Survival Of The Fittest

[[Jamie Snicket Start]]

How to kick a soccer ball. First, you get the ball. Then, you put your boot to the ball. Push it towards where you want it to go. It shouldn't be that hard at all. And yet, Jamie Snicket just couldn't master it at all. Her kick was always way too overpowered for what she wanted. Usually, as a defender, it didn't matter too much, her main job just being to steal the ball away and move it as far away from her end of the field to the forwards. Glaring at the soccer ball on the grassy field, Jamie gave a disgruntled sigh as she got up from her squatting position. She was being taunted, challenged by this circular object. She hated not nailing a direct challenge.

Winding up, Jamie booted under the ball with the flat of her foot, an annoyed grunt being let out with the force. Too much again. Way too much. She was letting her anger power the kick, that's what Coach Sanders always said. Actually, that wasn't what she said. It was more "Good aim, but for god's sakes don't try to take our forward's head off". That was a good game, actually. Starting to run over to the plain soccer goals, Jamie started to wonder if it was just an anger issue.  

To be fair, she wasn't usually aggressive. She saved it all up for the field, and the kickboxing ring. And aggression wasn't the best tactic in some circumstances. No, Jamie felt almost passionate. A fire, a desire to be better than anyone she faced. To stay on the winning side for as long as possible. It was hard for her to explain. Hell, everyone wanted to be perfect. Perfection was one of those goals that every human should strive for, right?
Giving a slightly slower high kick, Jamie stared as the ball flew higher, swooping down at the peak of its arc, a bit too far over the midway line. If it wasn't for this goddamn power problem, she'd be a perfect defender. That's what she was trying to do.

It wasn't a good goal. But it was something nice to strive for.

The ball bounced harmlessly off the free forearm of the goalie. The word free, in this case, was being used because her other hand had to hold the banana she was casually snacking on as she stood at her position. No big deal, of course; it's not like this was a regulation practice, anyway.

"C'mon, Snickers," she called back to Jamie, before calmly returning the ball with her left foot. "Make me work for it over here."

[ Lisa Grzybowski - Commence ]

Lisa wanted to say something that would be constructive to Jamie's mechanics, but quite frankly, no one on the team was a less accurate kicker than herself, so she abstained. Keeping the ball in front of her was her job, one she was pretty darn good at, and everything else was rather secondary. Instead, the best she had to offer was inane platitudes. "Getting there," or "Good job." And anyone who knew Lisa could tell you that wasn't exactly her style. She was the one to give everyone an odd nickname and goad them into succeeding just to spite her.

She stuffed the remaining bit of banana into her mouth, then turned around and tucked the peel into the netting of the goal before returning to her position.

"Ten bucks says you can't knock that thing loose."

{ Ezekiel Davis, Start }

He absolutely loved this free period. It meant that he could not only sit down and properly enjoy a meal from the food court, rather than dining and dashing, but it also meant that he had - at the very least - half an hour to generally do whatever he felt like. Normally that would be just sitting around, relaxin-

Great, now he had the theme tune for "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" stuck on loop in his head.

He chuckled a little, before beginning to hum the tune rather loudly as he approached the field. There was nothing wrong with sharing the cheesy song love around, misery loving company as much as humour, after all.

He was on the second loop of the song when he stopped by the field to toss the polystyrene-y thing that his lunch had come in today in the trash. He looked over at the field absent mindedly, and saw that it wasn't actually rammed yet, there was only like, a handful of people there. He looked up at the sky for a second, wondering if it was because the weather was being all moody again, but apart from a splattering of cloud, it was actually decent outside.

He had been on his way to the library to read that Russian book that he'd meant to, but never really quite gotten round to reading. But that was a game of soccer, and he did still have, like, 24 hours or so to read it in. He could probably skim it in like one.

Oh, go on then, I've procrastinated this much, I might as well procrastinated a little more.

He wiped his slightly greasy hands on his jumper, before shiny them in the little pouch-pocket type thing at the front, and walked the few hundred metres between himself and the pair. Now he was closer, he recognised them, actually; Jamie and Lisa.

He smiled amicably as he came closer, taking his hands out of his pockets and waving at them to try and get there attention.

"Hey, are you guys having a kick around, or is this a training sesh'?" he asked them, making his interest in joining clear by unzipping his jumper slightly, as if to take it off.

Catching the ball on her chest and bouncing it to just a bit forward of her feet, Jamie gave a quick roll of her eyes. She wasn't a forward; the last time she had to do a shot at goals was when it turned into a penalty shootout last year. Sliding a little as she went outside the box, she turned back, watching the banana in the net swaying. Another kick with a twist, eliciting a small groan as she noted it going right at Lisa and visualizing the catch before it happened, not applying enough spin.

"You're a damn good brick wall, Bowski," yelled out Jamie, ‘with all the subtly of one' mentally added at the end. Yeah, she wasn't a bad player at all, but Jamie found her almost too loud and dopey for her tastes. Still, she was pretty good at the whole goalkeeper thing, and she did come up with some good ideas, it's just that whenever Jamie saw her, she looked like she was going to fall over and have a snooze. Hell, Jamie wouldn't be surprised if one day she saw her during a game half asleep on top of the goalposts like Snoopy. Giving a small grin at the mental image, she caught the ball being thrown back again.

"Traini- Oh. Zeke." It would be slightly hard to notice the annoyance in her voice, but considering everything she's heard about the ‘Christian Rock Slut', it felt justified. Not to say that she hated him, it was more she defaulted to not giving a shit about him, which unfortunately people confuse very often. Giving a sort of half-assed shrug, she kicked the question at the goalkeeper. "Lisa, what you think?" she shouted, flicking her fingers out in a faux-stretch.  It was Lisa's manwhore problem now.

"Yes," Lisa answered definitively to Zeke's either/or question, while reaching out to block the kick without leaving her feet. To be perfectly honest, it was actually as accurate an answer as she could offer. Jamie had wanted to practice, but it was her kicking she wanted specifically to work on, so both options were essentially equally true. She delivered the ball back Jamieward, not apparently paying attention to Zeke. It wasn't so much that she was of the same opinion on him as Jamie; quite the opposite, viewing him as a friend, if anything. It was just that she was focused more intently on their practice than someone who defends a goal while eating a banana might appear. Her posture was a fairly good indicator of that; she wasn't tense with anticipation of the next kick, but rather, she was constantly moving, alert and ready to leave her stance on a moment's notice.

Subtly, she twitched at the nickname. Bowski? Really? That wasn't even how it was pronounced. It was supposed to rhyme with "boss key." Not that anyone else got it right, especially the silent Z. After all, how many people had silent Zs in their names, anyway? She wondered momentarily about the Z from Charlie the Unicorn. That wasn't silent, it made those ping noises.

"¡Cenamos esta noche en tortugas!" she mumbled to herself.

Wait, what was she doing again?

Oh, right, goal.

The first girl, Jamie, seemed to be a little irritated by him, though her vaguely relaxed manner said other wise. Confuzzling. She turned the question over to the other girl, who he knew was Lisa, she played soccer, and was literally like the only goalie he knew. Which was cool. The other girl he didn't actually know too well, but that was just a thing that happened with there being crazy amounts of people in the school, and him not actually sharing  any classes with her. Infact the only reason he actually knew who she was was because people talked about her. That sucked. He'd have to get to know her sometime.

Lisa spoke rather abruptly saying a simple "Yes". Sweet.

She hadn't said "Yes, go away", or something to that effect, so this was more likely to be a kick around than one of her one on one "Help the strikers do things that are useful with their feet" things that she did every now and again. Though Jamie didn't look like a striker. Midfielder? Midfielder. Sort of explained why her kicks were so hard. Midfielders had to like, get the ball to the strikers, right? He wasn't a football expert, but that's what he figured they did.

Oh, yeah, he was trying to play an impromptu game of football, not discuss the finer points of him not knowing shit about the vast majority of sports.

"Do you mind if I join in then?" He asked. He was pretty sure it was clear by now what his intention were, but hey, didn't hurt to be polite, really.

And then Lisa mumbled something. Foreign-ish. Sounded like Spanish actually.

"Didn't know you took Spanish, Lisa" He commented casually.

Giving a mild glare, Jamie bounced the soccer ball off her knee, dribbling it a bit around her foot. So was that supposed to be an actual answer or not? It even slightly confused Jamie herself, a thin frown growing on her face. Maybe the best answer was to just ignore him, although that was totally boring as well. Punting the ball at the low left of the posts, she gave a loud grunt as it flew too slowly for her liking. Not even close to knocking the banana skin off the net even if Lisa didn't catch it.

All of a sudden, Jamie's face lit up with a small idea. Well, it was kind of stupid, but she wasn't really thinking of anything else brilliant at the time, and wonderful Lisa had pretty much handballed the question right back at her. Turning around to Zeke and giving a slightly discerning grin, she sweetly replied, "You can play with us if you can get that banana off the net". She pointed her thumb behind her at Lisa as if he was blind and didn't know what a banana or net was. Jamie was going to enjoy watching this. Hell, he didn't even play anything resembling soccer, did he?

Nodding as Lisa threw the ball back, she gave another grin. "Go on."

*fwump*

Suddenly, something collided with Zeke's side, though not enough to do any harm, or even budge him all that much. A look over would reveal that something to be a someONE; a short, pale asian kid holding up The Prisoner of Azkaban, and looking a bit startled and confused. Looking up and seemingly about ready to meekly apologize, the high schooler suddenly freezes in place, recognizing the boy.

{{Hiro continued from It's A-MAZE-ing!}}

Oooooooooh crap

Crap

CRAP

CRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAPCRAP

CRUD

Hiro froze up like a deer in the headlights as she saw the person that she bumped into was Zeke. Aaargh! Why the hell didn't she watch where she was going!? This is why you don't read and walk!

Okay, calm down. No need to panic. It's just some guy. Okay, sure, it's a rather attractive guy; one she'd maybe been thinking about possibly asking out. You know, just to get something to eat. Something simple like that. And maybe, just maybe, she'd been agonizing, just a little bit, over how to do it, as she'd kind of never, ever talked to him before, and she was pretty sure that he didn't even know she existed, and she wanted to make a good first impression. No biggie.

But this was NOT a good first impression. This was "HELLO, I'M A CLUMSY DOOFUS WHO CAN'T LOOK WHERE SHE'S WALKING. WHAT'S UP?" And if she tried to ask him out he'd probably go "SORRY, I DON'T LIKE CLUMSY DOOFUSES WHO CAN'T LOOK WHERE THEY'RE WALKING." And it'd be ruined forever! She only had one chance and she screwed it up!

Okay, calm down. Seriously. She could still salvage this. She just had to apologize. Make it perfectly clear that she wasn't making a habit of just walking into people. Just look up and say it.

"..."

...

"..."

...

"..."

Hiro's face slowly turned a remarkable shade of red, and she started to feel a little bit dizzy. Finally, she buried her face back in her book, hoping that maybe she could just disappear and go unnoticed again.

...

NO! This is stupid! Stop being stupid!

"Ah...uh..."

You already know how this works. You open your mouth and sounds come out. And then you move your mouth and turn the sounds into identifiable words in the English language.

"H......h-h-hi...."

(( Skipping to react to Hiro ))

He felt something bump into him, and looked down to see that something was in fact a girl reading one of the Harry Potter books. He placed a hand on her shoulder to steady her for a second, quickly apologizing to the girl when he noticed she seemed a little dazed by the knock. She then looked up at him, slowly turning a little red.

There was then a very awkward pause, as he waited for her to say something and she looked up at him, as if waiting for something to say.

Aww. That was actually pretty cute. And then she mumbled out a little, quiet "Hi". Aww. It was like she literally just walked out of a movie, that was how much she resembled one of those little shy girls you always saw in movies. She was even a little nerdy, judging by the book. That was so cool!

His smile grew relaxed as he looked down at her

"You alright girl? You didn't hit you're head did you?" He asked, his tone calm and friendly.

"You alright girl? You didn't hit you're head did you?"

Oh great. Now he thinks she has brain damage. Nice going, there.

"Uh..." Hiro uhed, desperately trying to think of a way to salvage this catastrophe. Her attention drifted off in the distance, where she caught sight of Lisa, another friend of her's. She looked pleadingly in her direction for a moment, as if silently begging for her to come over and bail her out.

Argh! Oh great, get someone else to handle your relationship problems for you. Great idea. Quit trying to get someone to bail you out and just do this by yourself, or you're going to regret it later.

"Erm..."

Okay, looks like she's just gonna have to do this now, before she does anything else to screw it up.

"I...I-I was...er...w-wondering if..."

"Uh..."

"If..."

If?

"..."

JUST SAY IT ALREADY!

"I-If you'd w-want to get something to eat sometime!" Hiro finally blurted out, maybe a little bit louder than she intended.

Okay, there. It's out there. It was a hell of a lot more awkward than she intended, but it was out there.

...

OH GOD SHE SOUNDED LIKE SUCH A GODDAMN DOOFUS

Hiro fidgeted, finger flipping through the corners of the pages of her books as she stared down at her shoes and mentally berated herself. This was a bad idea. She should've just cut her losses and left, and waited for another time. He's going to turn her down. He's definitely going to turn her down. Who the hell would want to go out with someone who can't even get through a sentence without tripping and tumbling right over it?

Oh hell, was it supposed to take this long for a reply? She couldn't tell if it was really taking this long, or if time had somehow slowed down just to taunt her. She hadn't even noticed yet, but she was starting to sweat a little bit in anticipation of her impending failure. Just get it over with already!

Maybe she should just apologize. She was just wasting his time and making a fool of herself, right? Surely he had something better to do than humor some sick girl, right? She could still save face. God, this was such a stupid idea, what was she even thinking!?

That's it, then. ABORT! ABORT MISSION!

"I-I-I-I'm sorry! I-I didn't mean to...uh...I-I m-mean...I didn't..." Hiro stumbled over her words again as her abort failed, and she crashed and burned on the runway.

The girl sat there and sputtered for a while, and his smile grew a little lopsided, and he raised an eyebrow for a moment, before realizing that that made him look like a massive dick. It probably made him seem like he was making fun of her, rather than being friendly and stuff, after all, he barely knew this girl. He only shared, like, three classes with her, and she shied away from him in most of them, which sucked. After all, from what little people mentioned of her, Hiro seemed pretty nice. Shy as hell, but nice, either way.

"I...I-I was...er...w-wondering if..."

Oh. Oh, no way. Seriously?

"Uh..."

No waaaaayy.

"If..."

Yes?

"I-If you'd w-want to get something to eat sometime!"

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Yes, yes, yes!

Life was a movie! No question about it now. Life was a movie. This was exactly how a movie would play out.

That was so darn cute, and just. Awww, yes. So much.

He then looked down at the girl, and saw that she was looking down at the floor. And then, the infectious inabillity to speak struck him down too, as he saw that this obviously meant quite a bit to her.

He needed to think of something sweet and meaningful that'd make this really special for her, something she could think of as something special. Yes really wouldn't cut it, that wasn't the kind of thing people thought of as a romantic gesture. Uh, flowers? They were quite romantic, but it'd be really awkward if he suddenly started talking about roses and things. Uh birds? No, no th-

"I-I-I-I'm sorry! I-I didn't mean to...uh...I-I m-mean...I didn't..."

Oh, uh, crap. Now he looked like he was trying to find some way to say no. Crap, how was he bad at this? He'd done it before.

"Of course Hiro, I'd love to go and grab something to eat with you at some point! When're you next free?" He blurted out, without actually being able to control his words to any degree.

Great, now he looked completely unromantic and style-less. Brilliant.

"Of course Hiro, I'd love to go and grab something to eat with you at some point! When're you next free?"

...wha?

"Of course Hiro, I'd love to

Yeah, she heard that just fine, thanks.

But...wha?

Did...did he just...

Did he just say YES?

...

Hiro just stood there for a moment, taking a while to process what just happened. And then BAM, it hit with the force of a speeding freight train: a mixture of relief, excitement, surprise and pure joy, enough that her legs almost gave out from her. Her heart was racing a mile a minute, and she found herself starting to rock back and forth a little bit as the dizziness took hold again, though this time for entirely different reasons.

"Uh...ah...S...S...S-Saturday? I-I-I'm f-free Saturday...next...time. Uh...at...o...one o'clock. I-I-In in the afternoon. I-I mean, n-not in like...in the evening...o-or anything...like that...

Just stop talking now.

"Okay..."

[Holy shit, I don't know what happened there, but I'm back now. Quick placeholder post just to get myself back on track here.]

"Yo! Should I book you two lovebirds a hotel room, or what?"

Honestly, the whole cliched scene was playing out rather noisily. She'd almost let the last kick get through for lack of concentration. Not that it was too big a deal, she had to be somewhere soon, it was just sort of the principle of the thing, really.

Actually, now that she thought of it, soon was five minutes ago, wasn't it?

"Shit, um. Good practice, Snickers! Keep up the good work!"

On that note, she was off, passing Hiro and Zeke as she went. "Gonna have to take a rain check on the hotel, guys, sorry!"

[Lisa Grzybowski continued elsewhere]

(( Sorry about the short post, I really had no clue what to write, and I'd rather not hold everyone up for any longer! ))

He smiled down at her, as she mumbled, her brain apparently not having caught up with reallity.

Then, a remarkable display of reality ensued, as Lisa essentially told them to get a room and walked off, and he realised that he, as a matter of fact, had a class to get going to. Drat.

"Oh, hey, uh, can I get your number?" He asked quickly, fumbling to retrieve his phone from his pocket.

This isn't real. There's no way this was real. In a minute she'd wake up and realize that her brain was just being cruel and playing tricks on her in her sleep. Hiro resisted the urge to pinch herself right when-

"Yo! Should I book you two lovebirds a hotel room, or what?"

Oh. Oh, right. She didn't realize it, but she was kind of interrupting soccer practice with her sputtering and making a fool of herself.

"Huh? M-my number?"

Oh god this was really happening. For a second, Hiro completely blanked on what her number was, fumbling for the cell phone in her pocket. Come on...come on, what was it...oh right!

The two of them exchanged numbers, and then suddenly...oh crap.

"Uh oh. Uh...I-I have to get to class." She said, even though she didn't really care if she was late for class at this point (though she felt like she should.)

"Uh...I...I-I'll call you later. Or...uh...you can call me later...or..." Hiro sort of trailed off as she wandered off in the direction of the school, her head still spinning at the events that just transpired.

He said yes he said yes he said yes he said yes oh god this is so awesome he said yes...

{{continued elsewhere}}