NEXT: http://www.furaffinity.net/view/15740321/

Collab with the awesome  qovapryi
Here's the article refered to, appreciate  FFRedXIII for contributing for this! http://furrybasketball.com/forum/vi.....=28&t=1132
FBA and characters belong to their respective owners.

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If Julian's career was like an atomic bomb, this was the proverbial roach. Yet another fucking article regarding the Anggun incident, with a jab at his tastes to boot. This was enough. He sat on the locker room reserved for the Lorain visitors, digesting what the dumbass of the day had to say this time.

The locker room wasn't alone for long, as the heavily tattooed otter Scoonie Barrett waled in. "Dude, what up?"

Julian didn't respond. Eyes glued to the phone, notably upset.

"What's that, man?" The otter peaked over the dog's shoulder, trying to read the magazine's header. "Oh, I get you. Press is gunning for you because of Anggun getting injured. Why for I guess...after both the league and Mr Grehr publicly acquitted you of any guilt..." He ran a paw through his shaven head fur, a faint glint of surprise in his green eyes. "Who's this DuPonte guy anyway?"

"I don't know..." he smalled his phone on the bench, quite strongly. "...And frankly, I don't care. I had enough of that day, of that civet, of that fucking All Star Flop. Everyone's been on my ass because I'm not sucking Anggun's dick enough. I already felt shitty over the ordeal and no one understands I want to get over with that. Let's just get fucking ready for this game. I really "want" this enough..." he walked to his locker.

The otter grabbed Julian's arm before he could walk away. "Jay, I can't stress it hard enough. If you plan on having a long career in this league, you have to understand you need to be able to back up both your words and actions. The more you slam that civet on Twitter with no reason for it, the more you're setting up as the bad guy in the people's eyes. No wonder that the press jackals are trying to exploit every little cue you offer them just to set you up and sell some copies."

He yanked his arm off Scoonie's grasp; quite a feat if you compared builds. "Look at my feed! When did I ever talked bad about the guy after that crap happened? Let alone talked about him at all?! Chiant..." he rubbed his temples. "Guy's story turned out to be truth and that's what I wanted to hear. But I want to fucking cut it already and everyone's being a dumbass to realize that... Fuck everything I do I'm wrong or not ok or any... bullshit someone comes with!"

"Dude, you can't expect people to change their mind in just a few days. Especially not after they saw the guy being pulled out on a stretcher with blood running down his face," the otter said, a little more sternly than he honestly wanted to. "It'll require time and patience in order for them to change their consideration about you, but I bet your performance on the court is already doing that and some. As for the press...we're professional athletes, they're always going to put us in a bad light if that fits their agenda. You see what FMZ wrote about me on Twitter the other day...I just ignore it and focus on my game. You should do that too."

"Wow, they said you boned someone. Scoonie had sex. Shocker" he rolled his eyes, the otter couldn't help but to smirk for a second. "How the hell do you ignore everyone when the REPEATEDLY say you aren't deserving, you are wrong, you aren't cut for this..." he took a long deep breath through his nose. "Alright... I'm done. I'll train, practice and shut them up. Lost against some pretty whatever teams and I want to get us up the ranks again..."

The otter stood up and patted him on the back, even though he sensed a certain reluctance in the canine's words and anger in his demeanor. "That's the spirit, Jay. You're having an amazing rookie season, filling for Aurora on the starting line up and ranking up two PotG's, no less. Don't let those assholes ruin it for ya," he said, following him to his own locker and taking his normal T-shirt off his head, before putting his training uniform, HAWAII BASKETBALL on the back. "It's not worth it."

"Whatever... it just sucks when literally everyone tell you how wrong or terrible you are. Once eavesdropped Mr. Grehr saying I was more trouble than Alfie. God bless the guy, I respect him lots, but... I'm worse than the guy who the world allegedly has bodyguards from... putain..."

"You're not, and neither is he. When we get to the playoffs for our first time, everything will be forgotten and they'll go saying both of you are the authors of Hawaii's newfound success, not the thugs they've been depicting you to be right until now."

"Whatever..." his reply went dryly. As he watched Scoonie close his locker and leave after giving him a pat on the dog's shoulders, smiling to his friend. He noticed Scoonie's door didn't shut close. Since he was by himself, the saluki quickly opened up and rumaged to the locker. Scoonie's workout lists and pointers by Mr. Hudson. Bingo. With his phone, he focused and took pictures as quickly as possible before leaving everything undisturbed (being an artist with a borderline OCD attention to detail paid off) and actually shutting it close this time.

He needed to train the hardest. He needed to be on top. Miss Fairwinde's programs weren't cutting it.