Soccer System: All the Skills, One Player!

At break time, Lucas was being searched so much by his classmates that his only alternative was to find a secluded place to breathe.

That place turned out to be the top of the main building's staircase. He ignored a sign that said "No access to terrace" and went up. As fate would have it, there was someone else who had also ignored the same warning, and Lucas later discovered that she did this all the time. Yes, her.

"Lucas, what are you doing here?" Lucy asked, wide-eyed when she saw him.

He was a little surprised too, so he returned the question.

"What are YOU doing here?"

A second of awkward silence fell over them. Just then, Lucas's eyes caught sight of some packages to her right and also her open handbag. Inside the bag were several packets of snacks and sweets.Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Lucy realized he had noticed and quickly collected everything and put it in the bag behind her.

"I-I was just having a little snack because..."

He interrupted her with a sigh and, more relaxed, walked over to the same step she was on and sat down next to her.

Lucy was a little stunned by the situation and didn't seem to understand why he had sat down next to her.

"Do you come here to eat hidden from the staff?" he asked with a casual air, as he pulled a chocolate-flavored protein bar out of one of his front pockets.

Still staring straight ahead, her cheeks flushed a little. "How did you know?"

"Well, that's the only thing I could deduce." He said and opened the wrapper of the protein bar. "Do you want some?" he asked.

She nodded.

"Too bad. This flavor is very good, and the formula will change in a few years." Lucas said and took a bite of the bar. He only realized a second later that he had missed a piece of information.

Luckily, Lucy was so focused on something that was on her mind that she didn't care enough to ask what he had said.

"Lucas, aren't you going to say anything...?" Lucy asked suddenly.

"If you're referring to the sweets and snacks, I have nothing to say." He replied in a blunt tone and took another bite out of the bar.

"What? But... everyone talks when they find out about my passion for nonsense."

"Let me guess. They say you shouldn't eat those things because you're an athlete and athletes need a strict, protein-packed diet to get stronger and healthier."

Lucy nodded. "Yes, and also because I'm a swimmer and I need to keep my body slim so I don't slow down in the pool."

"Hmm... I imagine that's really important for your sport. But I don't think a snack or a chocolate is that alarming. In fact, it could be very motivating for you to use it as a reward."

"Thinking along those lines..." Lucy looked back at the bag she had been trying to hide until then.

"Besides, you look great to me." Lucas put a hand to his chin and analyzed her with his eyes.

'So close!' Lucy thought as she saw him standing next to her. "W-what do you think you're doing? Take your eyes off my thighs. I eat a lot so that they stay strong and help me train, not so that boys can look at them."

At that moment, he realized he was quite close and being rude. So he put a hand to the back of his head and ducked his own head, then apologized.

"I'm sorry about that, Lucy. I didn't mean to make you feel bad or..."

"Puft!" She tried to hold in her laughter as he kept his head down.

When Lucas raised his head and looked at her with a confused expression, she couldn't help herself and started laughing out loud.

"..." He just turned away, his cheeks flushed, saying nothing out of embarrassment, while she laughed at him.

Yes, now he remembered why he wasn't very successful with high school girls. They were too confusing for his limited male brain to understand.

"Ouch, ouch..." Lucy wiped a tear from the corner of her eye after laughing for over thirty seconds. "You had to have seen his surprised expression. Anyway, thanks for trying to cheer me up, Lucas. You really are a good friend."

The word 'friend' resounded like a finger snap in Lucas's mind.

"Speaking of friends, Lucy. I imagine people looked up to you a lot when you started studying here at the institute. What did you do to stop people pursuing you as a friend?" he asked.

"I figured you'd ask about that. People have been hanging around you ever since they noticed that you and Raphael aren't talking."

"Yes, it's been a bit of a problem dealing with these people from an early age. Not that I hate it, but it's getting annoying, and I don't want to go as far as telling them to stay away. I'd get a reputation as a busybody or something," Lucas replied.

Lucy put a finger to her cheek and thought about it for a moment. "It may not seem like it to you, because you've only been at this institute for a week, but this place is like a jungle of animals. To survive here, everyone knows that the better the partner, the higher the chances of survival."

"Is that some kind of analogy?" he asked.

"You could say that. This is a very stressful, competitive environment. Everyone wants friends who are socially high-ranked. So when our colleagues saw that you, a Brighton player, were completely available for new friendships, or so they thought, they tried to create some kind of bond."

"Eh... But I'm only a Team-B player."

"Yes, and that may have been the reason an avalanche of people didn't go after you from the start. However, since they noticed that you were open, they must have reconsidered the idea. I don't know. It's hard to imagine what's going through their heads."

"So, you still haven't told me how you lost them, dismissed them or anything like that." Lucas said as he crumpled up the tent package and put it in one of his jacket pockets.

"About that... I didn't actually do any of that. I just became friends with everyone who approached me. Of course, most of them I don't even know by surname or class, but they say they know me and I use whatever favors they can offer me."

"Favors?" asked Lucas, frowning. "What kind of favors?"

Lucy shrugged. "I don't know, maybe something like the answer sheet for the next philosophy exam."

"W-what?"

"In fact, I didn't even ask. Why aren't you and Raphael talking? Was it a disagreement during training?" She asked and stood up, with the strap of her backpack on her right shoulder.

Lucas lowered his head, looking at his shoes. "Yes..."

"Was it so bad that you stopped talking to each other? You're teammates, you can't just stop communicating."

"I know, I know. Unfortunately, I can't understand why he got upset. I was just training with some boys, and he seems to have had a jealous breakdown."

"Um... Maybe it wasn't envy." said Lucy, which made Lucas raise his head and look at her.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"As far as you've told me and also as far as I've heard, you're strikers, right? I don't know much about soccer, but shouldn't strikers train together? If, among the boys you were training with, there were other strikers like you and Raphael, he might have been upset at being the only one left out. I don't know. It's just a hunch."

Lucas's eyebrows rose automatically. He was genuinely surprised by the theory Lucy had put forward because his own theories went past the jealousy Raphael might have felt. He thought Raphael was jealous of his friendship with Miguel and Arthur, not because he was training with the others.

"Jeez, Lucy... You have much better social intelligence than I do." Lucas had to admit that truth out loud.

She crossed her arms and lifted her chin, proud of herself. "It's the first time I've been complimented like that, but I'll take it."

"Thanks, Lucy!" Lucas thanked her as he rushed down the stairs.

In an instant, Lucy saw him vanish from her side. She was shocked by how quickly he descended the stairs.

At that moment, the only thought Lucas had in his mind was:

'I'll tell Raphael to train with me and the boys today after our collective training session, then he'll start talking to me normally again, and people will stop bothering me when they see us talking. Also, I'll have one more option for my cross-field passes, so I'll have a higher rate of assists and successfully completed passes!'