Alright, this chapter isn't much longer... but at least I'm updating sooner! I want to thank everybody who reviewed, too! Thanks guys! I like this chapter a lot. I guess maybe it's kinda dull, but it all just flowed off my fingers, which is always good. I'm hoping to have the next chapter up in a soon-ish manner too! Enjoy!
Chapter 9: Express
The afternoon scrimmage will be a private scrimmage, where the team's owner and the General Manager and a few scouts will get together and watch the guys play, and make notes of who could move up to the Abes and who will remain with the Termites. Baralai retreated to his office, and Wakka approached me.
"So Baralai tells me you moved Tidus," Wakka says, his arms crossed. "It was a smart move."
"You think so?" I say, blushing at his compliment, although really, it was Tidus who did all the work. We were walking down a hallway in the area around the locker rooms, and my arms were full of towels for the players.
"I like Tidus," Wakka says, not answering my question. "I like 'im a lot. He reminds me of my liddle brudda. Their playing styles are similar. I jus' wish Tidus would get his head oudda his ass and start using it."
I'm not sure what to say to this, but Wakka has a point. Tidus isn't using his head at all, and I would do anything to know the reason behind this. Does he not want to play? I know he's capable. Doesn't he know he's capable?
"I know he has the confidence," Wakka continues, almost as if he can read my mind. "I think yesterday's autograph session proves that. He was a hit with the fans. The girls love 'im. Older guys love 'im, 'cause dey know who his father is. An' da kids… they loved him."
I can't help but smile as Wakka speaks. It's a strange feeling, actually. I recalled seeing girls with Cetan's jersey on, and how they flirted with him. I should have been glad that they weren't all over Tidus like that, but instead, I had felt angry and confused. I wanted to slam my cards down on the table, grab their arms, and point to Tidus and tell them why he was better than Cetan, or any other blitzer. Sometimes, I even glared at girls who passed, especially if they didn't pay Tidus much attention.
It's weird. It's almost as though I want to share my love for him.
"Do you want to watch the scrimmage?" Wakka says to me, snapping me from my thoughts.
"Huh?" I say, as I attempt to look at him over the pile of towels in my arm.
"Do you want to watch the scrimmage?" Wakka repeats himself. "You can if you want."
"Really?" I say, and I almost drop the towels at my exclamation.
"Ya, sure!" Wakka says. "Here, I'll take the towels from you." He grabs the pile of towels, and nods toward the door to the arena. "Head on in. Just stay up on top of the bleachers and don't get in anyone's way. Players' family and girlfriends and wives and whatever are welcome to watch, so everyone'll just assume you're a player's girlfriend."
I smile, and leave out the fact that I'd be more than happy to pretend to be a player's girlfriend. I give him a wave, and he responds with a large smile.
I open the door as slowly and carefully as I can, as if afraid I'm going to interrupt something. The scrimmage is in full session, and unlike the morning session, the stands are completely empty, save for five guys standing in the middle, leaning over the railing, looking over a clipboard, a few girls around my age way off to the side, and maybe two fathers sitting toward the top.
I shut the door carefully, and head up the stairs to the top of the bleachers, but, not wanting to be in the way of the presumably fathers, I sit a little further down, not far from the five with the notebooks and clipboards.
"That was an excellent save by Cetan," one of the mans, a tall man with black hair that is beginning to gray, says. "You thinking backup for the Abes next year?"
"For sure," says a rounder, bald man.
"That was a great pass by Toma there!" says the man who appears to be the youngest of the bunch. "He's a future star, that kid!"
"Too bad that Tidus kid is such a disappointment," the first man who spoke says, and I feel my face fall. I crane my neck past them, just in time to see Tidus swimming out.
I let out a rather audible sigh (luckily the five don't hear me) and lean back against the bleacher behind me. My eyes go to Tidus, and I feel a smile grow onto my lips, and my heart begins to pound. I loved watching him play. There was something special about him. I shake my head despite myself. There is something special about him.
Before I know what I'm doing, I'm standing. No one notices me (no one has noticed me). With my arms crossed, I cock my head to the side, my eyes following Tidus as he swims back and forth. I blink.
It all makes sense to me why Tidus is special.
Just as I had stood up without meaning to, I start to walk toward the five men without knowing it as well. I move slowly and carefully down the bleachers, until I'm standing right behind them.
"Toma is nothing but impressive," the youngest was saying as I crept up behind them. "We can market him too—he's not bad looking. A little older than we usually take them, but that's not a problem… I hear he's not the greatest with the fans, but we can work on that…"
"Y-You know who is good with the fans?" I say, my voice very soft, but growing louder with every word I say.
The men all appear shocked, and they turn to face me, their faces full of confusion at the sight of me standing there.
I find myself slipping my arms behind my back, and my eyes widen. What am I doing?
"Tidus, um, Tidus is really good with the fans," I say.
The men just stare at me, their faces now completely blank.
"Who are you?" the man with the graying hair finally asks.
"My name's Yuna, Sir," I say, adding in the "sir" part, being that I recognize him to be the team's General Manager.
"Yuna the intern?" he asks.
I nod. I know he's going to tell me I'm not supposed to be in there, so I continue speaking before he can.
"Tidus did very well with the fans at the autograph session yesterday. I even overheard Wakka saying that people have even bought a few t-shirts with his name and number on them. You could definitely market him."
To my surprise, three of the five laugh. (The other two are still trying to figure out who I am and what I'm doing there.)
"A few t-shirts can't give us much!" the round bald man says. "And we were hoping to market him, but his playing abilities aren't matching his fame."
I look past them. Tidus is still out.
"Have you ever noticed how he swims though?" I ask, pointing to Tidus. "He doesn't swim—he glides. He makes it look absolutely effortless. And he's fast. Watch—see how he darts around his opponent like that? He can do it flawlessly. He doesn't even have to move his arms or kick his legs much. He just glides.
"And he's never still!" I say, the statement coming out as a full exclamation. "See that guy right there? He's just treading water! If the ball's passed to him, he's going to take at least three seconds to get going—and in blitzball, three seconds can make a huge difference. But Tidus, over there—see how he's nowhere near the play, but he's still moving? Yeah, he's swimming around in circles, and sometimes you wonder to yourself "what's he doing?" but he's moving. If they pass the ball to him, he'll be able to swim off instantly, putting his team three full seconds ahead of the opponents."
Sure enough, the ball was passed to Tidus, and as though he could hear me, he caught the ball and started off quickly and effortlessly.
The five men were all staring at Tidus now, their eyes on him, unblinking.
"He's going to pass it soon," I say, pointing at him and to the guy he'll pass it to. "He doesn't even have to look, because he always keeps passing lanes open." Sure enough, Tidus sent a perfect pass across the sphere to the guy I had pointed to.
"And he has amazing shots," I say, focusing on the men now instead of Tidus. "He just doesn't do them. He's too afraid."
"We can't have someone who's afraid to shoot," the rounder bald man says, although I can tell that his expression has changed much. All of their expressions have changed. Their mouths are agape, their eyes wide and unblinking. Three of them are looking at me, the other two are still watching Tidus.
"He's not afraid," I say. "He's just lacking the confidence—but I know he has it. He has the confidence. You just have to give him the chance.
"He's a leader too," I say, and now I'm just going off of things I've observed, not things I know. "When he was just a sophomore at Bevelle, he ran the team like it was his. He had so much respect. I think he's trying to hold back here, afraid to use his father to his advantage, if you know what I mean. He doesn't want people to know him as his father's son. He wants people to know him for who he is. He wants to give his teammates all a fair opportunity."
Now all five men are looking at me.
"Have you ever seen him play short-handed?" I ask then, my eyes brightening at the memories. "He's fantastic. That's where his swimming skills really come in handy. He's fast, and you don't have to worry about a breakaway when he's in the sphere. He'll catch up in no time, and then create his own breakaway opportunities. You guys didn't put him on the penalty kill team, so you guys probably never saw it. But I've seen it many times. He's fantastic at playing defensive offense."
The graying man flips through his clipboard. "It does say here that he was good short-handed."
"Good is an understatement," I cut in. "He is excellent."
"And he's…" I trail. I had started to feel myself growing dreamy as I explained all of this, as my memories of all of his college games came back to me, the day we met, the day we hugged… I had started to say that he's sweet. But I had to stop myself.
"He's great," I finish instead, saying the statement with much less excitement as I had spoken all of the rest of the facts about Tidus.
Most of the men's eyes are back on Tidus.
One of the men, a very tall brown-haired man, lets out a soft chuckle, and he says, "It's almost as though he knows we're talking about him. He's playing much more spectacular than beforehand."
"I think the longer he plays, the better he gets—which, I suppose, could be looked at as a flaw. But I think the reason for this is because the more he plays—the longer he's in the pool—the more he realizes how much he loves playing, how much he loves blitzball. And the passion comes to him, and he just… goes. And look—look at him! He doesn't have to think. His body just goes."
Then men all exchange glances, and then look back at Tidus. I notice one of the men is jotting down something furiously in his notes. I just hope he's writing about Tidus, and not writing me up or anything.
I look past them and follow their gaze to Tidus. He has swam back to the bench so that the next crew could come out, and he's squirting water into his mouth, and saying something to the teammate at his side. Then, he looks back behind him, and his eyes meet mine. I'm not sure how to interpret the look he gives me when he sees the five suit-clad men with me at their side.
"Well, um, I should probably go," I say then. "I-I just… give him a chance. I really think there's something special about him. And I don't think I'm the only one that feels that way. I mean, Bevelle was smitten with him. And he's popular with his teammates, and really, he was wonderful to the fans yesterday."
The men simply look at Tidus as he sits in the bench, and the two men furthest from me say something to each other in hushed voices. I can't help but feel that they sound excited. I hope I'm not just being hopeful.
The remaining three men just stare at me, and then back at Tidus.
"Do you know him?" one of the men finally asks me.
"Oh, just barely," I say, shrugging. "Enough to know that deep down, when you get to his talent, he's the full package. He's the best one in this building."
"He does have a unique way of playing!" the youngest of the bunch says, and now the men aren't talking to me at all. They're talking among themselves.
I take a step backwards away from them, as they talk between themselves, a few with smiles on their faces, the graying man tapping his chin thoughtfully and looking at Tidus. As I start to walk away, I can't seem to help but think I overhear the two at the end discussing what line Tidus would be on—and I'm assuming he means the lines for the Abes.
I can't smile though. I start toward the door, my eyes on the floor of the bleachers beneath me.
Finally, I'm almost the door, and I glance up, only to see Baralai standing in the doorway, his arms crossed, and a very large frown on his mouth.
My gut tells me instantly that I'm in trouble.
