Kiss the Rim (Book 1)

Chapter 12 LoL Just Kidding

Chapter 12

        "WHAT!" yelled Kagami. He just laughed and said, "Your just joking with me Ren." "Do I ever joke?" I laughed. He thought about it for a while and then said, "Not really. I haven't heard you joke before, anyway." Then Kuroko said, "He isn't a girl Kagami, he is actually a guy, I swear." I started to laugh to make it like we were joking. He nodded and said, "He better be." Then the door opened and the senior player of the basketball team came in. We stopped talking and we turned our head toward them. The captain looked at us and I said, "Hi, sempai." Then he exclaimed, "A freshman who finally respects their seniors!" "Umm, sempai?" I said wondering what was wrong with him. Then the captain saw my black eye and said, "What happened to you!" He also grabbed my face and examined just like Kagami did. I said, "It's none of your business." I got out of his grip and walked out of the bathroom.

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            I was walking home, to get changed into my basketball uniform when I saw Kyle's mom walking down the street with a bunch of bags in her hand. I walked over to her and asked, "Would you like me to carry those Mrs. Shay?" "Oh, hi dear. That would be nice Ren," she said giving me a bag, "I haven't seen you in a while. How have you been?" "I've been doing good. I started playing basketball again, but I haven't been doing good because of my injury," I responded. She smiled and asked, "It must be for amateurs then, huh?" I don't get offended easily, but this one just got me mad. It also made me regret talking to her because of course Kyle said bad things about me to his family, or something like that. I said," Yea, it's fun playing people my level now."

        When we got to her house, I helped her pack everything away in her kitchen. The Shay house was bigger and more nicer, than my run down house, in that run down neighborhood. Then I heard the front door open and I heard Kyle yell, "I'm home mom!" "I'm in the kitchen with a special guest!" Mrs. Shay yelled. I heard footsteps walking towards the kitchen and I heard him yell, "What the fuck are you doing here!" I looked up and said, "Sorry, your mom looked like she couldn't carry everything, so I helped." Then his mom said, "I'll give you guys some alone time to talk about the past." Mrs. Shay walked out of the room. I could see he was looking at my black eye. He walked towards me and grabbed my head to look at the eye better. Why does everyone keep doing that! He said, "Who beat you up?" "It's none of your business!" I said. I could hear frustration in his voice and he yelled, "I need to know!" "I don't have to tell you!" I said. "Tell me now!" he growled. I said, "Ned, Trent, and Ai came to my house and made the water in my house all sake. They got all of my brothers drunk and I came back home to find them all drunk. They came to beat me up, but Ai was the only one who did." I don't know why, but I don't like to lie to this guy. He said, "Ai, beat you up? I haven't seen you lose a fight before." Why do they keep mentioning that! I said, "I don't know, I let people hurt me so they can feel happy from it. So they let most of their anger on me outside of the court." I knew this was probably a bad strategy, but when Daiki told me something about fights I used it to my advantage. When your in a fight, they use their anger as fuel to keep them punching. On the court, it would be useless to them because they could use that anger already on you when they beat you up. He then said, "You dumbass, you always caused us trouble a long time ago."

        When I was on the Shohoku Middle School basketball team, everything was fine in the beginning. We all had it good, until our coach, Coach Martinez died of cancer and we got a new coach. Life wasn't the same ever again. With our old coach, we were like any other basketball team, playing for the fun of the sport. I learned this from Coach Martinez what it actually meant to play as a team. When he was on his death bed, he asked for me to be there at his last moment with my brother Aito. He told me to be the best I could be and to never think of myself as a better player than everyone, but as any other player. He told me that he would always believe in me because he knew I was going to be better than everyone and I would be a good sport to all. He said to me at his last moment, "If the other players hurt you to where you can't play again, keep playing for my sake. Please, if everyone turns into players who just want to win, please go to another school to play against them to make them realize that you guys didn't play to win..." Our new coach was Coach Grey, who hated my guts for the rest of the year because I played not to win, but to have fun. He taught us to play dirty and to play to win. I resisted and Coach Grey beat me because of it. I'm never going to forget the bloodshed of that basketball season.

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        I walked into the sport center ready to play with Aito and Daiki. We got to the gym where we would play basketball and the whole team started practice. Coach Aida said, "Your late Ren! Run ten laps at the track field!" She blew her whistle and I ran to the track field. Then Kagami said, "What! He gets to skip out on swimming stretches!" "Yup, because Aito is going to train him in the pool later," said Coach Aida while Aito smiled and waved with his eyes closed, waving to the team as we ran to the track field with Daiki following right behind him.

        We jogged most of it until the seventh lap where we sprinted most of it. I turned to look at the pool door and there was guys watching me from the team. When I was done with the ten laps, Aito said, "Let's race a 100m like I did in track. Come on Daiki lets line up, and you too Ren!" We lined up with the blocks Aito borrowed from the sports center. Then Coach Aida walked over with the team and went to where the person would usually shoot off a gun. She said, "On your marks." We then changed position on the block, and she whistled while the team yelled go. Aito and Daiki just started running full speed, while I was a couple inches behind. Then we were almost at the end, I then dashed up ahead of my  brothers. 

        I tried to get my breathing back to normal and Aito said, "You sure haven't lost your running talent, Ren." He was trying to catch his breath and Daiki said, "You always trick us and come from behind us. You get us every time." We all laughed because we hadn't done this in a while. Then the whole team ran over to us and Coach Aida said, "How was the run Ren?" "It was so much fun!" I smiled. Coach then said, "So you know why I brought you out here?" I nodded and the then Kagami complained saying, "Why was she suppose to come out here then!" "You wanna tell him Ren," she said. I answered saying, "She told me to come out here so I could waken up my leg strength and to go against my brothers to see if I could beat someone older than me and to beat the profesionals." We all started training on the track field and I just kept having fun while everyone else felt tired. 

        At the end of the training at the track field, I felt so hyper and the coach noticed it and said, "Why can't you guys be like Ren, all hyper after a day of running." I started doing jumping jacks in place and stretching. The team looked at me in amazement at my energy. My coach smiled at me and said to the team, "You guys need to work out harder." I said, "Umm, you might not want to over do it because you might get heat stroke or you will faint." The coach nodded agreeing with me. She said, "This Saturday we are playing against Yuta High and Shotoku High, so be ready!" She smiled and looked at my brother and said, "Can you keep teaching Ren some good moves when the team leaves. Anyone can join them if you ask." Most of the team left, except for Kuroko and Kagami. Daiki led us in some boxing exercises which helped our upper body strength. 

        After the extra practice, Aito and Daiki stayed at the gym to play their sports against older people. I walked home with Kuroko and Kagami. The sport center was pretty far away from my house because it was in the good side of the city. We walked to the train station with the dark sky looking down at us. We all walked quietly down the street until I said, "I am going to make this team beat Shotoku High." "Why are you acting this way?" said Kuroko. I answered, "Because, if I don't win against them, I won't get to show my old teammates what our old coach wanted. He wanted us to play for the fun of the game, even if we didn't win. He had cancer, so we got a new coach who was meaner than him. When our old coach died his last wish was he wanted me to play basketball out of love of the sport. He never told this to our captain because he idolized how I behaved in basketball." "How can a coach idolize the way you play?" said Kagami. I answered, "He said I had good sportsmanship, but I just did what was the right thing. The new coach, hated how I acted and the other players too. He played all of us hard and would beat me for not listening. I knew all the dirty plays were wrong, but I didn't listen. We started not playing like a team anymore too, and they started hating me too." Everyone was silent for a while as I told more of my story. When we got to the train station, I fell asleep on the train because I was so tired.