Ruffians

As soon as Sho saw all of them run towards him he hightailed it towards a few alleys he knew of. After running around for 15 minutes he turned around and noticed Kageyama was decently close while the other 2 were nowhere in sight. Looking around he noticed how wide this alley's walls were; it even had a few trash cans upright against the wall he just ran by.

He was so out of breath he just stopped at the end of an alleyway awaiting his doom. He brought his fists up ready for anything. Sho decided if he's bound to get in a fight he might as well make the first move right, so that's what he did. He closed the distance and punched as hard as he possibly could towards his chin, sadly it was a few inches short of reaching its mark. Kageyama pushed Sho up against the brick wall but the unexpected happened, he fell face first into the wall. Sho popped out behind him contemplating if he should just run or fight back, he chose the ladder. Kageyama turned around with a scowl on his face, and a bruised forehead. They both raised their fists readying themselves, but just before they engaged Kageyama looked past him and spoke with what sounded like fake confidence

Kageyama: " I'm only gonna say this once so listen closely. If you apologize right now I'll call it quits, and let you off the hook."

Sho: " How can I believe you?"

With all this adrenaline rushing through his veins he honestly felt like time was slowing down and he could see all around him, just off of instinct he quickly dodged to the side, it turned out to be fruitful as if he hadn't he would of gotten clocked by one of Kageyama's friends. Since he had his attention placed on one of Kageyama's friends, Kageyama took advantage of it and threw his fist towards the back of Sho's head. Sho didn't understand what was happening, he was so confused, why could he see Kageyama's fist if he was looking towards one of his friends. He instinctually dodged away from his fist and placed his leg in front of Kageyama's leg, resulting in him tripping and falling on top of his friend. While they were down he grabbed a trash can and threw it over both Kageyama and his friend and ran away.

After running for 5 minutes away from the fight he sees someone from the corner of his eye. Kageyama's other friend. He rounds around the corner and charges Sho. Being caught off guard, Sho tried to dodge but he was a few seconds too late which resulted in him being tossed to the concrete. Bleeding from his elbows, Sho decided to swing for the fences, he kicked his legs as hard as he could and kicked him in his balls. Sho noticing Kageyama's friend writhing in pain, he got up and bolted.

Sho's adrenaline finally died down. Halfway out of the alleyway he looked around and found 4 milk crates and some smelly rags. Sho sat on the milk crates and took a few deep breaths to calm himself down and decided to put the smelly rags on his elbows to stop the bleeding. After checking himself once over Sho got up and grabbed the four milk crates with an idea on his mind.

Walking out of the dark alley with blood running down his arm he was spotted by his longtime friend Ryuu Ichijou. Ryuu ran up to him and made sure he was alright. He ran his hand over the blood stained rags, while keeping his other hand behind his back. Ryu in a worried voice asked

Ryuu: " Are you alright? You know you didn't have to do that. I saw you running away from Kageyama and them but my legs locked up, I didn't know what to do. I was so worried you might have been in a pool of your own blood."

Following that long ramble Ryuu took his hand from behind his back and gave Sho the ball he kicked at Kageyama. Sho who saw the ball and Ryuu's worried eyes assured Ryuu nothing like that would happen. Sho decided to take Ryuu to a spot he saw while running around for food, days prior. Not before giving Ryuu four milk crates he found in that alleyway. After running down the street and taking a few shortcuts they made it.

It was around 132 feet wide (40.2 meters) and 54 feet long (16.4 meters) of open space with walls surrounding them. Sho rolled the ball 8 feet (2.4 meters) in front of him. He then took the 4 milk crates Ryuu was holding and put each crate in the corners of an imaginary goal post he remembers seeing on tv.

He ran straight ahead and a little to the bottom left and dropped a milk crate facing the ball. Sho then walked about 24 feet (7.3 meters) to the right of the previous milk crate and put in on the bottom right. Since he was only 4 foot tall (1.21 meters) and his buddy Ryuu was shorter than him, he couldn't place the other 2 milk crates where he wanted too because it was too tall. But Sho thinks he did a decent job in making a makeshift goal.

Ryuu who saw Sho set all this stuff up became skeptical but just before he was about to ask him a question, Sho went up to the ball and kicked it with his left leg into the bottom right crate, hitting it right on point. What Ryuu didn't see was the relaxed smile on Sho's face as he shot that ball. As soon as he launched the ball into the milk crate, he turned around and asked

Sho: " So what do you think of this spot? Pretty cool right?"

Ryuu couldn't believe what he was seeing, this could be their own little safe haven. A spot for the rest of the street kids. Ryuu stared at Sho with the brightest smile and sincerely said

Ryuu: " This is awesome Sho, we could get a bunch of people here to play some football. Could you imagine that? It's not super big but it's enough. Instead of using the milk crates as goals I can bring some chalk tomorrow and draw it out on the wall."

Sho agreed instantly, and even got a little excited and said

Sho: "Alright then."

Ryuu walked out of the hidden alley, and parted ways with Sho. Even though the street lights were on as night time was approaching, Sho made a decision not to go back home and stay in the hidden alley, outside in the freezing cold. As Sho found a corner with relatively no mice around, he gathered as much newspapers that were on the floor as he could and made a blanket for himself and tried to sleep.