Teiko's basketball

Let's play

Chapter 9 :

Let's play

Within a very short time, Sora had become a part of the basketball club. Even though she didn't particularly want to participate in matches, she realized that Akira had succeeded in making her love basketball. She had become a sort of unofficial member.

The team began to really accept her. Sora had also developed a great rapport with Akira. She found that she could easily communicate with Akira. The two began to devise strategies and pull them off with varying levels of success. Honami had asked Sora to join the team and be done with it. But she kept backtracking. And in top of this, the first tournament was coming up.

This of course, meant additional practice. In extreme levels. The team had to go through almost every practice routine there was, not to mention testing out new strategies. Sora took the same amount of practice as a regular , constantly encouraged by Akira. Akira on the other hand, had become skilled in playing spontaneously. Her moves were sudden, intuitive and in some cases even lead to slight blunders. Sora was an extremely cautious player and would think everything through thoroughly. So when the two combined their skills, it sometimes lead to a really effective play.

Due to the 'tournament fever', Honami had taken to devising really hellish methods to improve the team. But all this had reached a peak when Honami came in one day grinning from ear to ear.

"Listen up," she said as the team gathered around her, "I've been talking to coach. He said that the first string members of the boys team will be having a three on three with us. If we do well, good. If we don't... Well it means additional practice. Coach was very clear about this. This is to ensure that we don't make a fool of ourselves during the tournament."

"She should call it additional additional practice," muttered Akira to Sora, who nodded discreetly.

Just then, a pink-haired girl bounced into the room. Sora got the feeling that she had seen her somewhere but couldn't remember her name or who she was. As usual, when concerned with people and names, Akira came to her rescue. "That's Momoi Satsuki. She's the manager of the guys team. I've heard she's really awesome at recon."

"Is it?" said Sora. Akira shook her head and turned to look at Momoi, who was discussing the timings for the match with the captain.

"Nae, Sora-chan, what do you think will happen to us? From what I can hear of their conversation, it's going to be held today evening," said Akira with a shudder.

Sora shrugged and made a squishing gesture with her thumb and index finger. "Don't worry Akira-san. We'll give it our all! Let's play to the best of our abilities."