Picture Us | Zhuo Zhi

nine

m a k i n g t h e t e a m

After the qualifiers are over, Xia comes home with a barely-visible smile on his face, one only his twin could spot. "I'm guessing you made the team," Nam says.

A small "yeah" can be heard in reply. Earlier, Nam heard Mu talk about her twin defeating a second and third year main player to make the first team, with admiration in his eyes.

"Say, so you want to play tennis with me?" Nam asks.

"Why?"

"Well... If I play with someone in the future, I don't want to be rusty, you know?"

"Who would be this someone that's not me, Nam?"

"Um... Today I ran into Tang Jiale, Chi Dayong, and... Zhuo Zhi at the tennis park. I said I'd play next time."

"Zhuo Zhi again?"

"Yeah... I don't want to make a fool of myself," Nam mumbles.

"I'm teaching Mu how to play tennis. Come along with me then."

"Thanks Xia!" Nam shouts as she moves in to hug her brother, but settles for the cat as Xia puts him in as a fluffy barrier between them. "Whoops, sorry Xia. I'll make us something actually tasty for dinner. Not flavors that weren't ever meant to be combined like how dad does."

"Thanks."

-

As Nam is walking in the hallway at school, she's stopped by Mu Siyang. "Are you Lu Nam?"

"Yes, senior."

"I'm Mu Siyang, the captain of Yu Qing's tennis team."

"Oh, um... What can I do for you?"

"I'm looking for Lu Xia."

"Oh, my brother left before me."

"Can you give this to him?"

Nam looks at a bag containing a main player's uniform. "I'm sorry... I'm going to ask you to do something weird, but... Do you know Qi Ying? I... I think you should ask her because... well... I'm sort of... kind of... trying to... play cupid with them?"

Siyang sighs to himself. "Alright."

"Oh, and... I, um... I have something to ask of you myself, too... That day you saw me with Coach Qi, I asked if I could be a photographer for the club, and... she said to ask you after qualifiers... I know the team has a reporter following you guys around, but... I could help Qi Ying and Peng Xiang with advertising... although I just want to be able to capture memories," Nam rambles on.

Siyang lightly smiles at the small girl, thinking she resembles a baby panda bear. How could he say no to that? "It's fine with me. Welcome to the tennis team, Lu Nam."

"Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

A/N- I have a bad habit to procrastinate on schoolwork, so instead of updating as soon as I write, I now plan on updating Mondays, Wednesday, and Fridays. Hopefully this schedule will help me to be consistent, because I'm definitely not being consistent with myself right now. I know this is less than what I used to update, so I'll try to have two chapters ready to update on Fridays. I'm in the EST timezone, in case that's important, and I'll start my new update schedule today. I've found a lot of self-happiness from writing lately, so I hope I'm doing this story justice. Thank you for reading this long note :)