Her Captain, The Gamemaster

Two Out Of Six Players

~Flashback~

'First day of school!!!' I hear my new roommate scream and I nodded in agreement, keeping my head down at my laptop as I continue to type away. I hear Soo-ah running around upstairs doing god-knows-what and I try to make out the strange noises coming from above me.

'LIII, DO YOU THINK WE'LL MEET NICE PEOPLE?' I hear her thunder.

I pause before shrugging a little. 

It depends, I guess.

'Hmm, I suppose you're right,' she mumbled as she trod down the stairs.

~Timeskip~

The two of us walk into the school and are directed to an assembly of first-years. We join the crowd and take a seat randomly. I sense a gaze on me but Soo-ah was looking up ahead at the decorations. I turn to the source of the gaze to a student on my left, whereas Soo-ah is always on my right. I meet the stare of another girl but upon meeting my eyes, she turned away quickly.

I turn back to the front, ignoring the very excited girl next to me and close my eyes, removing all noise from my private haven, dispelling all chaos. I continue this for god knows how long, until I feel Soo-ah poke my shoulder.

She whispers to me that the assembly is finished and that we are heading to our homerooms. I get up and start walking back to the main building. Our homeroom is on the second level so I walk up the stairs and into the classroom, still in peace.

I memorized the building's layout during the holiday before our fist day. 

Lucky that Grandma can get me the blueprints.

I walked around blindly the whole day, trying to find the roof during break with my eyes closed. Whenever I go somewhere, I always try and find the roof for no particular reason. Avoiding social gathering, I guess.

I feel another nudge on my shoulder and I can tell that the school day had ended from Soo-ah's poke.

Time for club activities. Yay.

I open my eyes a little bit, already hearing the world ring through my ears and look up at Soo-ah who was standing in front of me. The two of us head to the 2nd gymnasium where the trials will be held.

XinShan only has two middle schools in Japan-Tokyo and Okinawa- and since volleyball is a big Japanese icon, many restrictions are placed for the club activities. There are a few more high schools that belong to XinShan but most people just transfer overseas for high school due to our international numbers.

The two of us enter the gym and I hear distant squeaking sounds and familiar thumps of the balls and I feel a pang of nostalgia. 

I open my eyes and all of a sudden I feel 100 years older. The two of us enter just in time for the coach to gather all the students. She begins to give instructions for the trial and how only 20 people can join the team, blah blah whatever.

We begin the drill examination for spiking, serving and setting. The coach tested us all on the things we can do and by the end of the first cut, she had already eliminated about 30 people.

Then she took a look at our defense like blocking and receiving. The coach was giving really easy balls so it was really simple.

After the second round of trials, I walk over to the bench followed by Soo-ah. 'Heyy, did you hear? Apparently Coach Nao used to play for Finland. That means she's a professional!'

I reply emotionlessly with my face and continued breathing in, trying to slow my heart rate to block out the distant noises that hurt my heart. All the memories of home clashed and I lower my head to clear my airways.

'Hey Li? Are you ok?'

I hear Soo-ah's timid voice and I open my eyes to meet her gaze and mentally shrugged an 'ok'. (ok that does not make sense)

She looked at me with concern but I brush her off, looking back up ahead where the coach just cut off another 15 people. By now, only 30 people remained and it seems all these people can do more than the basics. 

I mean, the coach was giving really easy drills. If you couldn't do those, how can you do anything?

I glimpse through the remaining people but none of them really caught my eyes. Most of them were our seniors who were re-trialing for their positions and only a handful of of first-years were left; about 10.

The coach then made us play a small game. I followed Soo-ah onto one side of the court and ignore the fact that we were up against our seniors and all of our teammates were first years. 3 games were being played and we were up first.

The first years with us didn't seem very competent and our opponents were mostly third-years but that's fine. Anyone can be beaten.

On a sharp whistle, the opponents served a neat ball over the net. Just a plain serve.

I walk to the ball destination but another small girl got in my way. I send her a glare before closing my eyes and digging the ball back to Soo-ah neatly. From there, she sent the ball to a spiker to my left.

She got blocked.

I feel a pang of annoyance and I mentally motion to Soo-ah to give me the next one. Right now I was in the back row but that's fine. The next serve came over but some other girl got there and I recognize her as the one who got in my way.

It reached Soo-ah but it was sloppy, making my toss a little more to the left than I would like but nevertheless, I spiked it.

Back row attack. Left hand.

The ball made it's mark on the service line and I get back into position. The other team then scored a point with a well-aimed serve at some girl in the front but Soo-ah does a setter dump so we get the point back.

Now it's Soo-ah's turn to serve.

Author's Note:

yea so...

shieT i got nothing to say. maybe i should just keep my mouth shut and not say anything

thxx.