Henry, who returned to the bench, fell into thought. While slowly drinking the sports drink given to him, he racked his brain.
What was the reason they couldn’t stop Joseph, and how should he explain this?
The mere 10 minutes of break time given was ending. The coach ordered them to stand on the field again, and the students followed.
“Henry? What are you doing not going out?”
In the midst of this, Henry was still sitting on the bench. The coach who discovered him asked.
Henry carefully suggested.
“Coach. Can I just say one thing?”
“Huh? Um… Yeah. Go ahead.”
After thinking for a moment, he gave Henry the opportunity to speak. It was a sign of trust that Henry wouldn’t say anything useless.
Only then did Henry walk out onto the field and stand in front of the new defenders who were completely dejected.
“You guys felt like our offense was much faster and more chaotic than the guys you faced as enemies, right?”
At Henry’s question, a few of them nodded slightly.
“But you need to get used to it. If you want to play as starters. In actual tournaments, there are teams with even stranger offensive tempos than ours.”
Dissatisfaction appeared on the defenders’ faces. Because they probably weren’t avoiding it because they didn’t know.
“You can’t just stop them by chasing the ball. Grady’s words about not following the person holding the ball weren’t wrong.”
Henry smiled slightly at the dissatisfied gazes directed at him for stating the obvious.
“You probably knew that in your heads too. So you tried, but it didn’t work out. Then, why do you think you couldn’t stop us?”
At Henry’s gentle question, one of the defenders who had been exchanging glances among themselves answered.
“…Because the offensive tempo was faster than the speed at which we could judge and reorganize our formation.”
“Right.”
Henry nodded while looking at the one who answered him.
Even those who had shown a lukewarm reaction at first were now focusing on Henry’s voice at some point.
“Of course, it would be good if you could stop the attackers without being late. It would be even better if you could steal the ball and bring back the offensive possession. However, even if we brought any defenders here instead of you guys, they couldn’t perfectly stop all the attacks, right?”
Feeling that, Henry continued his explanation.
“What you need to do to win is to learn their tricks. Give up the idea of stopping all attacks at once. Every moment you stand on the field, think that you’re controlling every space on the field. If every space is packed tight with no place for attackers to enter, you’ll be able to stop them a little more easily no matter where the ball flies.”
The defenders’ expressions changed. It was the appearance of people thinking about what they could do, what they had to accomplish.
“The attackers will dig into the gaps created when you lose your position. Even if you fail to stop an attacker and the attacker advances a few yards, if you quickly return to your original formation and defend your assigned area, you can prevent further advancement, right?”
A few of them nodded as if enchanted. Kevin was among them. It seemed he too had succeeded in resolving about half of his doubts.
Henry smiled with a pleased face.
“Don’t be scared. Just do the defense you’ve always done. You just need to be a little more faithful to the position you’re assigned.”
“Yes!”
“Thank you, I’ll try.”
Each giving positive answers, they returned to their positions.
On the field, everyone except Henry took their places.
Finally, after confirming Grady’s rotting expression, Henry headed to his position while forcibly pulling down the corners of his mouth that were trying to curl up in satisfaction.
Right behind Declan, the center. To the quarterback’s area.
“…William looks pissed.”
While waiting for the coach’s whistle, a whisper reached Henry who had taken his position. It was a low and small voice that only Henry could hear.
Henry burst into laughter. Looking up at the light blond hair, Henry answered.
“What can he do even if he’s angry? What can Grady William do?”
“Well. Grady William can’t do anything. But those kids are different. Thanks to your advice, the offense might become more difficult.”
At his words, Henry answered confidently.
“That’s what I want. They need to do well so we can win in regular games, right? Right now, no matter how much those newbies fly and crawl, I’ll win, so it’s okay.”
A deflating sound came from the front. It seemed he had burst into laughter at his words.
Before he could even ask if he was laughing at him, the whistle sounded. While staring intently at the back of Declan bending over to prepare, Henry thought it was a shame.
That he couldn’t see his smiling face.
***
The training didn’t end until even Henry’s stamina became precarious.
A total of 103 offensive attempts. 57 successful offenses. 46 failed offenses.
Henry, who drank dinner like water and returned to the dormitory, roughly washed his body and immediately sprawled on the bed.
It really felt like his soul had been squeezed out. More so than usual because he used his head twice as much.
Watching Henry lie down immediately without drying his wet hair, Joseph shook his head.
“I’ve been lying down ever since I came to the dorm and I still can’t move, but you even took a shower in the midst of this?”
“I feel gross if I lie down without washing.”
“Acting all clean.”
Joseph said in a complaining voice. Henry said to Joseph in a completely serious voice.
“You should hurry up and shower too. The bed’s getting dirty.”
“I really can’t move at all. It’s all your fault. If you were going to teach them, you should have told them after it was over. What do you do suddenly explaining everything in the middle like that? The kids awakened, so our offensive success rate kept decreasing. Our side’s kids are still inexperienced too.”
Even at Joseph’s words blaming him, Henry’s mood wasn’t too bad. After checking Henry’s expression, Joseph said in a voice full of irritation.
“Are you happy? That you ate the meal William prepared?”
“What’s there not to be happy about?”
Knowing that in just a little while Henry would kick him for not showering, Joseph got up making groaning sounds.
Gathering his underwear and clothes and heading to the shower room, he grumbled quietly.
“Anyway, when I see you at times like this, you have a terrible personality.”
At his words, Henry smirked.
He didn’t feel the need to deny it.
Henry, who had always thought himself to be a kind and gentle person, was only recently realizing that his personality wasn’t as good as he thought.
Hearing the sound of falling water made him sleepy. Without resisting it, Henry closed his eyes.
***
“Hey, hey! Henry! Wake up! Hurry!”
Joseph urgently called Henry, who had been deep in sleep.
At the sensation of grabbing and shaking his arm, Henry finally lifted his heavy eyelids with a furrowed brow.
“…Ah, what. Why are you waking me up?”
Not caring about Henry’s voice full of sleep, Joseph held out his phone in front of him.
Eyes that had just woken up couldn’t properly look at his phone screen emitting strong light.
“Ugh, my eyes hurt. Why are you doing this?”
As he kept pushing away Joseph, who kept trying to hand him the phone, Joseph shouted urgently.
“No, just! Someone posted shit about you on the school community!”
“…What?”
Henry’s eyes flew open. Only then, squinting heavily, did he take the phone and ask Joseph.
“Who?”
“I don’t know, it’s anonymous!”
During the brief conversation, Henry’s eyes slowly but surely adapted to the light. And finally, he could read the words on the screen.
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[I’m asking because I’m genuinely curious, but why is everyone so hung up on Henry Lowell?]
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Honestly speaking, aren’t there tons of kids better than Lowell?
The kid who got suspended just for fighting with him can’t even come to school and is about to waste a year, but frankly speaking, he hit him more yet walks around with his head held high lol
Is it just me who finds this disgusting?
And now he’s acting all nice, showing off about becoming the football club captain, and the public opinion within the club is good?
The kids in that club are really too much
I guess they don’t feel sorry for the kid who got unilaterally beaten by Henry Lowell and even got suspended, but they feel sorry for Henry Lowell?
How sad would the suspended kid be if he knew he became captain because the club kids voted for the guy who assaulted him? lol
Anyway, I don’t understand why the football club kids are pushing as captain a bastard who intentionally made someone feel excluded because his quarterback position was threatened by a transfer student. The captain position isn’t a popularity vote;
Comments (68)
Anonymous 1: Wow, writing a post like this against Henry Lowell
└Anonymous 2: Friend, sorry but are you part of the football club? You know the internal situation too well? Delete the post before Henry sees it. I’m saying this out of worry?
└Anonymous 3: Is everything in the post true?
└Anonymous 2: No; it’s cleverly mixed with truth and lies.
Anonymous 4: Are you trying to make Colton a unilateral victim just to bash Henry now? You should really reveal your name.
└Anonymous 5: Regardless of Colton’s behavior until now, wasn’t it mutual assault? Colton hitting isn’t okay, but Henry hitting is? What kind of bullshit is this
└Anonymous 4: Are you Colton?
Anonymous 5: Leaving a like lol I’ve always thought Henry Lowell was shitty, finally it’s exploding
└Anonymous 4: What makes you think that?
└Anonymous 5: Look at his eyes tsk tsk
Anonymous 6: I also hated Lowell lol I want to stop seeing him showing off just because he plays football
Anonymous 7: Honestly it’s Declan over Lowell; I don’t know what’s handsome about that Lowell bastard
└Anonymous 9: Are your eyes on backwards?
Anonymous 8: This is the first time in my life I’ve seen someone say Declan Russell was ostracized. Really show me what being ostracized is?
Anonymous 30: But am I the only one who sometimes feels like Henry Lowell is gay?
└Anonymous 31: Yeah just you
└Anonymous 26: Huh? What made you think that??
└Anonymous 30: The fact that he can’t last long with girls and always breaks up, and that he’s friendly with the guys around him.
└Anonymous 26: Wow
└Anonymous 17: This isn’t it, there are tons of kids in the football club who break up with girlfriends quickly besides Henry
└Anonymous 30: Even so, not to the extent of Lowell.
└Anonymous 15: What “wow”; he’s not only friendly with guys lol calling this evidence;
Anonymous 32: Are you Grady William?
└OP: Who’s that
