[Neo Zone] Population: 23 Kids

Coach Jung

Mark was finishing up with his last personal guitar lesson for the day in the back room of the music store, a job he forgot he had when he was in Canada, when Chenle and Jisung barged in. They ended up startling Mark's student, and he would've dropped the guitar in his shock, but Mark managed to catch it in time.

"Have you ever heard of knocking?"

Chenle tilted his head, pretending to play the innocent foreigner, "What's knocking?"

"Can you just let me finish up here? I'll be at the cafe in ten minutes."

"But Sungchan's game is starting earlier than he said it was. If we leave in ten minutes we'll miss the first part of the game." Jisung pointed out.

Mark looked up at the clock, knowing if the kid's Mom came to pick him up and saw they weren't actually working on chords that she'd be pretty upset. They had maybe one minute before that scene went down.

"You two wait outside for me, I'll be out as soon as we're done."

Jisung and Chenle gave Mark a mock salute before turning around to leave, both scoffing at each other when they realized they had done the same thing at the same time. As they left the back room, though, both Mark and the kid he was teaching noticed Daegal's head poking out of the backpack Chenle had on.

Shrugging the interruption off, Mark finished with the lesson just in time, and packed up his things as quickly as he could. It was unfortunate that he'd have to bring his things with him to the field, but that was a small sacrifice to make to get there in time.

As soon as Mark was out of his back room in the music store, Chenle and Jisung were dragging him out the door and yelling at him to hurry up. They ended up running the last stretch to the school soccer field, arriving just as the whistle blew for the game to start.

"It's about time you three came," Doyoung quipped, "Unless you want to listen to Yuta be a soccer Mom, they're all up there." Doyoung pointed to the stands where the rest of the Limitless Cafe residents were seated.

"Then why are you staying with him?" Jisung questioned, just now noticing Yuta standing at the fence right next to Doyoung.

"He says it's to keep me from getting too intense or something dumb." Yuta grumbled.

"Good luck with that then." Mark patted Doyoung on the shoulder as they made their way to the stands.

Annie was sitting on Jaehyun's lap and waved to the three of them when she saw them coming up the stairs, lifting her chin up to point them out to Jaehyun. Mark, Chenle and Jisung waved back, finding themselves a seat where they were beckoned.

The Limitless Cafe residents made up almost half the stands, which was unfortunate for the parents that came to see their kids play in the game. The first game of the JV soccer season, which Sungchan was coaching.

He had insisted relentlessly that they didn't need to come to the game just because he was coaching it, but no one listened to him. Especially Yuta, who wanted to help out from the sideline even if it was probably more of an annoyance. He just wanted to be useful, so no one was actually going to tell him he couldn't.

"Hey, Taeyong," Lucas poked his back to get his attention, "Renjun wants to know if he's allowed to trip the players on the other team."

Taeyong turned around with a raised eyebrow, "Since when does he ask?"

"Is that a yes then?" Renjun asked, one row above Lucas.

"Please don't. It was different when Sungchan was playing, but now I'm pretty sure that's just bullying."

Renjun nodded slowly, "That's the point."

"If you don't trip anyone you can have one of the cookies I made for Sungchan's team if they win." Taeil bribed.

"What happens if they don't win?" Jungwoo asked.

"Then we just have them later in the basement as a late night snack."

Shotaro's eyes lit up before he nudged WinWin, "Go down there and play for the other team so we get cookies."

WinWin scoffed, "I'm not running for cookies."

Shotaro pouted, giving WinWin his best puppy eyes, "But cookies."

"We can make cookies when we get back if they win then." Taeyong offered just so Shotaro would stop pouting.

Those distracted turned their attention back on the game, cheering when necessary while also making sure no one knew they were associated with Yuta and Doyoung off to the side. Doyoung was doing a decent job at keeping Yuta from making suggestions at every move, but he got tired after a few minutes and switched with Taeil.

The entire group, however, turned to glare at Renjun when a kid on the opposing team tripped. Except Annie, she was confused why they were looking at Renjun hold his hands up in defense.

"One of those days." She said with a sigh, turning back to watch the cheerleaders in front of the stands.

"I swear that wasn't me."

"Yeah, and I don't have an Uncle Bob." Xiaojun sassed back.

"You don't have an Uncle Bob." YangYang whispered.

"Oh. I didn't think about that."

"I'm telling you, that was not me. See! He's even tying his shoelaces now!" Renjun pointed to the kid that was on his knee tying his shoelaces as the game went on around him.

With several skeptical glances and no one actually believing him, they turned back to the game for the second and last time.

"That was a trash call, ref!" Yuta yelled from the sideline, followed by Taeil dragging him away for a water break before they got removed from the field.

It was a trash call, though. Those in the stands had just missed what had happened, so they didn't know what to get upset about it. For Sungchan to be putting in his own two cents from the dugout while simultaneously directing a substitution, however, they knew it had to have been pretty bad.

So Renjun was given permission to face plant the ref and Taeil gave Sungchan's team the cookies he made even though they lost by one goal. The 00 line ended up making everyone cookies afterwards anyways so Shotaro wouldn't get upset, so it was almost a win-win situation.

Except Sungchan's team didn't actually win.