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"Itoshi! Get your head out of the clouds!"

Rin startled, glancing over to the man who'd just yelled at him- his coach. Right. He was in the middle of a scrimmage. He nearly forgot.

Blue Lock academy had two star football teams, a women's league and a men's league. They had other ones, sure, for the overwhelming amount of football players that attend the school who play, but they're only local leagues, casual teams, or runner-up teams who sub out players from the best.

On this team were twenty-three players, twelve of which rotated in and out that occupied the bench. Itoshi Rin was naturally on this team, known as the star striker of Blue Lock. He didn't care much for the title.

Teammate-wise, Nagi Seishiro and Bachira Meguru were his top choices. He was able to easily utilize their skillsets to score goals for his own agenda. Mikage Reo and Kurona Ranze were also great picks, as they were total all-rounders.

The more difficult members of the team were Isagi Yoichi, Barou Shouei, Chigiri Hyoma, and that asshole Shidou Ryusei. The rest were fine and he didn't care that much about them. But those four often got on his nerves.

This practice, they were scrimmaging against each other on teams of seven. It worked out as few of their reserves, Raichi, Tokimitsu Aoshi,  Niko Ikki, and Kiyora Jin were all missing from practice. Aryuu Jyubei and Gagamaru Jin acted as goalies, while the rest played on the field.

For the match, Rin got lucky and was on a team with Reo and Bachira. He also got Otoya and Kurona, who were solid in what they did. They were controllable enough. However, he landed with two rotten eggs: Shidou and Barou. Two off-the-rails wild cards that he failed to read occasionally.

In some turn of fate, Rin was right up against Isagi, Chigiri, Nagi, Hiori, Yukimiya, Kunigami, and Karasu. The last two were very skilled strikers, which only made their pair-up with Hiori more irritating.

With that, Rin bolted after the ball, which was being handled by his opponent, Yukimiya. In a face-off, Yukimiya was no match for Rin's accuracy and swiftness, and quickly lost the ball to the boy.

Opening... there. Rin found his next play: a pass over to Kurona. He lobbed it over to the redhead, up and out of Kunigami's crazy aerial reach, so that the swift shark-like player could reach the ball in time.

Kurona swept the ball up and did as Rin wanted him to do: pass it right back to him. Kurona was being pressed by Nagi and Isagi on his left, blocking any potential efforts at scoring a point or a pass to Otoya. So, that left Rin, who positioned himself in the short amount of time to be in line of sight for a goal.

"Rin!" Kurona yelled, kicking the ball over to his teammate.

Bingo. Rin, without hesitation, slammed it into the goal, right past Aryu, colliding with the net.

Too easy.

As his team was celebrating another goal, Rin drifted off into his own world again while wiping the bead of sweat off his forehead. Back to the reason why he was zoning out.

Y/n L/n. Who was she?

It had been picking at the back of his mind for days now. Ever since your last interaction two days ago, your words and actions bothered him for some odd reason.

Rin could read people very easily. It was to the point where his assumptions about someone's innermost thoughts were right on target, even after knowing them only an hour or so.

But you were an odd ball of sorts. He remembered back when he first met you, although it was a brief interaction, even then he couldn't get inside your head. Now it was much worse, and Rin couldn't pinpoint where your mind was at. Your abnormal reaction, paired with your abnormal demeanor, paired with your abnormal way of speaking.