Her Captain, The Gamemaster

Kindness Is The New Cool

I snap out of my dream when I pick up a distant familiar voice. One my subconscious has grown to trust over the years. I turn to the source and I see Soo-ah waving to me across the room. 

'Li-ah! Wanna join us?!?'

I look at her, trying to explain something I wasn't sure about but in the end I followed her back to the court where we split into teams for 3v3. I was on a team with Soo-ah and the Lamont girl and we were versing the triplets.

The game would be hard seeing as we've just met and probably won't be able to sync up and our opponents are very intuitive and in sync but at the end of the day...

I've never lost.

I get into stance, leaving my eyes open for this game to study my teammates and opponents. I haven't seen them play but guessing from their personalities and their body builds, it's quite obvious what their style and position is.

The other team's libero was watching me carefully and I made eye contact with her with glazed eyes and I recognize her as the girl who stared at me during the assembly. She flushed a little but  got back into position.

Judging from their personalities, I can assume that each of them have different styles of intimidation? I think. The one playing libero has steadier legs, the one playing outside seems to have more lower body strength and the one playing setter appears to have better hand-eye coordination but nothing is certain.

Then again, I'm never wrong.

We begin the game with a serve from the opponents setter which I receive neatly to Soo-ah who attempts to set to the British girl but the set didn't sync up with the distance so I went to send the ball over the net to cover them.

My assumptions were correct about the triplets and I've narrowed down their strengths and weakness after a small rally and consistent attacks from their team. However, I haven't seen their individual specialties yet due to the failure to attack from my side of the court. The current score was still 0-0 due to me picking up all the missed balls and the triplet's stable triangle formation.

Soo-ah looks at me for instructions while the opponents were setting up an attack and I motion to her to change our current positions. As the ball came back to our side of the court, I ran towards the setter position and Soo-ah ran to the ball, picking it up neatly to me, but instead of setting it, I slammed it to the ground, the other team failing to pick it up.

1-0.

I sense a happy aura coming from Soo-ah and mixed vibes coming from the other four girls but I ignore Soo-ah's squeals and get back into position, moving backwards a little to extend my range as Soo-ah doesn't have my coverage span. 

The red-head went up to serve and to the team's surprise, she did a jump serve. I wasn't surprised. She had a 7th sense for strength. The other team messily picked it up and gave us a chance ball to which Soo-ah sent to me before both our spikers ran up, one as a decoy, the other as a the real knife.

I made eye contact with Soo-ah as she ran down the middle and as I the ball reached me, I tossed the ball across the court, where- 

BAM.

The ball bounced onto the opponents court as they fell from the failed block, looking to their right where the ball just fell. We stood in silence for a while, until the redhead turned to me.

'A perfect blue hut set,' Annie whispered.

I lifted my head to the left, eyeing her slightly. She was speechless but she wasn't the only one.

'Li!!! I thought it was going to me!!!"

That rhymed.

But reading my eyes, she was not amused. 

'W-wait,'

I turn to the other side of the net where the setter triplet was looking at me. 'Wasn't the ball going to Soo-ah?'

I shrug mentally but they can't understand me like Soo-ah does.

'How did one centre set mess up perfectly into a quick from the left?'

They exchange looks at each other in confusion. Even Soo-ah furrowed her brows before I sighed.

'It was intentional,'

They turn to me, mouth agape. 'HOW?!?'

Even Annie - Was that her name? - looked at me in shock. 'Was that meant for me?'

I nod my head. 'Didn't you know? You jumped for it, after all,'

She was stunned but continued speaking. 'I was acting as a decoy. I'm playing left! It's obvious that the spiker is meant to spike!'

'Then you have your answer,'

There was another moment of silence until she fired back. 'But how?!? No one said anything about us syncing up and I thought you were giving it to someone you already knew like Soo-ah,'

I shrug, this time physically. 'It just seemed lame to use a setter dump after I already did one and Soo-ah can't break through the triplet's block. Not at her level, anyway,'

I sense Soo-ah falter a little at these words and I pat her back twice and offered her invisible words of condolence to which she brightened up at.

'How did you know we would block Soo-ah?' The triplet playing spiker asked.

'Kinda obvious. You already know I can sync with her and you saw me make eye contact with her,' I explain in a monotone voice, feeling a yawn begin to arise.

'So you changed your mind to prevent Soo-ah getting caught in the block?' Lamont tried to make sense of the situation.

'No. I made eye contact with Soo-ah to throw you all off,'

There was a much longer pause to take in this information and I let out my yawn, not bothering to stretch despite the tingling in my bones. 

'To stretch is to acknowledge your consciousness. Why bother waking yourself more when you're going to go back to sleep anyway? Stretching just makes it harder to fall back asleep,' I think to myself as the silence continued.

My random thoughts were broken when I heard giggles. First from Soo-ah, then the other girls.

'You're interesting,' I hear the redhead say. 'Name's Annie,'

I nod in acknowledgement.

'I agree. I'm Wren. This is Esme and Isla,' the girl who stared at me before assembly introduced her and her sisters.

'AND IM SOO-AH,' I hear from my right to which I raised an eyebrow at her, making her giggle.

I sighed as they looked to me for my introduction. 'Tang Liling, Class 1-7, nice to meet you,'

Despite speaking in a monotone voice, I somehow got a big reaction from the other girls, who smiled and yelled back 'Nice to meet you!'

I fall onto my front as a familiar weight pressed against my back. I hear Soo-ah giggling into my ear and I glare at the floor like it was Soo-ah. I then feel more and more weight drop onto my back and I see the other girls piling on top of each other, me at the bottom.

I feel a small tinge of annoyance until I see their smiles and I blush.

'Maybe this won't be that bad,' I think as I watch them laugh from the bottom, letting a small smile onto my face.

Maybe those plans can wait.

Author's Note:

here ya go

thxx.