AN: i wanted to put up another chapter before i become super busy again

TsubasaSanae(nice name btw)- Thank you! Its really nice to know that people love my stories. i'm really happy you think i've improved my writing (since i cant usually tell. it means a lot when people say it to me) and think i write the characters so well (i think theyre a little ooc sometimes, but im happy you think theyre not). im glad you like their scenes with Tsubasa and Sanae because they give me butterflies too when i write them lol. i just love writing these two dorks. anyway thank you again and hope you continue reading.

yeah i dont own captain tsubasa

Chapter 15: Aftermath

"That was one of the most stressful matches I've ever been," Ayame sighed as she slumped on the couch of the rec room. They were one of the first ones out of their bus, and they immediately headed straight to here. But she guessed, her cousin still wasn't over the game, even if they did win. She's been moaning about it ever since the match ended.

They arrived back to the camp to take a rest and maybe talk about camp stuff before heading back to their homes. The second round was not until by the start of February anyway. They have time to relax and be normal for a while.

"Agreed," Shiori-chan said as she took the space beside her cousin. It wasn't usual that she would agree with Ayame on these kinds of matters. When she did, then the match was certainly exhausting she guessed.

"It couldn't be that bad," she tried to comfort them.

"Easy for you to say," Hoshi-chan snorted from where she sat on one of the armchairs, "You weren't even playing."

Touché.

"The boys don't seem to be that tired," she tried to point out.

"That's what you think," Ayame told her. "Wakabayashi's already out on Shiori's shoulder."

Sure enough, their goalie had his head on top of Shiori-chan's shoulder, already in deep sleep. She was shocked to see him there. She didn't even see or hear him come in! And how in the world could he fall asleep literally anywhere?

And why wasn't Shiori-chan bothered by this?

"How come he got to sleep before me?" Hoshi-chan whined. "He wasn't even in the whole time! It's not fair."

"He can fall asleep anywhere if it comes to it," Ayame-chan answered while turning on the TV. "If he wants to sleep, he's going to get sleep. Shiori's probably going to wake him up though when she feels like going to her room."

"Can I just sleep here? My body's so sore," Shiori-chan asked no one in particular. She was sinking further into the coach, ignoring that Wakabayashi-kun was moving as we- oh his head already fell from her shoulder straight to her lap. Sanae didn't whether Shiori-chan was just too tired to care or just that she didn't really care at all. Normally, she gets flustered when a guy touches her, but Wakabyashi-kun should be too close for her comfort.

Huh, interesting.

"Or maybe not," Ayame remarked lethargically. She could tell her cousin was going to fall over anytime soon.

"Come on you guys, you can't sleep here," she told them. "You're going to get a cold if you do."

"But I'm too tired," Hoshi complained, "Going to my room will take too much effort."

"At least you won't be sick," she countered. "Guys…"

She didn't know whether they even heard her with their eyes closed. She couldn't even tell whether they were asleep.

No matter, they were going to their rooms before they spend the whole night in there and complain that their bodies were sorer than they already were.

She was about to reprimand them again, when people suddenly started to come in the room.

"Is Wakabayashi here? I didn't see him in our room," Izawa-kun asked, looking around the place.

"Shiori-chan wasn't in our room either," Rika-chan added as she arrived, also in search of her roommate.

"See for yourselves," she directed them to where the two were snoozing. They shuffled from their places and tried to find a better view of the couch.

"Aw, that's adorable!" Rika-chan cooed as she took out her phone and snapped a picture of the two.

"Who would have thought, Shiori-chan and Wakabyashi huh?" Izawa-kun remarked while rubbing his chin. "But I guess it's not surprising considering they do walk their dogs together. Makes you wonder what they actually do when they're out on their walks."

"Oh stop it," Rika-chan slapped his arm lightly. "I think it's cute."

"What's cute?" Sachi-chan interrupted when she entered the room. She directed her attention to where they were looking and immediately raised an eyebrow. "Shiori-chan and SGGK? Where the hell did that come from?"

"You can ask their dogs, they're usually the ones with them," Izawa-kun suggested.

She immediately slapped his arm, and he cried out in pain. "Ow! Sheesh I was kidding."

"Not funny," she growled. Okay, maybe she'd admit it was a tad funny, but that was mean towards their friends.

"What's not funny?" Soda-kun came in the room, a chocolate bar in his mouth. Why was he eating at this time of the night?

"Soda-kun eating chocolate at this time isn't exactly good for you," she clicked her tongue.

He looked at her in shocked, the candy still in his mouth. She could only sigh and let them be. What else could she do? He was already eating it.

"Hey, hey Soda-kun! Check out what we just found!"

She ignored Soda-kun's surprised outburst at seeing Shiori-chan and Wakabyashi-kun. Why couldn't they just leave them alone? She could understand how big of a gossip they all were, but sometimes they need to tone it down. It'll embarrass them when the two wake up.

"And this is our rec room," she heard Tsubasa's voice. She turned to the room's entrance and saw her boyfriend come in with Aoi-kun in tow. Apparently giving dorm tours at this late of the night was still acceptable.

"It's where we usually hang out when we're down with training and we don't have anything to do, usually play some video games or watch movies," he explained before turning to look around the room. Immediately, his eyes landed on her and grinned.

She waved her hand in hello while he walked towards her.

"I would have thought you'd go directly to your room," he said to her once he reached her, Aoi-kun still following close behind. She peered over Tsubasa's shoulder to see the younger boy, and she was confused yet again on why his cheeks would redden when their eyes met. She shrugged and turned back to Tsubasa.

"That was the plan," she informed him, "but Ayame didn't feel like going there yet. Now I have to wake her up to convince her that the rec room is not the ideal place to sleep in. Besides, she's not the only I have to convince."

She gestured towards the others sleeping around the room. He quirked an eyebrow when he noticed Shiori-chan and Wakabayashi-kun, but didn't say anything and turned back to her.

"I'm sure you'll be able to get them up somehow. It's almost 11 so the coaches are probably going to check up on us soon. They can get them to go to their rooms for sure."

She smiled before looking behind him. "So I see your touring our newest addition."

He chuckled and stepped aside to show more of Aoi-kun. "Yeah. Coach Gamo kinda just assigned him to me before having an impromptu meeting with all coaches. I didn't bring him to girls' side though."

"A wise decision," she nodded sagely. "We can't have him being maimed by Noriko-chan so early on, ne Aoi-kun?"

The boy looked alarmed, but his cheeks were still pink for some reason.

She giggled in amusement before introducing herself. "You know even though we've bumped into each other, we've never actually introduced ourselves to each other. I'm Nakazawa Sanae, by the way."

"You guys met before?" Tsubasa asked her.

"Not exactly," she answered. "We sort of bumped into each other when he was rushing to come to the stadium."

"I'm really sorry about that!" he suddenly bowed. "I hope you can forgive me." He bowed more.

Oh dear, that's not the reaction she wanted.

"Hey, hey, no need to be like that," she stopped him from bowing. "I told you before, right? You're fine. I'm not hurt. Although it is a little funny. For someone small you do have a lot of strength in you."

He flushed again and looked down.

She chuckled at his reaction before turning back to face Tsubasa.

"How's your head?" she asked in concern.

"Hm?" he hummed before feeling for his bandage. "It's alright. I mean it feels alright."

"You need to get the bandages changed soon. Have it changed before you sleep okay?"

"Yes ma'am," he answered teasingly. She rolled her eyes but smiled nonetheless. At least he didn't seem to be in pain. That's good.

"Ano, Nakazawa-senpai," Aoi-kun started and they both turned to him. He was squirming from where he stood, and it made her a little worried. Was he alright? Was the toll of being put directly into a game affecting him? Maybe she should let Tsubasa bring the boy to his room to rest.

"Y-you're-" he stuttered. "You're really pretty!"

She jumped in surprise and even Tsubasa was shocked at his loud outburst. Everyone else in the room turned to them in curiosity. It took them awhile to process what he said.

After three seconds, all hell broke loose.

"Aww, thanks Aoi-kun," she said while feeling Tsubasa's arms wrap around her waist possessively. "But I should have warned you not to say those things around Tsubasa. He can get quite… overprotective."

"You may have approval as a worthy teammate but I will never let you steal my girlfriend from me," Tsubasa declared, although she could hear a tiny bit of teasing in it. "You hear me? Never!"

"Wha?" Aoi-kun cried. "I didn't mean it- Mou, Tsubasa-senpai!"

There were laughs heard around the room, to the chagrin of their newest addition, even she and Tsubasa joined in.

"Why are you guys still up at this time?" Coach Gamo peered into the room with Natsukawa-san in tow. "It's ten minutes until 11."

"Sorry Coach," she apologized. "I was trying to wake some people up from the couch, but I guess we got carried away a little."

"Carried aw-" Natsukawa-san started before finally seeing Shiori-chan and Wakabayashi-kun. "Oh, that's cute. Here let me just-" she took out her phone and snapped a photo of the two.

"Kaede!"

"What? I just want to have fun. Tell me you didn't think some of our kids look cute together. Tsubasa-kun and Sanae-chan already together. I have to amuse myself somehow," Natsukawa-san huffed as she crossed her arms.

"Oh, hey Coach! Get this, apparently Aoi has a crush on Anego," Izawa informed their female coach, who looked curious about this.

Were they seriously going to make a big deal out of this?

"What? Senpai, not you too! I don't have a cr-"

"Is that so?" Natsukawa-san remarked as she looked to Aoi-kun, who tensed before clicking her tongue and turn to Tsubasa.

"You better be careful, Tsubasa-kun. We don't want anyone stealing Sanae-chan from you," she warned Tsubasa in all seriousness.

Oh my god, was she for real?

"Mou, Coach!"

"Yes, ma'am," Tsubasa answered with a salute, his other hand still holding onto Sanae. She could shake her head at the people around her.

"Will you all just go to bed before I have an aneurism?" Coach Gamo roared. "It's too late to be dealing with these kinds of stupid things."

"Boo, you're no fun Minato," Natsukawa-san said but still told followed his orders. "Well, you heard him. Let's all go to bed before we make him burst a vein. Up, up everyone. And Tsubasa-kun, check in with Doctor Himura so he change your bandages."

Tsubasa nodded his head and all of them started to head to their rooms. It wasn't worth it to make Coach Gamo angry at this time after all.

"And someone wake those four up before they can complain how much their bodies hurt tomorrow."

She stretched her arms above her as she sat on the couch in the rec room. They were having a team meeting before they were left to go back to their homes. They were probably just to have a talk about their matches for the first round, but it shouldn't take that much time since they talked about their first two games right after they played them, and the only team they haven't talked about was Thailand. Yeah, this should be brief.

She looked around the room to see everyone chilling, waiting for their coaches to start the meeting. She could see that most of them were anxious to get home. It had been more than a month already since they were in their own homes. Matsuyama-kun even seemed to be excited to see Yoshiko-chan too. He's so cute when he talked about to Yoshiko-chan and she could actually note how much he misses her whenever she listens to him.

Even Misugi-kun, although a little exasperated over his mom's concern over his wellbeing, seemed to be looking forward to spending some time with Yayoi-chan. He might not outright show how much affectionate he is to her, but when he does, man was it a huge gesture. At least that's what Yayoi-chan tells her.

But, man these boys are too cute to their significant others.

She looked down to her hand intertwined with her own boyfriend. He was busy laughing at how Ishizaki-kun was losing to the Tachibana twins about how he was more of a monkey than them. Tsubasa unconsciously squeezed her hand, and she couldn't help but smile and squeeze back.

Actually, maybe it's some kind of thing with soccer-minded boys. Maybe once they get past thinking about soccer, they become one of the sweetest boyfriends' ever? Was that possible?

Either way, she's not complaining. She had one of the best guy in the world and she sure wasn't giving him up.

She continued observing everyone until she heard Mika-chan and Shiori-chan ask Himawari-chan about high schools. Oh right, they do have some Junior High kids that were going to be High School next year.

"How about you Nitta-kun? You're in the same year as Sawada-kun and Himawari-chan right? Have you thought of a school you want to get into?" Shiori-chan turned to the boy, who was asking last minute questions from Sawada-kun over a Math concept. "I mean, Sawada-kun's going to follow Hyuuga-kun and Wakashimazu-kun to Toho, and Himawari-chan's going to Hakone High with Yumi-chan, and the other 3rd year Junior High in the team seems to have a school in mind. I've never heard yours."

"Oh, me?" He pointed to himself, before casually chuckling nervously and scratched his head. "Well, I-um, I want to take the Nankatsu High entrance exam and see if I, you know, pass. It'd be nice, playing with Tsubasa-senpai and others, I guess."

Oh that's right. Nitta-kun kind of idolizes Tsubasa ever since they met. It was kind of adorable really. Tsubasa sort of acts like a big brother/mentor to him, and Nitta-kun listens to his advice wholeheartedly.

"That's great, Nitta-kun!" she declared. "I'm sure the team would love to have you. Although I have to ask, are Urabe-kun and the others alright with this? They were a little protective of you two years ago."

Nitta-kun turned to her and nodded. "I think they're actually thinking of transferring next year. Something about Tsubasa-senpai having to rely on, and this was Urabe-senpai's words, 'a no-good, useless, monkey-faced, defender' like Ishizaki-senpai. I don't really remember."

"Hey!" Ishizaki-kun roared all the way from the other side of the room. "I heard that!"

"I didn't say it! It was Urabe-senpai!"

"That little shit. Wait until i-"

She rolled her eyes at their friend's little rant before turning back to Nitta-kun. "If that's the case them, then we'll be happy to have you. Tell you what, if you need any help in studying, you're more than welcome to ask for help."

"Help him with what?" Tsubasa asked, joining in the conversation.

"He wants to go to Nankatsu High next year," she explained to him.

"Oh dude, sweet!" he exclaimed as he turned to face Nitta-kun. "You're going to love it in Nankatsu High. More so if you join the team."

"Yup," Kisugi-kun agreed. "Not only is Tsubasa captain this year, but Anego is too. So expect a lot of time with the girls."

"Um, okay?"

"You make it sound like we're an advertisement," she accused the boy, who only shrugged his shoulders.

"Well, it's not exactly a lie," Ayame remarked as she stood beside her. "You're too close with your goof heads we spend too much time with them. That and we basically do everything with them ever since Akane-buchou and Takano-senpai started dating."

"Is that normal? Your captains dating each other?" Sorimachi-kun asked, who was silently listening in and decided to finally talk.

"Maybe," she shrugged as she sat on the couch's arm. "We've only had them and these two," Ayame gestured to her and Tsubasa, "hook up together, but who knows? Maybe it's going to be a tradition."

"That's never going to be a tradition," Sanae argued. "Just because we have two captain couples doesn't mean it's going to be reoccurring. It didn't even happen with Nao-buchou and Moritaka-senpai."

"Hey, you never know," Ayame said. "Maybe it skips a year."

Sanae rolled her eyes and ignored he illogical reasoning. Mostly because she didn't want to put up with Ayame's trolling and the coaches seemed to be ready to start.

"Settle down everyone," Natsukawa-san told them. "I know everyone wants to be home, but this going to take longer if you don't shut up."

Sometimes, it scares her how their coach can say the meanest thing with a smile on her face.

They immediately stopped talking and turned to them attentively.

"Awesome," she clapped. "First of all, we'd like to say a great job to all of you for getting pass the first round. It was a little rough for us considering we were missing some of our vital players, but we survived and that's all that matters, right?"

They whopped and cheered in agreement. Of course, as long as they can move forward and get closer to their goal.

"But," she said over their cheers, promptly shutting them up. "Doesn't mean we can relax. Watching your matches showed us stuff we still need to work on. Some are more personal than others, so I hope you know what I mean. Please work on those over this break."

Coach Gamo finally spoke, "And remember the second round starts in February, so once you get back, we're going straight to preparing for those matches. It's going to be tougher this time and we expect for you all to be prepared for it."

They all nodded to show their understanding and readiness.

"Good."

"And one last thing," Natsukawa-san added. "We know that the Fall Interhigh Tournaments will be next month and since you're all probably going to be in it, we're expecting another great show from everyone like the Summer Nationals."

"Don't worry Coach, it's going to be awesome this time. Tsubasa and Hyuuga are captains this time and you can be sure it's going to be an epic battle."

"Oh, hey Asaki-senpai, Nakazawa-senpai, and Hiyazaki-senpai are captains too! Man it's like 3rd year Junior High all over again."

"Misugi and Matsuyama are leading their teams this time again. Dude, this season and next year is going to be a bloodbath."

Natsukawa-san shared smiles with all the coaches. They knew that it was going to be an interesting tournament.

"That's good to hear everyone. But I think it's about time to let you guys go and be teenagers for a while. So I guess, this is goodbye for now and see you all in January!"

End Chapter

AN: well, we're going to take a break from these tournaments and instead im going to do some chapters focusing on the high school part of the kids. i probably wont write that much about the fall tournament except maybe if you guys want me too (i doubt i can do it. its going to be really hard). i'll probably just tell the results. i'll be bringing up some characters from FOLW though for sure. i kinda miss writing miho to be honest. she was a fun gal. i might even shift some povs and show what they think this time, like idk shiori or ayame or whoever you guys want to hear from. maybe even non nankatsu members. idk

also, i just love matsuyama's deep devotion to yoshiko like damn son you sure do love her. it was so nice reading the part where he chose to be at yoshiko's side when she got into an accident (and TSUBASA LETTING HIM. i think he was thinking that if sanae was the one who got into the accident he'd probably do the same thing which just makes my heart melt. no dont ruin my headcanon let me be happy). and misugi and yayoi's relationship is adorable too, except im a little disappointed he (spoiler alert) hasnt proposed to her in RS like come on she's been with you through thick and thin, and shes also been in love with you since forever, marry her already sonny.

anyway, i hope you like this chapter and please dont hope for any early updates (maybe) i'll be going back to school soon so i'll probably wont have much time again.

thank you reading and please drop a review see you soon!