Letting out a sigh and dropping his shoulders in defeat, he quietly walked over to his things and threw on a clean T-shirt, before silently walking up the steps of the bleachers until he was only a short distance in front of her. It seemed she hadn't noticed his presence yet as she continued to sob. Deciding to take a seat in the row in front of hers, he waited patiently as her sobs began to slow to a mere hiccup.

"What are you crying about?"

Hearing the sudden voice, she sprang out of her seat, her hand over her heart as she looked at him through her blurry eyes. "H-H-How long have you been sitting there?" she asked hurriedly, not able to stop herself from stuttering.

"Only a few minutes.” He silently gestured for her to retake her seat, watching as she tentatively sat down, still watching him warily.

He leaned back in his seat, his arms outstretched to hang over the adjacent seats, looking out over the empty gym. He saw out of the corner of his eye, Irene was still watching him carefully, occasionally sniffling and wiping her remaining tears away. "If you're not going to tell me what's wrong, I'm gonna go back to practicing," he said as he finally turned to face her again, raising a single eyebrow at her.

She just looked at him blankly, not really knowing what to say.

"Okay. Have it your way," he shrugged his shoulders, walking down towards the basketball court and going back to practicing. He would occasionally look up at the bleachers where she sat silently, her gaze not leaving him.

Irene just sat there watching him as he shot ball after ball into the basket. In her state of distraught and distress, she had rushed to her only secure sanctuary, completely forgetting that today was the day basketball try-outs were held. It was late though so it should've finished by then, but here he still was.

Observing him warily, she mentally debated with herself whether she should just slip out of the door while he was preoccupied, or go down and take this opportunity to talk to him. Sighing to herself, she slowly descended down the steps, hoping she actually had the courage to thanks him for looking out for her these last couple of weeks, even when he didn't have to.

Her footsteps were quiet as she approached him, watching him meticulously going over his little routine the exact same way each time. She tried clearing slightly to get his attention but he seemed too absorbed in his practice that he didn't quite hear her.

"Ehmm..." she did it a little louder this time, apparently catching him off guard enough to make him miss the shot quite badly. "S-Sorry!" she exclaimed in shock as the ball rolled away towards the side-line. She quickly ran after it, looking sheepishly at him as he watched her carefully.

"Sorry," she mumbled again when she gently handed him the ball, not meeting his sharp eyes. "I... um... it's just that..." she kept fumbling over her words, losing her nerve in front of him.

"You don't have to be so nervous around me," he cut her off, his trademark smirk adorning his face. He positioned himself to shoot another free throw, turning his back to her.

Seeing this, she took it as her cue to leave.

"Wanna rebound for me?"

She halted in her tracks, turning to look at him in confusion. "R-Rebound?" she asked unsurely.

Mino quietly chuckled, not really knowing why he found the situation funny. "As in, I'll shoot the ball and you pass it back to me," he explained, gesturing towards the basket.

formed an 'o' shape as she comprehended his words. Not knowing why, she slowly nodded her head and walked towards the basket, waiting for him to take the shot. They did that for a few minutes in silence, only the sound of the ball bouncing on the floor and the net swishing could be heard.

"I... um... I just wanted to say... thank you," she said quietly, gently tossing him the ball.

"Oh? What for?" he asked casually.

"Just... for helping me pick up my books and.... sometimes walking me to homeroom... Y-you really don't have to do those things," she mumbled quietly, not meeting his eyes as she tossed the ball back to him.

"Oh. You don't have to thank me for that." They were silent for a while again, Mino still shooting and Irene still tossing the ball back to him. "So... are you going to tell me why you were crying before?" he asked casually.

She caught the ball in her hands and looked at him warily, her face blushing because she was embarrassed. "I... It was n-nothing," she mumbled, throwing the ball back to him. "I... um... I should get going," she hastily said, not meeting his eyes and briskly walking in the direction of the entrance, even breaking out into a light jog.

Before he could even think or get a word out, he heard the doors close shut. Leaning his head back and letting out a sigh, he shook his head and made his way back to his bag, no longer feeling like practicing. After packing his things away, he slowly made his way back towards the main building to gather some books from his locker.

"Dude, did you see?"

"Yeah, it was hilarious! Come on. Let's get out of here."

Mino raised his eyebrows as a couple of students walked passed him, talking and laughing loudly about something. Shaking it off, he turned the corner towards where the lockers were located and immediately stopped in his tracks. What he saw was trash littering the hallway. Pieces of scrunched up paper, banana peels, apple cores and other disgusting things were all over the floor, a large concentration of it right by his locker.

Carefully stepping over any remnants of rubbish, he finally figured out why Irene was so distraught before. The door of her locker was barely hanging onto its bottom hinge and, taking a look inside, he found more rubbish littered inside, practically spilling out of it. Looking at the scrunched-up paper closely, he determined straight away that they were ripped out pages from some of her textbooks.

Letting out another deep sigh, he quietly gathered the books he needed for the night and made his way out of the school, chancing one last glance at the disturbing scene behind him, wondering just how these people could treat the poor girl in such a way.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.

He groaned as he stuck his arm out from underneath the blanket and tried to blindly shut off the alarm clock. Stretching and yawning loudly, he squinted at the light seeping through between his blinds. Tiredly getting out of bed, he looked at the alarm clock and realised he still had a while before he had to get to work.

The last week at school had been an interesting one to say the least. After the events on Monday, he'd decided to start a regular routine of using the school gym to work out on one day, and on every other day he'd be in the stadium practicing.

He also kept a watchful eye over Irene, shaking his head as he thought about everything the student body was putting her through. After the whole locker incident, she was forced to borrow replacement textbooks from the library, carry all of her books everywhere she went until her locker got repaired. He still couldn’t believe there was no kind of investigation or punishment for the people that vandalised her locker.

I guess he shouldn’t be surprised anymore but some things just kept bothering him. Not wanting to think about it anymore, he got out