Even the veterans, like Imran and Idris, who usually act like they’ve seen it all and nothing can surprise them? Even they shifted a little. Subtle, you know, but you could see it. A little weight shift, a slight head tilt. Body nguage screaming "WTF is going on?".
“James?” Sajid just blurted it out, couldn't help himself. Total word vomit. “James as… a major pyer? Against Motijheel?” His voice wasn't rude or anything, just completely and utterly baffled. Like he’d just been told the sky was actually purple.
In Sajid’s head, James was still this enigma wrapped in a riddle, sprinkled with a little bit of awkwardness. Dude was quiet. Like, ninja quiet. Almost ghostly, showing up at practice, disappearing again, no drama, no noise. He was just… there, and then not there. Sajid had seen fshes of skill, sure. Unstable smooth dribble here and there, a few three pointer shots which was surprisingly always on point. But after that nothing, and I mean nothing, that screamed “This guy is about to drop bombs on Motijheel and win us the game!”. Motijheel was like, the team. This was major league stuff. And James? James was… James. Confusing.
Arshad, being Arshad, couldn’t keep his mouth shut for more than, like, five seconds. “Yeah, Captain,” he pipes up, all wide-eyed, “No disrespect to James, seriously! But… dude’s still kinda fresh outta the box, right? And we haven’t exactly seen him sweat in a high-stakes situation. Like, at all.” Arshad’s brain was screaming even louder than his mouth. ’Is Kiyoshi actually for real right now? James? Against Motijheel? Is this some kind of TikTok challenge gone wrong? Are we being pranked? Is Ashton Kutcher gonna pop out from behind the basketball hoops and yell ‘Punk’d!’?’
Even Ahsan, Mr. Cool-Calm-and-Collected, turned to Kiyoshi, and you could see the question marks practically floating above his head. “Kiyoshi,” he says, voice still smooth as butter, “You know I trust your judgment, one hundred percent. But… could you maybe unpack this a little? James is def talented, no doubt. But throwing him into the deep end, headfirst, against Motijheel… that’s a… choice.” Ahsan’s super pragmatic brain was struggling to compute. This new strategy was not in the manual. Not in the PowerPoint presentation. Not even in the group chat. ’Bold move? Understatement of the century. ‘Bold’ is what you call wearing Crocs in public. This is like… nuclear-level bold. Maybe even… just straight-up bonkers,’ he thought, trying to keep his face from betraying his inner chaos.
Tahera, meanwhile, was in full manager mode, scribbling away in her notepad like her pen was on fire. Scratch scratch scratch went the pen against the paper, documenting all the drama. She looked up for a hot sec, brow all furrowed like she was trying to solve a really hard math problem. Even she was thrown by this James announcement, and Tahera knows everything about this team. Strengths, weaknesses, their favorite snacks – the girl has a database in her brain. ’James? Okay, interesting... very interesting,’ she thought, her internal gears whirring. ’Thinking outside the box, Captain? Admirable. But also… risky. Like, jumping-out-of-a-perfectly-good-airpne risky. Extremely risky.’
