It’s his smile. Now i understand why he’s so popular with girls. I’m amazed by that cute gesture and at myself, for staring at him even after he stops smiling. My eyes want to trail every movement of his lips, to be ready and not miss a second of another one of his smiles. Santiago, without noticing I’m staring at him, brings me a chair and runs to the middle of the yard with two long metal sticks. He pins one on each side and places a net between them; it reminds me a lot to the ones used to play volleyball, but shorter. When the girl from the front door comes back, everything's ready.

“Hi, my name’s Sandy. I’m so sorry about telling you a little lie. To be honest, there’s only Santiago and I here, but something told me otherwise you wouldn’t want to come inside,” she says, rushed and a bit embarrassed. "But you're going to like it, you’ll see. And if you want, you can play a bit as well, with Santiago. I see you've become friendly.”

Santiago and Sandy walk to each side of the court, and they have longer and thinner rackets than those used to play tennis. Santiago is holding a tiny ball with feathers, and as I try to imagine how someone can play with it and thinking it wouldn’t be that fast and its fall would be slow and hence it would be easier to hit it with the racket, Santiago hits it so hard I can’t even see which way it goes. Sandy, swift and skillful, manages to hit the feather and makes it fall right after it passes the net. Santiago, who’s at the back of the court, runs quickly towards the net to try to hit the ball back, but he fails.

“Point for me!” Sandy yells, bouncing up and down happily.

I notice how Santiago’s face changes, his eyes sparkling, as if he were ready to see and receive any attack Sandy sends from the other side of the net. And that’s how it goes. He doesn’t let Sandy mislead him and stays alert to the fast balls she sends. It’s Santiago who wins the little one-man exhibition game.

“What do you think?” Sandy asks as she uses a towel to wipe the sweat off her face. Santiago, who’s still trying to catch his breath, brings another chair to sit next to me.

“Well, I didn’t think you could play like that with a feathered ball,” I reply, excited. Sandy’s cheeriness is contagious.

“It’s really fun! You know it’s sad that no one in Lima knows about this sport; that’s why I wanted to do something to promote it. But I didn’t know what, until I met Sis Geminis when I went to see a volleyball match. Her passionate way of cheering for her team rubs on you, and well, after I found out she teaches how to play volleyball for five soles I thought,

‘I need to do the same with badminton!’” Sandy explains excitedly, bouncing up and down just like when she managed to score a point in the game. I don’t know who she’s talking about, but I imagine someone similar to her, with the same contagious passion.

While Sandy talks, Santiago takes out his mint candies, and without saying a word stretches his hand out to me with one on his palm. We were already surrounded by the mint scent, and I think that’s his signature smell, and maybe, without noticing, it’s become mine as well.