Rise

Zeng Rui gritted his teeth in anger. Those fucking assholes! He looked at Lin Feng who was seething with rage. Su Xue had stepped forward and was holding him back. I was already losing my temper! And I’m the calm one! He noticed Chu Fang stepping forward and stepped towards him. This is gonna spiral out of control if something doesn’t happen soon! Keep your cool, Zeng Rui! Come on! Be the leader! He exhaled sharply and then said, “Tang Tang is right. He…” he pointed at Seo, “... pushed the guy behind Tang Tang on purpose. Look at Tang Tang! This isn’t normal! And all we asked for was an apology! But that’s already too much for that asshole!”

Chu Fang knitted his brows. He looked at Team Guangzhou’s coach and said, “Coach Yin, right? What’s going on here?” He then turned his head to look at Tang Bingyao. There were four people huddled around her, blocking him from seeing the full extent of her injuries. But he judged by their reaction that she wasn’t too hurt. Still, this isn’t great. Far from it! We’ve got to play the Round of 16 tomorrow! If nothing else, the shock of this might hamper her! How could it have gotten this far!?

“Vice President Chu,” Coach Yin said, smiling. Keep smiling. Keep smiling. Seo made a mistake, but that’s besides the point right now. We’re playing tomorrow and the team needs to be in optimal shape for that. Take the pressure away from him. Let him focus. I’ll let Chu Fang be mad at me. Just need to be a bit careful. I need to show him some respect. He briefly grimaced before pushing forth an apologetic smile. He explained, “You saw how busy it got here. The organizers really didn’t think it through. We were all just trying not to get shoved to the ground and fighting for our own spot. Seo just got caught by someone else, lost his balance and that’s how all of this happened. Now let’s not make a big fuzz out of it. We’ve both got games to play tomorrow, let’s focus on that instead.”

Chu Fang scratched his head and replied, “You heard what my players are saying. They seem to think Seo did it on purpose, and I don’t know them as liars.” He nodded at Seo and continued, “Plus, he does look guilty.”

The smile disappeared from Coach Yin’s face. He pushed his chest forward and narrowed his eyes. Nice approach won’t work, huh? Go figure. Idiots from Shanghai! But this needs to end here. We’re not going to bow down in front of so many people! He said through gritted teeth, “You just got here. You haven’t the faintest idea what happened! Stop listening to those damn kids trying to act like something happened here. I’m telling you, my team members didn’t do anything wrong. I’m done with this charade.” He turned to his team members and ordered, “We’re going.”

“Wait, wait, one more thing,” Zeng Rui interjected. He looked at Coach Yin and chuckled in rage. You piece of shit! He took a deep breath and said, “You didn’t see it either. You weren’t here. All you know is what Seo told you--”

Chu Fang put his hand on Zeng Rui’s shoulder and shook his head. He whispered, “Enough.” He then looked back at Coach Yin and said, “You’re right. I wasn’t here. I didn’t see it happen. Fortunately, we’ve got CCTV recording everything happening here. Let’s go to the backroom and watch back the footage of what happened. We’ll take it from there. Sound acceptable?”

Coach Yin narrowed his eyes further and tried to come up with an argument, but couldn’t think of one. He then turned to look at Seo, who was following the conversation through the interpreter, and asked with his eyes if he really had pushed Tang Bingyao. Seo’s violent reaction to the mention of the CCTV footage said it all. Shit. SHIT! Why does this have to happen? Dammit! I can’t let this go on. We can’t have this show in front of so many people! Dammit Seo! Why did you… He took a deep breath to calm himself down. Then he smiled at Chu Fang and said, “There’s no need to review the footage for something so small. Seo here didn’t mean for any of this to happen. He was just feeling anxious and he might’ve--in his panic--pushed the people around him away. Claustrophobia is a serious issue. We shouldn’t take it lightly. Now, please, drop it. This isn’t helping any of us.”

“Look at her,” Chu Fang said, pointing at Tang Bingyao. “Look at her! You tell me, does that look normal to you? Is that something that just happens? You want me to drop this? How? We’re going to have to take her to a doctor most likely!”