3 1 Point

~Dear God, it's actually him.~

Standing beside a ping pong table... holding a ping pong paddle and looking as angry as ever, was Luca freaking Zhang.

~Why are you on the ping pong team? Of all the sports you could have chosen, why the hell did you choose ping pong?! Wait till I tell Anna about this... Oh right, I just signed a confidentiality agreement, I guess I can't tell Anna...~

"Welcome to our ping pong sanctuary!" Charlie led the three new members into a room that had a dilapidated set of bleachers, some crusty looking windows that were half covered with cardboard and three ping pong tables.

"Wow." the skinny boy beside me spoke, and he sounded just about as impressed as I felt.

And by that, I mean that I was not impressed at all. Well, no, I take that back. I was impressed that Luca Zhang was so involved in a ping pong team that he would go through so much work as to make new members sign a confidentiality agreement.

"So you guys already know me." Charlie began, smiling widely, while the rest of the room only stared at us like we were the most boring looking humans they had ever witnessed. "But this," she pointed to the girl I had met earlier with pink hair, "Is Zen, she's a second year, and has one of the best serves on the team."

Zen didn't say anything, she just blew a pink bubble of gum past her lips then popped it with her pointed teeth.

"And this," Charlie went on, "Is Hezikiah, we all call him Hezi," she gestured to a curly red-headed boy. "He's the brains of our operation." she acted like she was joking and laughed. Hezi only formed his mouth into a flat line.

"And then you guys probably already know that handsome man in the back." Charlie nodded toward Luca, who seemed more interested in the material of his ping pong paddle than the newcomers. "He's actually our best player."

~Of course he is.~

Charlie went on introducing four other members, and I tried to put all their names to memory.

"Now, why don't you guys introduce yourselves!" she said, turning back to the new members.

The girl with the afro went first. "My name is Candace Moyo. I'm a first year, and I played ping pong competitively throughout high school. My brother Roger was on this ping pong team when he went to school here, and I've dreamed of joining ever since I saw you guys play!"

"That's so exciting!" Charlie clapped, but the rest of the room stayed quiet.

The skinny boy went next, "Um, my name is Travis. I played a little ping pong in high school too." he shrugged, "I guess it was fun, so I joined this club." he shrugged again and Charlie clapped again.

Then all the eyes in the room moved to me.

My throat suddenly felt dry.

Even Luca looked up from his freaking ping pong paddle and waited to hear my introduction.

"uhh" I cleared my throat, "I'm- My name is Theresa, but everyone calls me Tia. I'm a third year and I've never played ping pong before. I just wanted to join a club this year, but when I got to the clubs event yesterday, the only club left was this one...."

~Maybe I said too much.~

Not even Charlie clapped when I finished my introduction, and when I looked back to Luca, he was busy looking at his paddle again.

"Well, I'm so excited for you guys to join our team!" Charlie said, and I realized I was at least thankful that she was so nice. If she was as intimidating as all the other members -who hadn't even cracked a smile since I entered the room-, I might have already peed my pants from the scary atmosphere. "we actually have a competition planned with the University of Luxembourg in two weeks! They are our rival team for ping pong and we play them every year. So every one needs to practice hard before then!"

I looked around the room and felt the atmosphere change slightly. The new comers weren't feeling awkward anymore, and the original members didn't look bored anymore. There was a new feeling, like that of excitement or anticipation. They were excited for ping pong.

~Wow, they do really take the sport seriously.~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~How much longer do I have to watch this?~

I looked at my phone and saw that an hour and a half had already passed. So far, all we had done was play ping pong. Well, no, everyone else had played ping pong. I only sat on a chair -that only had three legs, the third leg was made from a pile of old yearbooks- and watched everyone else play ping pong.

At first it was fun, Charlie, Zen, and Luca were by far the best... Especially Luca. In fact, I don't think I saw him lose a single point since they began. I thought it was a little funny when I first saw him play, of all the things I imagined Luca Zhang doing, ping pong was the last. But he did seem to enjoy it. I think I even saw him smile a little when he made a nice shot. I didn't even know he was capable of smiling... I guess he likes ping pong a lot.

"Hey, you're Tia, right?" I looked up to find Zen, the tall pink-haired girl was talking to me.

"Yes." I stood suddenly. No one had talked to me since they started playing, and because I wasn't confident in my ping pong skills, I hadn't approached anyone or asked to play either.

"Cool," she crossed her arms, "So Charlie and I were talking and we think you should practice with Luca for the next couple weeks."

"What?" my mouth dropped a bit. "Luca?"

Zen shrugged, "He's actually a pretty good teacher, he taught me some of my best moves. And since you have the least experience of all of us, it will probably be good for you to work with our strongest player."

"uh... Oh, I- "

"Wait... You're not one of his nasty fan girls, are you?" Zen asked and raised an eyebrow at me.

I threw my hands up immediately, "No! no! I just erm.." I searched for words, "I just find him extremely scary."

Zen laughed out loud at my explanation, and it caught me off guard. Then she straightened and patted me on my head, "I think I like you." she said, and I found myself smiling a little bit.

"You do?" I'd never been told that before.

"Hey Luca!" Zen turned away from me, but kept her hand on top of my head, "I've got a new student for you."

I followed Zen across the room and found my hands sweating as we approached Luca. He looked very unhappy. He looked at me like I was the last person he would even want to share a room with, let along teach to play ping pong.

~oh boy...~

"Charlie and I decided that you should train the newbie for the match against Lux-U" She nudged me with her shoulder, and it was so unexpected to me that I nearly fell over.

Luca looked at me briefly before returning his gaze to Zen, "You decided this without me?"

"You're our best player and our best teacher." Zen crossed her arms, and I realized I'd never heard anyone speak to Luca like this before. She was almost speaking 'down' to him. She was telling him to do something. Usually people just followed him around and begged him to do things for them. "You just need to teach her the basics, enough that maybe she can beat their weakest players."

Luca sighed. "Fine, I'll do what I can." he tossed his ping pong paddle in the air as he spoke and it spun in a flawless circle then landed back in his palm again.

"Great." Zen smiled and whacked Luca on the shoulder.

I found myself gasping that she had done that.

Then Zen turned back to me, "See, he's not so scary." She smiled like I was a cute bunny and ruffled my hair before leaving.

I wasn't sure how to respond to that. Or to any of the interaction I had just partaken in. Luca was being bossed around by a second year, who also liked to pet my head like a toy poodle.

"You've never played ping pong before?" Luca spoke to me, and I nearly jumped at the question directed at me.

"No," I shook my head.

"Well, my first advice is that you shouldn't do it with your eyes closed."

I blinked.

~Is he talking about how I ran into him yesterday? He asked me about that in class too... Or wait, maybe he's making a joke?~

I looked up to his face that was as stoic as ever.

~No, it couldn't have been a joke.~

"Erm, I don-"

"Was it a bad joke?" he asked.

~OH MY GOD, it was a joke!~

"No!" I tried to laugh, but I was aware that my own laugh sounded awkward, "It was funny! I just wasn't sure if you were joking."

"Don't force yourself to laugh." Luca grimaced, "it's awkward."

My attempted smile fell from my face and I felt my stomach clench with awkwardness, "Sorry."

"Here." he pushed a ping pong paddle into my hands then nodded his head to a table, "Lets just get a feeling for the paddle and the ball first."

I nodded and found my way to the opposite end of a ping pong table from him.

I swallowed when I noticed almost the whole room was watching us. They were probably all watching to see how much talent I had for the sport. Or to see how hopeless I would be. I hadn't really done many sports in my life. So the odds of me being hopeless were far higher.

I tried to ignore the feeling of being watched as Luca explained the basics of ping pong.

"I think I get the basics." I said.

"Alright," Luca nodded "I'll just serve the ball to you then, and you can practice hitting it back."

Luca served the first ball to me slowly, and I hit it.

Although the ball was so unexpectedly light that I used way too much force and it flew across the room and disappeared into a pile of boxes.

Immediately after the ball flew across the room, Charlie yelled, "DONKEY!"

The other members chimed in then, yelling the word as well, cheering, clapping, and some imitating a donkey's sound.

"What does that mean?" My eyes flew to Luca and my jaw nearly dropped to the floor.... he was smiling. Like actually smiling... and laughing a little.

~Oh my god, he's not a robot..... ~

"A 'donkey' is what you just did." he answered.

"Donkey of the day!" I heard Hezikiah say as he sifted through the cardboard boxes where my ball had disappeared. When he crossed the room with the ball and placed it in Luca's hand he looked at me, "Try a little less force next time."

I nodded and tried to smile too.

"At least she hit it." Luca said, still smiling, and I felt like perhaps I was in some alternate reality. One in which Luca was a normal guy who played ping pong.

The next shot I didn't hit, though. And the next few I missed. In fact, I continued missing every serve that Luca gave me, until....

"Yes!"

I cheered when I hit the ball, although I wasn't even sure where I was aiming it. I was just happy I hit it, and I didn't hit it with so much force that it flew across the room either.

I jumped when I hit it, for a second feeling pure joy.

My ball flew back across the net and hit the table on the other side, just like it was supposed to. But it hit the very corner of the table and ended up flying off in another direction after it hit. Luca dived for the ball, but didn't hit it.

"Oh my god." Zen spoke beside me. "Tia just made a point on Luca."

"What? I did?" I looked back to Luca, who was picking the ball off the floor.

~Oh shit... He looks mad.~