Chapter 448: Preparation for the Next Game
"Higo-san, you sure are happy to see me suffering like this," Zion spoke sourly as he was sweating more than the other two goalkeepers right now.
"What?! I would never!" Higo gasped dramatically. However, he didn’t even hide the twitch on the corner of his lips, only infuriating Zion more.
"Come on! I thought we were brothers!" He whined childishly.
It was a day after the disastrous game, and Kageyama-sensei was truly a man of his word. Together with Ogai-sensei, the team’s conditioning coach, they whipped the boys’ asses without mercy, forcing them to leave the gym looking so dead tired like a bunch of zombies.
Zion also failed to escape this misfortune. Even though his physical part was still the same, his goalkeeping training was increased dramatically by Norio-sensei, with one more menu being added especially for the boy.
That additional one was a reaction training, but not from a sudden deflection with the reaction ball, yet more like from a sudden surprise attack from the opponent who got a ball out of nowhere. This was how Zion conceded the second goal in the earlier game, and Norio-sensei was determined to make sure that it didn’t happen again in the future.
At the end of the day, most of the boys just came back to their own room with their bodies aching, yet still didn’t dare to complain a single word. They knew that the torture was far from over, and they had to start it all over again tomorrow.
"You look like crap, Naoya." Higo felt the corner of his lips twitching as he looked at his dead roommate.
"Easy for you to say, you didn’t even suffer the same as us. I mean, where the fuck is the team’s spirit?" Naoya mumbled as his boy lay on the bed like a corpse. "Just wait, after the next game, you will also suffer from the same fate."
In return, Higo just snorted incredulously.
"First, who the hell do you think I am? No way in hell I would stoop so low to your current situation right now." He said it with full confidence as if the thought of him playing that badly had never crossed his mind. "Second, take a shower first, brother. You stink, and I don’t want to smell it during my sleep." He wrinkled his nose playfully.
Naoya just threw a towel at him, but still followed the suggestion immediately. While waiting for the boy to shower first, Higo also took out the phone that had just been given back to him earlier, checking for any messages there.
’Hmm... Mom, Aya-nee... The headmaster... Wait, what the fuck is he doing, sending a chat like that? NO, that should be his grandson taking over his phone again, right? Ah, here it is! Kumiko-chan!’
A few minutes later, as Naoya left the shower room, the boy felt the corner of his lips twitching when he saw Higo playing with his phone, a big, goofy smile on his face. At this point, Naoya knew that only one person could trigger such a stupid reaction from Higo, and he couldn’t help but let out a deep sigh.
’Love sure is blind, huh?’
Unfortunately, Higo’s happy days finally met their end, as the next morning, Kageyama-sensei finally gathered the whole team once again. This time, the man was going to announce the list of the main roster for the game against Jubilo Iwata, and while Higo was still confident, he couldn’t help but fear that the team would troll him again, like in the last game.
’At that time, Norio-sensei said that the team would give me at least 30 minutes, right? What if today, it will be another lie, and instead of me, it was that Wakahara-san who gets the chance?’ He glanced secretly at the third goalkeeper in the team.
Honestly, after the last incident he had with Wakahara, they hadn’t really spoken to each other so far. They both just maintained a certain level of politeness in the training session, but once everything was over, they separated way too quickly as if they had never known each other.
Wakahara was still salty that Higo, a complete newcomer to this camp, dared not follow his order and put him as the one who got punished a lot due to his performance in the training session, while Higo felt quite awkward around the older boy since he himself knew that he didn’t do things a rookie should do in the camp.
The worst-case scenario would be him being benched and Wakahara being chosen as the main goalkeeper, as that was basically a confirmation that he was the wrong one in this case.
Fortunately, that was just his paranoia playing a trick, as the moment Kageyama-sensei said, "Goalkeeper, Ryusuke Higo!" A heavy breath that he didn’t know he held back escaped from his mouth.
"Yes, Sensei!"
"Center back, Tomoaki Makino!"
Higo could see from the corner of his eyes that Makino was taken aback by this decision. Well, he was also the same here. However, his brain finally connected the dots, and he realized something important from this selection.
’That means Teme is one of the few who Kageyama-sensei thought to be decent enough in the last game, huh? Damn, you rock!’ He grinned, clenching his fist secretly.
Now that he was selected as the team’s main goalkeeper, Higo didn’t have any reason to feel unhappy for anyone else here. If anything, he was ecstatic, since that meant he would have a familiar face on the back.
’Yeah, the duo from Hakodate Nishi is back!’ He grinned secretly.
The coach didn’t pay too much attention to his reaction, just reading the list of names like a robot. Most of them were those who didn’t play in the game against JEF a few days ago, but two names still snuck onto the final list of the team, and those were Koki Morita and Mamoru Suzuki.
’Not that they don’t deserve this, I guess...’ Higo muttered under his breath. As he glanced around at the guys who were chosen, though, a grin also formed on his face. ’Still, this is not a bad squad at all. There is no way we would be worse than the last squad against JEF, right?’
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