Melting Ice

Chapter 27

"How about the four of us join Lucion's and Yun's team?"

The field grew silent, some surprised at the suggestion since almost the whole student body had never seen Jesslia doings sports. The girl had not chosen the sports elective in her two years in the school thus far, and never had she stepped into the school's gym before. The student body stared weirdly at the girl, even the group of exchange students who had arrived at the field just in time to hear the girl's suggestion.

Quince and Natalye exchanged looks, they knew the girl had some talent in sports from the few games they were made to play back in middle school, just that the girl never exploited that talent, and she was merely mediocre back then. Of course, that was partly the reason why they had chosen figure skating for the competition, they had been playing the sport for a few years now and no matter how talented Jesslia was, she would never win with that little amount of training she would get. The couple turned back to the group of people who were hoarding the spotlight.

Not only were the students surprised, the coach was equally as surprised at Jesslia's proposal. A million possible scenarios flashed through his mind, only to quickly dismiss them with the mindset that a girl could not possibly play better than his team, even with the aid of his two best players, Lucion and Yun. Time stood still, with Lucion about to speak up to convince the girl otherwise, but before he could say anything, the coach nodded, agreeing to the idea.

"Let's start then." Jesslia beamed, to which Boa and Immlia pulled her arm immediately in protest, "Yah! When did we say we wanted to play?" The former waved her hand around dismissively, whispering to the three, including Jae, as she pushed them ahead of her towards Lucion and Yun, "Its okay, just stand around yeah? The three of us will settle it."

Immlia glared at her friend, mumbling unhappily whilst the rest of the group stood in a circle, discussing their supposed strategy for the game soon afterwards.

"Don't worry." Jesslia was calm.

"How can we be? I've never seen you play?!" Yun cried, only to be refuted by his best friend straight away. Lucion rolled his eyes at Yun, "Did you count the year of how long you've been away? Dude, trust your sister." And he smiled, looking at Jessi, both exchanging playful grins as the former commented, "Pray hard that Coach doesn't regret his decision."

The others became even more confused. It was only a few more seconds when Immlia finally got the idea that both Lucion and Jesslia were hiding something. The girl sighed, telling the others unwillingly what she had figured out, and convinced them, including herself, that it would be wise to trust Jesslia and Lucion since the two of them were holding onto their 'fates' anyway.

A whistle sounded and Lucion looked around, signalling his team of six to get ready seeing that their opponent had spread out around the humongous field. The coach, who was the acting referee of the game, stood from the centre of the field, gesturing Lucion to come to the centre for the kick-off. His loud voice boomed, "Are you ready to start?"

The starting whistle blew. Lucion took the ball and was in possession of the ball in a flash. Everyone on the field sprung into action, everyone with the exception of Immlia and Boa, who were only standing at their given positions - the goalkeeper and the defender. Yun and Jae moved straight towards Lucion, giving their all to aid the latter so as to keep possession in their team.