IN A DREAM | lui shirosagi

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ 4 - ғʀɪᴇɴᴅs ೄྀ࿐

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    "ANYWAYS! Wanna try blading, Y/N?"

"W-W-What?" I gasp. What do you mean I-I try? I can't play! But I can't refuse either, it'll make me seem— "M-Me?!"

"Yeah! Here, use my bey!"

"N-No t-t-thanks...I-I'll be f-f-fine—"

"Nonse—ohhhh crap!" She snapped her fingers, an agitated expression shown as she spun over to me. "I just remembered that I have somewhere to go! Sorry 'bout that, Y/N! We'll have to chat more tomorrow at school, bya!"

    "O-O-Okay, b-bye."

    'Is she just going to leave me here?!'

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

    It was pretty awkward now without Akio.

    It's like you're at a party with your friend, but you have absolutely no clue about anyone there. So you're basically gonna be attached to your friend like a lost puppy the entire night. And then that friend leaves—long story short, it doesn't mix well in this situation.

    "Hey, Y/N." Gabe began.  "How's your knee?"

    "M-My knee?"

    "Yeah, it's scraped."

I took a short glance down at my leg, finally noticing the small—actually, it was fairly medium—wound on my left kneecap.

    "Oh, I-I-I didn't n-notice..."

    "Here, take this."

    Gabe reached into his pocket, a box full of bandaids was then tossed to the me. It bounced a few times in the air as I struggled to catch it. A small snicker came from Katana and his teammates as they see me struggling with such a simple task.

     "I take it that you don't do sports much?" He asked, hand on his hip. A faint, rosy blanket of scarlet covered my cheeks, admitting to his question.

     "I-Is it r-really that obvious?"

     "It pains me just to watch you catch a b-box." Shinki smirked, hunched over and clutching his stomach. "Hah!"

     "Shinki, Kyo, don't laugh."

     "Right...Sorry."

     I rubbed my right arm. Should I start expanding my physical abilities? Mom said that she had quite an adventure in high school when she joined the volleyball team. My E/C pearls gazed down to the tile-covered ground. I don't like sports though...

      "But how do you not do any sports?!"

     "I...d-don't like them?"

     "Ah...I guess that makes more sense."

     ...

     ...

     ...

     "...c-can you tell me about bl-blading?"

    'Is this a mistake? They aren't responding? Did I say something wrong?' With every passing moment, my heart was gripping on with all its might on the edge of a cliff. 'This is why I really dislike risks. The embarrassing moment when—"

     "Sure. C'mere, I'll show you"

     Oh!

     I gave a small smile as I slowly made my way towards the team leader and a empty bey stadium. Thank gosh... The others raised a brow and were surprised at the act, but didn't really think too much of it, getting back to training right away.

"Starting off," he began. "There are four types of beys that everyone should know. Attack, defense, stamina and balance."

I nodded.

     I have been cooped up for a long time at home studying school subjects that some stuff I didn't even know, existed.

"As you can tell from their names, an attack type is a bey that specializes in attacks, a defense type defends, and a stamina bey has the most stamina. The balance type is called that is because it has equal attributes of all of the types combined."

"...okay."

"As for disadvantages, other beys excel in their one particular area and lack the others. But balance types equally caught up to everything, except that they don't really have an advantage or disadvantage over any other types either." He continued to explain. "Mine's a balance type. Shinki and Katana have an attack type while Kyo's a defense."

"O-Oh...o-okay." I nod again. I think I get what he's talking about—it ales sense. "What ab-about weaknesses?"

"Mhm. It's obvious that you shouldn't pick a fight with a defense type if you're an attack type because it'll have an advantage..." He trailed off, deciding how to continue. "Well, you shouldn't be overconfident either as anything can happen in a battle.l

"T-Thank you..."

"Hey, stutter girl!" The shorter boy—which I recall as Kyo—waved over to me. "You want to become a blader too?"

"N-Not really..." I shook my head. It's not a good fit for me—the competitiveness and all that. "...it seems intense."

"How about a bey trainer?"

      'Bey trainer? Do they...train beys?"

"W-What's t-that?" I ask.

"It's a person's occupation. Bey trainers are people who can fix broken bey parts, evolve them, invent new tools for bladers to use for battles." Akio's crush butted in. I hope she won't mind. "Or they can just help out people and give tips from time to time."

"R-Really?"

The other members of the club seem pleased about my positive reaction. I mean, that sounded fun. Being apart of the show, but not necessarily being in the limelight. You still get to have some sort of connection...without attracting attention.

      I like that.

"T-That sounds...fun."

"Maybe you can help us when you're a bey trainer."

"O-Okay...thank you." I glance aside. From the corner of my eye, I spot a clock on the wall. The shorter hand on the machine pointed to five, the longer one hovering over 4. "I-I better get home n-now. I really enjoyed today, um. S-See y-you!"

In a hurry, I ambled out of the large glass building. My fragile heart couldn't handle the stress of...that, inside of that place anymore. But still, on the inside of the famous gym, the bladers of Rideout were all secretly in joy by the fact that Akio introduced them to such a sweet and innocent girl...at least that's what it seemed to them on the outside.

'Is it just me or did she improved on not stuttering as much in here?'

'She is cute.'

"Hm, finally. That wacko found better friends for once."

"At least that 'wacko' is happy."

       "Let's just hope that it stays that way."

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