#Meliodas
Monspeet is a beast. I'm talking about a guy weighing in at one hundred at sixty-five pounds of pure power, and the kind of speed and precision that will lead him to sign a serious contract with a team of the National Hockey League in the future. Well, only if the league is willing to ignore all the time he spends in the penalty box. We are in the second half and Monspeet has already had three penalties; one of them results in a goal, courtesy of Ban, who then goes to the penalty box to make a gesture of bravado to Monspeet. Big mistake, because now Monspeet is back on the ice and is hungry for revenge.
he hits me against the fence with such force that it shakes every bone in my body, but luckily I pass the puck and shake off the stars around my head in time to see Gil shoot, with a slap shot, towards the Edinburgh goalkeeper. The marker lights up and neither the cheers or boos of the crowd diminish the sense of victory that runs through my veins. The games away from home are never as stimulating as those played at home, but I feed on the energy of the crowd, even when it is negative.
When the bell signals the end of the first half, we go to the locker room winning 2-0 against Edinburgh. The whole team is hyped up, but Coach Dreyfus doesn't allow us to celebrate. It doesn't matter that we're winning, he never lets us forget what we're doing wrong.
"Howzer!" he shouts. "You're letting 34 push you around like a rag doll! And you" the coach looks at one of our second-year defenders. You've let them get away TWICE! Your job is to be the shadow of those assholes. did you see the blow that Ban got in at the start of the second half? I'm expecting that kind of aggression from you, Renaud. I do not want to see anymore more kitten hits. hit them like a lion, kid!"
When the coach goes to the other end of the locker room to dole out more criticism, Ban and I exchange smiles. dreyfus is hard as shit, but he's very good at his job. Congratulates when the praise is deserved, but most of the time, it pushes us hard and makes us better.
"Wow that was one hell of a hit he gave you." Gil gives me a sympathetic look as I lift my shirt to carefully examine my left side.
Monspeet hit me like a ton of bricks and I can already see how my skin acquires a bluish hue. It's going to leave me with hell of a bruise.
"I'll survive," I reply with a shrug.
The coach shouts to point out that it's time to go back to the ice; we take off the blade protectors and form a line in the tunnel.
When I go out on the ice, I can feel his gaze on me. I don't look for him, but I know that if I do, I'll find him: my father, sitting in his usual seat at the top of the bleachers, his Demons cap pulled down to his eyes, his lips pressed into a tight line.
The Edinburgh campus is not too far from liones, which means that my father only had to drive an hour from britannia to get here. But even if we had been playing for hours at a weekend game during the snowstorm of the century, I would still be on the ice. My old man never misses a game.
My great dad, hockey legend and proud father.
Yeah sure. bullshit.
I know fine well that he doesn't come to games to watch his son play. He comes to see how i play an extension of himself. He comes to see how the future Demon King of the ice plays.
Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I was fucking shit on the ice. What if I wasn't good at skating? Or shooting? What if i was scrawny with the coordination of a newborn deer on ice? Or if I had preferred art or music or chemical engineering?
He probably would have had a heart attack. Or maybe he would have convinced my mother to give me up for adoption.
I swallow the taste of bitterness and join my teammates.
block it out of your mind. He is not important. He is not here. It's what I tell myself every time I climb the fence and plant my skates on the ice. That man is nothing to me. He stopped being my father a long time ago.
The problem is that my mantra is not infallible. I can block him from my mind, yes, and he's not important to me, of course! But he IS here. He is always there ... Damn.
The second half is goes on the attack, desperate to avoid getting a 0. Cain attacks from the very first second, while Ban and Hollistry frantically to prevent the waves of attack that Edinburgh is doing to our plays. The sweat drips from my face and neck while my team is dealing with the attack. Edinburghs defense is a joke since they put there whole effort into attack so i easily get through. Ban fights with Monspeet behind me and emerges victorious. His pass connects with gil, who goes at lightning speed as he rushes towards the blue line. Gil passes the puck back to ban and the three of us fly to enemy territory where its three against two.
The puck flies in my direction and the roar of the crowd beats in my blood. Monspeet approaches quickly ready to attack; I'm in his sights, but I'm not stupid. I pass the puck to Gil, taking another hit from Monspeet while my teammate gets near the goalkeeper, faking that he is going to shoot, he passes the puck again and i get a direct shot at the goal.
My shot comes in with a buzz in the net and the timer stays at 0. We won 3-0 aginst Edinburgh.
Even the coach is in good spirits when we walk in line to the locker room after the game. The other team didn't get a goal passed us, we stopped the beast that is Monspeet and we've added a second victory to our record.
We are still at the beginning of the season, but all we see at this moment is ourselves as champions.
Ban drops down on the bench next to me and leans down to untie his skates.
"So what is the deal with your private teacher?" His tone is completely casual, but I know him well enough to know that there's nothing casual in that question.
"Ellie? What about her?"
"Is she single?"
The question catches me off guard. Ban is attracted to girls as thin as toothpicks and sweeter than sugar. Elizabeth, with her endless curves and her spitfire nature, doesn't fit any of those requirements.
"Yes," I say cautiously. "why?"
He shrugs. All casual again. And again, I see through him.
"She's hot". He pauses. "Are you bedding her?"
"nope. And neither will you. Her eyes are on some other asshole."
"They are together?"
"Naah."
"In that case she's fair game. You don't mind, right?"
I go stiff, just a little, and I don't think Ban notices. Luckily, Cain Barzad, our goalkeeper, heads towards us and ends the conversation.
I'm not sure I know why I'm suddenly so restless. I do not like Elizabeth in that sense, but the idea of her and Ban sleeping together makes me uncomfortable. Maybe because I know how much of a player Ban can be. I can't even count the number of times I've seen a girl do the walk of shame after coming out of his bedroom.
It pisses me off to imagine Elizabeth sneaking out of his room with her hair ruffled by sex and her lips swollen.
I don't expect it, but the truth is that I'm jealous. she keeps me on my toes all the time and last night when I heard her sing… WOW. I've heard the words "tonality" and "timbre" on that American Idol program, but I don't know shit about the technical aspects of singing. What I do know is that Elizabeth's torn voice gave me shivers.
I throw all the thoughts about Elizabeth from my head when I get to the showers. Everyone is in a rush for victory, but this is the part of the night that I fear. Win or lose, I know that my father will be waiting in the parking lot when we go to the teams bus.
I leave the stadium with damp hair from the shower and my hockey bag slung over my shoulder. And yup, my old man is there. Standing, near a row of cars, wearing his thick winter jacket with the zipper up to his neck and the cap covering his eyes. Ban and gil are at my side, still gloating about our victory, but the latter stops short when he sees my father.
"Are you going to say hey?" He whispers. The anxious sound of his voice doesn't go unnoticed. My teammates can't understand why the hell I don't let everyone know that my father is HIM, the demon king. They think that he's a god, which I suppose makes me a demigod from the luck of having been sired by him. When I first came to liones, they used to harass me for an autograph, but I made up the story that my father is extremely touchy with his privacy and, fortunately, that seemed to get them all to stop harassing me for autographs and introductions.
"No" I keep walking towards the bus and turn my head just as I pass by my old man.
Our eyes meet for a moment, and he nods.
Just a slight tilt of the head, and then he turns around and walks slowly towards his silver SUV.
It's the same routine as always. If we win, I get a nod. If we lose, I don't get anything.
When I was younger, if we lost, he at least pretended to be the compassionate father, a false smile of support or a pat of comfort on the back if someone looked at us. But at the moment we were alone, the farce was over.
I get on the bus with my teammates and breathe a sigh of relief when the driver leaves the parking lot, leaving my father in the rearview mirror.
Suddenly I realize that, depending on how the Ethics test goes, I might not even get to play next weekend. Undoubtedly, the old man will be anything but happy.
The good thing is that I don't give a shit what he thinks.
