So . . . this is chapter two! :) For any of my faithful readers out there, sorry for the long wait haha, it's been a long year xD Plus, I'm quickly finding out that writing in first person is actually quite difficult . . . at least for me it is haha; also I'm too lazy to go back and fix any mistakes if there are any so bear with me. Anyways, I really hope you enjoy! :D
Disclaimer: I do not own +Anima or its characters. I do however own Brandon and Ren though, I just made them up :3
P.S: I am from America so I call football (or association football), soccer. If you have a problem with that, sorry :P
Chapter Two: Nightmares and soccer balls
"Daddy! I have something for you!" A little girl about seven years old yelled as she made her way towards a rundown cabin. Her waist length honey colored hair was bouncing gently behind her and her cream colored sundress flowed softly with the wind. She was clutching something in her hand, but not so tight that it would damage the fragile gift.
"Daddy? Where are you?" The girl asked as she entered through the doorway; then a man about six foot two peered his head through the opening of his bedroom.
"I'm in here sweetie. What did you bring me today?" The man walked towards the small girl and she opened her tiny hands. He smiled widely when he saw that it was a necklace made with blue forget-me-not flowers.
"Look! Today I found some really pretty flowers and I made a necklace out of them just for you! Are you proud of me Daddy?" She gave him her biggest smile and her emerald green eyes sparkled with delight when he nodded and placed the necklace around his neck.
"I'm very proud of you. I'll wear them for the rest of the day." He smiled at her. "Did you know that if you ever find this flower and give it someone, they'll never forget that day for the rest of their lives?"
"Really? I know I'll never forget today!" The little girl declared as the man chuckled.
"I'm sure you will never forget today." He started to smile but his lips suddenly curled into a frown. The girl raised her eyebrows and tilted her head.
"What's the matter Daddy? Are you not proud of me anymore?"
"No it's not that . . . it's your dress." The man pointed at the dress and she looked down.
"What's wrong, is it not pretty anymore?"
"Oh no! Its gorgeous sweetie but, you put it on backwards." The girl looked at him confused.
"Are you sure? I thought I put it on right." As she continued to inspect her dress, the man smiled crookedly, took her hand and led her to his bedroom.
"Don't worry honey, I'll fix it for you . . ."
My eyes widened with horror as I quickly sat up in my bed. I was covered in sweat and my whole body was trembling: I saw HIS face again. I quickly reached up and touched my hair to find that it was still short so I sighed a sigh of relief. I was still me. "Good . . . I was only dreaming . . ." I hopped out of bed and walked over to the bathroom to splash my face with cold water. I have had the same dream over and over again for three years and it still never failed to frighten me. Yet, I still never brought it up to my mother or to Brandon. They may not react to it very well. I mean it's not every day that someone has a dream like this so maybe it's better left unmentioned.
As soon as I walked into the kitchen the smell of scrambled eggs and bacon filled my nose. Mother was cooking breakfast and Brandon was reading the daily newspaper.
"Good morning sleeping beauty. How did you sleep last night?" He took a sip of his coffee, his eyes never leaving the paper.
"Pretty good." I lied. Before he could ask any further questions there was a knock at the door. "I'll get it." I walked over to the door and stood on my tippy toes so I could look out of the peep hole. I was both delighted and confused when I saw that it was Cooro who had knocked. How did he know where I lived? I pushed the question aside and answered the door.
"Good morning Nathan! How would you like to play soccer with me, Husky, and another one of my friends? I thought that you might want to meet some other people in this town." Cooro grinned and I nodded. I turned and looked over my shoulder and I shouted to get my mom's attention.
"Mom! I'm going to play with Cooro! I'll be home later!" I waited for an okay from the other room and when I heard one I was on my way to the playing field with Cooro. We walked for a few moments in a comfortable silence but Cooro decided to break it.
"So Nathan, have you ever played soccer before?" I shook my head no. "Really? You ought to get Husky to show you how to plays he's the best soccer player around! He wins a gold medal every single year!" Cooro smiled triumphantly as if he were the one that won the gold medals himself. "You know, I really think that you and Husky could become great friends, even though he's as stubborn as a bull." He let out a small chuckle. Then speaking of the devil, Husky came into view and he was showing off some of his soccer moves to some other boy. Like Cooro, he also had straight black hair and was dark complected. Cooro and I started to run towards the two boys and that's when Husky spotted us. He decided to kick the ball really hard to Cooro, and then BAM! I was suddenly lying on the ground clutching my nose; the soccer ball had hit me right in the face instead of going to Cooro: the original target.
'And you were just saying that he wins a gold medal every year for soccer . . . that doesn't seem possible when he can't even pass the ball to the intended person!' I inwardly thought to Cooro. I decided I better not say anything that could get me hurt out loud.
"Hey kid! Are you okay?" A husky sounding voice asked me. I looked up to see a pair of blue eyes staring right back into my emerald ones; it was Husky. I guess his voice lives up to his name. I pulled my hand away from my nose to find a crimson colored liquid running down my fingers.
"Y-Yeah, it's just a little nosebleed. I guess that's karma biting me back for running into you yesterday." I started to laugh but stopped when Husky didn't smile or laugh at my little joke.
'Jeez, tough crowd . . .'
Embarrassed, I tried to change the subject. "Oh yeah, I guess I never really formally introduced myself yesterday. Hello, my name is Nathan and I just moved here. It's nice to meet you." I stood up and offered my non-bloody hand to him and he responded with a 'hmph'.
"Cooro, why did you invite this clumsy idiot to play soccer with us? He's just going to make a fool out of himself and get hurt again." Husky explained as he glared at me. The old me would've just looked down at the ground and sulked at a comment like this, but not this time. I'm not Nana anymore, I'm Nathan. I got up on my feet and wiped all the blood away from my nose. I half-way returned his glare back at him and I walked up closer to him in an attempt to intimidate him, which may have been bad idea number one.
"Who are you calling a clumsy idiot? YOU'RE the one who kicked the ball in my face. I thought you were supposed to be some awesome soccer player? You can't even kick the ball to the right person so I'm thinking quite the contrary." At this comment Huskys face got really red and he looked like a bull who was ready to charge at me. Deciding to make fun of him . . . bad idea number two.
'So much for not saying anything that could get me hurt.' I thought, immediately regretting saying anything.
"You have some nerve saying something like that to me! It's not like you can do any better than me, let alone play at all. You can try to talk big to me all you want but let's see how well you do on the field. Cooro and I against you and Ren." He pointed towards the other boy I had noticed earlier. I was hoping and praying that he was as good a soccer player as Husky. Assuming that he was, I decided that it was safe to take the argument one step further by taunting him.
"No problem! But if I were you, I would just go ahead and forfeit the game to save yourself from being embarrassed from being beat by the new kid. By the way, the way that you played earlier . . . I hope you don't play that way during an actual game, or during this game for that matter; otherwise you're as good as toast." I said with utmost confidence but who was I kidding? Myself? Husky was going to pummel me and there was no way I could fight back. I seem to be a professional when it comes to digging myself into deep holes. Husky suddenly grabbed onto the collar of my t-shirt and pulled me towards his face. I never realized how scary his angry self could be.
"You sure do have a lot of confidence saying all of that. I'm just going to let you know right now that I will NOT be going easy on you. In fact, it will be my goal to see more blood come out of you. Good luck going up against me." He said very sternly and he shoved me to the side. Just as he was about to go over to Cooro he stopped dead in his tracks and came back over to me and put his lips next to my ear. "I almost forgot to give you a little tip: don't play like a girl."
His words are almost like a punch in the stomach. At that point I began to feel so nervous that my palms were sweaty and shaky. Ren came up to me and placed a hand on my shoulder and I jumped.
"Woah there, calm down. It's just me. I just wanted to say that we'll do fine as long as you're as good as you say you are." He smiled and my face fell. Does that mean . . .
"Wait, me? Aren't you a star soccer player as well?" I asked even though I think I know what his answer was going to be.
"Are you kidding me? No way! I've never played soccer before in my life! I'm a baseball player. But don't worry Nathan, your skills alone should be enough to take Husky down. And by the way, I call being the goalie!" He smiled again and walked towards our side of the playing field. Saying that I was terrified would be an understatement. Not only did I have a teammate that couldn't play soccer, but I was up against two people that actually could! Truth be told, I've never even touched a soccer ball in my entire life, let alone even know how to play it. Challenging the star soccer player to a game I don't even know how to play . . . bad idea number three.
'Just get yourself together and stay calm. All you have to do is kick a ball into a net . . . how hard could it possibly be?' I tried to calm myself down but it failed miserably. I sighed as I walked towards the center circle where Husky was waiting and slid a hand through my hair. Well, here goes nothing.
I stood a few feet away from Husky who was being the showoff that he is by doing some tricks with the soccer ball to occupy himself. He finally noticed me waiting so he kicked the ball towards my stomach but I caught it before it hit me, but only just barely. I hope he doesn't kick that hard during the game.
"Alright newbie . . . I assume that you already know all the rules and what not because you're an awesome soccer player." He said with a very sarcastic tone. "And just because you're the new boy, I'll give you a little freebie: we won't start the game by fighting for the ball at the beginning, instead I'll just let you have a kick start. Otherwise I would take you down in two seconds flat. Either of us can play goalie whenever we feel tired, just tag Ren and I'll tag Cooro. First one to five wins. Capiche?" I nodded and dropped the ball so it was next to my feet. He smirked. "Whenever you're ready . . . Nathan."
At the mentioning of my name I kicked the ball to the upper left with my left foot so that it was rolling away from Husky. I was caught up with it within seconds and I kicked it straight forward so it was going towards Cooro. He got into a catching position as I continued to kick it towards him with Husky following close behind. When I was a good kicking distance away from Cooro I decided that now was the time to kick it and get a goal. I raised my right foot up high behind me and brought it down to the ball, kicking it with all of my might.
"Yeah! Go Nathan!" Ren shouted out as the ball went airborne, which gave me a boost of confidence.
'Maybe this game wasn't as hard as I thought it was. I'm faster than Husky and I have a good kick. This should be a piece of cake!'
But I quickly found out that it wasn' didn't even try to block my kick because he quickly figured out where the ball would be going anyway. We all watched as the ball flew about ten feet over the goal post and finally landed onto some bushes which caused some frightened squirrels to scurry up into a tree. My jaw immediately dropped and I faced Husky with a red, embarrassed face. I could tell that he was holding in some laughter behind that smirk of his.
"Well this game should be over in a few minutes, and I do believe that it's my ball now." Husky smiled at me as he went to retrieve the ball. Cooro looked over to me with sad eyes as he shrugged his shoulders.
'Oh crap.'
Yay! Chapter two is finally finished. You know what would make a great birthday present (even though it was two weeks ago)? A review! Tell me how I'm doing so far, I don't care if it's long or short because I'll take any! :) And don't forget to answer the poll I just created on my profile, it has to do with this particular story. Please and thank you! By the way, I haven't played soccer in YEARS so if I get any terminology wrong . . . you'll know why now. Again, sorry for any other mistakes; I actually wrote (most) of it last year and never got around to posting it and me being the lazy bum I am didn't proof read it or anything haha. Nevertheless, I hope you enjoyed it! :D
