We're halfway there, just like capitalism is halfway to sucess.

We arrived just as the church bells rang.

The vibes felt a bit more subdued than I would have expected. Typically I could cut the tension in the bus with a knife, and sure, I could do that now, but instead of that electric energy, there was a sense of dread.

Beat me where it was coming from. Certainly wasn’t me.

“Come on y'all!” I was the first off the bus. “We’re a bit due for a win you know, no better time to get it.”

Seisa High was the textbook definition of mediocre, with the creativity of a pile of mud on the floor. Last year we clobbered them by twenty.

“Typically teams due for a win aren’t on a 2-game losing streak,” Hana muttered.

“Well, we’re not exactly a typical team, are we?” I leaped off the bus and pushed open the thin iron door. “Typical teams don’t have me.”

“Well that’s certainly true,” Hana grinned as the rest of our team got off.

Inside, the crowd was nothing special. The modest bleachers were half full, with a decent chunk of people still walking around. It was the kind of gym where anything above two hundred people would cause the roof to fall down, but it more than made up for that with the amount of noise it reflected.

Really the perfect teaser for the inner high, all the noise without the people.

“Aiko,” I turned; Maria was running toward me as we entered the locker room.

“What’s up?” I set my bag down. We still had a few minutes before coach would send us begging for our lives on the court. Talking to a cute girl before that was the exact kind of pick up I needed.

“I know it’s our last game before the Inner High; I just wanted to say that if we can work together here I know we can win the whole thing.”

“Of course we can!” Well, maybe… Practices had been running smoothly, but without me playing at full force I didn’t like our odds. “That's why– Ah!”

She took my breath away by grabbing my hands into hers. “That's why… I need you to trust me, ok? I’ll try my best to let you take the lead, but I can score! Let me.”

“O-ok!” My brain felt like it was going to short circuit. To whatever god is listening, why did you have to go and make cute girls my weakness…

                                                                                  ⬢ ⬢ ⬢

“Catch!” Shiori leaped midair and tossed the opening ball back.

I grasped the ball and shooed everyone down to their side of the court. From a glance, I liked our odds; they played a very spread out defence that liked to create one on ones, allowing everyone to pick whoever they wanted to guard and not leave any openings–a zone defence.

It wasn’t a bad strategy. A zone made it nearly impossible to stuff the paint and get easy layups. But there wasn’t a perfect strategy in basketball, and theirs was a fantastic matchup for us.

“That all you got?” I feigned a charged forward. My guard stepped back as I let the ball fly off to my right. “Maria?”

“Got it!” Her defender had taken a few steps toward me to stop the drive, leaving her wide open for the three

Swish.

“Three to nothing!” I shouted out, jogging back on defence.

Unfortunately, that nothing didn’t stay on the scoreboard for very long. Most of their team didn’t exactly look impressive, but there was one very… noticeable exception.

“How tall do you think she is?” Hana asked.

“Six and a half feet at a minimum.” Their center was a giant. Felix was by far the tallest person I had ever personally met, and she looked to be a few inches taller than even him. “Timeout!”

Coach heard my voice and signed to the ref. A minute later we sat panting in a huddle, the score ten to ten.

“You ever encountered someone like that, Maria?” I asked.

“All the time,” she said, clearly exasperated at the thought. “One trick ponies, the lot of them.”

“Ok, how do we get her to try another trick?”

“She uses her height well, but that's the only tool she has. We need to get her away from the basket.”

“So outrun her and play up tempo,” I said. “A brick wall could out sprint that girl. Sure a giant billboard blocking the basket is annoying, but the second we break through they’ll fall apart.”

“Team!” Coach waddled over. “Aiko’s right on the money. Maria and Hana, I want you two to stay near the wings and let Aiko facilitate. Their entire defence is structured around blocking the layup, so with our shooting I say let them have that!”

He pulled out a whiteboard and drew around with his speech. “We have the height advantage at every other position; they can’t get any blocks away from the paint.”

“And because their center refuses to move five feet from the basket…” Gears turned in my head. “You want us to rain down threes like an ABA team then?”

“Why not!” he laughed, a massive belly laugh. “We damn sure have the shooting for it.”

BZZZZ

“Short timeout,” Maria glanced towards their bench. “If the Inner High is half as competitive as you imply, then this won't be the last giant we face off. And if they’re any good, they won't have her lack of coordination.”

“So you’re saying this is the perfect chance to get some practice in!”

“You could say that.”

“Better not waste it,” I said particularly loudly. Judging by how the first ten minutes had passed, we all needed the practice.

We got back on the court with a renewed sense of confidence. I caught Maria’s ball as she passed it in and ran to the other side, keeping things slow for now.

No one knows how to actually play up tempo. I’m sure every middling team that tried to run up tempo on them just made stupid mistake after stupid mistake.

Up tempo wasn’t just playing faster with no other changes. It was forcing the pace to naturally go your speed. So, as much as it hurt to not dash for the basket, I passed the ball away and dashed through the lane as they collapsed into me. Exactly what I wanted.

With the exterior free, Maria took her chance and launched up another three.

“There's that lead!” coach shouted. “Press!”

“Press?” I raised an eyebrow. “So we're allowed to have fun now?”

Well, I wasn’t the type of girl to say no to that.

As the rest of their team jogged to our side, I dashed forward toward their point guard–she wasn’t exactly the most impressive player I had seen after all.

“Hey–” she squealed as I knocked the ball out of her hands. “That's cheating!”

“Cheating? Girl do you think this is primary school?” I pivoted and shot the easiest layup of my life. “Welcome to the real world, just be glad I haven’t pulled out the blackjack and hookers.”

Basketball, blackjack, and hookers, what a combo. If they opened up a place like that, I’d be first in line.

Well, second realistically. No one was getting in Felix’s way when hookers were involved.

The rest of the half passed by with us up by five, not the lead I would have liked. But, with how we had been playing, I’d take any lead we could get. The only problem was their center.

Try as we did, she adapted to our faster pace way faster than someone of her size should have.

“Damn, she’s outscoring me!” I said, glancing at the score sheet as halftime came to a close. Fifteen points, ten rebounds in the first half wasn’t what I liked to see. “Shiori?”

“Hmm,” she got off the bench. “What’s up?”

“Let me guard their center?”

“You? Do you want her to dominate you?”

“Off the court? Absolutely. But whenever they get the ball to her, they always seem to pass it low. Someone a bit shorter should be able to intercept some of those.”

“What if they start passing high?”

“You know my vertical, girl; I’ll just jump.”

“Fine, but if things go bad don’t complain when I take your spot.”

“Deal,” I gave her a nod as we walked back on the court. Really, it was a gamble that didn’t have great odds, and I didn’t actually have an answer if they started passing high, but what was life without a gamble or two?

Besides, there has to be some reason they refuse to do the obvious and pass high.

I took my place near the basket as they passed the ball in. The clock clicked down from ten minutes, with the crowd halfheartedly cheering along.

Their center jogged down and took her place under the basket. She raised an eyebrow as our eyes met and sprouted a grin. Big mistake on her end.

“Get the wings!” They spread the ball around the perimeter, letting the shot clock click down. I could tell from their faces that our swaps on defence had them hesitating, but that wouldn’t stop them for long.

Hana blocked their point guard at near the free throw line, though she didn’t seem to be in a rush.

I waited, and waited, Now!

As their point guard bounced the ball through Hana’s legs, I dashed forward and stole the ball. The lane was free!

“Two more!” I screamed, letting my layup fall through the hoop. Twelve points, five steals, not a bad stat line.

The rest of the half followed that same pattern; they would pass it around the perimeter and pass low whenever the chance came, but never high.

“This can’t be on accident,” I said to Maria as the two-minute mark passed. The score was 65 to 64, with us in the lead. Not the kind of lead I wanted, but with how much they had been stuffing us on defence I couldn’t complain too much. “She blocks fine, so it can’t be anything obvious.”

“Do you think she just can’t catch?”

“Not sure, but what else would it be? Have you ever heard of a center who didn’t catch the ball above their head?” I said.

“No, but they could be saving it for the end.”

“Dumbass strategy, but I can’t rule it out.” I bit my lip. Sure, it was stupid, but when playing these random middling teams they could pull out any gimmick imaginable. “We’ll just have to bait it out of them.”

“How?” Maria asked.

“What else, leave it wide open and guard the hell out of everything else.”

She thought for a second as they brought the ball down. “Let’s do it.”

We spread out again as I leaned down. They passed the ball around, almost comically ignoring the giant five feet of room I was giving their center.

“Here! I’m open!” Their center shouted, only for them to hesitate even more. Come on, take the bait, you know you want it…

And then, finally, they passed it.

Only for her to perfectly catch it and make the bucket.

“What the hell!” I slammed my shoe into the ground. “Damn it!” I wanted to strangle their center, and not in the fun way.

I took a deep breath as Maria passed the ball into me. There's thirty seconds left; we have a whole possession to work with. They had spread out in their usual zone, boxing Maria and Shiori out of the middle.

It’s my time to shine. We had been playing outside all game, and I hadn’t bothered to drive since the first half. All that combined with them expecting a three driving made the most sense.

We only needed two points to take the win.

I dashed forward, barreling through their point guard like a traffic cone.

“Aiko!” Mairia shouted to me from the corner. She was wide open at the wing.

Shit… What do I do? The lane is wide open though. Aiko, think: whose shot do you trust more?

The answer was obvious. Sorry Maria.

I drove toward the basket and let the ball fly from my hands as the clock ticked down to zero.

As the buzzer echoed around the court, I watched as the ball circled around the rim. It rolled around once, twice, and then rolled outside onto the floor.

I fell to my knees as our stupid, brainless opponents cheered.

We had just lost, and this time it was completely my fault.