The gait of Team Yoshido remained unchanged. They walked in the same formation, with the same confident step, carrying with them their chemical cocktail of euphoria, grandiosity, and hyper-focus. Ming You had moved slightly ahead.
The figures at the gate grew distinct. So Ho stood in front, his posture collected and tense. Behind him were Jen Ryu, whose aggression was palpable even in stillness, Mei Yu with a stony face, and Xiao Li, who seemed to be trying to make himself as small as possible.
The teams stopped facing each other a few meters apart. A thick silence hung in the air, broken only by the distant hum of the city and the heavy breathing of Lu Shen, who couldn't seem to calm down.
So Ho took a step forward. His gaze slid over the flushed, strangely gleaming eyes of the core team and lingered for a second on Ming You's impeccably calm face.
"Where is our coach?"
Ming You tilted his head slightly, a strand of his hair falling over his eyes, obscuring their expression.
"Haven't seen him," he replied with a light, almost indifferent intonation. "He was supposed to meet you, wasn't he?"
"Don't play these games," Jen Ryu snapped, unable to contain himself. "You know where he is!"
"I know you have debts," Ming You parried. "And you are obliged to play if you want to avoid... an escalation of problems. The coach has nothing to do with it. This is your choice and your obligation."
"Problems?" So Ho echoed, and his voice finally trembled. "Are you serious? You're threatening us by hiding the coach? This isn't even underhanded anymore. This is..."
"I'm offering you a chance to win it back," Ming You interrupted him, and a hint of chilling sarcasm crept into his tone for the first time. "Cleanly, on the court. But if you prefer to deal with the creditors personally... well, that's your choice. I'm merely relaying information."
He turned to his team, who stood like charged statues, their gazes fixed on the rookies with a mixture of arrogant curiosity and anticipation.
"Alright, guys," Ming You said with exaggerated disappointment. "Seems we'll beat these brave souls another time. You can disperse. Consider the celebration canceled."
The core team exchanged glances first. In their chemically altered state, canceling a long-awaited triumph was like an electric shock.
"What? No!" burst out from Lu Shen. "But we... we're ready! We..."
Jung Ho placed a heavy hand on his shoulder, silencing him. His own disappointment ran deeper, striking at the very core of his belief in this evening.
"Fine," he said dully, his fervor momentarily extinguished, replaced by sullen resentment. "Later, everyone. We'll see you... in a game. Someday."
He turned and walked away with heavy steps. Haru Lin, curling his lip, threw a final appraising, contemptuous look at the rookies and followed Jung Ho. Hong Ren simply turned and walked away without looking back.
"Bye-bye," Ming You waved his hand with feigned lightness as he bid them farewell.
His empty, bottomless charcoal-black eyes met So Ho's gray ones once more.
"Asshole," So Ho threw at his back, quietly but distinctly.
Ming You heard but didn't turn around. He merely smirked that same barely noticeable smirk that didn't reach his eyes, remaining just a play of facial muscles.
"Yeah, yeah, see you again," he uttered into the space, sarcastically waving his hand in farewell. And he added so quietly that only he could hear, already stepping out of the circle of lantern light towards his home: "Perhaps for the last time."
His footsteps on the asphalt were measured and unhurried.
"The coach problem has been neutralized, but the problem with the stubborn rookie who refused to play and saw too much... that problem required a more radical and final solution..."
Late at night, upon returning home, Ming You didn't feel tired. On the contrary, his mind was crystal clear, honed to the sharpness of a surgical scalpel. He entered his room—that very chamber of minimalism where no object existed without a utilitarian purpose—and softly closed the door. The click of the lock separated him from the rest of the world, turning the space into a hermetically sealed capsule for contemplation.
"His suspicions aren't the guesses of a paranoid. They are conclusions," Ming You analyzed, his dark, almost black eyes reflecting the flicker of the screen. "He's building them on observable facts: my connection to the creditors, my style of play, which in his eyes has transformed from skill into an instrument of deliberate destruction. He linked Coach Chang Wu's disappearance to my appearance at the gate. He thinks in cause-and-effect chains. Not with emotions, but with logic. That makes him more dangerous than any back-alley thug. A thug wants money, power, satisfaction of primitive instincts. His desire is linear and predictable. So Ho wants... truth? Justice? Some primitive, binary honesty where black is black and white is white. That's idealism. And idealism, when it is stubborn and lacks flexibility, when driven not by naivety but by an inner core, is the most explosive substance in the world. He won't just let us win a game. He'll dig. Stubbornly, methodically, regardless of threats. And, unlikely but theoretically possible, he might get to the bottom of it. His rebellion isn't the emotion of a hurt teenager; it's a stance. Formed and conscious. And a stance can only be silenced in one way—by its complete removal from the playing field. From any field."
He shifted his gaze to the laptop. His fingers, thin and tenacious, touched the touchpad. The search wasn't chaotic. It was surgically precise. So Ho's social media unfolded before him like a map.
"Primitive, but informative," Ming You thought, sliding his gaze over photos, posts, friend lists. "Team... Training sessions... Routine... Sister... mentioned often. So Yeong. Judging by the photos, he spends a lot of time with her, training... So the bond is strong, emotional... A weakness? Or an additional factor of resistance? Need a pattern of solitude. A moment when the social shell is minimal and the environment is controllable. School—too public. The way home... variable factor. Need a point where he'll be alone, predictable, and vulnerable."
He scrolled through a few more pages, committing key details to memory: the sister's training schedule, her school, the route So Ho often took on foot, judging by the geotags. It was all piecing together into a puzzle. Ming You leaned back in his chair, threw his head back, and stared at the ceiling. Calculations were drawn from the void. The plan began to take shape—not emotional, but geometric, composed of time, distances, and vulnerabilities.
He closed the laptop. The light went out, plunging the room into darkness broken only by pale strips of moonlight through the curtains.
...
The next morning. The first rays of the sun, pale and sharp, pierced through the gaps in the thick curtains, slicing the darkness of the room into stripes. Ming You opened his eyes even before the alarm went off. He got up with the same silent efficiency.
Shower, dressing—it was all a ritual. His school uniform—an impeccably ironed white shirt, black trousers—fitted him like a uniform. Not a wrinkle, not a speck.
With a light movement, he brushed aside the strand of dark hair that fell over his eyes. The mirror reflected a neutral, unremarkable face. He stretched a light, meaningless smile over it—a tool honed no less than a kitchen knife.
The school was still quiet. His footsteps in the deserted corridor were soundless. Leaving his backpack at his desk in the half-empty classroom, he headed for the teachers' office. The chemistry teacher, an elderly man with a perpetually tired face, was fiddling with his phone in the morning, sipping coffee from a thermos.
Ming You approached, bowing his head slightly. His voice, when he spoke, sounded respectful, with a well-measured, appropriate note of shyness.
"Senpai, sorry to bother you..."
The teacher looked up. Ming You scratched the back of his head, feigning slight embarrassment, lowering his eyes for a second.
"Could I get my previous chemistry work from the staff room? I handed it in at the last minute, wanted to clarify and rewrite something for my portfolio. I'd like everything to be perfect."
The teacher blinked, putting down his phone.
"Ming You? But all your work is already perfect. Why overexert yourself beyond measure?"
"Just want everything to be... flawless," Ming You lowered his eyes slightly, playing the modest perfectionist obsessed with details. "It's just my peculiar quirk, senpai."
An expression of approval, mixed with a slight touch of endearment, appeared on the teacher's face. A student like this—quiet, diligent, flawless—was a joy for any educator.
"Well, such zeal is commendable. Take it," he handed over the key to the staff room. "Just don't mix up the folders; I have my own order there."
"Thank you very much. I won't mix them up," Ming You accepted the key with a respectful nod of his head, his fingers closing firmly and confidently around the metal.
He walked out into the corridor, which was starting to fill with students. Making his way to the staff room, he noticed his team. They stood by the window, emanating a strange, subdued energy. The euphoria of the night had been replaced by a heavy, nervous comedown. Their faces were pale, with dark circles under their eyes.
Lu Shen, usually restless, leaned against the wall as if his legs were made of cotton. He was trembling slightly. Haru Lin, trying to maintain an air of superiority, looked out the window with a glassy stare, tapping his finger on his forearm in a fast, uneven rhythm. Jung Ho stood with clenched fists, his powerful body tense, as if expecting a blow that couldn't come. Hong Ren simply stared at the floor, his usual detachment having become painful, a retreat into himself from the unpleasant reality of his body.
"Damn, my head... feels like a concrete mixer in there," Lu Shen whispered, rubbing his temples.
"You're still talking," Haru Lin grimaced, but there was no habitual sarcasm in his voice, only weariness and irritation. "My whole body... is sensitive. As if the skin's been stripped off. And this light..."
"Yesterday... yesterday was so awesome," Jung Ho said, and confusion was evident in his warm eyes. "And now... emptiness and anxiety. As if something's been stolen."
"That is what's been stolen," Hong Ren uttered dully, without raising his head.
Lu Shen looked at Ming You, who had paused briefly nearby. A weak but greedy spark flickered in his eyes.
"Ming... when... when's the next game? Another serious one like that?"
Ming You appraised their condition with a sweeping glance. He saw not suffering, but a symptom. A symptom of the dependency he himself had built into their system.
"There will be a game," he said calmly. "We need to wait and recover to be at our peak. To feel... that high again. Victory will be ten times sweeter then."
His words acted like a shot of adrenaline into weakened bodies. Determination flashed in Jung Ho's eyes. Lu Shen straightened up, trying to suppress the trembling. Even Haru Lin stopped tapping his finger. They clung to this thought like a drowning man to a straw.
Victory with Ming You wasn't just victory. It was the key to a chemically induced paradise, to the feeling of omnipotence, hyper-focus, and brotherly euphoria they now craved with the full depth of their withdrawal. Ming You gave them not just a goal. He gave them relief. And that made their attachment to him, to his system, absolute.
Nodding to them, Ming You moved on.