TWEET!
"Drop your hips! Force him to the outside! Don't just lunge at the ball like a hungry dog, Dunphy!"
Coach Miller's booming voice echoed across the sun-baked pitch. It was Friday afternoon, the final hurdle of my first grueling week in the middle school football club. The drill we were running today was completely different from the passing circles and agility cones. It was a one-on-one defensive jockeying drill.
The premise was simple but exhausting. An attacker tried to dribble past you within a ten-yard grid, and as the defender, you had to stop them without using your hands or slide-tackling.
My opponent, a fast kid who was Toby. He came rushing at me, doing a series of rapid step-overs to confuse my feet.
A few days ago, I would have completely fallen for the feint, tripped over my own cleats, and eaten a mouthful of artificial turf. But five days of 4 AM push-ups, brutal morning laps, and relentless afternoon scrimmages had begun to forge a small connection between my adult mind and this thirteen-year-old body.
Instead of looking at Toby's incredibly fast feet, I locked my eyes directly onto his waist. Physics dictates that wherever the center of gravity goes, the body must follow, I reminded myself.
Toby dropped his left shoulder, faking a drive to the inside. But his hips hadn't fully turned. My brain processed the fake in a microsecond. I didn't bite. I stayed perfectly planted, keeping my center of gravity low.
Frustrated that his trick didn't work, Toby tried to quickly accelerate down the right sideline. But because I hadn't lunged, I was already in the perfect position. I simply took one solid, lateral step to the right, sliding my body between Toby and the ball, boxing him out using my shoulder.
Toby crashed into me, but I held my ground. I casually tapped the ball out of bounds.
"Time! Good defensive wall, Dunphy!" Coach Miller grunted, nodding slightly. "You're still as slow as a tractor, but you're finally using your head to make up for it. Rotation! Next pair!"
I let out a long, heavy breath, jogging to the back of the line. The sheer satisfaction of outsmarting an opponent using purely tactical positioning was a great feeling.
Finally, an hour later, the final whistle of the week blew.
"Bring it in! Good work this week, gentlemen!" Coach Miller shouted. "Rest your bodies this weekend. Don't eat too much junk food, and I'll see you all on Monday morning! Dismissed!"
A collective, exhausted groan of relief swept through the team. We dragged ourselves to the locker room.
As I pulled off my sweaty jersey, I caught a glimpse of myself in the long locker room mirror. I actually paused for a second, genuinely surprised.
The pudgy, soft belly that the original Luke Dunphy had carried around was noticeably shrinking. I wasn't suddenly sporting a shredded six-pack—that would take months of grinding—but the baby fat was definitely melting away, revealing a much leaner core.
Even more surprising was my height. I stood up straight, realizing that my eye level was a bit higher than it had been on Monday. I had hit a sudden, intense growth spurt. I was hovering right around 168 centimeters (about 5'6"). For a boy in middle school, that was fairly tall. My oversized mesh practice jersey actually fit my shoulders a bit better now.
Likely triggered some kind of ridiculous, Webnovel-style physical adaptation. Not bad for a Level One Slime, I smirked internally, throwing on my fresh gray hoodie.
I grabbed my blue backpack and walked out of the locker room with a few other guys. There were two of my peers from the walk-on group, Toby and Kevin (a kid from Class 7-B), along with a senior player named Tyler who occasionally gave us advice.
We were chatting casually about the upcoming weekend when we pushed through the double doors and stepped out into the late afternoon sun.
As always, sitting on the bottom row of the metal bleachers with her nose buried in a thick textbook, was Alex.
She had been strictly upholding her end of the 'Surveillance', acting as my personal, highly suspicious shadow. But as we walked toward, I noticed the guys walking next to me suddenly grew very quiet. Their casual chatter died in their throats.
I glanced sideways. Kevin, the kid from 7-B, was staring at Alex. His eyes were wide, and he was nervously fidgeting with the strap of his gym bag. Tyler, the older guy, was also sneaking less-than-subtle glances in her direction.
Kevin leaned in close, bumping his shoulder against mine, and whispered directly into my ear.
"Hey... Luke," Kevin murmured, his voice cracking slightly with nervous energy. "Is your sister... you know... single? Because, um... man, she is beautiful. Really beautiful."
I stopped walking for a half-second, my right eyebrow arching in profound amusement.
I looked at Alex. She was wearing her usual practical clothes, her thick glasses pushed up on her nose, completely oblivious to the world around her as she read about cellular biology.
She didn't know it, but underneath her intimidating, top-of-the-class genius persona, she had her fair share of secret admirers. In fact, she probably had just as many admirers as Haley, except Alex's admirers were too terrified of her massive vocabulary to actually approach her.
I let out a quiet, internal sigh.
Ah, puberty, I thought, shaking my head. The great mind-fog of youth. I know exactly how it feels when your brain is suddenly hijacked by raging teenage hormones and you become desperate to find a girlfriend just to release all that nervous energy.
Since I had already lived through this awkward phase in my previous life (even though I spent most of it as a single college student grinding video games), my current mind wasn't fogged up by it. Sure, if a stunningly beautiful girl walked up and proposed to me right now, I might consider it. But actively pursuing romance? Absolutely not. I had way too much work to do.
I cannot waste my precious energy, time, and focus on dealing with romantic drama, I reasoned with myself. Especially not when my own home already contains three highly volatile, emotionally disbalanced female boss characters. Dealing with Mom, Haley, and Alex is already draining my stamina to zero. I do not need a fourth.
"Oh, come on, Luke... be a bro," Tyler whispered from my other side, giving me a desperate, pleading look. "Can't you help a lonely guy out? Put in a good word for me? I can buy you lunch for a week."
I felt a slight twitch of annoyance at being used as a matchmaking NPC, but I kept my expression perfectly calm and lazy.
I stopped walking and turned to face them, keeping my voice casual.
"Look, guys," I said simply, shrugging my shoulders. "You have legs. You have vocal cords. If you like her, you can walk over there and talk to her yourselves. If she says yes, then cool. Good for you. If she says no, then also cool. But I am not getting involved. I do not interfere in other people's romance lives. You're on your own."
The boys instantly deflated. Their shoulders slumped in profound disappointment.