𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗻

Blue Lock was currently in a weird state of limbo.

The third selection was yet to kick off and the cafeteria had all you can eat food. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime, you could actually eat something different. It was a blessing. Truly.

All of the remaining members of Team Z were gathered around a table for dinner. You had all agreed to reunite, but it seems that things don't always go quite as planned. It was kind of sad, you had to say, but the scent of food sitting in front over you was completely overwhelming your senses instead. 

Igarashi, who you still couldn't figure out why he was still here, was stuffing his face with anything he could, but honestly, it was understandable.

"Who're you guys pickin' for you team?" Raichi asked gruffly after he swallowed the food in his mouth.

"I'm going with team A," Igarashi mumbled through a mouthful of food.

Well, at least now I can rule out one option. Made picking a bit easier.

Everyone else said their part, all were mostly undecided. To be fair, so were you. Not that your decision mattered at all. Huh, thinking about it, you had quite the privilege. You didn't have the weight of some huge-ass decision on your shoulders. Sucks for them, I guess.

Everyone started to finish up their meals, getting up to go prepare for bed. You wiped your mouth with your napkin and pushed your chair out from the table, picking up your tray to leave at the drop-off.

As you walked across the cafeteria floors, someone made the intelligent decision to stop right in front of you, causing you to ram right into them.

You looked over to see that Shidou guy from the meeting standing in front of you, "Hello?"

He smiled, you couldn't even determine the intention behind it, "Y'know...you really don't seem like you belong here."

You furrowed your brows and narrowed your gaze at him, the fuck is he on about? He'd seen you, for what, two seconds? "What?"

"I saw you walking over here, and you just seem really out of place to me," he explained as he inched his face closer and closer to yours, studying every inch of your face.

"Right..." you swallowed, "I'm not sure what to tell you." Can he really already tell him a girl? Man...not another fucking person.

You two were practically nose to nose at this point, a subtle blush crept up his neck, and he quickly backed himself away from you. "I get it now, actually," he cleared his throat. "You look a lot like a girl."

Really? That's crazy. "Thanks?" You stepped to the side, preparing to walk around him to the trashcan. 

He blocked your path again, "Woah, woah, woah. I have a question," he smiled once more, practically wiping away the past ten seconds. "Whose team are you going to be on?"

"I don't know yet," you answer exasperatedly. Can't I just throw away my goddamn food? "Why do you ask?"

He quirked up the corner of his lips, "Join mine."

"Why?" Isn't Igarashi going to be on his team? Do I really want to subject myself to that?

"You seem like you'd be able to make an explosion."

Is he on drugs?

You felt someone jab something under your shoulder blade. Sharply, at that.

"Hey..." you grumbled, "cut that out." You wanted to get back to your dream, it was amazing. You were outside. Like running through cornfields with your arms out to our sides movie-type shit.

They jabbed you again, causing you to knock into enough consciousness to collect that you were lying on your side, and wherever you were was cold as fuck. But, you were still sleeping. Can't people respect that?

"[-rname], [Surname]," a voice repeated accompanied with pokes by each word.

You swatted a hand behind you and slapped away the finger attacking your back. Pushing your self up into seated position, you rubbed your eyes with a yawn. "Why the hell did you wake me up...?" you asked groggily as you turned around.

Isagi stared back at you with a slightly guilty expression, "Sorry...I walked in and you were passed out on the floor, I assume it probably wasn't that comfortable."

You checked over your shoulder to glance at all of the screens facing you. Oh, right. You'd snuck into the monitor room after dinner to relieve some boredom by doing something, anything at all. It was really a dull time in Blue Lock. You couldn't really trace when you had fallen asleep, though.

"Yeah, I was watching some of the tapes." You turned back around to look again at the videos rapidly running across the screens. Isagi sat down next to you, picking up the remote to flick through the recordings in the corner of your vision.

He nodded, his hair flying around his head at the movement, "I was going to as well, I've really been-"

"Having trouble picking out a team?" another voice added from behind you two. You nearly jumped out of your skin, a barely audible gasp even escaped your throat.

You whipped your head around to see Reo, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over this chest.

"What the fuck was that for?!" you shouted.

He shrugged and just took a seat next to you and Isagi, sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce, obviously. "I'm having some difficulty with it too," he sighed. Is he really just going to ignore my question? "It's a hard choice." Yeah, he is.

"Really? I thought you'd go straight to Nagi's team," Isagi muttered, confused.

Reo gave him a hard stare from the corner of his eye for a moment, but ultimately relaxed. "...I don't want to hear that from the guy that split us up."

Yikes. Isagi looked like he was about to apologize, but Reo started again, "I was planning on that, though, but I'm having second thoughts. Considering the fact that Nagi was able to rise all the way to the top six without me, it's starting to feel like he's someone I'll never catch up to. I don't know if I have the confidence to play beside him."

You frowned. This was the self-depreciating shit you're supposed to see on someone's snapchat story post-breakup, not from a football player. "...Don't think about it like that. You're putting way too much pressure on yourself that way, and you'll just make it harder for yourself to preform," you tried to reason. Advice wasn't really easy to give, but at least it was football related, you could do that.

Isagi nodded once again by your side, "Yeah, I think Rin is the same way for me, too. And that's why I won't let him get beyond my reach."

"Exactly. Nagi just has to be a goal, not some unsurmountable burden," you shrugged.

You were unpleasantly woken up from your blissful rest yet again. Although, instead of Isagi attacking your shoulders, it was Ego's voice harassing your eardrums.

His announcement that the 3rd stage selection with begin in a few minutes reverberated around the room, eliciting even louder snores from Bachira. You'd long since given up on ever trying to awaken him, his attendance was his own problem.

Groggily, faintly wishing for a good goddamn eight hours of sleep, you pulled the sheets off of your body and hauled yourself to the joint area after changing in the bathroom.

You yawned as you stood there, waiting for the theatrics to commence. Bachira walked in next to you, which was surprising enough. But, it took all of two seconds for him to slump over onto you in exhaustion and practically pass out with his forehead on your shoulder. There it is.

One of the obnoxiously large screens blinked to life, displaying the placements of the A, B, and C teams. Your distorted personal icon was placed in the A category, Rin and Shidou's team. Why? Simply because they were the top two, and Ego didn't want you to do much. You'd just let them carry.

Bachira's head shifted on your shoulder, he propped up his chin so he could see the screen. "Oh, you picked team A?" he asked sleepily.

"Yeah. You're on C?"

He stood up straight, cracking some of his joints with a lazy smile. "You know it."

An animation rolled out the picks for the first match, Isagi and two people named Nanase and Hiori were up first against Team B. After they left, everyone else was still in the room, waiting to know when their turns would be.

You didn't really care. You walked out into the hallways, knowing when you had to play was a problem for future you. Getting to the bathroom to take off your binder was a now problem, however.

You shut the joint room door behind you, and before you could take all of two steps, the speakers in the hallway quietly hummed to life.

"Come to my office."

You sighed exasperatedly, you had places to be. And those places were not with Ego. "Why?"

"Your coach has something important to tell you about, he was supposed to do it earlier," he explained boredly.

"What is it?"

"An offer."

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theres not that many chapters left 😨