Chapter Text
“As I said, stalking is not a very productive hobby, Gyu.”
The Gryffindor only gave a dismissal wave at the call-out. He fixed his reading glasses atop the bridge of his nose, acting like he was paying close attention to the thick book lying on the table when his gaze was obviously fixed on a certain Hufflepuff across the room.
“Spending time in the library is always productive!” he hissed, finally tearing his gaze away when he eventually got tired of staying in the same position for half an hour. “How come he hasn’t moved since we got here? Is he that much of a nerd?”
“Your fault for picking a nerd as your target!” Yeonjun said, shoving the book he was reading off the table, only to have it bounce back off the floor and smacked him upside the face.
“I need to gather information about the enemy, okay?”
Calling his target ‘enemy’ sounded a little too much for this situation, especially when the target was Choi Soobin, Hufflepuff 6th Year. Everyone only had good things to say about him; especially about how good looking, smart, or how much of a gentleman he was.
For Beomgyu, that guy was his default enemy the moment Quidditch was involved, especially when there’s a match date set already, and he would come face to face with the guy in a few days.
It’s Beomgyu’s first year in the team. He had been waiting for this all five years of his residence in Hogwarts, and finally got his chance when the last seeker graduated. There’s no way he’s allowed to mess up his first game, even though everyone else was rooting for Hufflepuff, the last Quidditch Cup’s champion.
Of course it had to be Choi Soobin who became the star of the field last year, catching the snitch after an intense game of 170 - 30 points to Gryffindor, and ended the match with 180 - 170 to Hufflepuff.
“Just because of that goddamn snitch!”
This time, a book flew to smack Beomgyu’s head after his shout, effectively shutting him up. Yeonjun snickered behind the hardcover of his astronomy textbook.
“Yeah, but it’s not like you two are strangers or anything. I bet you had some classes together with the Huffles for years already,” he shrugged.
Beomgyu looked at him with a straight face. “I don’t know half the people in my class usually. The other halves are Gryffindors.”
“You’re hopeless,” Yeonjun sighed, finally deciding to help his friend a little since he sounded a little too desperate for his own good. “So, what do we know about him?”
“I started paying more attention to him these days! I think he’s a little clumsy? Three days ago he knocked his cauldron off in potion class and burned his shoe. Yesterday I saw him in the prefect bathroom. He slipped on a soap and splashed into the tub--”
“Why were you even in the prefect’s bathroom? You’re not one!”
“Details,” Beomgyu waved him off again. “Anyway, I’ve come into a conclusion that last year’s thing was pure luck. There’s no way someone as gigantic as him can be agile enough to be a seeker.”
“So you’re underestimating your opponent now…”
“I’ve done enough stalking to know that I’ll destroy him in the field tomorrow!” he beamed, puffing his chest out.
“You have no idea what you’re facing,” Yeonjun said with an amused smile.
“It’s not like you know him better than I do! I’m going to wish him luck for tomorrow.”
Yeonjun only watched with half amazement as the Gryffindor got up from his seat and stride across the library. Soon, Beomgyu found the reason why there’s no movement detected. Soobin was peacefully dozing with his chin rested on his hand, face turned down to face the book on the table as if he was reading.
There was an urge to slam a book on the table and wake the guy, instead, Beomgyu only tore a piece of a parchment and scribbled something across it. He put a sticking charm on the paper and put it on Soobin’s forehead before he dragged Yeonjun out from the library.
“Remind me why we’re friends again,” Yeonjun sighed.
“It’s cause I’m the only one who would go dungbombs party with you. Come on!”
===
“You look like you just went through a quarter life crisis and came back to your teenage years, only to go through puberty all over again.”
That’s the first thing Taehyun said upon seeing him entering the great hall, and Soobin did not appreciate it.
He knew how much of a mess he had been, and it’s just been the second month of the school year. In the midst of quidditch practice, prefect duties, tutoring, and his studies, Soobin had to sacrifice rest and relaxation. It’s only a little reassuring that he loved Quidditch just as much as sleep.
“Give me a break. I fell asleep right before an arithmancy test and I think I flunked it,” he groaned, taking a seat next to the Ravenclaw who had somewhat made himself comfortable in the Hufflepuff table. Taehyun’s connections never ceased to amaze him, to think that no one from his house minded his presence in their table. “But I got this note when I woke up. I think it’s pretty nice.”
Huening kai took a break from shoving food into his mouth and actually paid attention to his words for once. “What note? More secret admirers?”
Smiling, Soobin took out a torn piece of parchment from his pocket, showing it to his friends. Scribbled across it was a ‘Good luck on the match tomorrow, loser! Don’t have to cry if you lost, as you’d have done your veryyyy besssttt!’ in cursive handwriting.
“That… doesn’t seem like a nice note,” Kai mumbled, squinting at the handwriting to make sure he didn’t read wrong.
“Doesn’t take a genius to figure that out,” Taehyun confirmed with a nod.
“Eh? It’s very nice, though? They know I’d try my very best. Everyone expects the most from me ever since I was made captain and… gods, thinking about it makes me want to throw up,” Soobin said, taking the goblet of pumpkin juice from the table and sipped it in hope to calm his churning stomach a little.
The match was going to start in two hours and Soobin had received a lot of ‘Good luck!’ from his housemates today. But the lack of competitive spirit inside his body just made him even more nervous, since he didn’t know what to expect from the match.
Not only the pressure from his own house, there were also innocent attempts of sabotaging. He had got two stray jinxes flying his way and two attempts of tripping him in the corridor after leaving breakfast. Taehyun ended up getting fed up and rebounded one of the jinxes, only for it to catch a Gryffindor classmate of his.
So much for being a friend. In Quidditch, everything turned into a life-or-death situation apparently.
“What are they being so aggressive for? It’s just Quidditch,” Taehyun commented, rolling his eyes as he fixed the Hufflepuff supporter hat he had on.
“You got detention for jinxing that one Slytherin beater because he beat a bludger towards Jungkook sunbaenim’s head,” Kai deadpanned, inching away to Soobin’s other side when the shorter male threw dagger at him with his gaze.
“First of all, it’s Jungkook sunbaenim. Second, Ravenclaw lost because of that. Third, I was itching to practice that jinx since forever.”
“Just… tell me when you had any jinx to practice again. I’ll take a vacation from being your friend.”
As Taehyun pulled his wand out and chased Hueningkai across the corridor, Soobin broke into laughter. At least he got his best friends to ease his nerves before matches, and the note just added more factors into it. He took a mental note to track down the sender after the match just to thank the person.
===
It’s absolutely a different feeling to be in the quidditch pitch among all the audiences than when they had practices with only the team. Beomgyu beamed as he watched students in red and yellow flooding into the bleachers. His scarlet robe waving behind him from the wind as he soared up from the ground to take his position above the pitch.
As he lifted his head, he came face to face with Choi Soobin himself, who was just taking his position among the line up. He looked a little more dignified with his quidditch robe and the captain badge, at least more than what Beomgyu had witnessed from the male for the past few days.
The thought alone made him sneer.
“let’s catch the snitch well!” Soobin smiled at him, apparently mistaking his smirk for a friendly one.
“ I will catch the snitch,” he replied, which made the taller guy blink at the sudden hostile tone.
It didn’t last for long as Soobin was soon called to take his place at the captain - his teammates chided him for forgetting that he was a captain this time. The hufflepuff smiled shyly as he moved to his spot.
He seemed like that one idiot who’s loved by everyone.
All the thoughts about his opponent vanished from his mind at the sound of the whistle. He whizzed away from the center of the field, taking his place a little higher in the sky to watch the game going on while also keeping his eyes for the snitch.
By the 20 minutes mark of the game, it started to get more intense with the scores being head to head. It was apparent that this was more than just the first game of the semester, but also a revenge game for the Gryffindor for the final last year.
The score reached 80 to 60 points to Hufflepuff when Beomgyu located the snitch near the Gryffindor’s rings. It flitted casually around the keeper, didn’t know what’s in store for him when Beomgyu started zooming towards it in full speed.
But he’s not the only one as he saw a flash of yellow next to him, catching up quickly and slamming against his side. It took him his whole strength not to fly off his broom.
“Oops, sorry! I didn’t brake in time!” Soobin said frantically.
“AAAH WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” he screamed, too pumped up by adrenaline that he couldn’t NOT scream.
Soobin was still apologizing next to him, despite trying to outfly his broom. “I’m sorry! There are these bugs and I didn’t look where I was going- oh no!”
“WHAT BUGS?” Beomgyu yelled again. They were so close. So so close to the snitch now. He just had to accelerate a little to be ahead of Soobin’s clapped broom, but the mention of the bugs had completely thrown his mind off the game. “NO, SERIOUSLY WHAT BUGS? I DON’T-”
At that moment, Soobin took his chance to jolt forward and threw himself off their little speeding match, and that’s when Beomgyu caught a whiff of flowery scents, before a swarm of giant sized bugs zoom to his face.
With another scream, he knocked himself aside, losing his grip on his broom - thankfully, because the bugs would have hit him otherwise. He barely had enough time to register that he was falling. The ground getting closer and closer before he felt a sharp pain all over his body.
The last thing he registered was a blurry figure in yellow flying towards him before the pain was so intense it made him black out.