"Anyway, you don't need all this formality. You're Tae-hwan's friends so I want to be you guys' friend, too."

Oh shit he's hot.

"One of us!"

"One of us!"

"One of us! One of us! One of us! One of us!"

These kids are very cute.

(...he should probably try to avoid thinking of them as kids. If nothing else, he shouldn't think of Tae-hwan as a kid, because that's not gonna be great for their relationship if he's subconsciously condescending.)

"Anyway! Let's play? Woo-young-sunbae, do you play?"

"Oh, no, not at all, I'm a couch potato."

"Aren't espers meant to be super fit and run in dungeons and stuff?"

"He's just being modest." And maybe he just wants to watch.

And maybe Tae-hwan wants to show.

Damnit.

"Please don't judge us, sunbae, we haven't played in forever."

"I haven't played ever so I couldn't if I tried."

So they move their little party over to the football court of the leisure center and find some people to play against them.

He's going to stop questioning his feelings and just use the fact that he wants to show off for his hyung as fuel to help them WIN.

Not everyone is as bloody-minded as he is but it's just for fun anyway. It's not like they have enough people for a proper game.

Okay well that's certainly a way to get him to stop thinking of them as kids. Especially Tae-hwan, oh my.

Tae-hwan manages to forget his confused sexuality-related thoughts pretty quickly. It helps that he's a little bit backlashed, which is giving him an extra kick of restlessness that's useful.

(He did consider for a moment whether this might be cheating but then he decided that after hell week he's allowed to make use of a little an extra energy, as a treat. It's probably not as much cheating as the esper glowup is, in any event.)

But man, he missed this, actually. Missed just playing football with some friends without having to worry about school or university. Missed doing it just for fun. But now he gets to play football with friends and he's an esper and he's gonna be a superhero and if the price to pay for that is being confused about his sexuality, he'll gladly pay it.

Eventually they're all various shades of exhausted, panting, lying in heaps, and/or groaning in pain, but of course that's not gonna stop any of them from taking the piss out of each other in between breaths.

"...and you're a fucking clown, Seo Tae-hwan, I was right there, you could've passed—"

"Okay but I had a perfect straight line to the goal—"

"And you fucking blew it, I wouldn't be mad if you'd scored but you blew it, so you're a fucking clown—"

"As if you wouldn't have done exactly the same thing—"

"Good job, guys," says Woo-young when he catches up with them. "You played very well."

"We played like shit."

"But we looked hot doing it, and isn't that what matters in the end?"