Basketball System: Rebound of the Underdog

The boys were all back in their hotel rooms.

"It's gotten real," Kai said, crossing his arms in front of his chest.

To be frank, he thought that they would be treated more kindly because of their age. However, it had an opposite effect. What happened to children being the future? Was Whitney Houston lying?

Or maybe that was attributed to the fact that they didn't look cute at all.

The hotel hallways were quiet, like a calm before the storm. Kai leaned against his room door, arms crossed and deep in thought.

Tomorrow's game stayed in his mind, and no matter how much he replayed their training sessions, he couldn't shake the nagging feeling that it wasn't enough.

Their teamwork had improved—there was no denying that. But improvement didn't mean perfection, and perfection was what they needed to pull this off. He frowned, his frustration bubbling over. If they couldn't iron out their issues tonight, they were doomed.

Sighing, he pushed himself off the door.

Time to rally the troops.

The first door he knocked on was Max's. After a suspiciously long pause, the door swung open, revealing Max's wide-eyed, slightly disheveled face. His hair was sticking up at odd angles, and his shirt was inside-out. Kai raised an eyebrow.

"Uh...Max?"

Max blinked at him, his eyes darting around. "Kai! What are you doing here? I wasn't— I mean, I was just—"

Kai narrowed his eyes. "You were just what?"

"Nothing! Absolutely nothing!" Max said quickly, holding the doorframe like it was the only thing keeping him standing.

Kai peered past him into the room, but Max stepped into the gap, his body language screaming 'don't look inside.'

"You're acting weird," Kai said flatly.

Max let out a nervous laugh. "Me? Weird? No way. This is just my normal, casual, totally-not-suspicious self."

Kai gave him a long look before sighing and shaking his head. "Just meet me in my room in ten minutes."

Max nodded vigorously. "Sure! Your room. Got it. Definitely not doing anything suspicious in here. Bye!"

Before Kai could respond, the door slammed shut.

Next, Kai knocked on Jian's door. Unlike Max, Jian opened the door immediately, his face scrunched in a frown.

"What?" Jian asked bluntly.

Kai started to explain but was cut off by a loud, familiar voice coming from Jian's laptop. His eyes went to the screen and instantly recognized the footage: the final quarter of the Interhigh Nationals championship game.

"You're watching our game?" Kai asked, sounding amused.

Jian's frown deepened. "No. I'm studying."

Kai smirked. "Looks like you're reliving your loss."

Jian's ears turned red, and without another word, he slammed the door in Kai's face.

Kai chuckled to himself. "See you in ten minutes, loser."

The next stop was Zheng's room. When he knocked, there was no immediate answer, but the sound of soothing music drifted through the door. After another knock, the door opened slowly, revealing Zheng sitting cross-legged on the floor, eyes closed and palms resting on his knees.

Kai blinked. "Are you...meditating?"

Zheng opened one eye. "Mental preparation is just as important as physical preparation."

Kai crossed his arms. "Uh-huh. And how's that working out for you?"

Zheng shrugged. "I feel calm."

"Great. Bring your calm self to my room in ten minutes," Kai said, already turning to leave.

Zheng closed his eyes again. "I'll consider it."

Finally, Kai knocked on Jimmy's door. Unlike the others, Jimmy didn't bother hiding his irritation when he opened the door.

"What do you want, Dog?" Jimmy asked, leaning against the doorframe with a tired look on his face.

Kai rolled his eyes. "Don't give me that attitude. Come to my room. We need to talk."

Jimmy groaned. "Can't this wait until morning? I'm trying to sleep."

"No, it can't," Kai said firmly, grabbing Jimmy's arm and pulling him out of the room.

Jimmy tried to take his arm away, but Kai was too damn strong. Not wanting to make himself look weak, he let himself be dragged down the hallway.

Ten minutes later, the team was gathered in Kai's room, each of them looking annoyed, tired, and confused. Max had his shirt on correctly this time but was still fidgeting nervously. Jian had his arms crossed and looked like he'd rather be anywhere else. Zheng sat with perfect posture, his face calm but his eyes half-closed like he was still meditating. Jimmy was slouched in his chair, arms folded and a scowl plastered on his face.

Kai stood in front of them, arms crossed.

"Alright," he began, "I'll make this quick. Tomorrow's game is the real deal. If we lose, we're out. Xu Wei made that pretty clear."

Jimmy rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, we get it. What's your point?"

Kai's gaze snapped to him. It looked like he wasn't taking this seriously. But then again, he was the son of Johnny Wang, so it was understandable why he was more relaxed.

Still, Kai emphasized his thoughts. "My point is that we can't lose. Period."

Max raised his hand. "Um, not to be a downer, but...what if we do lose? I mean, maybe Xu Wei, Marcus, and the entire nation were right. Maybe it is too early for us."

The room fell silent as everyone looked at Kai.

"No," Kai said firmly. "We can't lose."

"Why not?" Jian asked, his tone skeptical. After losing to Kai, he had come to terms with the fact that he wasn't the strongest. So, he didn't mind losing to such strong people.

Kai hesitated for a moment before answering. "Because if we lose, we're going home," he said. "Do you guys want that? After being congratulated by our cities, we are going back empty-handed? Just because we didn't fight for this hard enough," he continued.

"Well," Max muttered. "The Mayor was pretty thrilled to send us off."

"Anyway, what I'm saying is—we're already there. It would be uncool if we just let the opportunity pass. It's never too early. In fact, we're a bit too late. If we had practiced over the breaks or something…"

He shook his head, not wanting to stray away from the topic. "We're given a shot. Let's give it our all."

"In the end, only dead fish go with the flow."

They pursed their lips.

Jimmy grumbled under his breath. "Only dead fish go with the flow. I need to write that down."

Aside from that, though, Kai knew that the stakes were high.

Why?

Because he had already gambled this game.