Hey guys, thanks for all the comments so far! Sorry it's been so scarce with updates recently but I've not ahd time to really put a proper post together on here. To make up for it I've gone for a bit of a longer chapter here, enjoy...hopefully.
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Chapter 6Yajima awoke in high spirits the next morning as she had planned her whole day out today. Her first plan of action was to head down to the soccer pitches to go and watch the school team train; Yajima had realised that one of the few people who’d been civil to her was the prefect who’d been showing her around and she now found that she longed for her seemingly happy-go-lucky attitude. After that she’d decided that she’d go and find out more about Suzuki, just the classes she was in and if she could meet her at some point today, she found there was quite a lot of things she wanted to talk to her about.
Once Yajima had got herself ready she quickly left the flat and headed down the stairs into the outside world; she was grateful that she hadn’t come across any of her flatmates on the way out but if she had she’d planned to just say a quick “bye” on her way out without turning to look at any of them. The size of the school meant that Yajima still carried her map with her in order to find exactly where the soccer team practiced but it didn’t take her too long to get there.
This was the first time she’d seen the sports area of the school and she was slightly surprised at what she saw. Meihama had housed fantastic sports facilities but Otake didn’t seem to follow that too much. They certainly weren’t bad but the lack of anything like security cameras, electronic doors were all missing. Everything was much more…normal, and it was something Yajima was simply not used to. Still, it was big enough for Yajima to still require her map while navigating around the area looking for the soccer pitches.
After a few wrong turns she finally turned a corner to see the pitches in full sight, most of which were already occupied by plenty of other girls. This was something Otake did seem to beat Meihama at; Meihama simply allowed room for the school team to train on and it was all taken very seriously. However, here things seemed far more relaxed and it looked as though just about anybody could play on the fields. Even so it didn’t take long for her to spot a pitch full of girls all wearing a bright orange tracksuit, the same one the prefect showing her around had been wearing. She headed over to that pitch and noticed that she wasn’t the only onlooker; plenty of girls were all watching excitedly and cheering the teams on. Both teams playing seemed to be wearing the same orange track pants but one of them didn’t have the top as well. Instead they simply wore a grey t-shirt, Yajima assumed this was a match between various members of the first team and this was simply a way of differentiating team mates.
Yajima positioned herself behind the team benches and peered through the steel fence as the game unfolded. It didn’t take long for her to release that those wearing the orange tops were definitely taking the upper hand, in the time she’d been watching they’d scored seven goals compared to the greys one.
“Yajima! Good to see you here!”
Yajima was taken aback to hear her name being shouted and she quickly looked around to see where the voice was coming from.
“Through here!”
Yajima looked down through the steel cage the team were playing through to see the prefect who’d been showing her around sat almost direcetly underneath her on the substitutes bench.
“Come on through here!”
Yajima headed around to the door and made her way over to the girl who ushered a couple of others away to make room for her.
“So how have you been Yajima?” the girl said as Yajima plonked herself down beside her.
“Erm, well not bad I suppose,” she lied, “but I’m surprised you remembered my name.”
“Well you did say you were interested in trying out for the team so I had to keep you in mind just in case you were serious.”
“Oh trust me I am err….sorry, what did you say your name was again?”
“I didn’t, and it’s Yoshizawa Hitomi.” The girl said smiling.
Yajima knew she was blatantly pointing fun at her from the first time she’d met, but at least she knew there wasn’t any malice in her like some of the others.
“So, you say you play right midfield eh?”
“Yeah that’s right.” Yajima answered.
“Well tell you what, get yourself kitted up and then you can get straight into things, how does that sound? If you’re not busy that is.”
“What? You’ll let me try out just like that?”
“Well how will I know if you’re any good if I don’t see you play?”
“But err, shouldn’t you really ask the captain if it’s okay? I mean I know you said she’d be happy that I came down here but…”
“Trust me, she’s happy you made it down here.”
Yajima paused for a moment.
“You’re the captain?”
“Well don’t sound so surprised, you haven’t even seen me play yet!”
“No no! I didn’t mean that!” Yajima said quickly.
“Ha ha, don’t worry about it I was only messing with you. Take a spare kit from the side here and go get yourself ready, just let me know when you wanna play.”
Yajima nodded in approval and rushed over to a changing room with kit in hand. She couldn’t believe that it had been so easy to get a trial with the school team, either they didn’t take this very seriously or the team really sucked. She’d only ever played twice for the Meihama team and that was in the reserves team so she’d never really seen just how good Otake was. She got herself ready as quickly as possible and headed back out as quickly as she good to speak to Yoshizawa. A couple of girls looked at her and started muttering on her way through the crowd of onlookers but she didn’t particularly care; if what Natsuyaki had said to her the day before was true then Yajima really wasn’t expecting to get on with many of the girls here. She was just happy she’d been able to speak to Yoshizawa so freely.
“Great, well, you ready to give it a whirl?” Yoshizawa said as she headed over.
“Erm, yeah sure.” She replied suddenly feeling quite nervous. The fact that she would be thrown straight into the thick of things could well be a bad thing.
“Tch tch, no you’re not.” Yoshizawa replied shaking her head. “Go stretch first, we don’t want you doing yourself an injury now do we?”
Yajima nodded and ran a little further down the touchline to make some space for herself while she stretched out. She wondered if that had been her first little test to induction and if she’d failed it miserably. Her nerves only grew as she watched the other girls playing, some of them seemed to be really going for it despite the fact that this was just a training game, especially a couple of the girls in the grey shirts, typical. Yajima watched for a few more minutes before she noticed the captain calling her back over. She could already see that the girl who’d been playing on the right of midfield had been taken off and was resting up on the bench.
“Okay, just fill in on the right side, this is just practice remember so don’t try anything silly to try and impress me okay? Just play as you normally would. The other girls will help you out, I’m hoping you won’t find this too difficult okay?”
“Yajima looked at the girl in shock.
“Not too difficult? I’ve not played in a few months you know…and I am having to play the Otake first team on my first match back…”
“No, you’ll be playing alongside the first team, the ones wearing the orange tops. You’ll be playing against the reserve team, the ones in grey.”
Yajima wasn’t too sure if this was better or worse, at least if she’d played badly against the first team she had a good excuse; if she messed up playing in the first team against reserves then there wasn’t much she could say to defend herself.
“Alright go on, we’re down to ten players until you get on there!”
Yajima ran on and looked around for were play was; just as she spotted the ball it was being put in the back of the opposing net by one of the forwards on her team. Despite the fact she’d only been on the pitch a matter of seconds and she hadn’t been involved at all Yajima already felt a smile growing across her face. She felt the nerves come sweeping back though as that meant play started in the centre circle; far closer to where she was.
It so happened that the opposing team decided to attack down the opposite flank of play and Yajima breathed a sigh of release. Every time the ball came near here Yajima became extremely nervous but she managed to put out a couple of passes and made a few tackles as well. She was playing for about half an hour when one of the opposing players midfielders seemed to come appear out of nowhere and was charging straight at her.
What the hell is she doing running at me like that? I don’t even have the ball!As Yajima was ready to jump out of the way the ball came flying across the field and the girl running at her controlled it perfectly and had the ball at her feet. Yajima realised she needed to make a tackle or the opposing player would be pretty much clean through on goal, but she was already getting herself out of the way to defend herself. The result was that the girl barged right into Yajima and sent her flying onto the ground making her land rather painfully on her backside. She had just enough time to recover to see the girl drill the ball expertly past her keeper and right into the bottom corner of the net.
“Okay that’s time!” Yoshizawa called out walking onto the pitch. “Everyone gather round!”
Yajima picked herself up and dusted herself off, she was pretty sure she’d blown her chances, especially with it happening right at the end of the session.
“Okay everyone I think you played well today and I mean that; the only thing I can really pick you up on is that the defence need to be a bit more alert okay? There was a couple of goals conceded there in quick succession and that’s purely because of a lack of concentration. A couple of the reserve players really impressed me again today and you could be on your way to earning yourselves a first team place if you keep it up. Okay, any questions? Okay then, feel free to carry on practising or you can get the hell out of here, see you all tomorrow.”
As the group of girls started to disperse Yoshizawa also headed off without saying a word to Yajima so she chased after her.
“Yoshizawa!”
“Yeah, wha- Oh! Yajima what’s up?”
“Well, I was wondering how you thought I did.”
“Didn’t you hear what I said? I did say “see you all tomorrow” I assume you’re part of that “all” right?”
“Well when you said that I assumed that you mea-“
“When I said it I meant all the girls who were there listening to me, if you were one of those girls then you’re included.”
“But, I did really bad today.”
“You weren’t terrible, but you weren’t spectacular either.” Yoshizawa explained. “You were never going to get into the first team after your first session now were you? Okay, here’s what I want you to do; you want to play right?”
“Yeah of course.”
“Well meet me an hour before practice tomorrow okay?”
“What times that?”
“Well we’ll be playing in the evening tomorrow so meet me here at 5pm alright?”
“Sure, but what for?”
“I’m gonna explain a few things to you, and I don’t just mean soccer related okay?”
“Alright then Yoshizawa.”
“Okay then Yajima, see you tomorrow. Oh, and call me Yossie, it’s easier.”
As Yoshizawa left her standing there Yajima heard another voice calling out to her.
“So, Yajima is it?”
She turned around to see a couple of the girls she’d been playing against stood there alongside the midfielder who knocked her down.
“Yeah that’s right, what’s up?”
“I’ve never seen you hanging around here before, suddenly you want to get in the team?” the midfielder said stepping forward.
“Well I’ve not really been out that much since the start of the year so I thought that now is as good a time as any to well err….just try out some new things.”
Yajima knew that she didn’t sound convincing at all, she wouldn’t have believed herself at least.
“Oh right, and why is that? Why suddenly decide to start skulking around here?” the girl said stepping even closer towards Yajima.
“Well I’m erm…” Yajima thought back to what Natsuyaki had said to her the day before, “I’m from the northern dorms so…I haven’t really been speaking to anyone that much since we’re kind of….well…..you know?”
The girl stepped forward yet again so that she was right up in Yajima’s face.
“No, no I don’t really know about the low lives that hang around there to be honest, tell me all about it.”
The girl seemed very curious when she’d mentioned this Yajima thought and so she had to be careful with what she said.
“Oh well, it’s nothing exciting really….well anyway I’ve got to get off now, I’ll see you later!”
As Yajima turned to leave the girl stopped her by dragging her shoulder back.
“Now, now don’t be rude we were just having a conversation weren’t we? Don’t go running off just like that.”
Yajima stood in stunned silence, actually a little scared for the first time she’d arrived; this girl had an aura about her that really did show off some kind of power or authority.
“Now it’s quite obvious you’re lying, which I find kind of cute because it also seems pretty obvious that you don’t know who I am; I don’t think I’ve met someone as naïve as you before. I’ll tell you how it works around here-“
“I’ve already had that lecture, thanks.” Yajima said pushing the irls hand off her shoulder and turning to leave again.
“Big mistake.” The girl called after her. “I don’t know who you’ve been talking to but I wouldn’t listen to them. If you want to get on peacefully around here I suggest you listen to me…everyone else does.”
Topic: Otake Daigaku [Chapter 6] (Read 8286 times)