Fun fact: 'baesinja' in korean means traitor. And damn, someone wanted to translate this story into Arabic and I am V happy :)

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Baekhyun jumped,
and he fell.

He failed.

The ball was only a few millimeters out of his reach, and yet it seemed like it was all the way across the world.

It was all the way across the world, and Baekhyun was sailing the seas with a makeshift cardboard boat. The waves were simply too strong, and the tape on Baekhyun's boat was failing him. He kept on reaching until the last second; kept on rowing his boat until the dark clutches of water stole him away.

He fell, his fingertips not even touching the surface of the ball as his forearms scraped on the ground beneath him, followed by his body that landed harshly and rolled a couple of more meters.

The ball bounced right beside his head and jumped over him mockingly, rolling all the way until it hit the wall.

No...

With his face on the ground and his arms spread out, he felt dread grow inside of him.

It's not enough.

There's not enough time.

The referee blew his whistle and Baekhyun knew...

It's over.

"Out!" He called and as Baekhyun laid there, his mind emptying into the empty void of nothingness, he felt dry tears rising in his eyes.

He heard the beeping of the timer, signaling that there were five seconds left.

We couldn't win.

I failed.

I failed them.

In those last five seconds, he felt as if God was laughing down at his face, telling him that he was never meant to win anyways.

And Baekhyun believed his thoughts, because he was never enough. Never enough for himself, for his family, for his friends or for the person he thought was the most important in the world.

His heart ached painfully and he turned his head, looking at the basketball pressed up again the wall. At this point, he didn't even want to think about anything anymore.

The timer rang and that's when Baekhyun just shut the world out for the next moments, drowning in self-hatred and disappointment.

All of their wasted efforts fell into his empty hands and Baekhyun had thrown it away, scattering it somewhere else.

The feeling of loss was quickly hooking onto him and Baekhyun stared blankly at the ball he couldn't catch; at the ball that made them lose everything.

He so desperately wanted to lash out, scream and punch himself in the face for being so weak and terrible at everything. But even if he wanted to, all of it fell on his dead brain and he didn't move a muscle.

He stayed like that for minutes, rethinking what had happened in the game, all the right steps he could have taken, all the choices he shouldn't have made.

It all hurt him so much, the regret piling inside of his stomach and instead of burning in his stomach acid, it burnt him instead.

He wished he could go back to when fourth quarter started; could go back to when they still had a chance...

A shadow loomed over him and he weakly rolled onto his back, seeing a hand outstretched to him. Baekhyun stared at it, recognizing the fingers and the rough palm.

After a bit, he took it in his own, his eyes still glazed over with an icy layer as the person pulled him up.

"Let's go get changed."

The two walked to the extra change room reserved for the Ravens, and once Baekhyun entered, he was greeted with silence.

Everyone was wrapped up in their own thoughts and didn't pay attention to much; someone actually put their pants on their head in their dazed out form. (Jongdae)

Baekhyun, on the other hand, wasn't thinking of anything he could grasp onto. He just began dressing himself with an empty mind, trying to forget.

"Guys," Chanyeol spoke up and everyone's heads turned to him slowly, almost comically at the same time. Chanyeol gave them all a sad smile. "We all tried. That's all I can say. We... We have nothing to be sad about. It's only a competition that we lost. We have next year and the year after to w-win."

It was supposed to be an uplifting statement, but with Chanyeol smiling grievously, his eyes holding a thin layer or water, no one could cheer up.

"Why do you all look sad?" Chanyeol asked as he let out a bitter laugh, his body slightly shaking for entirely different reasons.

"Chanyeol, you don't have to..." Junmyeon trailed off and Chanyeol shook his head.

"I'm the captain, I have to," he declared, his voice slightly wavering. "If I'm not here, who's going to give the emotional speeches?" Baekhyun could tell Chanyeol was slowly dying on the inside, and Baekhyun understood what he felt entirely. "We only lost, guys. It's only one loss in everything. We should be proud—" Chanyeol stopped when a sob wracked through his body, his tears finally escaping steadily.

"We should be proud... But why do I feel so terrible?" Chanyeol asked the second part in a smaller voice, his eyes casting down onto the ground.

Chanyeol wiped at his tears fruitlessly and at the sight of Chanyeol breaking down, Baekhyun's own waterworks got destroyed and he took in a shaky breath as his own drops of tears fell down.

The guilt was once again eating at him, poking and prodding at him until he was left with nothing but his raw soul.

"I—I'm sorry," Baekhyun confessed and covered his face with his hands, silently crying.

No one answered for a long minute and suddenly, Chanyeol let out another laugh. "Look at us, all idiots crying in the changing room."

Baekhyun looked up from his hands and noticed that Chanyeol was right, each of the team members were also crying.

They were all distraught and the expressions on their mind portrayed that perfectly; same with the way they were clenching their fists like they were failures.

They had lost the game. It had to be accepted now, but no one wanted to. Instead they were feeling remorse and contrite, not stopping the continuous jabbing they were saying in their minds.

All of them felt terrible... But at least they were in it together.

Yes, they were together.

Through the thick and thin, even if someone got beaten down and humiliated, the others would have their backs.

That was the reason why Chanyeol loved them all so much— not only Baekhyun, the love of his life —but every single person in the room (why is Jongdae in there anyways). They were like family to Chanyeol, a family that would never betray him. He could laugh freely with them and joke around without filters.

He belonged there, everything just fit together perfectly like a finished Rubix cube.

Even if the colours were mixed up before, in the ending they were now all lined up and together, and the only explanation Chanyeol had for this was that it was fate that brought them all together. And even if one day they'd be mixed up again, they were never far— only on the other side of the cube.

Chanyeol knew that he'd miss this, miss the day where they were all together, losing and winning at the same time.

But that was in the future, and right then, Chanyeol just had to bring them even closer.

"Come on," Chanyeol spoke up, his voice not wavering in the slightest even if he was still crying. "We're a team. We got this," he mentioned and he walked up into the middle of the room. "It's nobody's fault," he cast a look over at Baekhyun. "It's simply all of ours for not believing enough. Believing that we could win this... Though it's too late now to take it back, this whole thing was just another build up to one day, where we would get what we want." He put his hand out in the middle of the room, looking around. "So let's take this loss like real men, yeah?"

Silence filled the room, but it didn't make Chanyeol anxious because even if some of them were hesitating, they'd all pull through some time.

"Whatever you say, captain," Junmyeon said as he walked up to Chanyeol and placed his hand there also.

"You cried first," Sehun stated but joined anyway.

"I'd follow whatever you say." Jongin placed his hand on top of the pile and grinned at them.

"Basketball is fun," Yixing added.

"I wouldn't ever take this loss like a girl," Jongdae piped.

"That's sexist," Xiumin mentioned and Jongdae shoved him before the two of them put their hands on.

"I haven't been here for long and I'm leaving, but I guess what you say is right," Mingyu declared and followed the others.

Everyone stared at Baekhyun, the person who was just standing there with a blank look on his face. He was the last one to do it, and Baekhyun being Baekhyun, only admired the scene of his best friends all together.

"You know..." Baekhyun smiled wistfully. "If taking it like a man means crying my eyes out—" he wiped his tears one last time and walked over to them. "—then sure," he finalized, placing his hand atop of theirs.

Chanyeol looked at everyone who still had slightly red eyes and he smiled— honestly, truthfully, and happily smiled.

"We are—ONE!"

---------- [Please Read even if it's long as hell :) ]

I'm not ready.

I am really not ready to end this story.

I don't want it to end *Cries forever* god, I loved writing this story so much and and OH MY GOD THANK YOU! But sadly, it is ending.

It's the second last chapter. SECOND LAST. And this one is really short because... Oh my god I can't stop my feels. All of the feelings I've poured into this story uahhhh, it's ending! IT'S ENDING GUYS I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO I CAN'T BELIEVE... I don't want to part with this story but all stories have endings...

Huhuhu I'm getting so emotional and sentimental... Halp.

JUST— JUST DON'T READ THE NEXT CHAPTER THEN IT WILL NEVER END! (BOOM. PROBLEM SOLVED)

Wait if I don't want it to end then I just don't need to write the next chapter *gets shot in the face* okay nvm.

I want to thank every single one of you who ever voted, gave me criticism (although no one did but whatever) commented, and enjoyed this story. I honestly felt so loved whenever anyone said that they really liked this story, or that this was one of their favourites. Because NEVER in my life had I thought anyone would be saying that to my stories. I started off as a really really nooby Wattpad writer four years ago. (Yes, I was nine-ish years old and yes, I will never go back to that account oh goodness.) But doesn't everyone start off as that one person who got one read on their twenty chaptered story? But over time I learned more types of things to write, what I want to write *COUGH* CHANBAEK *COUGH* and I found my own writing style and yay. I got here with over 20k reads and ughhh I am so proud of everybody and this story. This story is just proof that if you're ever afraid of not being noticed or appreciated, just keep on trying.

So really, from the bottom of my heart.

I thank you guys.

K, C YOU LATER I'M OUT~!