Hannah is way too tired of it all already, she is a basketball player, she should be playing basketball, not in a circle singing lullabies about herself, after Barbara spent the last five minutes showing pictures of her daughter Court finally managed to escape lying to everyone that she needed to use the bathroom.

While she washes her face, taking a moment to take a deep breath, she hears the door opening, followed by the slow footsteps of Yuki, still looking at mirror they both reach for each other's gaze, after a sigh, Hannah says, “it doesn’t actually matter who wins, the game is a 5v5. I don’t even have a bag like that.”

A slight chuckle comes from Yuki, “I don’t think there’s a single player better than you in an iso.”

She slightly leans her head to the side, eyebrows moving up a little, a smile appearing on her face, she does score a lot in isolation, but that’s mostly because she didn't trust her team. The Washington Sorcerers and Los Angeles Fireflies were suboptimal teams at best and a dumpster fire at worst, before she can let out a teasing remark, Yuki asks her,  “Anna is pretty cute right?”

Giving a confused look to her friend, Hannah questions, “who 's that? I checked the roster, we don’t have Anna, we have Anika. She’s the point guard that needs five business days to shoot, remember?”

Yuki should get annoyed, maybe even angry, but as she leans her body on the sink, lowering her body just enough to see eye to eye with her teammate, all she can feel is admiration, arms crossed over her chest she tries to contain the smile appearing on her face as she asks, “Anna, as in Barbara’s kid, shouldn't you know that? She is your best friend after all.”

Hannah blushes at the intensity of the dark green eyes staring at her, breaking eye contact, gently pushing past Yuki while she explains, “I wasn’t paying attention to her name, I had… better things to do, and of course she’s not my best friend, you are.”

Yuki’s face immediately lights up, she can’t help the smile anymore, nor can she stop her heart from accelerating way more than in any game she’s ever played, she takes a deep breath, pushing her bangs away from her forehead, how can she match that energy? She is happy with the confirmation of their friendship, somehow all of the doubts she had vanished with just one phrase from her friend.

Looking at the mirror she hears the door of the bathroom opening, not bothering to look at Hannah this time, deciding to finally lose herself on her own mind, she likes the way things are, but she would throw away all of her success, every game winning shot she took, she would never play a single baseball match again for a chance to be something more with her. “Man… I’m really really dumb...”

“Why 's that?” Hannah’s voice startles her, immediately turning to the door, she realizes that she never heard 9it close, looking at the shorter girl leaning against the doorframe with a confused look.

“Jesus, why are you there like kuchisake-onna?” Yuki blurts out, putting a hand on her own chest, avoiding the gaze of the woman in front of her.

“Now you’re just bragging about being japanese.”

“I’m from New Jersey.” Saya quickly answers, washing her hands at the sink even though she didn’t do anything, “why are you still at the door?”

“I’m waiting for my apparently dumb friend, we can go back together, come up with some plays together, I think I can give you thirty alley-oops a game.” She answers, eyes lingering at Yuki for a second before turning her gaze to the Bobcats logo on the entryway of the bathroom.

When she looks at herself in the mirror she wonders if she should just enjoy this, most of Hannah’s friendships don’t last, it’s impossible not to hear about it, “a cancer in the locker room”, “double double machine and team destroyer” “impalpable”. Yuki saw it in the media, heard about it by former teammates of Court, and her friend never denied any of it. Not that Saya ever worked up the courage to ask, always afraid to ask, afraid to hear the stories, afraid of telling the truth, a coward in everything, maybe she should just leave the team and

“Damn, you look good, after this, wanna teach me how I can do my makeup like yours?” Hannah asks, standing side by side with Yuki.

The taller girl didn’t see her move, but when she looks down at her friend, meeting a shy smile that could light up a room, Yuki relaxes, just like she always does, “I have no makeup on,”

Getting on her tiptoes, Hannah gently pinches the right cheek of her teammate, “So it’s just your natural glow? God really has its favorites.”

The shorter girl lets her hand linger on Yuki’s face, not bothered when the latter almost melts onto the touch, “I think you are the favorite, have you looked at yourself in the mirror?”

“Well, we can both be blessed,” argued Hannah, letting the silence fill the air as she cradles Yuki’s cheek, gentle caresses graze her cheekbones, Yuki could stay like this forever, but like she always does, Hannah has to ruin it, “Go pee, I’ll wait.”

Saya immediately moves Hannah’s arm away from her, puffing her cheeks as the other girl laughs, she angrily moves to one of the stalls keeping her rage silent. All of the loving moments are ruined by a quick joke, a sarcastic comment, a reminder that they’ll never be anything other than friends.

After staying inside that cubicle for a reasonable amount of time and washing her hands again, they make their way back to the circle of people surrounding the coaches, sitting own side by side now, they patiently listen to every introduction, Yuki is the only one of the two to interject with different anecdotes, Hannah keeps herself quiet, except for the usual “Hello” followed by the person's name.

Hours go by, at least that is what feels like for the Point Guard, it actually just lasts thirty minutes until they are beginning warm ups to do a “test drive” a simple scrimmage between ten people, usually they would do a bunch of drills, reviews and sometimes the “practice” is just sitting down and watching tape.

The strategy of the coaches is pretty clear, put the two stars together with the worst players on the team against the rest of the roster, and as soon as they are done organizing sides Dina asks, “So, we the starters right?”

Yuki shines in the light blue uniform with the Bobcats logo in the middle of her chest, hair tied back and a happy smile on her face, moving to the middle of the court, preparing for the initial jump ball she answers, “Let’s bet on it, whoever loses doesn’t play more than 10 minutes.”

“Very funny you two,” Laura interjects, “We are gonna play a slightly shorter quarter, 5 minutes, I want you all to take it seriously because this is important, we still don’t have any plays, but I just wanna see what you all can do.”

With that small speech for the whole team, she takes the ball to the center circle, followed by Yuki and Star even though the shorter woman is the second tallest on the team, at 6 '6, she looks small compared to Saya’s towering figure. After five seconds of waiting, Laura throws the ball in the air, easily being tipped away by the taller woman.

The ball immediately falls in the hands of Hannah, she takes a deep breath, happy to finally be in a game again, the feeling of uncertainty, the worried gaze in her opponents, she loves every second of it. As she begins to move forwards, seeing all of her teammates move in front of her, she is immediately greeted by Dina, guarding her even before she can reach half court.

“Maybe in practice you can make one, 0 out of 14 is pretty pathetic am I right?” she whispers while putting her hand on Hannah’s chest, something that is technically a fall, but never called, unless you are one of the favorities.

“I hope I can make more too,” She answers, getting into a nice rhythm, she keeps the ball low, close to the floor, turned to the side, she moves herself and the defender closer to the basket, using her arm as a wall between them,

When she finally reaches the perimeter she sees that there are two options she could pass to end the possession immediately, Yuki under the rim and Anika on the left corner, all of the other people would just continue the play or pass it back, they don’t have the synergy to actually plan something at the moment.

When Hannah backs away, the Shooting Guard in front of her stays a few feet away, right on top of the 3 point line, waiting for any sign of where she would drive. In a quick motion she moves again, spinning her body, pulling the ball close to her chest and moving left. Dina fails at stealing the ball, but she still follows the play, moving closer to the paint, closing in on her right is Barbara, already with her hands up. Moving her hands, almost like she would finish her layup, Hannah passes the ball to a wide open Anika.

Anika, a brown woman, about 5 '11, looks confused, bright amber eyes looking around, almost confused that she somehow got the ball, she looks up, everyone was already expecting her to shoot, so for a second she is completely alone. While Barbara begins to run, trying to win a late contest, Anika panics, curly hair moving in front of her face as she gets in the shooting position, knees bent forwards, body moving with her hands accompanying it, but she is too late and too nervous, the ball flies hitting the rim.

Dina laughs, Star reaches for the rebound, she was lucky, it was falling way closer to her than anyone else, but unfortunately Yuki was there, in a quick motion she frees herself from her the contact, jumping just like the other Center, but reaching way higher, it’s a easy put back for her, two points without a single bit of effort.

“Your jumpshot is too slow, you wasted time” Hannah advises Anika while running back to defense.

Clenching her fists and letting out a dry laugh, Anika answers, “I wasn't expecting you to pass that, how could I be ready?”

“You should always be waiting for something, if you aren’t there’s no difference between being in the court and on the bench.” Is the last bit of conversation they can have before they have to focus on defense.

Hannah is terrible at this side, she does well enough, she always smothers the player with the ball, usually following them from full court. Guarding Dina is easy, even though she is a very self centered person, her style of play is way more focused on making other people shine, after a few seconds of fighting off contact and being called a multitude of names, Hannah manages to make Dina pass.

As the ball falls on Cia’s hand on the wing, the youngest of the team looks around, searching for a good pass, she keeps the ball close as she waits for something to happen and when Barbara cuts throughout the perimeter, quickly followed by Taisha, she gives a high pass to the oldest player on the team.

Taisha is a few years younger, warm black skin, hair in twists stopping just a little above her waist, a stocky build and median height, one of the strongest on the team, she is unfortunately not fast enough to catch up with Barbara. The veteran loses the defender, quickly going right and trying to lay the ball up.

She didn’t hear the quick footsteps at her side nor the sound of the net swishing as the ball goes down, she only heard the ball hitting the backboard like a missile, looking up, Barbara realizes her mistake, she didn’t see that Yuki was on the same side as her, and she is not the lead blocker of the WNBA for no reason.

Pulling the ball close to her, Yuki smiles when she says, “I’m still here, girl.”

Immediately passing the ball to Anika, the shorter girl begins to run, but she is too slow again, being the only one back there, Dina closes the distance between them, immediately interrupting her clear path to the basket, with a giggle she says, “C’mon Anik, shoot it, shoot the three. I wanna see you miss.”

Fidgeting on the left wing she hesitates again, which gives enough time for the defense to catch up with them, thankfully, Hannah is faster than all of the people in the team, she gets there first, yelling a simple “hey” as she stops right out of the arc, almost naturally, Anika passes the ball to her.

When it reaches her hands, Dina doesn’t even try to stop it, an uncontested three this close to the line? This is almost a layup for Court. A perfect jump shot, a perfect shot, easy three points. While Star moves out of bounds to put the ball back in play Hannah moves back without a single sign of happiness on her face.

Gabriel raises an eyebrow to Laura as this happens, he stops writing the strength and weakness of the team as he asks, “They really are just like that”

Laura scoffs, arms crossed as she analyzes the two best players on the court, “They are out of this world, both of them, the Sorcerers and Seagulls are gonna regret ever letting go of Hannah Court and Yuki Saya.