Dreaming Boy Wakes Up

Chapter 16: Basketball Tryouts & The Mature Beauty

"The only failure is not trying."

-Robin S. Sharma

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I had woken up and normally I would be excited that summer break was here. Being able to sleep in all day and then wake up and play video games had been my norm ever since I was a little kid.

That was not the case today.

Basketball had always been a sport I enjoyed. When o was little my dad would train me on how to play and eventually I got decent enough to play against other kids in the park.

Some older and some my age but the same could be said.

I always looked really good.

Middle school came and I continued to play. The sport in itself was fun to me and I even had planned to tryout for the school at the time.

That was until I met Aika.

You see, I had thought that maybe if I played a sport she'd be more interested in me. So I did debate going for it in middle school.

Sadly though, I valued my time with her more and at the time thought that basketball would distract me from my goal to make her mine. I also thought that if I did play it would take time away from us being together.

Clearly now it's a different story.

I had decided to pick it up again after the whole soccer ball thing. I felt really good and I honestly thought I was better now than I ever was. I wasn't sure how'd I do if I tried out for the school team, especially as a first year. Still though I wanted to do this.

Getting up at 7 am I was able to eat something quickly and make my way to the school gym. My sister still wasn't awake and neither were my parents. I had beaten them by an hour.

I knew they would assume that I was in my room still sleeping so I wasn't really worried about them calling and asking where I was. The tryouts would only last two hours and we'd know who made the team right after.

I didn't want to tell my family because the last thing I needed was their negative energy. I knew my mom and sister especially would go on about how 'I shouldn't get too disappointed' if I didn't make the team which they would already assume was the case.

They had done things like this all my life so why would I trust they wouldn't now?

Finally reaching the school gym there was already some other dudes there. Some were pretty tall while others looked pretty fit.

I felt a bit out of place for a second but then reminded myself of all the body training I had done. That quickly snapped me out of any doubt I had about myself.

As I was getting my shoes out of my bag I heard a voice call my name out. One I knew way too well...

"Yamazaki?"

I swear I couldn't shake this guy. I thought he'd be playing soccer with Sasaki. I knew he had the choice of picking since they intertwined with each other. Seems to my dismay that he chose basketball..

"Sajou!! What the hell are you doing here man?! You know that this ain't the tea ceremony club right?"

Of course Yamazaki wouldn't know that I played basketball at all before. Still that underhanded comment was one of the reasons I found him so annoying.

"I know that, as you can see I'm here to try out for the team."

"The hell?! Really man? I don't know it's going to be hard. A good amount of people are here now.."