Blossoming From Zero (boyxboy)

Chapter 33 - Run, Running, And Ran

"No worries, now come on." He waves to the park. I follow behind him. We make our way to an open area and I place the ball on the ground.

"You're going to have to instruct me on this whole soccer thing." He demanded.

"Sure!" I nod. "Let's just pass back and forth for now."

"Okay, whatever." He agrees. I kicked a slow ball towards him. He shot me a crazy look.

"What, do you think I'm five?" He shouts, sarcastically. I laughed quite a bit at his reaction.

"Sorry. Just testing the waters." I say in a joking manner. He returned the ball with quite a bit of power. I kicked it much harder this time, and to my surprise he received it. He wasn't as bad as he thought.

"You're pretty good at this!" I compliment.

"My fault lies within my aim. I can't angle my shots for crap." He notifies.

"Alright, that's what we'll focus on." I announce.

We played for almost an hour. He'd learned a lot within the amount of time we played. He was able to receive most of my shots. He still had a bit of trouble aiming his shots though. He released a short yawn then walked over to a tree. He sat between one of the roots and positioned his hands behind his head. I was also feeling sleepy so I sat between another two roots of the tree. I placed my hands at my lap and relaxed into the tree. The sun coving half of my body, the gentle winds blowing the blades of grass and the tree leaves, the bird songs, all of it made me fall fast asleep. Sometime later I noticed a warmth covering my body, almost to my face. I woke up to realize the sun's light was nearing my face. I also realized I fell over in my sleep. I was leaning on Gale's shoulder. I looked up to his face to see if he was upset or disgusted with me. He noticed my gaze and looking down at me. He had a neutral look. My heart rate calmed immensely when I realized he wasn't mad.

"Sorry, I didn't... I didn't mean to." I apologize softly, backing away.

"You apologize a lot." He points out. I did actually.

"I, I just don't want to upset you." I say.

"You don't have to be so on edge. I'm not going to attack you." He said rolling his eyes. 

"Unless you do something really stupid." He added. I almost jumped at his words. What would he consider stupid though?

"We should probably be heading back now." He notifies. "I want to spend sometime with my parents."

"O-okay." I responded, now thinking about my parents. 

He picked up the ball from and stood up then headed for the park exit, I followed close behind. As we made our way out of the park we were approached by what looked to be college students. One was a large hunky guy. He was quite intimidating. He had two other guys tagging along with him. They were average sized.

"Hey ladies. I see you think you know how to play." The bigger guy says, pointing to the ball in Gale's hand.

"What, you looking for lessons?" Gale fired back.

"Ha, you see... That's funny actually. I was about to teach you a lesson." He retorted.

"First to six wins." The shortest of the three guys suddenly announced.

"We'll beat you to a pulp if you refuse." The middle man said, punching a fist into his palm. Gale sighed then looked my way, probably wondering if I wanted to play. 

"Sure. we'll take you on." I agreed. The guys started laughing and goofing around with each other.We returned to the area where we had practiced earlier. The guys set up fake goals for the match. Gale threw the ball to the ground and they signaled the start of the match. This probably wouldn't be too hard to win since I just finished my nap. I had quite a bit of energy. I got half way across the field and Gale passed me the ball. I ran towards their goal while receiving the ball. The middle man charged me, so I used the back of my heal to kick the ball over both our heads. When he noticed it passing over him I used his detraction to my advantage. I maneuvered around him and caught the passing ball with the side of my calf. I dropped it to the ground and began approaching their goal once more. I spotted the big guy running my way. He stood in front of me, blocking my path. I kicked the ball into his legs, making the ball bounce back to me. I baited him out, making him open his legs to head for the ball. I quickly kicked it in between his legs and ran past him collecting the ball at my feet once again. They left the goal wide open. It was a two versus two match so the smallest guy had to sit out. I scored an easy point. They looked at me crazy, then started to get worked up. Me and Gale working together scored a few more points. Two more and we'd have the game. Of course, they didn't want it to go down like that so they brought a third member onto the field.

"That's not fair!" Gale shouted in disbelief.

"Shut up. We do whatever we like." The big guy threatened.

Gale glared them down, upset that we were now at a disadvantage. Though, that wouldn't stop me from scoring. We played a couple more intense points, with them now having two and us having five. I don't mean to sound cocky but I think the handicap was fair, it gave them a chance. On the last point I charged through the middle of the field, passing the ball back and forth to Gale, slowly making our way to their goal. This was great training for him. It seems he's learned how to control his shot better as well. After dodging the guys approaches several times I made a final shot. It curved right past the goalie. We won. Gale fist pumped the air, cheering. I made my way up to him to celebrate our little victory.

"I thought you were supposed to be teaching us. What happened big guy?" Gale insults, using a lot of motion. The look on their faces were like a scene with tanks getting getting ready to blow innocent civilians out of their homes.

"Forget what he said earlier, we'll beat you to a pulp anyway." The large guy said, advancing towards us. Shoot not good. Gale didn't look ready for a fight either. We both slowly backed away until they began charging at us. That's when we ran. Gale grabbed my hand and guided me so we wouldn't get separated.

"I know how to lose them." Gale said in huffs of breath. We ran through alleyways, streets, gardens, I couldn't even keep track of where we were going. We did it all legally of course. We stopped in a familiar spot. It was near his home. We were both frozen in our spots trying to catch our breath. Gale started laughing. Our situation was very funny so I couldn't help but to follow behind soon after.