Lunch

It was time for lunch for those at Blue Lock, each rising star finding themselves inside a massive lunch room capable of holding hundreds of people.

Sitting alone at a lunch table, Jin looked down at his own tray with a frown. All he had was a cup of water and cupped ramen, the cheap kind without any sort of toppings. 'This is it?' his inner voice whispered.

'First, there are no phones...

Then there are no video games...

And now there's no real food...

I'm going to kill myself.' just as those thoughts left Jin's mind, he saw another scorer walking by with a plate of food that far exceeded his in quality. Just from the smell alone, Jin knew exactly what it was. 'Wagyu steak?' Jin's inner voice trembled as his eyes wantingly stared at the boy's plate before looking up at the boy's face.

This kid was similar to him, being half-Japanese and half-Black. Jin nodded at the boy. However, the boy's eyebrows furrowed and his mouth frowned, looking down at Jin as if he were a beggar on the street asking for spare Yen.

The boy then looked at Jin's patch, which showed the number 260. Jin was dead last after the other fifty-two players were eliminated. The number one player scoffed and walked away, leaving Jin all alone with his noodles.

'I hate this place...' Jin's inner voice mumbled as he reluctantly ate his noodles. Out of nowhere, that crazy boy with red hair and bags under his eyes spoke, startling Jin and causing him to jolt.

"Ikazuchi! Why are you all the way in this corner away from everyone?" Tatsu asked, having a bowl of ramen as well with a singular egg inside it.

'Yup, definitely killing myself.' Jin thought to himself. He wanted to tell his teammate to fuck off and that the answer should be obvious, but he held back his tongue.

"It was open." Jin mumbled.

"Eh?" Tatsu sounded, looking around at all of the empty seats in the center of the room with everyone else. "Anyway, are you American? We should train later. What school are you from? What's your position? How tall are you? What's your vertical?" Tatsu hit Jin with a barrage of questions, nearly causing a vein to pop out of the introvert's forehead due to the annoyance bugging him.

"Did you get coffee with your lunch or are you just like this all the time?" Jin asked plainly, then proceeded to slurp up some more noodles without doing as little as looking at Tatsu.

"What do you mean?" Tatsu tilted his head, acting as if he had no clue what Jin was implying.

Sadly, just as Jin was reaching his limit, another teammate sat down on the other side of the lunch table, slamming his tray down in front of him. Both boys looked up to see the giant, blonde delinquent, Shin Matsuyama, looking right down at them. However, he didn't have an angry expression on his face, he was smiling devilishly right at the two of them.

"You're Yamanaka, right?" Shin asked, smiling excitedly at the red-haired boy. "Last time I checked, yeah!"

"You decked the fuck out of that goody-goody loser, holy shit! I couldn't believe it!" Shin was the type that enjoyed violence. He loved MMA, violent anime, and American movies that involved killing.

"Who decked who?" a boy's tired voice could be heard, compelling everyone at the table to look at Jin's right. They didn't even hear him sitting down, but it was Kaede Muranaka speaking, the slumbering kid from earlier. His sleepy eyes were nearly hidden beneath his messy, long white hair as he stared blankly at Shin.

"Were you asleep that whole time?" Akira Nakamoto, with his tied-up black hair and glasses, rather than his sports goggles, sat down across from Kaeda.

'Whyyyyyy!?' Jin groaned in his own mind, seeing that his strategy of hiding away in the corner was failing as his entire team was then sitting with him.

"Yeah... after reading the Blue Lock letter last night, I couldn't really sleep. Sometimes I sleep during timeouts, just a little nappy nap, you know? And during quarter changes. And half-time. And on the bus rides to games. Oh, and sometimes, my coach would let me sleep when I was subbed out!"

The entire team of Z-2 looked at him as if he were a complete psychopath. Ignoring their glares, Kaede pointed at Shin's plate. "Woah, Matsuyama... you got an egg AND seaweed? No fair..."

"Well, I am the highest rank out of all of you scrubs, heh!" Shin spoke proudly, showing the rank 256 badge on his arm as if it were a real accomplishment.

"But, aren't you a scrub too... since you're on our team?" Kaede asked, staring at Shin blankly.

"You're still scrubs relative to me!" Shin shouted, raising his fist in the air victoriously.

However, this gave Tatsu the perfect time to steal an egg from his cup, eating it before Shin could even react. "Hey! What the hell gives!?" Shin then reached over the table and grabbed Tatsu by the collar, shaking him aggressively. "Spit that out! It's mine!"

"Uh... are you sure about the wanting him to spit it out part?" Jin asked, getting a bestial stare from Shin in response. "I'm a big guy and I'm fucking starving! I need all the calories I can get!" he then looked back at Tatsu, still shaking him aggressively. "Give it back!"

𝙂𝙐𝙇𝙋!

Tatsu's throat could be heard swallowing the egg, followed by his own laughter as he smiled at Shin. "Heheh!"

"You little shit!" Shin then let Tatsu have it, slamming him against a wall as he continued yelling at him. Tatsu did nothing more than laugh, making silly faces as if he were taunting him.

Jin exhaled, placing his forehead in his hand as he started finishing off his noodles. 'I'm surrounded by idiots...' Meanwhile, Akira got up from his seat and grabbed Shin's shoulder. "Enough. We're supposed to be teammates, don't injure him or you'll ruin all of our chances. You can have my egg."

It was clear by this interaction that Akira was the team leader type, being the voice of reason whenever necessary. With the hot head, the psychopath, the slumberer, and the lazy gamer on his team, he was the only one that would be able to keep everything together.

Shin scoffed, throwing Tatsu to the ground before returning to his seat and taking Akira's egg from his cup.

The rest of the team then sat back down before Akira asked Tatsu a question that had been bothering him. "Hey, Yamanaka. Why did you punch that kid anyway?"

"Why? What do you mean why? The monster inside my head told me to do it." Hearing this floored the entire group, compelling them all to glare at him with fearful gazes.

"You mean like schizophrenia?" Kaede whispered, leaning in close as if he wanted to learn more.

"No, I mean like... when I play basketball, it's like there's a monster in my head telling me what to do, whispering into my ear as a guide. Shoot the ball, block that shot, punch that little dweeb."

Though everyone acted as if they had no clue what he was talking about, the monster resided in all of them, though for some, it wasn't seen as a monster at all. Some called it intuition, some called it their second wind, and others referred to it as many other things.

Jin knew this feeling all too well, that side of him that made him feel sick. A scene from earlier that day began to replay in his mind, that moment when he stood over Hiroki, glaring down at him with cold eyes. "𝙂𝙚𝙩 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙙𝙞𝙧𝙩𝙮 𝙛𝙪𝙘𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙝𝙖𝙣𝙙𝙨 𝙤𝙛𝙛 𝙢𝙚, 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙡𝙚 𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙘𝙝! 𝙔𝙤𝙪'𝙧𝙚 𝙡𝙖𝙮𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙞𝙣 𝙢𝙮 𝙝𝙤𝙩𝙨𝙥𝙤𝙩!" was what Jin said before shooting a three-pointer right in his face.

Back in reality, Jin thought to himself. 'Is that what that was? That voice I hear? That feeling of darkness overwhelming me... That's the monster inside me?'

Swiftly, Jin finished his food and left the table without saying a word. "Hey! Where are you going Ikazuchi?" Shin asked, getting no response.

"Talk about anti-social..." he muttered, eating the egg he got from Akira in one bite.

Meanwhile, Tatsu also got up out of his seat, sliding his leftover noodles to Shin. "You can have the rest, as an apology." Tatsu spoke with sincerity, bowing to Shin before following Jin out of the lunch room.

"Thanks!" Shin muttered with a mouth full of food before taking the cup and sliding it over to himself. He then looked inside, and his expression went from excited to pissed in a second. "What the fuck? Hey, this is just your broth!"

Tatsu giggled to himself as he walked away, curious as to what Jin was planning to do next.