Sapphire Blue Eyes

*AACHOOOOO*

Jason sneezed loudly as he came out of the shower leaving him wondering if he had a cold, 'Maybe I should have showered with warm water instead,' he thought to himself as he stared at his reflection in the glass door of the shower room. 

Staring back at him was a young African American male with milk-chocolate-like skin who looked to be in his late teenage years.

He had a well-defined upper body, with compact muscular curves in all the right places, not appearing bulky, and looked quite lean.

His long curly black hair that was previously tied in a bun on his head was now loosely hanging from his head, almost reaching mid-back and dripping with water.

A face without the presence of a beard or mustache and well-defined features that wouldn't have a problem supporting him to the top if he was in the media entertainment business sat beneath his lush hair, yet the most discerning feature of his face was his sapphire blue eyes that weren't usually seen in people with his skin color.

His father was a Nigerian man but had a rare condition of heterochromia in which the eye color of one's eyes was different from each other, and in his father's case, he had a brown left eye and a blue right eye.

This coupled with the fact that his mother was a white American woman with blue eyes somehow made him end up with his distinctive eye color.

While this was a rare case, it wasn't an impossibility and there were other people with strange body features like his, or even stranger body features.

His distinctive eye color always caused people to give him a second glance, and when he was younger, he was a target of bullying, but in both this reality and his previous reality, he had found ways to deal with the issue.

In his past reality, he had beaten down the bullies that bothered him, but in this reality, he had found more subtle ways to show the kids that he wasn't to be messed with.

Thinking back to how he made those kids tap out in submission and come to beg him to leave them alone brought a smile to his face and he chuckled slightly as he turned away from the door and grabbed his sports bag that he had left just outside the shower room and began putting on his clothes.

The loud noises of conversation and laughter from the locker room that was just adjacent to the shower room enlightened him with the fact that the locker room now had people in it and that they would be coming his way soon caused him to hurry up his dressing. 

The shower room was located next to the locker room to ease access and it could only be accessed through the locker room so as soon as Jason was done dressing up, he hung his sports bag over his shoulder and began walking to the door, while trying to tie his wet hair into a bun.

Jason swung open the door to the locker and walked in, immediately attracting everyone's attention as all conversations ceased and they stared at him as he walked into the room.

"I don't look like a ghost, do I?" he asked in a joking tone with a smile when he noticed them pausing everything, they were doing to stare at him.

"Well… I mean, uh… interesting eye color," one of the guys in the room tried to reply but didn't know what to say so he just stammered out whatever came to mind.

"I know right, cool passes out there by the way," Jason quickly changed the awkward topic before the atmosphere in the room froze over from the awkward silence.

"You too bro, how are you good at everything," the guy replied, scratching the back of his head with a dumb smile.

"I'm not good at everything, my defense skills are not that good," Jason laughed wryly, and it was true.

He never fancied himself as a defender of any sort so he never did more than the required when it came to defensive training, but he had enough spatial awareness to monitor his environments well enough to intercept a lot of passes so his below average defensive ability never showed unless he was in a defensive one on one situation which didn't happen very often.

"Haha, that's true, we never got to see your defending," another of the guys in the room chimed in.

"Hey, what position do you play?" yet another guy asked, the room getting livelier as soon as they got over the awkwardness.

"That depends…" Jason said with a sneaky smile.

"On what?" the other guys quickly asked curiously, their curiosity set ablaze by Jason's half-answer and sneaky smile.

"It depends on how hot the girls in the stands are," he said with a cultural smile.

"My man!" the guy who asked the question said immediately while stretching his hand out which Jason immediately replied with a hand swing of his own and they shook and clasped each other's hands while laughing.

"I'm Jason," Jason introduced himself.

"Trevor Phillips," the guy replied and let go of Jason's hands.

"I'm Nico," another guy introduced himself, and from then on, they all introduced themselves to Jason and laughed and joked about a few other things before they started going into the showers one by one to wash up.

After a few more minutes of conversation, Jason said his goodbyes, left the locker room and began making his way to the parking lot of the stadium, a bit drained by the over-friendliness of the guys in the locker room.

Normally, he wasn't an overly friendly person with people, but he figured that he should have a good relationship with at least a few of those guys as it would only end up beneficial for him if they ended up on the same team the coming day.

Also, Coach Edward hadn't directly said that they would be allocated into teams by the management, so in case of any surprises, it was better if he was acquainted with a few people.

With these thoughts in mind, he entered his car, pressed the ignition button, and drove out of the stadium grounds while humming a song, his spirits high.