Noelle was indeed a bit thirsty so she unscrewed the cap of the bottled water and took a sip, ignoring Adrian's heated gaze on her.
Eric could see that the atmosphere between the two was quite tense but he pretended not to see anything.
"That's right, that thing is still with me. Do you want me to bring it over the next time, or are you coming to my place to get it?" Eric spoke as if he had suddenly remembered this.
Noelle, who was about to take another sip from the water bottle, suddenly paused when she heard that. There was a slight frown on her face as if she was trying to recall what he was talking about.
Eric was about to remind her when the bell suddenly rang in her head.
"Oh, just bring it over later then." She replied casually.
It wasn't anything important anyway.
"Alright," Eric said before taking a side glance at Adrian whose expression had turned stormy.
He clicked his tongue inwardly before shifting his attention back to Noelle.
"School's going to be resuming soon, and there will be a lot of things to handle. Remember what you promised me."
"I didn't forget," Noelle said.
"That's good then, I'll go join the rest over there." He pointed at the rest of the players who were busy doing their own things on the pitch before running off.
After Eric left, Noelle thought that she had wasted enough time 'resting' so she got up on her feet to leave.
Just as Eric had done earlier, she seemed to be treating Adrian like air right now.
She was about to take a step forward when Adrian's soft voice floated over to her ears.
"Do you like him?"
She could hear the faint nervousness in his voice no matter how much he tried to mask it.
She suddenly thought about what happened three years ago and couldn't help but feel a stinging pain in her heart.
Weren't you expecting a possibility like this when you said to forget you?
Adrian didn't hear Noelle answer for a while and he felt his heart sink as he thought she was silently agreeing.
He took a deep breath and was about to say something when she suddenly spoke up.
"No, I don't."
She seemed to have thought for a long while before deciding to give that honest answer.
It was true that a lot of girls in situations like this would reply with something like, 'How is that your business?' or something similar. Some might go as far as answering yes to that question.
They might do it because they were frustrated and would reply like that in the heat of the moment while others might do it just to deliberately annoy the other party and make them suffer.
Noelle used to think that thoughts like that were quite childish but now she seemed to have understood quite a bit about how those people felt.
However, understanding was one thing, she still didn't quite agree with such methods.
Excluding how she was struggling internally and couldn't bring herself to be straightforward and ask about three years ago, she was quite a straightforward person.
Why say it's white if it's black and create a spiral of unnecessary complications?
She also seemed to have noticed that Adrian was somewhat hostile towards Eric, if this was the reason, then it was better to nip it in the bud right now.
Although, it wasn't exactly possible for everyone in a team to like each other, they had to at least appear harmonious on the surface off the pitch to better facilitate team work on the pitch.
She left that answer for Adrian before walking away. However, her voice rang out again after just a few steps.
"I don't think he has those kinds of feelings for me either."
Adrian watched as she walked away, he seemed to be deep in thought.
Since Noelle said she didn't like him, he was certain that she didn't. As for what she said after that, he would just take it with a grain of salt.
At the very least, his heart felt much more at ease right now.
With Noelle's break over, the training session resumed in full swing.
This time, she had moved away from the free kick training session to train their shooting ability at its core.
One thing she had noticed was that from the previous matches, including the last two she oversaw as the coach, was that they rarely took shots from long range, and even when they did, it wouldn't be much of a threat, as most of them had subpar shooting ability.
Among those who could actually pull off a long-range shot, there were Henry, Leron, Eston, the newly added Adrian and maybe Savi?
Since there were very few qualified shooters in the team, Noelle thought about it and decided to just drag everyone along for the shooting practice.
In a match where it was difficult to get through the opposition's defence, a shot was one of the possible ways to open the floodgates.
This shooting practice was quite mundane and repetitive as Noelle just had them shoot at the same targets over and over again while offering advice on how to get the most efficiency out of their shots. She also noted down the names of those who needed to spend more time in the gym increasing their leg strength.
Adrian found this shooting practice to be unnecessary for him, but since everyone was doing it, he had no choice but to. He was arrogant, not unreasonable.
With evening fast approaching, the training session had to come to an end.
Adrian wanted to ask Noelle where she lived to see if they could walk home together and maybe finish the conversation they were having earlier.
Unfortunately, before he could make a move, he was dragged away by an overenthusiastic Oscar who wanted to show him around the school, especially their gym and their boys' dormitory.
Seeing how eager he was, Adrian couldn't bear to turn down his kind intentions.
And just like that, he was dragged around the school premises by an Oscar who kept going on and on.
By the time he walked out of the school gate, the sky was almost completely dark.
Looking at the sun that was almost out of sight, Adrian couldn't help but let out a weak sigh.