DROPPING WALLS (MANXMAN) ~UNDER REVIEW~

Thomas didn't play. People freak at The House.

Not even one single person could explain what had happened to the only tryout to not show up to the field in the first game!
Marcus during his interview said the team had technical problems and that's why Thomas didn't play. The team's official note explained the mistake. Lucas questioned the coach, talked to the staff, but the people responsible for cleaning and folding the team's uniforms in the locker room had no idea what happened.
"I talked to the Gail, he said he contacted the company responsible for making the uniform and they said they'll have your correct set by tomorrow." Said the coach and both Lucas and Thomas gasped with the news like that was the only reason why the boy should be angry.
Thomas left, he had to take the van with his team and they'd be ready to go to the parking lot.
"This is ridiculous, he acts like I should be okay with losing my first game." Said Thomas.
"He's done after the season for sure, last year the only good tryout that he trained is our current goalkeeper, all the other ones will be gone before the one year contract. And seems like he is doing the same mistakes this year again." Said Lucas, the man was following the boy to the staff parking lot and Vizanno showed up in front of them coming from the parking lot. Lucas smiled to his friend.
"What you doing outside Teddy?" It's was so not common to finding someone calling Vizanno by his first name that Thomas got lost for a few seconds.
"Reporters, a bunch of them. I had to get the opportunity to show myself... Look at the pair of you, didn't see you at the Vip Lucas, neither did I see you in the game young thing... What happened to the two of you?"
Thomas didn't answer, Lucas expected the boy would have an angry response to the player sarcasm, but Thomas only looked to the door.
"You know what happened, and we watched the game from the lounge, I'm going to do something about the press, stay here Thomas."
Lucas left and the boys just started thinking about what would he say if one of the reporters got hold of him. He had done that before, but after the first game he was full of energy and during event night the previous week he had expected the questions, but he wasn't ready for a round of invasive questions.
"Why are you scared?" Asked Vizanno and the boy finally looked at him.
Vizanno followed the "always wear something from the team" rule. He had a black polo shirt on and the team's hat backward. His muscles bulged in the packs and biceps. He was too tall to the boy, he found annoying that he had to look up, even if for a little, to see the man's face.
"I ain't." Said Thomas and Vizanno laughed.
"Yeah, sure. Look gay boy, you ain't ready, you will be, soon, but for now you aren't, okay, you are better than all of the other kids, but you are not better than the main players, and as soon as you show up out there they will be eating you alive, comparing you with the players and calling you not worthy of being playing... You gotta prepare for that..."
"What are you talking about? Of course, I'm not as good as the players, that's why I'm still training..."
"When I debuted, they said I was good but good enough to be a real player? I read things like that everyone, on the internet it was worse... Are you ready for that?"
"I know I'm good, I know that I can be better than the current players in this league. So yeah, I do think I'm ready." Said Thomas, he didn't look to the man's face anymore, he decided that the wall was more interesting.
"Well, you are not, none of you are... But I think you're the least prepared, tomorrow all of your teammates that played today will be feeling like trash after reading all the comments from the haters and the comparison from the media, I think you should be thanking me." Thomas' head snapped up, looking at the man, he was slowly backing away. Thomas frowned his brow.
"Why would I do that?" Asked the boy.
"For changing your uniform!" Said Vizanno. Thomas didn't even try to make sense of the phrase, he pushed the man to the wall, Vizanno didn't fight back, he was taller an stronger, he could easily hurt Thomas.
"What the fuck?" Shouted Thomas, he had his forearm on Vizanno's throat and the whole thing was ridiculous.
"If you played today, you wouldn't make the cut to the team... I've seen tones of boys like you Thomas, confident, all of them broke after the first game, and they weren't as good as you are, you..."
"Why do you care? How dare you to intervene in my life? You had no righ..." A pair of arms pulled Thomas off the older player.
The boy tried to fight back, but he knew that those white strong limbs belonged to Lucas and the close contact with the other one made him lose focus on the real problem, he stopped moving until Lucas let go of him, he saw his friend confused face and really scrutinized the other one for the first time, Thomas was beautiful.
"What's going on? Thomas, you know what happens to fighters, they get kicked out..."
"He did it, he changed my uniform, this motherfucker made me lose my first game." Lucas looked at his older friend and questioned him with his eyes, the other man only nodded and Lucas cursed loudly!
"There's no reporter outside anymore, you better go before someone comes back. I'm going to talk to him..." Said Lucas and Thomas just stared at him blankly, the man always showed that he had an opinion about everything, that was the worst moment to play dumb. "Just go, Thomas."
The boy left. He went straight to the van, he got his earbuds and closed his eyes, he wasn't going to talk to his teammates, he had to calm down before he said anything to anyone and made things worse.

"What did they say?" Asked Tim before the boys went to bed. During the rest of the day Thomas only talked to three people, the scorers and Tim, the first two only got a quick "good job" and Tim got short answers.
"They said they will get my uniform by tomorrow, like I'll need it tomorrow." He didn't say anything, then he asked Tim and the other boys in the bedroom. "What was like? To be there with all those fans and really playing?"
The three boys started talking their experience, every word made Thomas forget a little about Vizanno's actions. The boys talked about playing and the plays until it was too late to stay awake. They were asked to stay in after game days. So for the first time since got to The House, Thomas was not the only player in on a Saturday night!

One boy quit after an online argument with haters who started attacking his family all over his social media sites and not a single one of the boys who had played judged him for deciding to leave, they were all trying to deal with the mean people online. For what Thomas heard, the insults went from their performance to their appearances and for their background. The only player to be absent during the game saw lots of the boys crying and got surprised with how hard they were taking things.
The boy stayed by the pool most of the morning, trying to avoid the housemates and the Internet, even the tv was dangerous, some nasty sport journalists were obviously saying things about the boys and about Thomas absence.
The boy was about to get into the water when Marcus showed up and sat next to him. His long curly hair was all over his face for the wind was blowing strong.
"Hey, how you doing?" Asked Marcus and Thomas stared at the water.
"Fine, not freaking like most of the boys. What about you? How are you holding up?"
"I'm golden. Sir came to talk to me yesterday before we left the stadium. He asked 'bout ya'. He told me to not go online for a few days. So I've avoided it, seems like nobody warned the other 29 boys in this house..."
"I've been warned... Have you seen anything? Like not even a joke about you? Seems like everyone did." Said Thomas.
"Only on my family's group chat... Some cousins are sending all the memes they think it's hilarious, but these are harmless... The nasty thing is for sure on Facebook and Twitter, even Instagram is dangerous for our fragile egos right now. I just find it weird that the boys who are looking only find bad stuff."
"As you said, fragile egos. We tend to wonder why someone thinks bad about us more than why does someone think great things about us... It's weird." Said Thomas, he laid back and gazed the blue sky, some thin clouds passed over them.
"And you? Have you seen anything?"
"Nope," said Thomas "I was pissed yesterday for not playing, but now I'm cool, I don't need to be mad again about things I can't control, and I'd be pissed with the person who fucked me yesterday if I saw people saying shit about me..."
"Do you think someone did it on purpose?" Asked Marcus surprised and Thomas closed his eyes to fix his mistakes.
"Oh, of course not, nobody would deliberately do that. But you know, the person made a mistake, and only with me... Do you think the boy who left will come back?"
"Don't think so, Laurence was in my room, he started those fights during the night and he didn't even sleep, he started replying hurt after hater and then things were out of the control, they were sending rude and crazy things to his family and posting things about them online, he was very upset... We just need to keep ourselves out of the social media..."
"Like the team would allow that, we don't have a team to post things for us yet, and they want us to interact with the fans and stuff," Thomas said bitterly, he was starting to like the social media things, but he still saw them as an obligation that was asked of him.
"True true. We have the interviews this week, we have to kill these things otherwise the hate people send will only increase, and I really want to open my Instagram again." Marcus commented and Thomas smiled, the other boy was very easy to talk, and he was talented, he could be a popular athlete easily, but his parting tendencies could screw things for him. Thomas also felt his heart sinking slowly as he thoughts about doing the interviews during that week. He didn't really want to talk to a reporter, even if the team could control what would be censored or not, the tv network pretty much could edit it like they desired.
"Let's hope we still have the numbers to be called a team until next weeks game." Said Thomas deciding to leave the pool and go to his room.