𝚃𝙴𝙴𝙽𝙰𝙶𝙴 𝙳𝙸𝚁𝚃𝙱𝙰𝙶 ,, high&low

chapter twenty - one | paralyzed ocean

twenty one

paralyzed ocean

Beer pong is a sport that requires concentration, skill, practice and the flick of the wrist.

The sport of kings, Shuntaro used to call it.

My first experience with the regal sport of beer pong was when I was sixteen. My cousin Kazuma was turning eighteen, and some of his friends on the island threw him a party on one of the beaches. The table was smaller, but three guys had brought tables by mistake, so they had all been pushed together. Kazuma taught me how to play, but had expressly forbidden me from drinking. Perhaps my sobriety allowed me to have an extra edge over the son-to-be frat boys we were playing against, maybe it didn't. But I know for sure that I dominated the table at Sato for three years straight afterwards.

I stared down the length of the plywood table, red cups arranged in perfect triangles.

Just because it had been two years since I played didn't mean I had lost my touch.

On the picnic table behind Fujio, I could see Sakura sitting with Yasushi. She was talking to Tsukasa and Nakagoshi, which made me a feel a bit better. She was socializing.

"Don't tell me you're scared, Hanoaka." I chuckled, bouncing one of the orange plastic balls off the corner of the table. "I'm sure you're Oya's reigning champion of what, six months?"

"Yeah yeah." Fujio sighed "But you haven't played since you left school."

"How do you know that?"

Fujio grinned "Art majors don't play beer pong."

"On the Islands they do." I turned my attention away from Fujio, focussing on Nakagoshi for a second. "Hey Goshan, Sway is a part of Doberman Infinity! Check your facts before you question your seniors!"

Yasushi and Sakura burst out laughing, and I could faintly hear Sakura tell Nakagoshi 'I told you so'.

With a grin on my face, I turned back to my opponent. "So, Fujio. The ball is in your court now."

The younger boy laughed, pinging the small plastic ball of the table with a small flick of his wrist. The ball bounced back into the air in an almost perfect arc, bouncing off the rim of one of the solo cups. I smiled back at the younger boy, readying my shot.

With barely any movement from my wrist, I let go of the orange ball, watching contentedly as it bounced off the table, landing dead center in the middle of the second row of cups.

Fujio stared at me in amazement as the full-timers laughed and the part-timers cheered me on.

"Drink up, Hanoaka."

With a scowl, Fujio downed the beer, ignoring the jeers from Shibaman and Tsuji.

If there's one thing you should know about the full-timers, it's that they take their alcohol-based sports and drinking games very seriously. We went back and forth like this for at least another half hour, until we were down to four cups on my side and two on Fujio's. As he got drunker, his aim got worse. I was clearly winning, something everybody was likely going to mock him for, the Beer Pong King of Oya losing to a girl in a decidedly boyish sport. If you could even call beer pong a sport.