Once outside, Aaron headed straight to the court while giving slow and constant bounces to the ball against the ground, followed by Drew.
"What are we doing today?" Drew asked, regaining his usual enthusiasm while walking behind Aaron.
"Dribbles?" Drew said as he began to make the movement of having the ball between his legs with an imaginary ball.
"Shots?" he asked again while pretending to throw a ball against the net and score.
"First we are going to run 10 laps around the court," was Aaron's simple response, quickly deflating Drew's enthusiasm.
"Run?" Drew asked while making a face at the idea of having to run instead of doing basketball.
"Yep," Aaron said, leaving the ball next to the hoop and dragging Drew toward the corner of the court to start with a light jog.
Then, when they were both getting into shape, Aaron began to explain: "A high school basketball game is 4 quarters of 8 minutes each, giving a total of 32 minutes of play per game," he said while continuing to run imperturbably, maintaining a steady breath.
"Stamina is essential since playing in small spaces burns your energy quickly, so basketball itself is a game of both physicality and endurance," Aaron finished saying while increasing the pace of his run, followed by a Drew who was starting to run out of air.
"Now imagine we will play 31 games in 3 months; that makes stamina the most necessary thing for a player," Aaron said, starting to sweat while he could hear behind him the gasps of a Drew who could barely keep up with the pace.
"Don't stop," Aaron said, looking briefly behind him toward a Drew who was sweating and had his mouth wide open.
"Uf... shut up... uf uf," was the only thing Drew could say coherently while struggling to keep up with Aaron.
Seeing how Drew glared at him, Aaron decided to make things harder for him by increasing the speed and leaving Drew even further behind.
"Bastard," Drew thought, looking with hatred toward Aaron who already had a great advantage over him.
Clenching his teeth and persevering, Drew decided to increase the pace, not wanting to stay behind Aaron.
"He's lasting longer than I thought," Aaron couldn't help but think upon seeing Drew persevering in the run even when he was gasping for air.
Once the 10 laps were completed, Aaron stopped, only to hear Drew's loud inhalations behind him seconds later.
"I... need... water," panted a completely dehydrated Drew, as if he were going to faint at any moment.
"Exaggerated," Aaron said, rolling his eyes while throwing a bottle of water to Drew, who drank it in one gulp once it was opened.
Lifting his shirt to wipe the sweat from his forehead, Aaron saw how Drew stopped drinking water and stared at him.
"What?" Aaron asked, seeing that Drew wouldn't stop looking at him. "Do I have something on my face?" he asked this time, bringing a hand to his face.
"Friend, life isn't fair," Drew said, pointing with his finger at Aaron's defined abdominals.
Once he understood where Drew was looking, a smile of petulance appeared on Aaron's face while he flexed his abdomen, making it more visible than it already was.
"Abs come with sacrifice and exercise," Aaron said, doing his best imitation of a wise man while giving a look of sufficiency to his friend.
Meanwhile, Drew rolled his eyes at his friend's silly joke.
After that, various exercises followed, from crunches to planks and others, with the sole purpose of being in better shape.
What Drew didn't know was that Aaron took advantage of using the exercise as an excuse to make Drew suffer for forcing him to go to that party.
While he did have a good time, that doesn't take away the fact that Drew forced him in the first place, so it was time to collect.
"We are even," Aaron thought to himself while giving a petulant smile toward Drew, who was lying on the ground trying to gather strength to stand up.
"Get up," he said, now giving light kicks with his shoe to Drew's inert body.
"Ugh," was Drew's pitiful moan as he tried with all his strength to stand up.
"Now comes the good part," Aaron smiled while picking up the ball and giving it light bounces before slamming it against Drew's chest.
"UF," Drew said as soon as he felt the force with which Aaron delivered the ball to him.
"Shoot," was Aaron's simple response while he positioned himself under the post.
"What?" Drew said, not understanding what his friend wanted.
"Shoot," Aaron repeated, waiting for his friend to shoot the ball against the hoop.
Without yet understanding his friend's intention, Drew got into position to throw, but before he could even finish jumping, he felt a hand heading straight for the ball, slamming it and causing the ball to fall to the ground.
"Hey!" Drew shouted, seeing how Aaron blocked his shot.
"What?" Aaron asked with a relaxed posture.
"Why did you do that if you told me to shoot?" Drew said, looking at his irritating friend.
"Do you really think that in a real game players won't try to block your shots?" Aaron asked his friend directly, who was feeling irritated.
Given that question, Drew had no way to refute that logic, knowing that Aaron was right.
"Shoot again," Aaron said, picking up the ball to pass it back to Drew while Aaron went back to the low post.
This time Drew refrained from shooting the ball quickly and instead found himself dribbling it while looking toward Aaron, who was under the basket.
Taking a step forward and entering the area, he immediately felt how Aaron approached and stood in front of him with both hands extended, blocking any possible shooting angle.
Hesitant, Drew continued dribbling while Aaron stuck to him like glue, preventing him from moving forward.
"Get off," Drew said while faking the ball to his other hand and trying to cut through the corner, but even so, he couldn't shake off Aaron.
Losing his patience, Drew tried a Eurostep to get away from Aaron, but before he could even fake toward the opposite side, he lost the ball.
"Bam," the sound of the ball hitting the floor with force was heard again.
"Tsth," Drew was heard while he went for the ball and got back into position to resume training.
"Don't run away from contact," Aaron said, looking at Drew and deciding to start explaining to Drew how to play.
"Force it, be the one who directs the play, not the one being led," he finished saying while sticking to his friend again and taking advantage of their height difference to immobilize him outside the restricted area.
Seeing how Drew seemed not to fully understand what he meant, Aaron decided to steal the ball from him again so that he would be the one attacking the hoop this time and Drew would defend it.
"Let's switch places," Aaron said this time while standing far from the perimeter and waiting for Drew to get into position to defend.
This time, Aaron, giving light bounces with the ball, headed calmly toward Drew while his friend tried by all means to block his path to the hoop.
"In the low post, maintaining control of the ball gets complicated," Aaron said, sticking closer to Drew and then turning to put his back against his friend.
"If it's a 1 vs 1 and you give your back to the rival and stick to him, you make it difficult for him to take the ball from you," said Aaron, who now had his back pressed against Drew, who was extending his arms as much as he could, trying to reach the ball in Aaron's hand.
"After that, if you bump into him proactively, you knock him off balance," he explained that and then did what he said, causing Drew to stagger backward while he spun and jumped with the goal of dunking the ball under the hoop.
"PUM!!" a loud sound was heard throughout the court while the ball went through the hoop, which vibrated due to the force of the impact.
"You see," Aaron said, getting down from the hoop while turning with a smile on his face to look at a stunned Drew behind him.
Coming out of his stupor, a grimace appeared on Drew's face as he said, "It's not fair, I can't dunk the ball like you," Drew said while with his hand he compared the heights of him and Aaron, showing that Aaron was a head taller.
Aaron scratched his head awkwardly, forgetting the clear height difference between him and his small friend.
"Again," Aaron said, quickly and wisely changing the subject.
This time the scene was the same, with Aaron's back to Drew, who tried to prevent Aaron from turning by putting up more resistance this time.
"Flex your knees more to exert more force," Aaron said, seeing Drew's posture out of the corner of his eye.
After that, Aaron repeated the same movement but this time, instead of attempting a dunk, he simply took advantage of the imbalance to throw a floater.
The ball traced a more pronounced curve in the air that flew over Drew, who saw how the ball headed straight for the hoop, only to end up bouncing off a corner and leaving the court.
"Ugh," Aaron made a face, as he wasn't used to mid-range shots.
"Hajaj," Drew wouldn't stop laughing at finally seeing his friend miss a shot.
With a scowl, Aaron gave him a smack on the head to quiet his friend and began to explain.
"That is something you CAN do when you have someone bigger in front of you," Aaron said to a Drew who was looking at him with fury in his eyes and rubbing the back of his head from the smack he received.
"Try it," Aaron said, ignoring the glaring look his friend was giving him while passing him the ball, ready to go back to training.
This time Drew retained the ball better and knew how to turn around, preventing Aaron from having easy access to the ball and, following his advice, bumped his hip with Aaron to unbalance him and then attempted the same shot as Aaron.
But while Aaron could at least touch the hoop, Drew's ball traced a high parabola but it was so high that halfway to the basket it lost altitude and fell bouncing.
"Puf," Aaron was heard holding back laughter while Drew glared at him.
"Not a word," Drew said, clenching his teeth at his pathetic attempt at a floater.
"HAJAJ," this time it was Aaron's turn to laugh at his friend's poor attempt at shooting while Drew glared at his friend.
"Fine, fine," Aaron said, composing himself and picking up the ball. "Let's try it one more time," he said to get back into position.
So a few more shots passed in which Drew gradually began to get the hang of the shot as the ball headed closer and closer to the hoop.
"It's going better than I thought," Aaron thought as he saw Drew starting to show certain flashes of skills.
He still didn't have what was necessary to be a great Point Guard, but if he kept developing the way he was going, he could become a reliable 3D player.
While both boys were playing, they didn't see that there were 2 other people approaching the court.
"Hey guys," said one of the subjects while approaching with a friendly smile on his face.
"Want to play a game?" he asked, spinning the ball on his finger and throwing out a friendly challenge.
Seeing that there were 2 of them and thinking that they needed new opponents, Aaron quickly decided to accept.
"Alright," Aaron said, then left his ball and headed to Drew's side while waiting for both subjects to get ready.
"This is going to be interesting," Aaron said with a smile on his face.
Author's thoughts
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