Fake Love

III. Unfortunate Encounter

The bell rang all throughout school, indicating that the classes finally end and that students are dismissed. I released a big yawn before casually going back to my comfortable slouching position. The class went back to their lively and chaotic scene with everyone discussing mundane and trivial matters although I could probably guess that their topic includes the pink haired teen actress behind me and the scene I caused earlier at breaktime.

"Are you going home now, Matsuhiro-san?"

This caused me to unconsciously peeked behind me with my ears perking up a little to hear what her answer was going to be. She fronted a polite smile and nodded as a response to the question asked by our classmate. She appeared to have noticed my curious gaze as her light brown eyes shifted towards mine. I hastily averted my eyes before facing forward now. I could still feel her piercing gaze from the back of my head.

I did my best to ignore it and gathered all of my things. Grabbing my bag, I spared her no glance and just straight up left the classroom. There was no time to associate myself with others and it's better to just straight up go to training. Besides, Masahide would grill me if ever I was seen wasting my time around, talking to people.

I reached the basketball court and was right to see Masahide and other students who are in the same club already warming up. Masahide was able to see me and I mouthed to him that I'll go to the locker room first to get my things, the brown haired guy nodded as a response.

I got to the locker room and switched into some basketball shorts and a plain white tanktop for training. I wore my basketball shoes before stepping out of the locker room to join the guys.

"Ryou! Let's do a mock game, choose your members!" Masahide yelled once he saw me exit the locker room.

They were standing still as if waiting for me and with my game face on, I chose 4 other players to be on my team. The guys I picked were pretty decent and some of them were even from the upper year. The seniors pretty much have good relationship with me and so was the rest of my team.

"Let's crush those guys!" I yelled with excitement exuding from my body.

After doing some warm-ups, the mock game finally started. The two centers of each team took the center and with a quick toss of a ball from one of the guys who weren't playing and the sound of the whistle. Everyone and everything outside the court blocked out to me and only the inside of the court was pretty much my main focus. I had to get into my game to crush Masahide's team and bring victory to mine.

My guy was able to get the upperhand and quickly swiped the ball towards our side. One of the guys caught it and immediately passed me the ball without any hesitation. Both of our teams scattered and got into each person's position. Masahide's playing shooting guard for his team so I didn't get him to guard me and my opponent was a freshman. I easily crossed the half court without any problems or whatsoever even though the guy guarded me tightly.

I surveyed the surroundings whilst handing out signals to my team. I passed the ball to my right towards my shooting guard before instantly dashing forward and avoiding my opponent as I saw a pretty decent opening inside. My teammate seemed to see what I was trying to do as he passed back the ball towards me with incredible speed which I caught with my hands. They were a second late from reacting and so I used this opportunity to drive towards the basket and deliver a quick lay-up.

The net swished and the ball elegantly dropped down as I faced Masahide and smirked that translated to 'Your team's going down.' before clenching my fingers besides the thumb and dragging it over my neck in a horizontal manner.

~~~

"Yeah!" I yelled out victoriously as I gave all my teammates a high-five.

My team won over Masahide's by at least 5 points, I actually didn't expect to be able to have a small lead like that as I pretty much assumed it's gonna be a do or die match with only point lead.

I received a slap on the back from Masahide who grinned like a fool. "Got lucky today, I see."

I smacked him right on the head with force. "You wish, smartass."

He was about to get revenge however one of our juniors called him and asked something so I was left alone and decided to chat with some of the guys in the team. Honestly, the game was refreshing as I haven't had a good time like that in a while so it felt nice to be able to go out and be in the zone.

Eventually after spending some time with the guys in the club, I was unfortunately tasked to get all the balls back into the gym storage room where all other sports equipment were kept. The guys were cleaning up themselves in the locker room and apparently, Masahide joined them as they were chatting happily amongst themselves so I was left alone to return the balls.

With no problem and any delays, I reached the gym storage located a little bit away from the court beside the school building. Good thing, it was open as other sports club where also preparing to go home and returning their borrowed equipments as well but at the time, there were no people who had come and so I was able to quickly return it inside in peace. I placed the balls inside the big box of metal in the middle. Beads of sweat were dripping down my forehead and so I used my right forehand to wipe it and avoid getting sweat on my brows.

"Guess, I did worked up sweat than usual..."

I turned around and exited the shed, eager to have a nice and long drink of cold water. As I was casually walking back to get to the shower room, I noticed a group of three delinquent-looking guys and a familiar girl talking on the secluded side of the school building.

'Wait, is that...?'

They seemed to have been absorbed amongst themselves as they still haven't noticed my presence and that I was observing them. The situation wasn't looking good at all with the cleay annoyed expression of Sayuki however the three delinquents were laughing heartily and seemed to be enjoying themselves.

Nonetheless, I shrugged and resumed my walk to get back to the guys, this wasn't my business and didn't concern me in any way. But fate must have been playing me as unfortunate as it was, the pink haired girl called out to me which resulted to me halting my steps, shifting the attention of the three delinquents over to me.

"Ryou! Why didn't you tell me you're here already?"

I slowly turned and was surprised with Sayuki grabbing my arm and clinging unto it with force. The sudden action didn't go well with the three delinquents as they sent daggers in my way. My eyes were wide, gazing back at the teen actress with disbelief.

"Wha-" I felt my side getting pinched which I assumed that she had wanted me to go along with her act. I gave her a glare and she just returned an innocent smile.

Having no choice but to play along and just finish this unfortunate encounted, I faced the others and gave them the most intimidating and fear inducing death glare I could do which actually worked as fear slowly crept up in their eyes.

"I see that you guys were bothering her?" I spoke in a deathly calm voice.

The three idiots started trembling in fear, "We-we didn't know she was yours, Ryou-san."

"Scram!" I shouted at the three who instantly bolted out of here thus leaving the two of us alone.

Annoyance started to build up now and soon enough, it appeared on my face. I turned and looked down Sayuki who felt relieved with finally escaping the unpleasant situation with forcefully using me as a way to escape the situation.

"Would you please get-"

"Don't get too ahead of yourself. I just used you to escape those disgusting freaks." she let go of my arm and left without letting me have the opportunity to respond.

I was dumbfounded, disbelief written all over my face with what just occured with the teen actress. The girl I helped out on a whim gave me a rude remark and didn't even say a single word of thanks, she just straight up left me on my own.

"What the actual fuck?"

~~~

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Peace out and I love y'all