Groups and Hoops

After a good ten minutes of awkwardly silent shooting practice, the coach blew his whistle again and rounded them all up. He announced 4v4 matches between the PFP groups, then took a moment to explain the rules of basketball. He was so succinct that even Lena was able to understand.

Inevitably, the coach pitted Zan and Gio’s groups against each other. He claimed the draw was random, but in truth he had picked up on the animosity between them and thought it would prove for an amusing match.

When he gathered the 8 of them together, Zan and Gio made a whole song and dance to stand as far away from each other as possible, huffing and puffing at the very sight of each other.

Lena turned to Hamish, gently tapping him on his shoulder to earn his attention. “So, uh, does everyone get like that around their exes?”

“Nah.” Hamish shook his head. “I mean, it’s not a rarity, but a lot of people are on good terms with their exes.”

Lena hummed in thought, unable to imagine being on good terms with her own ex.

“Personally, I’m still on good terms with my ex-boyfriend.” He added.

Lena nodded, then stopped. He was a boy, but had an ex-boyfriend? A whole new world of opportunities opened up for Lena, as she considered the implications of this reveal.

However, she wasn’t able to consider the concept of being gay for very long, as the coach shooed them onto the court. Everyone took their positions, preparing for the upcoming war.

But Gio and Zan were by far the most riled up. They took their positions in the centre and the coach, now doubling as a referee, threw the ball up and blew his whistle.

They both lunged for the ball, but Gio’s height gave him an advantage and he snatched it first. He passed to his teammate, who quickly got the ball to the opposing hoop. Lena stood under the hoop, vaguely waving her arms about in an attempt to steal the ball. Obviously, to no avail.

The opposition took a shot and missed, but got the rebound and sunk it in on the second try. Lena’s group barely put up a fight.

When the game resumed, Hamish managed to rush the other team, doing all the hard work to score his team a point. But, then Gio managed to score a three pointer, making Zan lose her mind. Any semblance of ‘skill’ at the game vanished from her, as she emptied her head of thoughts and filled it with rage instead. It didn’t help.

The match continued in the same way for the next ten minutes. The skill difference between the two teams shouldn’t have been that large, and yet Lena’s group was getting trounced. Their only hope was Hamish, who actually had something resembling talent at the game.

Despite getting destroyed, Lena was starting to enjoy the game. She was just getting riled up herself, when the ref blew his whistle and called for a break.

Now that she’d actually built up a sweat, Lena decided to discard her ugly sweater to the side. She still wasn’t used to wearing revealing things in public; her bare shoulders were on show! She’d have been self-conscious, if she weren’t too invested in the game to forget.

Though the rest of the court were also invested in the match, they got briefly distracted by how well built Lena’s arms and shoulders were, considering how small and unassuming the owner of said arms and shoulders was. The only two unperturbed by Lena’s surprising buffness, were Zan and Gio, who seemed to think this game was a matter of life and death.

Towards the end of their five minute break, Zan called the team into a small huddle.

“Alright, team.” She said, voice low. “We’re up against the ropes here. Things look grim, but there’s always a chance to come back, as long as we keeps our heads up and give it our all! Let’s do this!”

Zan cheered for herself loudly, joined by a middle volume Hamish, a shyly quiet Lena and a completely silent Exer.

The four were knocked out of their huddle by a much louder cheer from Gio’s team, where he had evidently given a much more rousing speech. Both teams returned to the court with a vengeance, apart from Exer who remained wholly apathetic to the situation.

Lena’s team got destroyed handily. It was a rather pathetic fight of 4 noobs against 4 slightly less bad noobs, with the less bad ones prevailing. Unfortunately, Zan’s passion wasn’t enough to make them miraculously good at the game.

Once everyone had cooled down, bar Gio and Zan, Lena suddenly remembered to be self-conscious about her exposed shoulders. She scurried over to her hastily discarded sweater and slipped it back on.

By the time she was covered up again, Zan had already left. Exer had disappeared too, but that was par for the course with them, and Hamish was busy talking to the coach, no doubt getting scouted for his great athletic prowess.

Lena idled alone for a minute, before Mizlin approached her from behind.

“How are you doing?” She asked, making Lena jump.

She spun around, and relaxed a little after seeing it was Mizlin.

“Good.” She replied honestly. “That was fun.”

“That’s nice to hear.” Mizlin smiled. “I’ve messaged Vera to say we’ve wrapped things up. I’m sure she’ll be here in a few minutes.”

“Thank you.” Lena fanned her face with her big floppy sleeve. “I, uh, I’m gonna go outside to wait. And cool down.”

They exchanged goodbyes, and Lena left the building.