Beach Day

Chapter 5: Get On With It!

***

Kazuya pretended not to notice the mutterings about him, and took them with his usual stoic reserve. Casually, he stepped off to the left, taking Jin’s place at rear centre, and allowing Lei to take his turn at serving. Everyone else cycled around accordingly, amongst short snickers over the opposition’s lack of a full brain between them all.

A rush of warm wind ruffled Hwoarang’s crimson hair for a moment, then let it settle all over the place. He rolled his dark eyes and contemptuously flicked it back behind his head where it belonged. Then everything went black.

Jin ended up doing a double take when he saw what landed in Hwoarang’s face. He also noticed all of the men on his team staring, bug-eyed, at the direction it came from.

He reached up and pulled whatever it was that landed on his face off. It appeared to be…a black thong?! Blushing slightly, he glanced over next to him to see Eddy gawking in the opposite direction…he followed suit, and ended up gawking too. It was a young woman, curvy and tanned, who’d removed her thong and thrown it at him, and was now waving flirtatiously. Of course, he grinned, and proceeded to strut toward her – why miss such a common opportunity? Not all guys are born as sexy as he – only to find himself being knocked to the ground a moment later.

Above him, upside down, was a coldly furious Nina Williams.

“Listen hot-shot, we’re here to play ball, not strip poker…”

Sighing, he rubbed his bruised head and stood up, tossing the thong back at the woman. Though, so as to not disappoint her, he lipsed the words, ‘maybe later’…

***

The women on Anna’s team were ready to throw heavy objects at the distraction, when they all came to the same conclusion; a distraction on the minds of their opponent will hamper their efforts to play a proper game. Lee, though, was partially distracted by the woman’s nakedness, and partially distracted by the handsome young man on the other team. In fact, something about him reminded him of Jin…and come to think of it, Kazuya. Then again, it was highly doubtful he was actually related at all; he was probably just some young surfie that Nina hitched up out of the sand to fill in the gap.

Christie snatched the ball. “I’m serving! I’m serving!” Lee just sighed and stood back.

“Sure, go ahead, break a leg…”

She frowned at him, then looked down at the ball. “Hey Ed-dy…how do I serve again…?”

He groaned from the other side of the net. “Hit it girl, just hit it…”

She arched a brow, shrugged, then threw it into the air, and hammered it with her knuckles as it came down, sending it soaring, once again, back into the air and over the net. Inefficient yes, but possibly effective.

That is, if Hwoarang hadn’t caught on as fast as he did. As soon as the ball came over the net, he joined both fists together, linking the fingers, and brought them down over the top of the ball, sending it flying into the sand on Anna’s team’s side of the net. What else could one say? The score was, needless to say, now six-nil.

Julia closed her eyes, shook her head, and rubbed her temples. Why did they have to bother with the ditz and the fag? Oh well, it was just a game. She scooped up the ball as it rolled to her, and rolled it under the net to Lei.

Lei picked it up and spun it about in his hands some, then imitated Kazuya’s earlier method of releasing it into the air, then hitting it underarm rather than over his head, sending it flying over the net toward Xiaoyu. She, in turn, put her fists together like everyone else had so far when it came to reacting to a hit over the net, and batted it back up into the air off her forearms. Once again, she didn’t have the technique quite right, so even as the ball flew onward perfectly, it still smarted enough to make her squeal and jump up and down. The ball raced down toward Julia, who was ready this time. She got beneath it, and poked it upward with the tips of her fingers, toward Anna.

Even though she was the captain of the team, Anna didn’t really have fantastic volleyball skills. She almost panicked when the ball headed for her, and swung a slender arm over her head. With her fist clenched, she struck the ball, sending it flying forward. Just…not quite high enough. In no time, the ball had hit the net; the net caught it, bowed with the force delivered to it, and threw the ball right back at its aggressor with equal force; the result; Anna getting hit in the head with a ball and falling onto her backside.

From the other side of the net, Nina sighed and put one hand to the side of her face. This was pointless. It wasn’t even a proper match! In fact, it wasn’t a match at all, it was a goofball parade. She passed an eye over each of her comrades, all of which looked as bored as she, and wondered just how long they’d have to keep this up. After a moment of deciding how much to humiliate her sister, Nina finally spoke.

“Anna, just how long are we going to keep this up? When I challenged you, I challenged you because I thought it would be a challenge!”

Anna glared as she stood up, rubbing her smarting forehead; which by now had a large red mark across it like a medal. “I don’t know, it was your stupid idea. First to twenty or something.”

First to twenty…great, they’d be there all day. Or so Nina thought.

Eddy obviously didn’t. “Well at this rate, since we’ve only been playing a few minutes, that won’t be too hard to get done in the next quarter of an hour! Good luck to you, Ms Williams, and your team of flightless birds…”

He had a point. Smirking, Nina caught the ball as it came skidding under the net, and passed it to Lei. He, in turn, caught it, threw it up into the air, and hit it over the net in his ungainly yet somewhat effective way. Christie, for once, did something right and bounced it aimlessly off her forearms, and began yowling about the smarting sensation a moment later. Julia saw it coming, and set it back in the air with the tips of her fingers, letting it soar forward towards Lee. Quickly, he leaped into the air, and spiked it over the net, downward, towards the first row of enemies standing facing him.

Nina dove forward and bounced the ball off her forearms, landed on the ground, but quickly got back to her feet. Jin saw the ball flying toward him, along with a perfect opportunity to simply skip the formalities and give them all hell; he didn’t set it at all, he merely spiked it, all the way from the back of the court, over the net, and between Xiaoyu and the rear of the court – of course, with all his strength. The ball did exactly as he planned. And Xiaoyu, in an effort to hit it, fell over backwards, allowing it to bounce off the sand, and roll down the beach a little way. 8-nil.

Eddy glanced over his shoulder and grinned somewhat at Jin. “See, tolja man, this will all be over in a flash.”

Hwoarang grinned too, as Jin smirked back, and caught the ball as it rolled back. “The sooner the better, I have a few people waiting for me.” He motioned toward a few of the bikini-clad women on the sidelines.

Rolling his eyes behind his shades, Kazuya muttered under his breath, “Get your head out of your shorts and back onto the playing field, kid,” just low enough so Hwoarang would barely hear it, “and save all of that for later.”