Game Changer | Petalz 🌸🍃

Chapter XIX

Back at the locker room, Sakura takes a cold shower, which quite literally clears her mind, and she realizes that, due to all the distractions today, she hasn't looked once towards the stands. She has no idea whether her dad attended today's training.

He hasn't been contacting her lately, but with everything that's going on right now, that's for the better. Yet she still hopes he'll appear at Sunday's match. He had never missed a game against Frontale. His hatred for the Kawasaki club runs so deep that it sometimes scared Sakura when she was younger. On the match days against them, he was always so agitated that she wouldn't speak to him at all, out of fear that he would just lash out at her.

Losses always made him so upset that he wouldn't talk to her or her mom for a few days before everything was back to normal. However, losses against Frontale made him a completely different person. He would get drunk, yell, slam doors and—

She blinks, and her empty locker comes into focus. Why is she even thinking about this? It's not like he'll ever get a chance to play against Frontale again. She slams her locker shut and slings her bag over her shoulder. That's when she notices that Yunjin and Chaewon are missing. And now that she thinks about it, she hasn't seen them enter the locker room after the training. Feeling somewhat concerned, she goes to ask Kazuha about it.

"Have you seen Chaewon and Yunjin?"

Kazuha purses her lips in thought while packing her stuff into her duffel bag. "I saw Yunjin practicing free kicks, but I haven't seen Chaewon."

"Free kicks?" Sakura frowns. "Why would she suddenly practice that?"

"I don't know." Kazuha shrugs and closes her locker. "Though maybe practice is not the right word. She seemed somewhat upset, so it felt more like she was letting off some steam. She was kicking that ball pretty hard."

Sakura wonders what could have possibly upset Yunjin so much that she has resorted to doing overtime training, but comes up with nothing. The goalkeeper has never done that before, so it's all the more surprising to hear. One thing is for sure, though, it must have something to do with Chaewon and whatever happened between them yesterday.

"Okay, well, never mind, I guess. Let's get going then," Sakura says, deciding that she'll try to talk to Yunjin and Chaewon tomorrow.

Right now, there's a much more pressing matter she needs to address. One that just keeps escalating somehow. Well, okay, to be fair, she knows exactly how it escalated. Kazuha is just a little too good at appealing to her ego, and she doesn't know how to refuse a challenge. That being said, she shouldn't have played into her flirting. But apparently, Kazuha is a little too good at that, too. Curse whoever taught her that.

As they're walking towards the train station at that languid, post-training pace of theirs, Sakura realizes this is the perfect opportunity to finally talk about what happened yesterday and today.

"Zuha–" she starts, but immediately gets cut off by Kazuha.

"Dammit. I think I've lost my phone." The girl's steps come to a sudden halt as she's frantically patting the pockets of her jacket and cargo pants.

Rummaging through her bag, she almost scatters its contents onto the pavement, but still, her hectic search brings no results.

"You've probably left it in the locker room," Sakura suggests.

"Yeah, probably." Kazuha gives her an apologetic look, chewing on her bottom lip.

A little frustrated with the situation, Sakura sighs, "Come on, let's go back and check."

They quickly make their way back to the stadium, but as Sakura opens the door to the locker room, she freezes and doesn't even budge when Kazuha collides into her back.