𝐇𝐎𝐒𝐓 𝐂𝐋𝐔𝐁; 𝐁𝐥𝐮𝐞 𝐋𝐨𝐜𝐤

11. FOOTBALL

After your typical host club duties, you stopped by your locker and then proceeded to walk home for the day. It was about 6:30 now, and you knew your mother and father weren't home at the moment, so you'd probably have to make your own dinner tonight.

As you were walking out, you heard a swift kick of a ball to your left, then another.

Up ahead was the football fields, the huge ones where the blue lock Neo Egoist League trained all the time. Rather than having a slot after school where they practiced, you heard that the special blue lock team had three hours during the day when they had practice instead of class time.

That didn't surprise you. Blue Lock was the most prestigious football school in the world, after all.

Out of curiosity, you veered off your course a bit and decided to visit the field. Only, you didn't expect to see Rin there.

He was wearing athletic wear instead of the host uniform you saw him in an hour ago and was taking shots at a single goal, seemingly deep in concentration. How did you two keep meeting like this?

"Rin? Hey!" You greeted, stepping onto the field. Rin looked over to you, seeming a bit surprised to see you sneak up on him once again.

"Oh, Y/n. What are you doing here?" Rin rose an eyebrow.

"I was just walking by and I heard someone playing." You explain. "I didn't know you played football."

Rin unexpectedly snorted. He enjoyed how clueless you were. "Yeah, I play."

"What?"

"Nothing. Do you play?" He asked, kicking the ball up so he could catch it under his arm.

"No. I don't know anything about football, to be honest. My older cousin plays, I think, but he sucks at it and broke a window once." You replied.

"Would... you like to learn?"

You soon came to find that Itoshi Rin loved football. An unplaceable glint in his eye appeared when he began to explain the basic rules, soon breaking down into the fine details of how to maneuver around a football. You knew Rin was normally a very closed off guy, but when he talked about the sport, some light was lit within him.

Rin began to explain the different positions. He told you about how he was a striker, or a CF, and the outside roles all support the one striker. There are middle fielders. center backs, defensive players, goal keepers, and wingers that all shape the team.  You tried to absorb as much knowledge as you could.

"Wait, so... there are eleven players in an entire team."

"Correct."

"And each of these eleven can be put into these different positions... and the positions can be used as sparingly as needed and here's no rigid structure?"

"Mhm."

"So hypothetically," You began, glancing over to Rin. You two had been talking for so long you decided to sit together on one of the nearby benches, the football sitting in your lap. "Could everyone be a goalkeeper?"

"No. That's dumb." Rin shook his head. "There's one goalkeeper. You could hypothetically put a ton of players on defense, but that's not a great strategy, as your team will never score and really good teams can simply cut through thick defenses."

"What's your favorite formation?" You quiz.

"A formation with me as the center forward."

"How egotistical." You hum. "I'm still confused about the more detailed aspects of the game. I understand that you get the ball in the goal, but how do you manage that?"

"Come here." Rin stood, first taking the football from your lap and walking over to the field. she stood about twenty five meters from the goalpost. He placed the ball onto the grass, then brought your over to stand in front of it.

"Kick it in."

"From this far?!"

"Far..?"

"I'm not a machine like you!" You puff. "Fine... let me try."

You bent your leg backwards, swinging it at the ball with all your might... only for it to go three feet. You had completely missed the ball.

You covered your face with embarrassment. "Sorry!"

Rin wanted to tell her something encouraging, like "I was the same when I started out"... but Rin was a prodigy from the beginning. Literally, his first kick was a super goal in a game he wasn't even playing in.

"Well first of all, you're kicking with your toe instead of the inside of your foot." Rin told, pointing at the tip of your toe with the heel of his foot.

"You kick like this, instead." Rin stepped back, bending his body down with his left foot and winding back his right. He positioned his foot gracefully against the ball, sending it flying into the goal.

You watched as Rin bent over and grabbed another ball, setting it in the same position it was before. "Here."

He stood behind you, and you suddenly felt a hand graze the side of your left thigh. Rin bent over your shoulder to speak. "Bend your left a bit. Enough to brace your body for what comes next."

You did as Rin instructed and took another kick at the ball... and it actually flew! You gasped, watching it bend in the air and fall right before the goal net. It was almost there.

"Wow. You did good."

"Really?!"

"For an amateur, yeah."

"Way to make me feel better..."

Rin gave you a small pat on the back. "I mean it."