twojebook Chapter 281: Land of Smiles
Chapter 281: Land of Smiles
The automatic sliding glass doors of the massive Suvarnabhumi Airport opened wide, and the fifteen boys of the Philippine Under-18 National Basketball Team stepped outside.
It was morning in Thailand. Immediately, a giant wall of heavy, wet heat crashed into them.
It did not feel like the sharp, burning heat of the sun back home in Manila. This heat felt like a thick, heavy, wet blanket wrapped tightly around their bodies. The air smelled very strange. It was a mix of sweet tropical orchid flowers, dirty smoke from car engines, and spicy food cooking somewhere far away. High above them, the sky was a perfectly clear, bright, and beautiful blue color without a single cloud.
"Well, it is the exact same sun shining in the sky, but it is very different air down here," Tristan Herrera said quietly to himself. He used his hand to push his dark sunglasses up on his nose. He grabbed the handle of his large black suitcase and pulled it behind him. The small wheels made a loud clack-clack-clack sound on the concrete sidewalk.
Walking right next to him, Marco Gumaba took one big, deep breath of the foreign air and immediately started coughing loudly.
"Oh wow, it smells like... an exciting adventure," Marco declared, wiping a tear from his eye as he stopped coughing. "And it also smells like cheap diesel gasoline. Mostly gasoline, I think. But it is definitely an adventure."
"It is currently 34 degrees Celsius outside," giant Gab Lagman announced. Gab was looking at his expensive smart watch. "And the water in the air, the humidity, is at 85%. Drinking tons of water is going to be the most important thing we do. If we do not stay perfectly hydrated, our leg muscles will cramp and lock up by the third quarter of the basketball game."
Coach Dante Baldomero was already standing outside, waiting for them by the team's private charter bus. It was a very cool, shiny dark purple double-decker bus. It had beautiful, long gold dragons painted all along the metal sides. The coach held a wooden clipboard in his hand. He was carefully counting each boy as they threw their heavy suitcases into the storage area under the bus.
"Hurry up and move your feet!" Coach Baldomero commanded them. However, his sharp voice sounded a little bit softer and less angry than it usually did back home. "We are on a very strict time schedule today. First, we go to the hotel to check into our rooms. Second, we eat a healthy lunch. Third, you will get time to decompress and relax your brains. Fourth, we have a tactical war meeting. If you are late for any of these things, I will make you walk all the way back to Manila."
The bus ride from the airport into the busy center of Bangkok city was completely crazy and overwhelming for the boys. They had spent the last six months locked inside a boring, gray, and quiet basketball gym. Now, their eyes were wide open.
They pushed their faces against the cool, dark glass windows of the bus. They stared at the giant concrete highways that twisted and wrapped around the tall buildings like giant gray vines. They saw hundreds of brightly colored pink and bright green taxi cabs driving fast. They saw the brave, three-wheeled motorcycles called tuk-tuks zooming crazily in and out of the stopped traffic. Everywhere they looked, there were massive advertising billboards showing the faces of beautiful Thai movie stars and pictures of the King of Thailand.
"Hey, look at that giant building over there," young Aiden Robinson said, pointing his finger. He was pointing at a massive, ancient temple. Its top was covered in gold and it was poking high up into the modern city skyline. "It is so crazy. It looks like the ancient past and the futuristic present are just smashed together."
"That is called Wat Arun," Tristan told him. Tristan knew this because he had spent time reading and doing research on the airplane. "It means the Temple of Dawn. It is one of the most famous and iconic places in this country."
But sitting three rows behind them, Joco Palencia was not looking out the window at the beautiful temples. He was looking down at his bright electronic tablet. He was watching a video of the Thailand Under-18 team playing a basketball game from last month.
"That boy, Suphawat, is incredibly fast," Joco muttered quietly to MJ Mangon sitting next to him. "Just look at his very first step when he starts running. When he does his crossover dribble, he does not even slow down at all."
"Are you feeling worried about playing him?" MJ asked.
"No, of course not," Joco scoffed, shaking his head. But he did not take his eyes off the video screen. "I am just carefully studying my prey before I hunt it."
The purple team bus finally stopped in front of the Grand Rama Hotel. It was located in a very busy, rich area of the city called the Sukhumvit district. It was an incredibly luxurious and expensive hotel. As soon as they walked inside, the grand lobby smelled like sweet lemongrass tea, and the floors were made of perfectly polished, shiny marble stone.
Getting their room keys was very fast. Coach Baldomero stood in the middle of the lobby and handed out the plastic cards. He completely ignored all the normal tourists who were staring at the tall boys in their matching blue team jackets.
"Listen to me carefully," Coach Baldomero announced in a serious voice. "You all have the rest of this afternoon completely off. This is a planned, strategic time to decompress and let your stress go. You have all been trapped inside a hot pressure cooker for six long months. Today, I am letting you open the lid and let the steam out."
He looked at all of their young faces with a very strict, warning stare.
"You are allowed to leave the hotel and walk around to explore the city until 18:00 hours, which is exactly 6:00 PM. But here are the rules. Do not eat any raw or uncooked food. Do not drink the water from the bathroom sinks. Do not get into any arguments or fights with the local people on the street. And do not, under any circumstances, lose your mental focus for tomorrow's game."
The coach tapped his clipboard. "We will all meet back together at exactly 19:00 hours in Conference Room B. We will have our tactical strategy meeting to plan how to defeat Myanmar. Do I make myself perfectly clear?"
"Yes, Coach!" all fifteen boys shouted loudly at the exact same time. The loud shout scared a hotel worker carrying bags.
"Now, for your room assignments," Baldomero continued. "I have completely mixed up the teams. I do not want the same groups of friends sitting together all the time."
Tristan stood quietly and waited to hear his name. He fully expected the coach to put him in a room with angry Joco Palencia again, just to force them to be friends.
"Herrera, you are sleeping in a room with Aiden Robinson."
Tristan blinked his eyes in surprise. He was rooming with the youngest bench player.
"Gumaba, you are with Singson. Lagman, you are with Vicente. Palencia, you are with Galang," the coach finished reading the list and walked away.
Aiden Robinson looked up at Tristan. His young eyes were wide and nervous. "I promise I will not snore when I sleep, Captain," Aiden said quickly.
Tristan smiled. It was a real, relaxed, and gentle smile. It was his first real smile in many weeks. "It is perfectly okay, Aiden. Come on, let us go upstairs and drop off our heavy bags."
After going up to their room—where Aiden spent ten minutes trying to line up his sneakers perfectly straight while Tristan just tossed his bag onto the big white bed—all the boys met back downstairs in the hotel lobby. They had taken off their team jackets. Now they were dressed in normal, comfortable clothes: basketball shorts, soft t-shirts, and clean sneakers.
Since they were in a new, strange country, all the old fights and arguments from practice seemed to disappear. They were not fighting over who got to shoot the ball today. Today, they were just fifteen Filipino boys exploring a totally new world together.
"Okay, so where should we go first?" Marco asked happily. Marco was wearing an incredibly bright, loud shirt covered in pictures of flowers. He claimed it was his special 'tropical camouflage' uniform.
"Let us go ride the river ferry boats," Gab suggested in his deep voice. "I read it is the best and fastest way to go see all the famous temples without getting stuck in the terrible car traffic."
"That sounds like a good plan. Let's go," Tristan agreed, leading the way.
A smaller group of eight boys decided to travel together. The group was Tristan, Marco, Gab, Joco Palencia, young Aiden, Carlo Bedia, and the two giant centers, Manio and Singson. They all walked together toward the big Chao Phraya River.
Riding the long ferry boat on the river felt amazing. The cool wind blew through their hair. The brown water splashed against the sides of the boat as other small, incredibly loud motorboats raced past them.
When their ferry finally stopped at the dock for Wat Arun, the boys stepped off and just stared in silence. The giant temple was so massive it made them feel like tiny ants. The huge, tall tower in the middle of the temple was completely covered in thousands of broken pieces of colorful plates and shiny white seashells. It was glowing and sparkling brightly in the hot afternoon sun.
"Oh no... so many stairs," Gab groaned in a sad voice. He was staring up at the incredibly tall, steep stone steps that went all the way up to the top of the tower. "Why are there always so many stairs to climb?"
"Just think of it as our leg workout for the day, Gab," Tristan said, laughing and slapping Gab's massive shoulder. "Think of it as jumping practice."
They started to climb. The stone steps were very narrow and incredibly steep. The boys had to pay close attention to where they put their feet so they would not fall backward.
When they finally reached the flat viewing deck near the top, they were out of breath. But the view was completely breathtaking. They could see the entire winding river below them, and they could see the massive, gold-roofed Grand Palace shining on the other side of the water.
"We need a picture!" Marco yelled excitedly, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket.
All eight boys squeezed closely together. Even the usually grumpy Joco Palencia stepped into the picture, standing on the edge of the group but still looking at the camera.
"Everybody smile and say 'Pad Thai'!" Marco shouted.
"Pad Thai!" they all yelled, smiling brightly.
After the picture, they leaned their arms on the stone wall and looked out over the massive city. For a few minutes, the heavy, scary stress of the big basketball tournament felt very far away. But they all knew it was still hiding there in the background, waiting for them.
"It is very peaceful and quiet up here," young Aiden said in a soft voice, feeling the wind on his face. "It is really hard to believe that tomorrow morning we are going to a massive war on the basketball court."
Tristan turned his head and looked at the young boy. "The war is always happening, Aiden. But a warrior needs to find moments of peace and quiet like this so he can see his battlefield clearly."
Joco Palencia, who had been staring quietly down at the river boats, turned his head and looked sharply at Tristan.
"You are starting to sound like an old philosopher in a book, Herrera," Joco said, rolling his eyes. "Please save all your lovely poetry for the reporters after the game is over."
Tristan just chuckled softly. "I am just enjoying the nice view from up here, Joco."
"I admit, it is a very nice view," Joco said, speaking in a grudging, reluctant voice. "But honestly, I would much prefer to look at the view from the top of the Gold Medal podium."
After leaving the quiet temple, they took another small boat down the river and got off near a very loud, packed, and busy street market. The smells in the air instantly changed. The smell of sweet temple incense was replaced by the heavy smell of hot frying oil, sweet grilled pork skewers (called Moo Ping), and fresh coconut milk.
"Oh man, I am absolutely starving," Josh Manio rumbled, rubbing his giant stomach. "I am a giant. I need to eat protein right now."
They found a small street food cart selling cheap meat skewers on wooden sticks.
"Are you sure this is safe to eat?" Gab asked, looking very worried. He stared suspiciously at the sizzling meat. "Coach Baldomero specifically told us not to eat any raw or dangerous food."
"Gab, look at it. It is cooking over a hot grill. Hot fire kills all the bad germs," Marco argued. He quickly bought three sticks of the sweet pork and took a huge bite. His eyes rolled back in his head. "Oh my god. It is a total flavor explosion in my mouth. My taste buds are overloading."
They walked deeper into the crowded, smoky market alleys. Suddenly, they found a strange food stall. This stall was selling deep-fried insects. There were giant bowls filled with crispy grasshoppers, fat silkworms, and even scary black scorpions.
Marco stopped walking. A crazy, mischievous light turned on in his eyes.
"I have a dare for you," Marco said, pointing his finger right at Carlo Bedia. "I dare you to eat a whole fried cricket."
"No way, man! Absolutely not," Carlo yelled, stepping backward and waving his hands. "That is completely disgusting. I am not eating a bug."
"I will do it," Joco Palencia said. He stepped forward with a confident smirk on his face. He picked up one large, crispy fried grasshopper, dipped it into a bowl of dark, salty soy sauce, popped it into his mouth, and chewed it loudly. Crunch. Crunch. Crunch.
The rest of the team stood in a circle, staring at Joco with a mix of absolute horror and total fascination.
"It really just tastes like eating potato chips," Joco said, shrugging his shoulders like it was nothing. "It is very salty. And very crunchy."
"You are a total savage wildman," Gab said, shaking his head slowly in disbelief.
"Now it is your turn to eat one, Captain," Joco said, smiling and challenging Tristan.
Tristan looked down at the giant metal tray full of scary bugs with legs and wings. His magical video game System inside his head did not have a special 'Digestive Resistance' stat to protect his stomach.
"No thank you, I think I will stick to eating sweet Mango Sticky Rice," Tristan declined in a smooth, calm voice. "My body is a holy temple right now, and I need it clean for tomorrow."
"Booo! You are a coward!" the whole team yelled playfully, laughing at their captain.
Eventually, they found a place to sit on tiny plastic stools near the street. They ordered big plates of delicious Pad Thai noodles and a famous spicy papaya salad called Som Tum. The spicy heat of the chili peppers in the salad was incredibly intense.
"Water! Give me water!" Aiden gasped loudly. His young face was turning bright, tomato red. "Why is a simple green salad so incredibly spicy?!"
"Welcome to Thailand, little bro!" Marco laughed, quickly handing Aiden a cold plastic bottle of water.
For one whole hour sitting on the street, they were not the scary, professional Under-18 National Team. They were just a group of regular, hungry teenage boys having fun. They laughed hard about Aiden not being able to handle spicy food. They made fun of giant Gab being terrified that the little ferry boat was going to sink. They even quietly debated with each other about which Thai girl walking past their table was the prettiest.
But as the bright sun slowly began to set behind the buildings, casting long, dark shadows over the busy market street, the happy, relaxed feeling began to disappear. The mood shifted and grew heavy.
Tristan pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the time.
It was 17:30 (5:30 PM).
"Alright, it is time for us to head back to the hotel," Tristan announced to the table. He didn't yell, but his voice was suddenly filled with a strong, undeniable authority. "Coach Baldomero does not accept 'Filipino Time' where people show up late."
The happy laughing at the table stopped instantly. The boys stood up in silence, wiping their mouths with paper napkins. Slowly, the cold, serious masks of the "Monsters" began to slide back over their faces. Vacation time was over.
At 7:00 PM, the whole team sat in the uncomfortable chairs inside Hotel Conference Room B. The air conditioning in the room was turned up so high it felt like freezing winter.
Coach Baldomero stood strictly at the front of the room. A large, bright projector screen was glowing behind him.
The picture on the big screen was the red, green, and yellow flag of the country of Myanmar.
"I sincerely hope all of you enjoyed your little fun field trip in the city today," Coach Baldomero said. His voice was completely flat and totally empty of any emotion. "Because your vacation is officially over right now."
He clicked his plastic remote. A shaky video of the Myanmar basketball team playing a game started to play on the screen. The boys from Myanmar were much shorter. They looked very scrappy and fought hard for the ball, playing with a very wild, chaotic, and messy energy.
"This is the team from Myanmar," Baldomero began his lecture. "Their average height is only 5 feet and 10 inches tall. Their best scorer is a boy named Kyaw Min. He is a 6-foot-tall guard who always likes to drive to the right side of the basket. They do not have our skills, but they play with a massive amount of heart. They play with strong national pride."
Coach Baldomero paused for a long second, slowly scanning his cold eyes across the entire room of boys.
"And tomorrow morning," Baldomero said softly, "we are going to completely and absolutely dismantle them."
He clicked the remote to the next slide.
In giant, bold black letters, the screen read: OBJECTIVE: WIN BY A +50 POINT DIFFERENTIAL.
A shocked whisper spread quickly through the cold room. Winning a basketball game by fifty points was a totally massive, almost impossible number in a real international tournament. It meant totally destroying the other team without mercy.
"Listen to why this is important," Baldomero explained, silencing the whispers. "In this group round-robin format, if two teams have the same winning record at the end, the tie-breaker is decided by point differential. This means they count how many total points you won by. If, for some terrible reason, we accidentally lose our game to Thailand—which I promise we will not do, but if we do hypothetically—we need a massive point safety net. We cannot just beat Myanmar tomorrow. We must bury them in the dirt."
"We will run our new Orbit System on offense," Baldomero commanded them. "But every time they miss a shot, we will unleash our fast-break transition offense. Grab the rebound, throw a long pass out to Herrera, and run as fast as you can. They are too small and too slow to match our size and speed."
He turned his head and locked his eyes directly onto Tristan.
"Herrera. Listen to me. Tomorrow is not just a basketball game. It is a calibration test for the machine. I want to see you running the Orbit System at 100% perfect efficiency. There must be no wasted steps or movements. There must be absolutely no sympathy or pity in your heart for the other team. If we are winning by 30 points, I want you to push the pace and score 40. If we are winning by 40, you push harder and score 50."
"Yes, Coach. I understand," Tristan replied with a blank, serious face.
Baldomero then turned and looked at young Aiden Robinson and the rest of the players who usually sat on the bench.
"All of you bench players will play a lot of minutes tomorrow. I need my main starting players to rest and stay fresh for the huge war against Thailand on Day 3. So, when I put you into the game, do not get lazy. Do not relax for a single second. You must maintain the exact same terrifying intensity as the starters. If our big point lead starts to drop while you bench players are on the floor, I will make you run suicide sprints up and down the hotel hallway all night long until you vomit your dinner."
The terrifying threat hung heavily in the freezing air of the room.
"The game starts tomorrow morning at 10:00 AM. Going to sleep by 9:00 PM tonight is mandatory. You are all dismissed."
The meeting ended quickly. The players stood up and walked silently back to their hotel rooms. Nobody was smiling.
Tristan, Marco, and Gab stayed behind for a minute, standing together in the carpeted hallway near the elevator doors.
"Fifty whole points," Marco whispered, shaking his head. "That is just brutal and mean."
"It is mathematically necessary," Tristan said coldly, sounding exactly like his coach. "We need to send a very loud, scary message to the teams waiting in Group B. And we need to send a message to Suphawat."
Gab leaned his heavy, tired body against the hallway wall. "You know, I actually saw Suphawat down in the hotel lobby earlier today. It was just a quick glimpse. He is quite short. He is very small. But the way he walks... he walks around like he owns the entire building."
"He is the home favorite here," Tristan reminded them. "The crowd in the stadium tomorrow will be entirely against us. We will be the bad guys."
Tristan looked deeply into the eyes of his two best friends.
"Tomorrow morning, the real war starts. Are we ready for this?"
"I was born ready," Marco said, tapping his chest confidently. "My arms feel great, and my jump shot feels perfectly pure."
"I am ready too," Gab nodded his big head. "The Wall is built and ready to block."
Tristan held out his fist in the center of their circle. Marco and Gab bumped their fists against his.
"One, two, three..." Tristan whispered.
"DOG POUND," all three boys whispered back together. It was a quiet, secret echo of the happy cheer they used to yell back at their old high school.
Later that night, Tristan lay flat on his back in his large, soft hotel bed. The room was completely dark, except for the faint, orange glow of the busy city lights shining through a small crack in the window curtains.
On the other side of the room, little Aiden Robinson was already fast asleep under his blankets. His breathing was slow and steady.
Tristan stared up at the dark ceiling.
Quietly, inside his mind, he summoned his magic System.
[NEW MISSION ALERT: THE DEBUT STAGE]
Your Opponent: The National Team of Myanmar.
Primary Goal: You must win the game by 40 or more points.
Secondary Personal Goal: You must record a 'Triple-Double' (Get at least 10 Points, 10 Rebounds, and 10 Assists).
Mission Reward: +5 Attribute Points to spend on your skills.
Tristan mentally closed the glowing blue tactical box.
He could feel his massive basketball Ego—his powerful "Sun" persona—burning deep inside his chest. But it did not feel like a warm, happy fire. It felt like a freezing cold, calculated fire.
If this were six months ago, he would have been incredibly nervous and shaking about playing his very first real international basketball game. He would have been terrified of making a mistake in front of the whole world.
But right now, the only thing he worried about was being a perfectly efficient machine.
He slowly rolled over onto his side. He looked at his cell phone resting on the wooden nightstand next to the bed. The glowing background picture on his phone was the special pencil drawing that Claire had made for him—the beautiful sketch of the "Old Tristan" laughing and smiling happily with his friends.
He reached out a finger and gently touched the smooth glass screen.
"I promise you, I am still in here," Tristan whispered quietly to the pencil drawing in the dark. "But for tomorrow... I have to lock you away. The Monster needs to eat."
He closed his eyes.
Slowly, the loud noises of Bangkok outside his window—the distant screaming police sirens, the honking cars, and the low hum of the cold air conditioner—all completely faded away into nothing.
In the pure darkness behind his closed eyes, Tristan only saw one single thing. He saw an orange metal hoop.
And he heard the sharp, perfect sound of the white net snapping as the ball went through. Swish.
[System Message: Sleep Mode is now Activated.]
[Energy Restoration Process: Initiated.]
The Philippine team was fully rested.
The Orbit System was fully loaded. The destruction was about to begin.