The blues shifted their approach around the eleventh minute, Hayato dropping deeper to collect the ball off Haruki’s goal kicks rather than letting Souta carry it alone, and the change bought them a stretch of real possession — patient for a Sunday scratch side, Reo and Naoya pinning the reds’ fullbacks wide while Takumi and Ryosuke drifted in and out of the space between Kaito and Sho.
“Watch the runners!” Ken called, dropping deeper himself to plug the gap, and it was his recovery tackle on Souta in the thirteenth minute — scrappy, more determination than technique — that killed the blues’ best spell of pressure before it turned into anything dangerous.
Kota, wide left, had spent the opening quarter mostly tracking back to help Jin, but he found his first real touch of attacking space in the fourteenth minute, a give-and-go with Renta that carried them ten yards up the pitch before Daiki closed the passing lane and forced Kota back into a heavy touch that rolled out of play.
“Don’t mind” Renta said, jogging past him to position and tagging his back.
Rui’s moment came in the sixteenth minute, the same pattern he’d been noticing from the wide midfielder opposite him finally repeating itself for the fourth time — Naoya taking the ball the same way, body shape opening the same direction — and Rui cut the angle a half-step early, winning it clean before the touch could even fully leave Naoya’s boot.
The ball deflecting off Naoya harmlessly out for a reds throw-in, and the crowd along the fence made appreciative noise when a tackle lands right.
“Nice read,” Sho shouted, as he came to take the throw in, and turned to organize the throw-in.
“Thanks”Rui replied falling into position to be a passing option for Sho. The source of this chapter is g.com.
At the other end a minute later, Ryo nearly broke the deadlock himself, a half-chance created more by hustle than design when Renta’s loose pass fell perfectly into space — Ryo’s first-time shot from the edge of the box arcing just over Haruki’s bar, close enough that half of the reds’ own bench had already started celebrating before the ball finished sailing wide.
“So close,” Ken muttered, hands briefly on his head before he caught himself and got back to organizing the restart.
The eighteenth minute brought the blues’ best chance of the match — Takumi peeling off Kaito’s shoulder at exactly the right moment, a clever near-post run that found him in space with only Tomoya to beat, and it was Sho, recovering at full sprint from twenty yards back, who got a desperate toe to the ball a half-second before Takumi’s shot, deflecting it just wide for a corner rather than a goal.
“Nice save” Kaito said, jogging back while clapping his hands for Sho, but a playful tone in his voice could be heard.
“That’s me covering for you, after losing your man,” Sho corrected shaking his head, though there was no real heat in it.
It’s not his first rodeo with Kaito.
The resulting corner came to nothing, cleared by a combination of Ken’s header and simple luck, and by the twentieth minute the scoreline still sat blank — nil-nil, both sides trading half-chances without either quite finding the finishing touch, the crowd along the fence thickening further as word spread across the Rec that the opening quarterfinal had turned into exactly the kind of tight, nervy contest nobody had expected from a Sunday bracket assembled by nothing more than slips of paper in a plastic bag.
The blues came ,knocking again, the closest to breaking the deadlock in the twenty-third minute, Ryosuke ghosting between Kaito and Sho at a corner and rising highest for a header that clipped the crossbar and bounced clear, the whole reds’ defence frozen for half a second before Tomoya finally scooped it up off the rebound. The source of this chapter is novelping . com.
A groan went up from the crowd along the fence — thicker now than it had been at kickoff, adults who’d wandered over from nearby after hearing of Tatsuya as it wasn’t announced anywhere even on his social media not a lot of people knew, a couple of the doya lodging house regulars who’d claimed the best patch of shade an hour ago and hadn’t moved since, Reiko herself standing near the gate with her arms crossed, having closed the counter early once word reached her that Tatsuya was actually back at the Rec.
“That’s on me,” Kaito said, jogging back, jaw tight with the specific frustration of a boy who took his own mistakes harder than anyone bothered making him, gone the easy going demeanour he showed on his first mistake.
“It’s on both of us.” Sho fell into step beside him, close enough that their shoulders nearly brushed, the particular easy proximity of two people who’d shared space their whole lives without needing to think about how much room the other one took up.
“You went early. I should’ve covered.”
“I Didn’t ask you to.”
“I Didn’t say you had to.” Sho replied and his mouth did something that wasn’t quite a smile, sharp and a little familiar, the exact shape Kaito’s own face made when he was pretending not to be amused.
Rui, jogging past to reset for the goal kick, caught a glimpse and kept it in mind without quite knowing why it seemed important, but there was something in the rhythm of the exchange, the way neither of them had to say much And the easiness that no friendship can emulate, that read less like mates and more like the specific shorthand people only built up over considerably longer than being familiar.
(Author)
Thank you for reading.
Constructive feedback to improve appreciated.