Saya lay there, half-buried under the sheets, the remote still clutched as if it would snap in two.
The TV was off, but her mind was in turmoil. Her eyes were uneasy with a strange restlessness, as if she were trying not to cry or see the future. Have you ever felt like that? Chest on fire, muscles locked, mouth barely moving.
"Nash?" she breathed, not even knowing why she was saying it out loud.
Roam, meanwhile, was inert. The guy slept like he was auditioning for a documentary about bears. He snored so loudly the bed shook.
Why did that name bother her so much? Why were her hands shaking and her lungs heaving as if she’d been punched?
Well, buckle up, because to understand, we have to rewind time.
The Dust Dogs, that’s what they called themselves. Real thugs, the kind of team you’d see hawking cigarettes behind a gym.
But for a minute? It was destiny.
After they won the Underleague, everyone started bragging. Roam was king of the world, all guns and loud laughter, with Saya glued to him like she was his trophy.
However, Rin kept warming his bed whenever he got bored. Saya hated it, a biting, acrid heat, but she kept quiet.
Power is a strange drug. The closer she got to Roam, the more she could steer the ship.
And it was all strategy anyway; she knew how to play dirty, too. Proximity meant control, and she was a damn expert.
They even found a "coach." A true professional, right? No, a disgraced former player with knees that clanged like gravel and a whistle he never stopped talking about.
He acted like a gift from God, saying he’d turn them into killers. But everyone knew Saya was the reason he was there.
She kept him on a leash, sometimes in his bed, most of the time in her pocket.
At least he found them a field to work in. Barely, rusty fences, flickering lights, nets tied with whatever rope they could find.
For the Dust Dogs, though? This was the big leagues. They had hope, but with a hint of uncertainty.
The sponsors started pouring in. Not big names yet, more like grimy betting houses, run-down strip clubs, and even brothels that looked like they might fail a health inspection, and those questionable juice labs promising superhuman stamina for five credits each.
Free drinks, weird powders, girls on tap. Roam lapped it all up, telling the team they were about to make it big.
Saya played her part, standing by his side, already thinking about which sponsor to attract and which exit to take when the house of cards began to crumble.
For a moment, it felt real. Practices ended in laughter and bruises; nights ended in clouds of smoke and cheap alcohol.
They thought they were golden. They thought the Underleague was theirs to destroy.
But dreams in the Underground cracked fastly.
They had their first test matches, and reality hit them hard.
The Dogs arrived arrogant, ready to crush everyone like they did at home. But the Underleague wasn’t just a pick-up scene.
Here, you had to fight for every inch. The guys hit harder. The pace was crazy. Nothing was easy.
The old tactics? No use. Rin wasn’t holding up anymore. Tylo couldn’t sink a shot to save his life. Kej, their center, was getting manhandled under the basket.
Even Roam, with all his blisters, was starting to look small next to guys who’d been fighting for scraps their whole lives.
And the main cause of this situation? Nash, the Ghost, wasn’t on the team anymore.
Roam and the others let him go.
They eliminated the one who held them together. The one who had fed their shooters, the one who stacked assists and kept their match under control.
Without him? Everything fell apart. Possessions went wrong. Loose balls, missed shots, players making heroic plays, and ruining everything.
The crowd quickly turned. Cheers turned to boos. Those who had been shouting their name began to spit it out like a curse.
By the end of their warm-up, the dream of owning the Underleague seemed well and truly dead. Not just a little dull, but gone. End of story.
Saya’s fingers trembled, barely holding her phone steady.
She’d spent hours scrutinizing the matches, both tracking rival teams and, just in case, checking for places where she might crash if Roam couldn’t handle the team.
Finally, she saw a match trending way more than the others. The stream propelled her into the third quarter, and the court had become a madhouse.
A guard in black was rampaging around the court, taking shots where no sane player would even dare, tearing defenders apart.
This guy was basically a cheat code. One man, flipping the whole game on its head, highlight after highlight. His handles were stupid quick, his passes like throwing daggers. The crowd was losing its minds, chanting his name like he was a rock star.
A name she didn’t think she would hear about: Nash.
Saya froze. Her breath hitched. She whispered it without thinking. "...No. No way."
Her thumb tapped replay. Then again. The figure moved across the screen, pulling moves she had never seen him make when they were together. The weak link, the ghost. The boy she’d tossed aside. Now he looked like a star. Like someone she had never really known.
Her chest knotted.
"It’s fake. It has to be fake." She muttered, biting her nail, shaking her head. "He can’t... He wasn’t like that. Not him. Not Nash."
Beside her, Roam groaned. All her noise woke him up. He rolled over. His breath stank, his chest rising and falling like a hog.
"The hell you on about? It’s the middle of the night..." His voice was thick; he needed to sleep after a hell of a day. His skull was stuffed with mud.
He blinked once, twice, then shrugged and dropped his head back onto the pillow, already half gone again.
"Shut that damn phone off and sleep."
Saya jolted, shaking Roam hard.
"Wake up! Look at this! Nash is back, he’s playing in the league too!" she yelled, shoving the phone toward his half-shut eyes.
Roam cracked one lid, grunted like an animal dragged from sleep, then turned his head back into the pillow.
"Middle of the damn night... shut it off," he muttered, already sinking back into his snores.
"It’s not even 9 p.m., you idiot!" She yelled at him.
But it was pointless, painkillers, sports, and a good session of screwing Saya had sealed Roam’s. He was ready to see the next day.
Saya’s disgust burned in her chest. She wanted to scream, force him to see, but his fat, ignorant breathing drowned her out.
She spun back around, grabbed the remote with shaking fingers, and hit the button. The TV was turned on again, just in time for the beginning of the last quarter.