Good Game, Bad Meeting
It's been about a week since Evangeline attacked me and things are going well. She apologized to me when I saw her after my first class with 2-A, and we buried the hatchet. Despite the fact that she tried to turn me into an immortal creature of the night, I'm not one to carry a grudge. It's Friday as I head to my final class of the day, Gym. The dean hadn't figured out the uniform situation for me yet, so I was free to go around in anything school-worthy, like jeans and a sweatshirt. I usually wear gym shorts under my pants, so all I did was drop my jeans, pull off my hoodie, fold them up, and place them out of the way before I'm ready to go. The general rules for Gym here are show up in proper attire (shorts, shirt, sneakers, white socks), and do some type of exercise for a majority of the period; rules I have no problem following.
I start with my warm-up of 30 push-ups and 30 sit-ups before I grab the basketball Yuna gave me for my birthday and start shooting around. After about 15 minutes, Yuna comes up to me. "Hey Atsui!" I look over to her. "Hey, Yuna. What's up?" "Nothing much, just wanted to know if you wanted a little one-on-one." I chuckle a bit to myself because Yue actually guessed that Yuna would want a game with me. "Sure, why not? Go easy on me, though. I haven't played in a while." She giggles a bit at my request. Are all the girls here this cute? Maybe it's my hormones or something, so I just ignore the thought. "Sure thing, Atsui. Game to 20 sound good to you?" I nod at the suggestion. "We'll go by 2's and 3's like a normal game playing half court. Cool?" She nods again as we head to the foul line and I hand the ball to her. "Ladies first, Yuna." She giggles again. "Why thank you, kind sir."
As we start playing, I can certainly see why she's captain of the basketball team. She's quick, agile, and she plays to her strengths. But then, so am I. One specialty of mine is being able to see how my opponent operates and adjust my game plan on the spot. I can see she favors getting in close for a layup or a dunk, and when she's at a distance, she tries to power through or cleverly maneuver around my defenses. Too bad for her, I'm best at defense and long range shots. The score quickly goes to 17-19 with her in the lead, and it's her ball. "You're not half bad, Atsui. We should play more often." I chuckle a little at the compliment. "Thanks, Yuna. I can see why you're captain of the team, but unfortunately you're about to lose." She smirks at my confident remark. "We'll see about that."
She goes for the final point, only this time she decides to switch it up and shoot from the 3-point line. I don't know why, maybe she was trying to show off, but I ran after the ball, praying for her to miss, and she did. I take the ball back to the 3-point line as she puts up a much better defense than before. I double pump and fake her out, shooting for a 3-pointer of my own. It feels like it's in slow motion as the ball makes its way over to the hoop. 'Come on, baby, come on…' I silently think to myself, a moment later, I hear a defining 'swish' and I know I won. "Boo-yah!" Yuna sighs a bit, but smiles and we shake hands. "That was a sweet game, Atsui. Maybe you should think about playing on the team. We could definitely use you." I smile a bit at the offer. "I'll think about it. It sounds tempting." She smiles a bit and starts walking off. "Thanks for the game, Atsui! See ya!" She and I wave to each other as I gather up my clothes and bag before heading out the door.
I walk out of the building, intending to head to the dorm and shower before meeting Yue and Nodoka at the library, but of course, my luck isn't that good. "Well, well, well. It looks like the rumors are true. Mahora is no longer an all-girl's school." I look to my left and I see about 6 or 7 girls looking over at me. From the height and the color of their uniforms, my guess was that they were from the high school area. "Yeah, I just started a few weeks ago. Is there a problem?" The girl in the middle giggles with a hint of maliciousness. "Not at all, cutie. In fact, we were wondering if you wanted to hang out with real women instead of those little brats for a while." By this point, I start getting a little mad at the way this chick was acting. "First of all, they aren't brats. They happen to be very good friends of mine. Second, I wouldn't be caught dead with a gaggle of old hags like you. And third, find someone else to harass because I've got no patience for it." All those girls give me the most evil glares I've seen in a while, but it's nothing to fear. As a last resort, I've got one of my pistols in my pocket, but I'm hoping it wouldn't come to that. "Ugh! This isn't over, you bastard!" She snaps her fingers as her girls follow her obediently back in the other direction. I sigh quietly in relief as I head back to the dorm.