The gymnasium lights on Saturday morning were a cruel, fluorescent insult. They hummed with an irritating, high-pitched buzz, illuminating every mote of dust in the air, highlighting the exhaustion etched on every player's face.
The prom, a single, stolen night of magical, glittering normalcy, was over. Now, the bill was due.
Tristan Herrera stood stretching at center court, his body an aching symphony of protests. His feet, unaccustomed to the rigid, unforgiving leather of dress shoes, throbbed. His legs, from two hours of uncharacteristic dancing and swaying, felt a dull, unfamiliar soreness. And his mind, which had been blissfully free of basketball for a precious few hours, was now struggling to re-engage, to find its usual sharp, tactical focus.
"I think," a voice groaned from the floor near him, "I am going to die. Right here. On this line."
Marco was lying flat on his back, his arms and legs spread-eagled, as if he'd been felled by a sniper. He was still in his expensive prom shoes, having forgotten his practice sneakers in his haste.
"I am a martyr to the rhythm," he moaned. "My feet have been sacrificed to the gods of the dance floor. I gave the people a show they will tell their grandchildren about. It was my gift. And this is my punishment."
Gab, methodically rolling out his quad muscle with a foam roller, didn't even look up. "You 'danced' three times, Marco. I counted. The rest of the night you were officiating an imaginary dance-off between Ian and Cedrick, and then you spent an hour trying to convince the DJ to play the Space Jam theme song."
"It's a classic! It gets the people going!" Marco protested, sitting up with a pained grunt. "And for your information, that 'supervising' was a vital social function. I was a host. A facilitator of fun. It's an exhausting job. And now, Coach is going to try and kill us. I can feel it."
He was right. The mood was off. The usual pre-practice focus was replaced by a sluggish, post-prom hangover. The players were stretching, but their movements were slow, their conversations muted, revolving around who danced with whom and the questionable quality of the punch.
The sharp, echoing smack of the gym doors flying open silenced everyone.
Coach Gutierrez strode onto the court, his face a thundercloud. He was holding his clipboard, but he looked like he wanted to use it as a weapon. He didn't say a word. He just walked to the center circle and stared at them, his eyes sweeping over his team, taking in their tired eyes, their slow movements, and in Marco's case, his ridiculous patent leather shoes.
"Having fun?" he finally asked, his voice dangerously quiet.
The team immediately tensed. The last vestiges of prom-night giddiness evaporated, replaced by a cold dread.
"Good," the coach continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm glad. I'm glad you all got your one night of fun. I hope it was worth it. I hope it was memorable."
He began to pace, a caged tiger. "Because while you were all practicing your awkward shuffling and spilling drinks on your rented suits, the best player in Cebu was in a gym, making five hundred jumpers. While you were recovering this morning, the entire NCR team was running conditioning drills until they puked. They don't have a prom on their minds. They have a championship. And you just gave them a full 24-hour head start."
He stopped and blew his whistle, a single, piercing blast that made everyone jump.
"ON THE BASELINE. NOW!"
The team scrambled, their movements suddenly frantic.
"You're tired?" he roared, his voice bouncing off the empty bleachers. "Your feet hurt from dancing? GOOD! Today, we find out what you're made of. Today, we burn the prom out of your system. You are going to run until the only thing you remember is the sound of this whistle and the burn in your lungs!"
He pointed at Marco. "And you! Gumaba! You run in those shiny, stupid shoes. Maybe it'll remind you what 'uniform' means!"
Marco's face went pale. "Yes, Coach!"
What followed was not a practice. It was a purge.
Coach Gutierrez ran them through the "Suicide Gauntlet" for thirty straight minutes. It was a drill of pure, unadulterated conditioning. A defensive slide to half-court, sprint back. A full-court sprint, a defensive slide back. Back-pedaling, lunges, full-court layups where the misser had to run an extra lap.
It was relentless.
Player after player fell, bent over, hands on their knees, gasping for air. Joseph, his lungs searing, was the first to puke in a trash can. Coach G just blew his whistle and pointed to the line again.
"That's one! Get back on it! We're not stopping!"
It was in this crucible of exhaustion that the team's true leaders were forged. Marco, despite his complaints, was running himself into the ground, his expensive shoes scuffing and squeaking in protest, his face a mask of pained determination. Gab was a machine, his massive legs pumping, his face a blank wall of pain that he refused to let crack.
And Tristan... Tristan was the engine.
He was just as tired as everyone else. His body was screaming. But he thought of Aiden in that hospital bed. He thought of his promise.
"Come on!" he yelled, his voice hoarse, as he saw Daewoo start to lag. "Push it! This is the fourth quarter! This is for the championship!"
He doubled back, ran beside Daewoo for the last sprint, pushing him, encouraging him.
After an hour, Coach Gutierrez finally blew his whistle. The team collapsed as one. The floor was slick with sweat. The gym was silent, save for the sound of fifteen players gasping for air.
"Get some water," the coach said, his voice back to its normal, calm intensity. The purge was over. "Then we'll get into the film session. Practice is over."
They just stared, confused.
"But Coach," Tristan said, panting. "The drills... the scrimmage..."
"Practice was the run," the coach said, a grim look in his eyes. "I just needed to know you still had some fight in you. And you," he said, looking at Marco, who was slumped against the wall, his feet a mangled mess, "get some real shoes."
He walked away, leaving them to recover.
"I can't feel... my... anything," Marco whispered, his eyes closed.
"You survived," Gab grunted, handing him a water bottle.
"Barely," Marco replied. "But I have to admit... I've never felt more alive. Or more dead. It's confusing."
An hour later, showered, changed, and clutching paper bags of post-practice food, the entire team met at the hospital. The energy was a complete 180 from the gym.
The grim, exhausted warriors were gone, replaced by a shuffling, awkward, and oversized group of teenage boys.
They piled into the elevator, a mass of limbs and nervous energy, drawing curious looks from nurses.
"Okay, what's the plan?" Mark, the backup point guard, whispered. "Do we all just... walk in?"
"That's generally how visiting works, Mark," Gab said dryly.
"No, but I mean... what do we say?" John added, his voice low. "It's... you know. It's Aiden."
"We say 'hi'," Tristan said, his voice calm, though he felt the same awkwardness. "We tell him about practice. We just... we're just there. As a team."
"And we give him the gift!" Marco said, holding up a massive, rolled-up piece of poster board. "I spent all last night on it. It's a masterpiece."
They reached Room 304. The door was ajar. Tristan, as the captain, took a deep breath and knocked.
"Come in," a voice called. It was Aiden.
Tristan pushed the door open, and the entire team—all fourteen of them—filed into the small room. It was an instantaneous, chaotic overflow. They filled every available inch of space, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, pressed against the walls, huddled by the foot of the bed. The room, designed for two, was suddenly holding twelve people, and the air was thick with the smell of fast-food fries and nervous sweat.
Aiden was sitting up in the bed, his laptop open on the rolling table in front of him. His eyes widened as the parade of his teammates kept coming, and coming, and coming.
"Holy..." Aiden started, his face breaking into a look of stunned disbelief. "What is this? The entire... you guys are all here?"
"Well, yeah," Marco announced, unfurling his poster-board masterpiece. "We had to come. We heard the food here was terrible, and... we're concerned about your gains!"
He presented the poster. It was a ridiculous, glorious, hand-drawn caricature of Aiden dunking over a tiny, crying player labeled "NCR." At the top, in huge, bubbly letters, it said "GET WELL SOON, YOU BUM. WE NEED YOUR UGLY FADEAWAY." It was signed by every single player, each with their own stupid, heartfelt message.
A real, genuine laugh burst out of Aiden. "My fadeaway is not ugly, you're just jealous."
"See! He's fine!" Marco declared.
The ice was broken. The suffocating awkwardness evaporated. The rest of the team crowded in, finding spots to sit on the floor, on the windowsill, on the edge of the other empty bed.
"So, man," Ian said, his deep voice filling the room. He was standing near the foot of the bed, his massive frame making him look like a bodyguard. He nodded at the cast. "How... how is it? For real?"
Aiden's smile faded slightly, but his eyes were clear. "It's a cast, man. It sucks. It hurts. But... it is what it is."
This wasn't the broken, weeping kid Tristan and the others had seen on Saturday. This was someone new. Christine's visit, and his own lonely night of resolve, had forged something hard in him.
"We... uh... we brought you something," Tristan said, stepping forward. He was holding a basketball. "It's the game ball from the Imus scrimmage. Coach... well, he said it was the game ball, anyway. We all signed it."
He handed it to Aiden, who took it, his hands tracing the familiar pebbled leather. His eyes scanned the signatures of his teammates. He didn't say anything for a long moment, just held it.
"You guys..." he whispered, his voice thick. "You... you shouldn't have..."
"It was a good game," Cedrick said, his voice a low rumble. "A good fight. You were a huge part of that. Your hustle... that's what got us going."
"Yeah," Aiden said, his eyes distant. "The hustle." He looked down at his cast. "The hustle that cost me..."
He stopped, but the dark thought hung in the air.
Daewoo, who had been hiding in the back of the room, took a shaky breath and stepped forward, pushing his way through the crowd. He stood at the foot of the bed, his face pale.
"Aiden," he said, his voice cracking. "Man. I... I'm so sorry. I know I'm the one... I'm not you. I can't... I can't do what you do. That practice today... I was awful. I... I don't know if I can..."
Aiden looked at Daewoo. He saw the kid's panic, his fear, the crushing weight of expectation. Aiden's expression, which had been bordering on self-pity, hardened. The "coach" that Christine had woken up in him took over.
"What are you talking about?" Aiden asked, his voice suddenly sharp.
"I... what?" Daewoo stammered.
"I've been watching the tape. The full game tape from the Imus scrimmage. I've watched it six times."
The whole room went quiet.
Aiden grabbed his laptop and turned it so the team could see. It was paused on a play from the third quarter.
"Look at this," Aiden commanded. "This is your closeout on Chan. Your footwork is lazy. You're giving him a full inch on his gather, and you're letting him set his feet. That's why he hit that shot over you."
He clicked to another play. "And this. Your rotation. You're a full step late. You're watching Tristan, not your own man. That backdoor cut? You should have seen it coming."
He wasn't just talking to Daewoo; he was talking to the whole team.
"And you two!" he said, pointing at Ian and Cedrick. "You're still getting pulled too far out of the paint by Quinahan. It's a 'show and recover,' not a 'follow him to the parking lot.' You're giving up the entire middle of the floor. The Cebu team will kill us on backdoor cuts if you do that. You have to trust your guards to fight through."
"And Marco," he said, "you're closing out on their shooters like you're afraid to get your shoes scuffed. Get a hand up! Make them feel you!"
Marco just nodded, his mouth for once shut, his expression one of stunned respect.
Aiden finally looked at Daewoo, who was staring at him, mesmerized.
"You're right," Aiden said, his voice softening just a fraction. "You're not me. You're not a scorer. So stop trying to be. You are a defensive nightmare. You're fast, you have a motor that doesn't stop, and you're fearless. That's your job. Your job isn't to hit Aiden's fadeaway. Your job is to make the other team's best player wish he'd stayed home. Your job is to get steals and start the break. And when you're wide open in the corner..."
He looked at Tristan. "Tris. You have to pass him the ball. You have to."
"I know," Tristan said quietly.
"And Daewoo," Aiden said. "You have to shoot it. I don't care if it hits the side of the backboard. You have to make the defense respect you. You miss it, you crash the boards and get it back. Like you did in practice."
The team looked at each other. How did he know that?
Aiden saw their looks and smiled, a thin, wolfish grin. "Oh, you think I'm not in the loop? Coach called me this morning. He told me everything."
He looked at his team, at the twelve faces crowded into his room, and he felt a surge of power that had nothing to do with his legs.
"This is my season, too," he said, his voice quiet but ringing with an authority they had never heard from him. "I'm just playing from this chair. I'm going to be on the sideline at the Palaro. I'm going to have a clipboard. And I am going to see every mistake you make. So you'd better be perfect."
He took a breath. "This... this injury... it's not the end of our season. It's the beginning of our new one. It's the moment we stopped being a finesse team and we started being a team of dogs. A team of grinders."
He'd used the same words Marco had. But from Aiden, they didn't sound like a complaint. They sounded like a battle cry.
The room was silent. The players, who had come in to cheer up their fallen teammate, were now standing at attention, receiving their new orders. They had come to visit a patient, and they had found a coach.
Tristan was the first to speak. He stepped forward, his eyes locked on Aiden's, a new, unbreakable respect between them.
"You got it, Coach," he said, his voice firm. "We won't let you down."
"Good," Aiden said, leaning back into his pillows, a look of exhaustion finally hitting him. "Now... seriously, Marco, tell me who made a fool of themselves at prom. I need the real details. Spare no one."
The tension broke. The room exploded into laughter. Marco, unleashed, launched into a twenty-minute, one-man-show of prom-night gossip, and for a little while, Room 304 wasn't a hospital room. It was just a locker room, full of a team of brothers, whole and unbroken.