AN: im sorry that this was so late. life has just been so busy and i have exams coming up soon. so hope you're alright with this kinda crappy chapter

yeah i dont captain tsubasa

Chapter 8: Brief Respite

"Man, I can't believe I'm back here again," Taki-kun drawled as they passed the gates of the training center. "Who would have thought two weeks would come by so fast? It feels weird not being in school at this time."

"Who cares?" Ishizaki retorted, continuing to walk leisurely with his hands behind his head. "At least we can get away from it. I'm looking forward to ignoring all my books."

"Don't you remember Ishizaki-kun?" Shiori-chan interrupted meekly. "We have to still study when we're here. The Association doesn't want us to neglect our schooling. They wanted us to bring our school bags and get our homework from our teachers."

Oh right, they did say that. They received another call telling them to do that, since they said they'll be giving them time to do their schoolwork. Apparently they would have academic instructors come by three times a week so they have the opportunity to ask questions about they're homework. How would that work, she didn't know.

"Ssh," Kisugi-kun shushed her lightly, "Let us forget about that information, Shiori-chan. For now, this will be our priority."

"O-okay."

She chuckled at her friends as they discuss a new topic. It was nice to hear them talking casually again. They didn't exactly make up after the whole fiasco with the announcements, but the conference with the coaches and being in school made things normal like it used to be. Of course, it didn't mean that they all forgot about how upset they were at each other, but they all figured it was better if they left it all behind. After all, they weren't going to through years of friendship over something like that. They knew better than that.

It was nice to see them all laughing together again.

"Ready to start training?"

She was interrupted from her train of thought by her boyfriend, who was looking down on her expecting an answer.

She shrugged carelessly. "As ready as I'll ever be," she said.

"You don't seem that enthusiastic," Tsubasa remarked as they neared the entrance of the facility.

"Eh," she shrugged again. "This happened last time too. When we start training tomorrow, I'll gradually get into it. Besides, taking care of children –your brother being one of them- is exhausting. I'm surprised you even have this much energy."

Tsubasa chuckled again and threw an arm around her shoulder, giving her a light squeeze

"Speaking of training," Tsubasa started, "how do you think we'll do with the combined practices?"

"Well, it's not starting until after the separate practices," she said, "which I think is a good idea. At least then, we're not all at each other's throats on the first day. That would be a disaster."

Tsubasa gave an amused smile while she gave a tiny one before continuing.

"But to be honest," she said, "I have no idea what's going to be happen. Hopefully it won't be as terrible as I expect it to be."

He pushed the door open for her and they entered the building, and immediately they were greeted by the huge gathering of teenagers, all chatting amongst each other. Well, it was the girls among themselves and the boys with them, again. You would think that the coaches' speech would help them get over their differences but apparently not.

Though, it was still nice that they weren't trying to kill each other with looks anymore.

Noriko-chan turned towards them, stopping her conversation with Saya-chan and Yumi-chan and gave them a glare –specifically on her. Man, even if her eyes were covered with her glasses, she was still scary.

"Your late," she declared. "Where have you been?"

Late? They were supposed to be here by four. Its only 3:50. They're actually even early by ten minutes!

"She's right," Jito-kun agreed. "We've been waiting for you guys. You're last ones to appear, you know."

"And they're the closes ones here," One of the Tachibana's snickered.

"Really, Ayame-chan," Sachi-chan teased, "What took you so long? Did you guys almost forget to come here? How embarrassing.

Ayame scoffed and crossed her arms, "So what if we got here later than everyone? Mind you, it's not even four yet."

"Still, why did you guys just arrive?" Yumi-chan asked. At least she wasn't mean about it. "We all kinda expected you guys to be early, since you guys are the closest."

"Well, sure," Shiori-chan answered. "But since Nankatsu is only about 45 minutes away, we kinda decided to leave our town by 2:30. We thought we had enough time to travel here."

And they did. Just because they were the last ones to arrive didn't mean they were late.

"You did, Shiori-chan," Natsukawa-san's voice suddenly joined in the conversation. They turned to where her voice came from, and saw her standing along with all the other coaches.

"Hello everyone," she greeted them. "I'm glad all of you made it here."

She looked around the room, her smile never faltering.

"As you can see, it's already four in the afternoon, which was something we planned. To be honest, our plans for training doesn't start until tomorrow. We just wanted you guys here so by tomorrow you're all rested and ready."

"Right," Coach Gamo finally spoke, and somehow the smirk on his face was a little alarming. "After all, hell starts tomorrow."

T-that's very comforting. She hoped that she could last as long as they expected.

"Good!" Natsukawa-san chirped, enthusiastically. "Now some rules: Boys will stay on the left wing, girls on the right. Boys will not be permitted to enter any girl's dorm once 11 pm hits and vice versa."

She heard their friends giggling and snickering among themselves. Misaki-kun even elbowed Tsubasa with a teasing smirk while Ayame gave her a knowing smile.

She rolled her eyes in exasperation. Just because they were dating didn't mean they have to be together. They're not going to break some rules. Besides, what are cellphones for?

"You don't necessarily have to be in your rooms, but just don't be in the opposite gender's rooms. We are still adults responsible for everyone and we don't really want something happening, now can't we?" There was a little twinkle on her eyes, and she was- she was a little afraid.

It also didn't help that everyone from Nankatsu would not stop snickering and she wanted to slap every single one of them.

"Also, be up by eight am tomorrow, practice starts at nine in the morning every day except Sunday. Those are rest days, and maybe homework days. It's your day, do whatever you want."

That sounds like a good deal. At least they weren't always practicing. But knowing them, they'd find themselves on a soccer field kicking a ball either way.

"With that being said, I guess it's time to let you guys let loose and take the rest of the day off," Natsukawa-san ended. "Now scram."

That's it? No other rules and regulations. They seemed to trust a whole lot.

"Sweet!" she heard Ayame exclaim from beside her. Oh no. Oh no. This was not good. Ayame's going to take advantage of all these privileges and it will not be good.

"Great! Wakabayashi, get the PS4 plugged it, "she ordered, "We need to finish that game."

"You brought a PS4?" One of boys asked incredulously.

"Don't worry we already asked Coach Mikami about this and he brought it up with the other coaches. They were okay about it."

Sanae rolled her eyes and grabbed her cousin's arm. "You are not playing right now until you get yourself situated. Now get your bag. We're going to unpack first."

"But my unbeaten record-" Ayame tried to reason as she tried to keep herself rooted on the spot.

"This wouldn't even take long," she huffed to her cousin. "Stop being so childish."

"And you're not exactly unbeaten," Misaki-kun quipped. "Tsubasa beat you twice yesterday."

Ayame puffed her cheeks and turned to him. "Shut up!" she cried. "He doesn't count because I was distracted."

"Distracted by how he beat you on his first try of the game, you mean?"

There was a chorus "oohs" going around the room- mostly from the boys, but even the girls giggled.

"You shut your trap, nobody asked you," Ayame roared towards Izawa-kun, who cheekily dodged her as she tried to smack him.

She sighed exasperatedly at her cousin's antics.

But somehow, these actions probably had something to do with what was going on right now.

She scanned the room again, and she was kind of surprised to see everyone talking to each other. She didn't know whether it was because the coaches were conversing with some of them as a group, or it was because they saw how comfortable the Nankatsu team were with each other, but the tension between the two groups seemed to have evaporated. Not completely, but they were finally okay enough to exchange talks and smiles.

Maybe this could actually work after all.

It was already evening, and the stars twinkled above them. It reminded her of their nights in Hikrigaoka Park, but since they weren't exactly in Nankatsu, this place wasn't so bad either. There was only a higher chance of people ruining their private time, but when someone had their friends, they got used to it.

Both of them were chatting quietly between themselves, sitting on a bench outside of the dorms. He had an arm around her while she rested her head on his shoulder. It's been awhile since they stargazed. They were just so busy, what with him at training almost all summer, and then they had to prepare for this, they barely had anytime to just talk between them.

It was nice.

"I wonder how they're going to do this whole thing," she said.

He shrugged her shoulders, or tried to anyway. "I don't know," he answered. "I'm sure the coaches will think of something. Coach Mikami probably said something about how we practice sometimes. They'll know what to do."

"Maybe," she agreed halfheartedly. Even though she was a little bit assured of this whole thing going smoothly, she still couldn't help the paranoia to build inside her.

"We'll be fine," he assured as he dropped a kiss on her hair. "We're all amazing players and I'm sure we'd understand each other. It might not happen later, but it will happen soon. I don't think you should worry about it. Besides," he paused for a second and she took her head off his shoulder to look up at him, giving him a confused look on why he stopped.

"You're going to grow wrinkles if you continue like that," he teased as he bopped her nose with his finger. "I can't have a wrinkly faced girlfriend."

She gave him a light glare before rolling her eyes. "You're such a jerk," she huffed.

"You love me anyway," he laughed as he nuzzled into her neck. She tried to lean away from him while grumbling, but he only answered by wrapping put of his arms around her and nuzzled closer.

"Of course I do, you big baby," she laughed and turned to face him. She cupped his face with both of her hands and pecked his lips. "I always will."

His lips slowly turned into a smile before he leaned into her and gave her a kiss, this one longer and fuller than the one she gave. They separated and met their foreheads.

"But seriously, don't worry about it okay," he said. "Sure it'll be rocky at the start, but I know it's going to be better. We're the best players of Japan. If anybody can make it work, we can."

She gave a smile, before nodding.

"You're right," she agreed. "We'll be the best team."

"That's more like it," he said. He separated the two of them and stood up, offering his hand. "Come on, they probably have dinner already and I'm kind of getting hungry."

She laughed and took his hand. "If you're not thinking of soccer, you're thinking of food. What am I going to do with you?"

"I can't help it," he cried as they started to walk, "I'm a growing boy. And I do think of other stuff."

"Really?"

"I think of you."

"…"

"Tsubasa! I told you to stop doing that!"

His laughter always made her worries go away so that's why she couldn't stop the smile forming on her lips.

Yeah, this tournament will totally work the way they wanted.

End Chapter

AN: i can never get tired of writing bluff between these two. they're just so adorable. yeah, they're all in the camp now, so this is where everything kinda goes a little more complicated, especially for me. lets just hope we can make this work 😣

anyway, thats it for now. thanks for reading and i really, really would appreciate it if you leave a review

thank you and cya soon!