[Blue Lock] Chapter 12 - Date (Patreon)

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In order to lower Team Red's vigilance and make them forget about the threat his shooting possessed, Naruto decided to fool his teammates first in order to fool the opponent. Isagi, Bachira, and Nishioka's act of sprinting towards the penalty area had been so genuine and convincing that Team Red had never even expected that Naruto was going to shoot on the target instead of passing one of them the ball.

With its field of view blocked by the players in front of it, the keeper never saw it coming. It stood petrified as the ball smashed into the top left corner of the goal like a rocket.

⁂

“Naruto, you damn scumbag!” Nishioka yelled as he jumped on the blonde, laughing out loud. Isagi and Bachira joined Nishioka too as they roughed him up playfully.

“All that strategizing just for you to shoot!” Bachira said. “You egoist, you played us all!”

‘He had me. He had us all,’ Isagi said to himself. ‘I thought he was just a musclehead, but he’s more cunning than he lets on.’

Even with his space awareness and ability to somewhat predict the play on the field, Naruto’s actions had taken him completely by surprise.

“I had to fool you first before I could fool them. Look at them, they’re still in disbelief,” Naruto said with a grin after getting out of their body lock.

True to his words, Team Red’s members appeared to be out of it. Itoshi Rin, in particular, couldn’t believe it. Ever since he came to Blue Lock, he has never struggled against any team. He had never lost.

“Damn it!” he let out a curse.

His jaw muscles bulged from how hard he was clenching his teeth.

‘I’m better than all of them! None of them is on my level!’

He couldn’t accept that he had lost against someone at Blue Lock. Until then, he had never put any of the players there in his eyes. To him, Blue Lock was just a stepping stone on his path to becoming one of the starting 11 for the national team and winning the World Cup.

Itoshi Rin’s vitriol-filled eyes couldn’t settle on any of the members of Team White. He couldn’t decide who had frustrated him the most. Nishioka managed to stop his dribbling, Naruto’s shooting kept him in check, Isagi took advantage of his team’s holes, and Bachira went against his predictions and even styled on him with a rabona goal.

‘How did we lose?’

Realistically, going by their ranking and football skills alone, the odds should’ve been in their favour.

‘Was their synergy with each other that much better than ours? No, that can’t be. Most of their goals weren’t scored through chemical reactions.’

But as he thought of that, it finally dawned on him:

‘It wasn’t that they synergized better than we did… it’s that they tried to devour each other.’

Isagi’s goals were scored by taking advantage of Naruto’s overwhelming presence on the field, and Naruto scored the last goal by making a fool out of his teammates. As for Bachira, he went against the expectations that both his teammates and opponents had had of him and scored a crazy goal by himself.

In Team Red, everyone was waiting for Rin’s instructions; they had accepted being relegated to the role of supporting characters, becoming nothing more than sidekicks to his show. But, in Team White, nobody wanted to concede the role of the Main Character to others. They all struggled to be the guy who scores. That dog-eat-dog environment stimulated their potential and forced them to overcome their limits and grow.

While Team Red was still processing the fact that they lost, Nishioka asked:

“So, who should we choose? I say we take Rin. Going by skills alone, he’s probably the best in Blue Lock.”

“I want Nagi. His finishing inside the box is the best. We’d also synergize better since Bachira and I were on the same team as him.”

Unexpectedly, Bachira had a different opinion from Isagi:

“I’m partial to Tokimitsu. He has very good marking and good passing accuracy. If he could stop my dribbling, he could stop anyone.”

“I want the tall guy on our team. We need someone who can receive my passes and score headers. We have to diversify our attacks and keep the opponents guessing,” Naruto also said.

Seeing as they all wanted a different player, Isagi came up with a suggestion:

“How about we play a game of rock-paper-scissors? Whoever wins gets to choose.”

Team Red’s members balled their hands into fists from frustration as they watched their opponents decide their fate with a banal game of rock-paper-scissors. They would not be able to forget that humiliation any time soon.

“Ha! Take that! I win!” Isagi said in triumph after beating everyone in the game of rock-paper-scissors.

Turning towards Team Red, he said:

“Nagi! I’m choosing you. Come, join our team!”

⁂ The next day ⁂

It was an unusually cold day of December. The sky was covered with thick dark clouds, and the Christmas lights and bright ornaments decorating the city appeared as though they were faded due to the thick fog in the air.

“We’re going to have a white Christmas this year!!” Saeko exclaimed as she gathered some snow off the windshield of a parked car and pressed it in her hands to form a snowball.

“Saeko, don’t-”

He couldn’t finish his words because he was forced to duck and cover his head with his arms when she threw the snowball at him.

“Trust me, you don’t wanna do this!”

“Why? What are you going to about it, huh?” she said teasingly.

“Fine, you asked for it!” he said and quickly bent down to grab a handful of snow from the ground and pressed it hard in his hands, compressing it to the limits.

Saeko was startled when the snowball he threw whirred past her head with a powerful wooshing sound.

“What was that snowball?! Were you trying to kill me with it??” she yelled.

But when she grabbed some snow to retaliate, he threw yet another snowball at her, forcing her to crouch and turn around lest she got nailed right in the face.

“Ahh! Wait! It’s not fair! We should take turns throwing snowballs at each other!”

He had no intention of listening to her.

“You talked the talk-” he said and threw another snowball, “-now you have to walk the walk too!”

Under his relentless assault, Saeko found herself unable to counterattack. Left with no other choice, she suddenly opened her umbrella and used it as a shield before breaking into a run towards him

“Hey! That’s cheating!”

“If you don’t cheat, it means you don’t want hard enough to win!” Saeko said, laughing in glee when she saw him running away from her with his tail tucked between his legs.

⁂

Initially, Saeko’s plan had been to take Naruto out to a nice restaurant and chat with him. She wanted to spend some time getting to know him better face-to-face. At the same time, she also hoped to gradually get him used to enjoying the finer things in life.

However, at the sight of large snowflakes starting to fall from the sky, all her plans went out the window. It wasn’t often that it snowed in Tokyo on Christmas. They had not had a white Christmas in more than 5 years. She was so happy about the arrival of snow that she couldn’t pass on the opportunity to fully enjoy that moment.

And that was how Naruto and Saeko ended up spending nearly one hour play fighting with snow in Yoyogi Park, Tokyo. By the end of it, the two of them were sweaty, tired, wet, and exhausted from too much laughing.

“I haven’t had this much fun in years!” Saeko said breathlessly.

Her black winter overcoat was matted with snow, her long purple hair was soaked, and her woollen hat’s burgundy colour could barely be discerned from how much snow was piled on top of it. She looked as if she had rolled around in the snow on purpose.

Naruto too couldn’t remember the last time he had let loose and had such sort of childish fun. In the first place, he wasn’t exactly the type to be seen frolicking around in the snow with his friends. Now, his jeans were soaked up until his knees, and the beige parka he was wearing was wet as well.

“I can’t believe you roped me into playing in the snow like a primary school kid.”

“Oh, please, don’t pretend you didn’t enjoy it!” she said and shoved him lightly with her shoulder. At least she tried to. He didn’t even budge from his spot, it was as if she was pushing against a wall.

He chuckled at her weak attempt before saying: “Should we get going?”

“Where would you like to go?”

He didn’t have any experience with dating but he knew that girls, in general, preferred the man to take charge during their dates. They liked it when their partners had a clear schedule in mind rather than wandering around in confusion.

“I don’t have a specific place in mind,” he said awkwardly, “but it would be good for us to change our clothes before we catch a cold.”

“Then, how about you come over to my house?” she asked.

“Is that really okay? It’s only our first date.”

When he asked that, a tinge of pink appeared on her cheeks.

“I didn’t imply we’d be doing anything like that!!” she protested. “I wouldn’t take you home if we were doing that, there are too many people around that could hear us. Besides, we haven’t even held hands or at least kissed first. It’s too early too-”

She abruptly stopped speaking when she realized what she had almost said, her face now an atomic red. Her embarrassment had to have been contagious because Naruto felt his face getting warm too. The two of them couldn’t quite look each other in the eye for a few moments.

But then, to her surprise, Naruto took her hand in his. He was flushing (and it was obvious that it wasn’t because of the cold) but he wrapped his fingers around her much smaller hand and held it gently but firmly.

“You’re so warm,” she muttered and she buried her face into the red scarf wrapped around her neck so he would not see how embarrassed she was.

Although they had both hit each other with dozens of snowballs, while her hands were as cold as ice, his were still warm somehow.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, he grabbed her other hand too and brought them both together, wrapping his hands around her smaller ones.

“Better now?” he asked, using the pretext of warming her hands up to maintain physical contact with her and putting her in a situation where she had to stand so close in front of him.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were a playboy with how smooth you were now!” she said, her eyes darting to the side, too shy to meet his eyes.

“This is the first time I’ve been on a date."

Her insides twisted strangely at the sunny smile on his face. Being so close to him, she felt like a cornered doe at that moment. Her heart was hammering in her chest.

“Give me a moment, I have to call my driver,” she said, jumping at the opportunity to break the physical contact and put some distance between the two of them.

A mixture of relief and regret came over her when he let go of her hand, but she didn’t waste any time and quickly dialled her driver’s number.

Twenty minutes later, a black Toyota sedan arrived at the bus station where Naruto and Saeko had taken refuge from the storm. The trip to Saeko’s home was rather quiet as Naruto didn’t feel comfortable chatting freely while someone else was listening in on them.

Luckily, it didn’t take long for them to arrive in front of the impressive gates of the Busujima residence. Not for the first time since he had come into contact with the Busujima family, Naruto was struck by how wealthy they were.

⁂

“The young lady asked me to prepare a change of clean clothes for you,” a middle-aged man dressed in the attire of a butler came to Naruto and handed him a stack of warm and neatly folded clothes. Gesturing towards a particular room, he added: “If you would follow me, please.”

If Naruto had to guess, the room he was led to was a closet of sorts. He looked at his surroundings, distracted by the fact that that closet was three times the size of his studio apartment.

“You can put your clothes in that hamper. You should be able to get them back clean and dry in less than three hours.”

“Okay, thank you.”

He had been worried that they might not find clothes for his size given that he had bulked up ever since he started living at Blue Lock. His physique was unusual for a Japanese boy his age. But, luckily, the clothes that the butler handed to him seemed to belong to a tall and well-built person.

‘Probably Mr Busuhima’s clothes,’ Naruto thought as he recalled the middle-aged man’s physique.

Taking a look at his reflection in the mirror, he scrunched up his nose, not pleased with his appearance.

“It doesn’t suit me.”

It wasn’t that their size didn’t fit him, but the fact that he wasn’t used to that kind of clothes. They looked out of place on him. Someone with his face didn’t match the image of a gentleman wearing beige chino trousers and a blue polo shirt.

But, as the saying goes, beggars can’t be choosers. It would have to make do for now. As he came out of the changing room, the butler looked him up and down before nodding, pleased with the fact that the clothes seemed to fit him well.

“The young lady had talked a lot about you over the past two months,” the butler opened the conversation while he led the way to the living room.

“Is that so?” Naruto said, not sure how to reply to that.

“She appears to be much happier ever since she met you.”

He smiled when the butler said that.

“However,” the butler continued, “girls at her age are too impressionable. They fall in love easily and tend to forget about the consequences that their choices would have on their future.”

As Naruto remained silent, the butler stopped and turned to look at him.

“It may be out of place for me to speak like that, but I suggest you don’t involve yourself with the young lady any deeper than you are already.”

Finally understanding what he meant, Naruto’s expression changed.

“And who are you to tell me what to do? I don’t take orders from you or anyone.”

The butler shook his head in dismay.

“That attitude of yours is just one of the many reasons why the young lady shouldn’t be together with someone like you.”

That tone of derision in the butler’s voice made his blood boil.

“Let’s be realistic now. You look like a thug to me. From the few minutes we spent together, I can tell that you’re impulsive, uneducated, and lacking common sense. I reckon that if I were to tell you these words somewhere in the streets I’d be lying unconscious now as you wouldn’t be able to control yourself, assaulting me.”

Naruto couldn’t even find a retort to that because the butler hit the nail right on the head.

“Do you think someone like you is fit to stand by my young lady’s side? Do you think someone like you could make her happy? You don’t belong with her. She’s a princess, and you’re a beggar. You live in two different worlds. Or maybe you’re after her family’s wealth? Is that why you’re trying to get close to her?”

The moment the butler said those words, Naruto grabbed him by the collar of his dress shirt and pushed him roughly into the wall.

“Are you trying to piss me off on purpose, you old shitbag? Do you think I don’t dare break your jaw here? You think I give a shit about your age or position?”

But, despite the fact that the blonde had lifted him in the air and pinned him to the wall as if he were a helpless kid, the butler appeared to not be scared in the least.

“Do it, punk. Hit me.”

The mocking expression on the old man’s face almost made Naruto lose it and smack the crap out of him. But then, the words that Ego had told him several weeks ago came to the front of his mind:

“I understand that you're an orphan from the slums. That you've only had yourself to rely on until now and that you are used to a rough lifestyle. But that chapter of your life ended the moment you came to Blue Lock.”

As Ego’s words rang in his head, he put the old man down roughly and backed away before turning around and leaving him behind, intent on finding his way to the living room by himself.

The abrupt change in the blonde’s behaviour seemed to have angered the old man.

"You don't belong with her, boy," he shouted after him. "You're nothing but a mongrel. You have nothing, not even parents. You are a nobody. You should know your place."

Although Naruto wanted to keep his cool and ignore him, the butler calling him a mongrel and mocking him for being an orphan went well beyond the limits of his tolerance. But just as he turned around to show the old man the price for running off his mouth like that, a yell came from behind:

“What’s the meaning of this?!”

It was Saeko. At the sight of her, the butler became as timid and docile as a rabbit.

“Tanka-san!” she shouted in anger when the old man kept silent. “I asked you what’s the meaning of this!”

“Young lady, it’s for your own good. You shouldn’t be spending your time with the likes of him.”

“Shut up!” she yelled, her hands clenching into fists from anger.

“Please understand, he’s not worthy of-”

“Shut up! Get out! Get out of my face! NOW!”

The butler gulped. It was the first time he had seen her get that angry.

“Young lady-” he began to say again, but he choked on his words when he saw the girl grabbing the closest thing to her and lunging at him. It was a metallic coat hanger.

The old man stepped back with his face twisted in an expression of fear when Saeko raised the hanger above her head with both hands, fully intent on striking him down.

But, at the last moment, Naruto embraced her from the side, immobilizing her in a strong body lock.

“Let me go! I’ll crack his skull open!” she shouted, glaring at the frightened butler with a maniac look in her eyes.

As Naruto held Saeko still, the old man scurried away as if his life depended on it. He had worked for the Busujima family for decades, since before Saeko was even born. He was one of the very few people who were aware of the girl’s unstable nature at times.

⁂

A few minutes later, Naruto and Saeko sat on the sofa in the living room in silence. The joyful mood from before was nowhere to be seen. In particular, Saeko was crushed over what had just transpired.

“I’m sorry,” she broke the silence. “I didn’t expect him to act like that. I will have a word with father about him. This butler is one of our oldest employees, so he’s been enjoying preferential treatment from my father compared to the rest but there’s no excuse for what he had just done. I’ll definitely get him fired!”

Although she was much calmer now compared to before, anger was still bubbling inside of her. She had waited for the day of their first date for more than a month, looking forward to the moments she was going to spend in the company of the boy she fancied. And everything went perfectly… until the butler of her family ruined it.

“I-, …I’ve also shown you an unsightly side of me again,” she said, burying her face in her palms.

Naruto didn’t say anything. He wasn’t showing it outwardly, but the words of the old man had gotten to him. Being poor and orphaned were the things that hurt him the most, they were the reason for his inferiority complex. He had always felt that someone like Saeko was too good for him but he had hoped against all odds that they could make it work, especially after he became a professional football player. But the butler reminded him of the reality that normally, his kind didn’t get together with Saeko’s kind. They really did live in different worlds.

“It’s fine. But I think I should go. I have an important match tomorrow. It would be better to get back earlier than planned and get some rest.”

As he stood up and walked away, Naruto couldn’t make more than two steps before Saeko wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, stopping him from leaving.

“Don’t go,” she pleaded, pressing her forehead against his back. “Don’t listen to that useless old man. Don’t let his words get to you. I never cared about whether you were rich or poor or if you were a doctor or a janitor. What I know is that when those two men followed me on that night, you were willing to risk yourself for my safety, despite that we were strangers.”

Her arms tightened around him as she said:

“It was your kindness that attracted me to you first, not anything else.”

Seeing the girl pour out her feelings like that, he couldn’t remain impassive anymore. He turned around in her arms and returned her embrace too.

“Thank you, Saeko.”

“What for?” she asked as she looked up at him.

Their blue eyes met, and, for a few moments, they didn’t say anything, only looking at each other searchingly. Leaning down, he pressed his lips to hers in a tentative kiss. When she didn’t respond right away, he thought he overstepped his line and tried to break away. But then, she threw her arms around his neck and pressed the back of his head down, deepening their kiss.

His embrace tightened as well as he hugged her svelte body closer to his chest. The softness of her fit and slender body, the taste of her lips, and the wonderful scent coming from her hair had silenced the part of his brain that didn’t agree with what they were doing. Now, he was consciously letting himself fall for her completely.

The need to breathe made them separate after a while, but the two teens dived in back again, seeking each other’s lips fervently. At some point, they sat back on the sofa and Naruto brought Saeko on his lap. With a hand supporting her back and the other caressing the tender skin of her face, he kissed her passionately, pouring all his feelings into it.

It was their first kiss, and in their inexperience, their noses and teeth often collided against each other but their enthusiasm and passion more than made up for it. Maybe they were both naturally gifted at it, or maybe they had great compatibility, but all those small accidents stopped happening after a few minutes. Now, it was pure bliss.

Drunk with pleasure, they lost the notion of time as they caressed each other and explored each other’s mouths. By the time they finally came out of it, they were startled to realise that almost two hours had passed.

She had heard stories from other girls about how they would sometimes spend even more than one hour making out with their boyfriends, but she had never put much stock into it. She had labelled it in her mind as mere hyperbole that the girls who had boyfriends created to show themselves as more interesting than they really were. But now that she had experienced it herself, she could finally understand how it was possible for someone to kiss their boyfriend for that long. She had not noticed the passing of time. If she hadn’t seen the clock hanging on the wall, she would have thought that only 10 or 15 minutes tops had passed.

⁂

Seeing as it was still snowing heavily, the two of them decided to spend the rest of their day inside instead of going out again. Time passed, and now they were having dinner together.

“Do you always have chefs cooking food for you?” he asked in wonder as he looked at the cook who kept bringing all sorts of dishes to their table. Grilled fish, sushi, sashimi and a few different types of salad too.

“Well, father is most of the time away from home at various kendo seminars, and I’m usually too busy to cook too. School takes up much of my time, then there’s my kendo training, and I also have my part-time modelling job. But I know how to cook! Honest! Hey, don’t laugh!”

When he wouldn’t stop chuckling, she pointed her chopsticks at him and said:

“Fine, next time we go on a date, I’ll show you my cooking skills!”

“Hey, I’m not judging. God knows that I’ve eaten only instant ramen and convenience store food packages for years. I can’t cook to save my life.”

“Leaving my cooking aside, how is it going for you at Blue Lock?”

“It’s been great. My team passed the second selection, and tomorrow we’ll have a match against the top 5 best U20 strikers in the world. Adam Blake, Julian Loki, Leonardo Luna, Pablo Cavasoz, and Dada Silva.”

“Blue Lock hired Adam Blake?!” Saeko said in surprise.

She wasn’t a huge fan of football herself but her father was, and any real football fan was well aware of most of the things that happened in the Premier League. It was considered the most competitive and interesting domestic league in the world.

“You know him?” he asked.

“Who doesn’t? Isn’t he the best striker in the Premier League? Where did Blue Lock get the kind of money needed to hire someone like him?”

“I know, right? Someone like him is worth tens of millions of euros already. Crazy.”

After wolfing down an entire plate of sushi in less than a minute, he said:

“But I’m going to be just like him one day. No, I'll be even better!”

“You sure are confident,” she grinned.

“Why wouldn’t I? You’ll see, the moment I make my first official appearance on the pitch for the national team, European football clubs will be fighting to get me.”

She started laughing heartily.

“What, you don’t believe it?”

“No, on the contrary, I love your confidence. I’m rooting for you! I’m fortunate to be able to watch a legend in the making,” she said, a teasing smile on her face.

“I’ll finally become worthy of a princess like you, right?”

“Hey! Don’t say that! I’ve never acted like a princess!”

“True, you didn’t. Your family just has 3 servants tending to all your needs.”

“They’re not servants! They’re employed legally, and my father is very generous with them!”

⁂ Later that evening ⁂

“Are you sure you don’t want our driver to take you to Blue Lock directly?” Saeko asked.

The blissful hours that he spent with Saeko that day came to an end, and now it was time for him to return to Blue Lock.

“No way. Blue Lock is more than one hour away by train. He won’t refuse you because you’re paying his bills, but there’s no way he’s happy deep down. See? That’s why I said you’re a princess. Try to put yourself in the shoes of ordinary people too sometimes.”

“Oh, shut it! No, it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have tried to be so helpful. It looks like it’s true that no good deed goes unpunished!”

“Don’t be moody now, come here,” he said with a grin and opened his arms wide.

She stopped pretending to be upset and allowed him to embrace her.

“When will we see each other again?” she asked.

“I honestly don’t know. The level of competition is much higher now than before, so it’s gotten harder to score goals.”

“You have to step up your game. I want to see you soon. I’m going to miss you.”

“I’ll text you often. And you can call me anytime. As long as I’m not in the middle of a game, I’ll pick up,” he said, trying to placate her, inwardly surprised at her rather clingy behaviour.

“I won’t bother you during the day, I know you’ll be busy training. But you have to answer me in the evening!”

“I will, I give you my word.”

“Good. I will hold you to that!”

At that moment, the train arrived at the station.

“I have to go,” he said and pressed one last kiss on her lips.

It wasn’t lost on him how she almost didn’t let go of his hand, seemingly not wanting for them to be separated.

The train trip back to Blue Lock wasn’t short, but he didn’t notice the passage of time as his mind went back to Saeko, remembering all the beautiful moments they spent together that day.

It wasn’t the first time he found a girl attractive, but it was the first time he had thoroughly fallen in love with someone. He couldn’t take his mind off how good it had felt to kiss her lips and hold her slender body in his arms.

However, not everything was roses and sunshine. The old butler’s words had never left his mind either.

“Do you think someone like you is fit to stand by my young lady’s side? Do you think someone like you could make her happy? You don’t belong with her. She’s a princess, and you’re a beggar. You live in two different worlds.”

It angered him because he couldn’t even refute those words. Regardless of his feelings for the girl, he himself agreed with what the old man said.

‘He’s right…I can’t make Saeko happy. Not as I am now.’

But he was firmly convinced that it was only a matter of time before he became good enough to stand by her side.

He had always been fiercely motivated to become a professional football player in order to escape from poverty but his budding relationship with Saeko Busujima cranked up his fighting spirit to 110%. His hunger for success became fiercer than ever before.