can just to go see her or walk with her home.

                A couple of months passed by like that and the coach got mad at me for doing so. I called Erica one night to tell her about it because I was so depressed, and it turned out to be the biggest mistake of my life. Because the following week, she broke up with me, I knew she was lying, I can see it in her eyes, but I can’t make her stay. I thought she was breaking up with me because I lacked time for her, I thought she was breaking up with me because she felt suffocated being the girlfriend of a varsity player. So I told her I’d leave the team for her, I kneeled in front of her telling her to come back and stay with me, but without a proper goodbye, she left me. I was hurt, I was angry, and I was depressed. I focused more on basketball, I wanted to foget the pain when she left, so everytime I get, I train. Everyone noticed the change and soon found out what happened. I hated the look of pity the gave me, because back then I was also blaming them for what happened.

                I still remember the first game I played in the Universiade, my first playing year, my rookie year. I saw her among the crowd, she was smiling like an angel but I ignored her presence. Now on my last playing year, I am still ignoring her presence and just when I was ready to talk to her, we lost and all that because of me. I don’t even know how to face her anymore. Not even my current girlfriend who I met on my second playing year.

                My name is Jeon Jungkook and I am Erica’s Mr. MVP.