SOL - Done it Again Part 3

Playing football is almost enough to take your mind off your misery. Chun has an entire team of good players behind her, but there’s such a thing as being too much of a star. Chun is just so much. From her unusually powerful, yet strangely beautiful legs to her reputation to the way that she acts—you suspect that it might actually be a detriment to her team. Her star power is such a distraction. Everything that Red Team does is about Chun in some way, and that keeps the potential in the other players from coming out.

At least, that is how you see it. But that’s Red Team’s problem.

Your problem is that Chun makes you feel the way that, well, you try to make everyone else feel in football: small and insignificant.

You know that you are not as blessed with grace, dexterity, and talent for manipulating the ball the way that girls like Riley and Hana are. But that’s always been OK because you have something almost as good: height, raw athleticism, good instincts for the flow of the game, and no fear.

Chun teaches you what fear is. You make the mistake of blocking her when she puts serious **** into a kick. You take the hit in the chest and the impact knocks you flat. The ball bounces off you so hard that even if you’d stayed on your feet, you never would’ve had control. Chun has it back and she’s past you. You pick yourself up, astounded by the amount of pain. Nothing’s broken, but it feels like it was a near miss. The right half of your chest throbs and you don’t know what this is going to look like. One breast black and blue with bruises? Swollen?

No longer feeling quite so brave, you doggedly get back into the match to do your part.

By now, most FUTA teams know the first trick that Pink Team will try: distract with Riley and Lara while looking for a way to feed Aki the ball. Aki is covered with no hope of getting free, and Chun stampedes around the pitch so quickly and ruthlessly that there’s little downside to that approach—but they’re sleeping on Riley because she hasn’t distinguished herself lately.

When Riley scores on them a second time, they call a timeout and try to adapt.

Tiff is excited. “We’ve got it,” she assures Riley, planting her hands on Riley’s shoulders and looking into her eyes. Riley’s sweaty and dirty but glowing. Football brings her alive in a way that few other things do. She doesn’t even notice you, standing by the cooler with your water bottle pressed against your tender boob. You’ve taken three more hits since that first one.

“Adella,” Tiff says, startling you. “You’re a wall. Keep it up.”