Mother of Pearl: A Floyd Leech x OC Fanfiction

Chapter 57

It was the day of the basketball game. I was running amok in the gym in the gym uniform I never wore before now. It was a long-sleeved lavender shirt underneath a dark, chocolate brown t-shirt that had the ramshackle logo placed over my heart. They were slightly baggier, with low necks. To make sure my binding wouldn't be seen I wore a tank underneath as well. The shorts went down to my knees. They were black with two brown bands around my knees. I borrowed sneakers from Yuu and used a black elastic band to tie up my braids. I rummaged through the catastrophic excuse of a storage closet to get the supplies for the warmup drills. I dragged out a bunch of cones and pulled out a sheet of paper from my back pocket.

"Phoebus wrote here something about...a thing-a-majig? What does this say?" I squinted at the scribbled chicken scratch. "Gosh darn it. I think this is a...picture? Welp, I'm just going to wing-it." I laid the cones in a pattern, humming a tune as I went. When it looked enough like what I thought was a diagram, I turned to roll out the ball rack.

Another team waltz into the gym. They wore a royal blue track suit with gold and white trim. In white lettering the initials RSA could be read. They looked around the room with curious eyes. Some looked my way. Of the handful that saw me, some would give a friendly wave and others would nervously avert their gaze and whisper to one another. I nodded my greeting to the team and went back to doing my job.

So that is the Royal Sword Academy's Basketball Club. Wonderful. I guess I'll have to find their manager, if they have one... Wait, where is my team? They should be getting ready to warm up by now.

I watched the locker room door to will them to file out. I clicked my tongue when nothing happened and turned on my heel to go back to the storage room. I brought out a basket of water bottles to be filled.

Phoebus will keep them on time. Coach Vargas is probably just giving them a pep talk. Probably something about muscles and 'being a man'. Ugh...

A tap on my shoulder jolted me out of my thoughts. I turned around sharply, effectively smacking the poor soul with my dangling braids. "Ah, I am so sorry," I apologized frantically. He was a boy, roughly my height with long black hair with a white stripe down the center. It was pulled back in a low ponytail, exposing his small, round animal ears. He had a flat, fluffy black tail with a white stripe.

Skunk...Totally a skunk.

"No, that's on me. It isn't nice to sneak up on people," his soft voice apologized back. He rubbed his nose and asked, "Are you the Night Raven College basketball manager, by chance?"

"Yes! Yes, I am. I'm Viv," I introduced myself. I shifted the large basket under my one arm to extend my other hand to him.

"I-I'm Florian. I manage the Royal Swords basketball club," he shook my hand. "Uh, do we exchange rosters and starting line-up now?"

"Oh, yeah! Just give me a second to get this ready and I'll be right back!"

"Ah! I forgot to fill up our water bottles!" the small RSA student gasped. "Could I join you? I don't know where to go."

I nodded, shifting the growingly heavy basket, "Yeah, just grab your bottles and I'll lead the way."

"Thank you," Florian scurried to his team. He met me at the door out of the gym with a similar basket to ours, but a different color scheme.

"Alright, let's go," I exited the gym with the rival manager to the expansive halls.

"Thanks again for showing me where to fill these up. I kind of fell asleep and didn't have time to do it beforehand," Florian explained to me.

"Not a problem. We managers have to work together," I responded.

"What year are you, Viv?"

"I'm a first year. You?"