Music to my ears - Zhuo Zhi

Chapter 39 - Off

Lately, the past few practices have been off, and clearly Zhuo Zhi wasn't the only one who saw it.

Zhihao had quickly realized that for some reason, each team member now had his own training routine that he had to follow, a different training approach than usual.

But the strangest part wasn't the change in the practice strategies, it was the fact that quite a few team members didn't even bother showing up to practice to begin with, and haven't bothered in days.

In fact, half of the team was missing today, including even Jiale.

Zhihao silently watched on the sidelines as Zhuo Zhi worked hard on his racket swings, only stopping him once she realized that he wouldn't be taking a break anytime soon.

"Zhuo Zhi," Zhihao began, making Zhuo Zhi pause midway through a swing. "Do you know where everyone is? And Jiale?"

Zhuo Zhi straightened his back, lowering his racket as he answered. "Siyang is out with Coach right now."

Zhihao slowly nodded, biting her lip. While this explained why the practice routines had changed, it didn't explain why everyone else was missing.

Sighing, Zhuo Zhi set his racket down and turned around to face the girl. "Xinglong is helping out his dad," he added on. "And Lu Xia decided to practice on his own somewhere.

He chuckled lightly, attempting a little humor. "I'm sure Qiao Chen and Baiyang are probably arguing about who can do more pushups somewhere."

Zhihao let out a small laugh. "Yeah that sounds about right," she had to agree. "..but what about Jiale?"

Because her brother was for some reason ignoring her texts, Zhihao had gone straight to Dachi to question him about it, but Dachi had just forced a shrug and told her not to worry about it.

This, of course, only amplified Zhihao's concern.

While Jiale slacked off a lot, it wasn't like him to completely skip a whole day's worth of practice without telling anyone about it at all, especially not Dachi.

Zhuo Zhi furrowed his brows at Zhihao's question, weighing his options. While he had noticed how Jiale and Dachi seemed to be going through a particularly rough patch, he wasn't sure if it was his place to tell Zhihao. But then again, Zhihao was Jiale's sister, and if anyone, she deserved to worry about Jiale and know where he was.

Thinking hard, Zhuo Zhi came to a decision. "I'm not entirely sure where Jiale is, but I may have an idea - I can look for him," he offered. This compromise was the best he could do, with his position as a close friend to both Jiale and Zhihao.

Zhihao frowned slightly at his answer but eventually nodded. "That would be great, thank you."

"Mhm," Zhuo Zhi absentmindedly replied. "We should split up. While I search for Jiale, you should talk to Dachi." Maybe if the two separately spoke to a golden pair, they could help the two reconcile.

Zhihao thought for a moment before nodding once again. "Okay, that sounds like a plan." After all, Dachi had seemed rather tense when she spoke to him earlier, and she was going to talk to him about it anyway. "By the way," she paused. "Are you alright?"

Maybe it was because the whole team felt so off-balanced now, but Zhuo Zhi seemed like he was troubled with something too.

Zhuo Zhi faintly smiled. "Perceptive as always, aren't you," he tilted his head. "It's just Xiǎo Yu. He's failing his classes right now so I told him that he should quit tennis for a while to focus on his grades. He wasn't too happy about that," Zhuo Zhi shrugged. (small)