After the end of the evening training, Hiro approached Tatsuki and few other guys of U-18 team who were friendly towards him to seek for their help. And surprisingly Tatsuki Seko and Naoto Miyashiro agreed with his request.
However they weren’t willing to do him that favour for free. As they say that nothing’s actually free in this materialistic world. 𝚍ｏ𝚟𝚕.ｏｒｇ
Both of them had their own demands for doing him that favour.
“I’ll introduce you to a delinquent friend of mine from my class who’s also training to become a MMA fighter.” Spoke Tatsuki.
“You’re friends with delinquents?” Intoned Hiro with his eyes wide open.
Hiro was surprised to hear that Tatsuki, a Footballer was friends with delinquent.
“Well technically he’s not. Since he just attained that title because he beat some delinquents who came to fight with him for absolutely no reason.”
“Oh how I pity that guy.” Tatsuki mumbled while making a pitiful face.
Then again, his facial expression quickly changed. With the sides of his lips curling, Tatsuki then made his demand for helping him, “I’ll introduce you to him. But you need to convince the coach’s to include me in the extra training that you’ll be receiving.”
Just as Hiro heard about extra training, his eyes opened wide. Slightly frowning his brows, Hiro then asked, “How did you know about the extra training?”
Since he hadn’t told anyone about the extra training which he was going to receive from the two coach’s, Hiro was pretty shocked to find that Tatsuki knew about the extra training.
Hearing Hiro’s questions, Tatsuki pretended as if he was trying to remember from where he heard about the extra training, while scratching his chin. And after few seconds of acting, he lowered his head and whispered in an intimidating manner, “The walls have ears too.”
Suddenly a shiver ran down Hiro’s spine as he heard Tatsuki’s response.
Seeing his scared expression, Naoto who was standing beside him spoke while lightly hitting Tatsuki on his back, “Now don’t scare him any further.”
With a dumbfounded look on his face, Hiro began to wonder about the meaning behind Naoto’s words.
“Don’t take his joke seriously, he’s only playing prank on you. It was manager Makoto who informed us about your extra training. Although he didn’t inform about it to every player in the team. To ease our worries, he informed some of the core players in the team about your training so that we don’t have to worry about your performance in coming premier league.” Saying such, Naoto tried to clear his doubts.
Tatsuki who was standing right infront of him burst into laughter and began to apologize while smiling, “Sorry!! Sorry!! I shouldn’t have scared you. Hahaha….”
As serious as Tatsuki looked, he was also a prankster from within.
“But why would you need me to convince the coach’s, if you already know about the extra training?” Questioned Hiro after regaining his composure.
“Well I already tried my luck, but they wouldn’t let me join the training session because it was individually designed for you.” Tatsuki replied while frowning his brows.
Acting just like a child who was denied of his/her favourite toy, Tatsuki looked kinda depressed.
‘Just how much are you obsessed with training, you muscle freak?’ Thought Hiro after listening to Tatsuki’s plea.
While most players avoided extra training, Tatsuki was a rare fellow who was very fond of extra training. Even in the morning and evening training sessions, he was among those few fellows who never complained about the intensity of the training.
“I’ll talk to the coach’s about it. And I’ll try me best to convince them. But it’ll be entirely up to them whether to accept or reject you.” Replied Hiro in a calm manner.
Just by hearing that much, Tatsuki’s face lit up. With his eyes sparkling he then spoke in a cheerful tone, “I knew that I could depend on you.”
‘Just why is he this happy to train more?’ Thought Hiro while contorting his face.
Although from outside he maintained his smile and continued to act as if he was happy for him.
While turning his gaze towards Naoto, he then asked Naoto about his condition for helping him, “Then what about you senior Naoto? What kind of condition do I have to fulfill to get your support?”
“Well nothing much. I just want to block some of your shots daily. I believe that by training with you, I can improve my reflexes.” Naoto presented his condition.
Hearing Naoto’s condition Hiro nodded his head and agreed to his request right away. Unlike Tatsuki’s request, Naoto’s was way simpler.
“Then I’ll introduce you to a friend of mine who happens to be an amateur boxer. Although he’ll not beat anyone outside the ring. You can use his looks and aura. He looks pretty intimidating even to me. So I believe he can be of help to solve your problem.”
Since Hiro couldn’t directly ask their help for no reason and he couldn’t even tell them about his plans, Hiro had lied to them that some kid’s in his school were troubling him. And Naoto and Tatsuki who believed his lies were only helping him because of that reason as well.
“Thank you senior Naoto.” With a smile on his face, Hiro bowed his head to thank the two senior’s who were going to help him. “Thank you senior Tatsuki.”
After thanking both of them for agreeing to help him, Hiro rushed towards manager Makoto to start his extra training which was going to take place in gym that day.
As he was running towards manager Makoto, Hiro began to wonder about few things.
‘Although I did hear about Naoto and Kazuya in my past life, I wonder why I never heard about Tatsuki. Naoto and Kazuya although didn’t perform as per the expectations placed upon them, they were still decent players. And I believe when I was 22, I heard about Kazuya when he was playing for Kyoto Sanga. And if I’m not wrong Naoto used to play for Urawa Reds as an second choice goalkeeper. Just what happened to them, for them to degrade so much?”