Seeing the changes in his leg muscles, Hiro couldn’t refrain himself from testing his newly obtained talent. Thus even at that late in the night, he started to jump and perform several leg exercises.
And for some reason, he even felt that he was jumping much higher than before. But since, he had never really recorded his jumps, he wasn’t sure if his jumping power had increased.
“If only I have a ball with me right now, I could have tested my feel on the ball” Mumbled Hiro while heaving a sigh of disappointment.
Then again as if something perked inside him, he raised his head as he began to walk towards his table. He then took a notebook out of his school bag.
After that he began to tear some papers from his notebook. And as he tore quite a few paper from his notebook, he scraped one of the paper and began to roll it in a shape of a ball. Layering other papers over that small roll of paper, he made a paper ball about the size of a tennis ball.
“Having empty notebooks sure comes in handy at times.” Murmured Hiro while staring at the paper ball which he was holding in his hands with a look of pride in his eyes. He was quite proud of his thinking.
After that he began to juggle the ball. At first he found it quite difficult to juggle that small paper ball which weighed way less than a tennis ball. Plus the rough edges around the paper ball was making it bounce irregularly which made it hard for Hiro to control the ball.
“It’s a lot harder than what I’ve imagined.” Murmured Hiro as he was having trouble controlling the bounce of the ball.
“Just controlling this paper ball is hard enough, I wonder how hard it would be to juggle your boots. Messi made it look so easy.” Mumbled Hiro while recalling a video which he had seen in his previous life where Messi was comfortably juggling his boots.
After a while of trying, perspiration ran down his forehead while he was still trying to control the bounce of the paper ball.
His breathing a little irregular and his face a bit flushed, his eyes were sharply focused at the paper ball and his legs.
Finally for the first time in 15 minutes, he was able to juggle the ball for more than 50 times. Alternating his legs, he was now juggling the ball with ease.
And as he could get a feel of the paper ball, he finally could perform tricks with the paper ball just like how he can perform tricks with regular ball.
After a while of playing with the paper ball, Hiro finally stopped. That constant need to concentrate on the paper ball had completely drained his energy. And for some reason, he felt very tiresome as he sat down on his bed.
“May be there’s some improvement in my stats.”
Thinking about his stats, he then began to check his stats.
While checking his stats, he noticed that apart from his mentality, IQ and vision attribute, all of his other other attribute had risen by a point or more. Especially shooting and passing, they had risen by 2 points.
“Sweet.” Murmured Hiro while looking at the improvement in his stats. “With this kind of progress, I’m sure I’ll become a world class player in no time.”
“If I debut at the age of 18 for a club in Europe, will I be able to compete against Mbappe and Halland? With the departure of Messi and Ronaldo, they’ll turn into absolute beast. Not to mention how fast Erling Halland will broke goal scoring records of both Messi and Ronaldo. If I’m not wrong Erling Halland’s breakthrough should be next year.”
Thinking about the stuffs from future, he started to contemplate.
Hiro was quite happy about his progress in recent days.
“Damn! I wish FIFA didn’t bring that rule which allowed clubs to sign foreign player only after the age of 18. If not for that rule, I would have already gone to Europe. And may be like Lamine Yamal, I too would have debuted in the age of 15 for a club in Europe.”
While creating such fake scenarios inside his head, Hiro fell asleep.
**** ****
The next day when he arrived at the school, he was immediately swarmed by the students of his school because of his interview.
The post-match interview which he gave yesterday had gone viral and was all over the internet. Especially the part with the lady reporter, it had attracted unusually large amount of peoples.
Some small time Newtuber who happened to be at the scene had posted the video of the interview on his newtube channel by making some flashy edits.
And that video alone had blown up in the internet. Crossing the threshold of more than 300k views, that video was trending on newtube and few other social media platforms.
Some people had even started making meme out of that video which inturn had boosted the reach of the video.
Ultimately with that interview, Hiro had once again risen to fame. Overnight, he had once again turned into internet celebrity.
“Just when I thought I could study peacefully, I’m famous again.” Sighed Hiro while thinking about the earlier encounter with the students of his school.
Currently he was inside his classroom and history teacher was lecturing while standing infront of the lectern.
‘Then again I don’t actually study. Haha’ while thinking such, Hiro let out a subtle smile.
His smiling gesture was caught by the teacher infront.
“Takahashi Hiro, am I telling a joke right now?” Staring at Hiro, the teacher coldly questioned him.
The teacher’s voice made him nervous as he started to panic. Hiro then hurriedly stood up and apologised, “Sorry sir I wasn’t paying attention to your lecture. My mind was wandering elsewhere.” 𝑖𝑟𝘦𝒶.𝒸𝘰𝘮
Upon hearing Hiro’s sincere apology, the teacher infront released a sigh as he politely answered, “I know you’re thinking about that interview. I too have seen it. And I know because of that interview, you’re getting unusual amounts of attention. But still you shouldn’t act absent-minded in class. You’re still a student. And as much as football is important to you, you still shouldn’t neglect your studies as well. Afterall I’m sure you plan on going abroad. And for that you probably need to learn language of that country.”
“And the better you are at studies, the faster you can learn and adjust. So focus a little on your studies as well.”
His words polite and his suggestion considerate, Hiro could feel the goodwill of his teacher.
Thus, he once again bowed his head and apologised to the teacher for his misbehaviour.
And as he refocused his attention on the lecture, he began to contemplate, ‘Teacher’s telling the right thing. I should focus on my studies as well.’