Unfortunately for Noah, Douglas and his shirtless friend didn't follow him outside the duplex. Noah waited for a few minutes and still didn't see them come after him
He decided to give up.
'Patience Noah, time is all that it takes. No need to rush things.' He thought to himself before checking the time on his watch.
"20:08, I guess I should head back to my room. This was just a waste of time, sigh." Noah started walking back to his dorm…
By the time he arrived at his dormitory, almost an hour had gone by. The first thing he did when he got into his room was to wash the dye out of his hair. After that, he took a shower again and then applied the black dye.
When he was done with all of these, Noah stood in front of the mirror in his bathroom wearing shorts and said to his reflection. "You are better than this…" He stood there for over a minute, before shaking his head and leaving the bathroom.
On his way out, the yellow soccer ball that he got from the field caught his eyes. It was placed next to his books on his reading table. 'Training starts 6 days from now, around 4 in the evening.' A smile appeared on his face as he thought of learning to play ball.
Since the match that he played over a week ago, Noah did think about football, but he wasn't eager to play. His interest in the game didn't die, and it also didn't increase. Noah was still curious about football, but that was all.
Noah went ahead and picked the ball up. The feel of the ball in his hands gave him Goosebumps and made his heart beat faster. 'Why does touching this ball make me feel this way?' While he was thinking of why he was feeling the way he was, he mistakenly let go of the ball.
It dropped to the marble floor and bounced, almost reaching his hands. Noah watched the ball continue to bounce until it stopped bouncing and rolled to the door of his room. Then an idea hit him.
He went to pick the ball up again. Noah dropped the ball to the ground and let it bounce once, then he placed his leg under the ball before it hit the ground the second time. The ball bounced on his leg and went up.
Noah's intention was to stop the ball from hitting the floor by hitting it with his legs. The ball started to fall again and Noah placed his leg under it, hitting it properly and sending it higher into the air. Seeing that he could successfully do this twice, a huge smile appeared on Noah's face.
Noah was excited. For the third time, the ball was heading for the floor and before it touched the ground Noah's leg was there to hit it. But this time, he didn't hit the ball properly. The ball flew towards the door of his room.
-Thud!
It bounced off the door and flew towards his bed.
This made Noah frown, he thought that he had it under control. "Let's try that again." He muttered as he went to pick the ball up.
Noah started the process again, the first time, he hit the ball properly and when it was time for Noah to hit the ball again, he hit it the wrong way – with too much force. The ball flew up and hit the roof before coming down with force, hitting Noah's head.
"Ouch!" Noah exclaimed. "That was unexpected." He said as he rubbed the side that the ball hit.
Noah picked the ball again and tried this again, but after the second or third hit, the ball goes out of his control… about 30 minutes had gone by since Noah challenged himself with juggling the ball and the best he could do before the ball went out of his control was 6 hits.
While trying to catch his breath, Noah held the ball in his hands and sat down beside his bed. From his head to waist, sweat was rolling down.
"Just this alone made me lose my breath." He uttered.
Within the 30 minutes that he attempted to keep the ball airborne and prevent it from touching the floor, with his legs; Noah learned a few key points on how to achieve that. The first thing that he needs to work on is his balance and bending his knee a bit before hitting the ball helped with that.
Noah realized that whenever he raised a leg to hit the ball, he felt as if he was going to fall. The second key point is the side of his feet that he used to hit the ball. If he used the upper part of his foot to hit the ball then the ball went out of control easily.
If the ball made any contact with a part closer to his ankle then the ball would most likely go out of control. The most suitable part to use is the center of the foot.
Even after finding the key points out, it still wasn't easy for Noah to juggle the ball as he wished he could.
"Pushing, dribbling, and shooting isn't as difficult as this. I could easily grab how to do that by watching the players in the field do it… perhaps there's more to this that I still haven't figured out." Noah got up and attempted to juggle the ball again.
10 minutes had gone by when he decided to stop. Noah beat his previous record with just one.
At this point, Noah knew that only with practice would he be able to juggle the ball with his legs comfortably.
Noah decided to go to bed, he had classes in the morning.
…
A week had gone by and when morning came, Noah got up early and prepared for his classes. He spent the whole of the morning and afternoon shuffling between classes. Since they began classes, they had been going over the basics, trying to refresh the memories of the students; so they didn't do anything that Noah didn't already know.
Noah's classes ended around 2:40 in the afternoon. He went back to his dormitory and got ready to go to the football peach for the training Coach Wilbur spoke about. Every night before he went to bed, Noah practiced juggling the ball and now he could juggle the ball 15-20 times before fumbling.
He was happy with his slow improvement. While Noah was getting ready, in the process of tying the laces of his sneakers he glanced at the cleats that Anisa lent to him.
After he got the cleats cleaned he contacted her but she refused to come and collect it or even leave an address where he could deliver it to.
Anisa asked him if he had any cleats he could use during training, and knowing the obvious she told him that the only way he could pay her back, was if he continued to use the cleats. Noah had no choice but to accept them.
Noah held the cleats in one hand and the yellow ball that he got from the field in the other.
The training was set to start by 4:00 on the dot and Noah arrived at the field 15 minutes to 4:00. When he got there, he saw quite a number of people stretching individually. It looked as if the whole football team in the university had gathered here. Noah chose to go sit alone by the bleachers and watch them.
Those that were present on the day that Noah played for the first time could recognize him, they glanced at him at some point in time but none of them had anything to say to him nor did they want to speak to him. Most of them felt as if he was a nuisance.
10 minutes to 4:00 was when Coach Wilbur arrived with a man that Noah was unfamiliar with and the captain of the football club, Jamil. And not long after Coach Wilbur's arrival, Anisa arrived in the field.
Immediately she saw Noah she waved at him with a pleasant smile on her face. Noah just watched her as she waved and smiled at him without returning the gesture. The last time they spoke was on phone and that was about 5 days ago when he wanted to return the cleats.
"Good evening, Noah." Anisa greeted when she arrived beside him.
"Evening," Noah replied after a few seconds.
"Gather round everyone!!" Coach Wilbur's voice interrupted what everyone was doing. They listened to his order and gathered around him. When it looked like everyone had gathered around him, Coach Wilbur looked around and saw that Noah was still sitting in the bleachers.
"You too ballboy!!" Coach Wilbur added.
Everyone turned and looked at Noah, those that didn't know him started wondering who he was because normally Coach Wilbur wouldn't concern himself about a ballboy.
Noah wasted a few seconds before getting up and heading to where everyone had gathered around.
"Alright, you guys know how we always start. A 15km run, drills, then gameplays. If you haven't stretched you have 10 minutes to do so." Coach Wilbur finished.
"You heard what Coach said, we are going to do the stretching collectively. Follow my lead." Jamil started right after Coach Wilbur was done speaking.
"Noah!" Coach Wilbur called out.
"Yes?" Noah replied when he was closer to Coach Wilbur.
"Remember, you have to follow my instructions if you wish to play with the team. Do you have a problem with that?"
"I don't have any problems with that," Noah answered.
"Great," Coach Wilbur tapped his shoulder. "This is my assistant coach, Coach Adams." Coach Wilbur pointed at the unfamiliar man that he arrived with.
"Evening," Noah greeted and assistant coach Adams bobbed his head in reply. "Go ahead and join the rest."
Noah did just that, he went to join the rest as they were stretching…