Chapter Text
She's alone once again. As the clock ticks near midnight, the usual desolation and peace settles deep within her as she draws a deep inhale in time with the pull of the bowstring, picturing a huge mountain as she pushed out her bow.
She checked the target once again before letting the arrow quiver and cut through the air and into the target accurately.
Only then did she exhale, lips rising up to a small smirk of victory as her eyes stray away to find her manager's.
This lady is none other than the qualifying Olympic athlete currently pulling another late night, ill-advised practice, Kaira Takigawa.
"That's how you end the practice!" She shouts, her voice echoing in the empty training hall. Her manager, Lucian Madden, just raised a brow. "Pinholes!"
"Stop it already," he drawled, sliding further down the floor to lie down. "Let's just go home…"
"We're not even sure if we can get out of here…" she bitterly mutters to herself, fixing down her equipment.
It's a pandemic. Of deadly virus reminiscent of the ancient times in the likeness of helplessness and confusion. And of course, as one would have it, the Olympics was cancelled, due to lockdowns and millions of health protocols.
It was only announced earlier this day and, just like tons of athletes, as Kai and her team– but really her and just her manager cum trainer– decided to come to Japan earlier, found their selves in such a situation where they're stuck.
And possibly will be in an indefinite period of time as airports freeze their operations.
They knew something was up months ago. There are stricter health protocols, even the airports have new system of isolations. Kai was even surprised there were checkpoints at some roads they took weeks ago to her grandmother's house here in Japan, and she was only given pass when she showed her Olympics identification card.
All these culminated to a complete shock and disbelief this morning when the Japanese government– along with maybe the entire governments of the world– announced lockdowns and then the IOC declared the cancellation of the games.
Emptiness, numbness, denial, anger and then emptiness once again surged through her whole body as she resigned to the declaration.
She hypnotized herself to simply turn the thoughts of "what a waste these past few months have been" to the optimistic "I'll have more months to practice" and then turned in to practice purposelessly. Just to vent.
Which is bad.
"… I'm sure Sarah-obasan would want us home, too," Lucian continues. "Grannies have weak hearts, you know…?"
"All right, all right!" She says, rolling her eyes.
Right now, they were very fortunate compared to others since Kai is half-Japanese and actually have a grandmother waiting for them with warm foods and welcoming beds.
Just that, Lucian has to call his parents and sisters to check in on them, on top of calling Kai's family, on top of nagging at Kai to stop for the day. That's why he's so tired and near collapse.
"We have a lot of time to rest…" Kaira whispers as she finally zipped up her bag.
When Lucian heard this, he shot off the floor and bounded happily toward her.
"Are we going?!"
Kaira only grunted her response.
"Yes, yes!" He took the bag from Kaira and slung it on his shoulder. "There are a lot of comics I wanted to read, of course you have to translate it for me–"
"You do know there are English publications available, right?" Kaira sarcastically says, rolling her eyes at Lucian.
"–yes, but they're not the same, see? I'm sure there will be jokes better told at Japanese and such! Anyways, though I'm sure Sawamura will win, I'm still scared about Komadai."
"Can we please not talk about that? I'm depressed here!"
"Haha! Just like Seido more! Inashiro was toasted, anyway!"
"No! Inashiro for the win!"
"They lost, though," Lucian slyly says, cutting Kaira off when she opened her mouth to retaliate. "Anyways, I'm buying the original volume so let's just drive by the store."
"If it's open…"
"Oh… well, I'm sure there'll be somewhere open!"
"Not sure about that."
"There will! Don't be negative!"
And with the bubbly voice of the young man, fading away into the night, our story begins.
(Though they found no stores open.)
((*))
Meanwhile, one hot summer day in Osaka, on the field of the largest stage of high school baseball, Koshien, stood one blue-eyed blond, Narumiya Mei.
"–so do not be discouraged," Kunitomo Hiroshige, the coach of Inashiro Jitsugyo, solemnly says while looking at the group of sweaty, teary-eyed faces of his team.
They have just completed he Koshien series, placing first place, with Komadai snatching the championship once again.
"With every game, there will be lessons to learn," the coach continues. "Things to pick up and things to let go. We may not be bringing home the championship, but we will not be any lesser than what we were yesterday. There's only one way for us now, and that is climbing up higher to the top…"
Mei gets him. He understood what his coach is trying to say, but that didn't mean he liked it.
He slanted a look to his left where his catcher of almost three years stood and even if Masatoshi Harada stood with his back ramrod straight and proud, Mei just knows this isn't it.
He promised to himself, a year ago, he'll definitely give Masa a championship, on behalf of the seniors. But now…
He failed then and still now… he clenched his hands tightly until his nails dig deep to his palms painfully.
"… Treat this loss as a win, because we learned another thing: we still have a lot of growing up to do."
Mei still couldn't grant his seniors his promise.
"… While I know you feel down, I want you to look back where we once we're, only dreaming of coming here, until we turned this dream to reality and once again stood at this big stage. I want you to be proud of your efforts, your sweat and your sacrifices, and because of that, you stood here and fought until the end…"
There are sniffles and sobbing coming from his teammates, the seniors in front of him are already on their knees, crying openly. Even Mei could admit that, even though he wears a fierce grimace, there are definitely tears running down his face.
"… I am proud of such players. Those who fight for themselves and for their dreams. I have watched you do it. Be proud of yourself and stand tall."
And Mei cut off their dreams. These seniors, these friends, these juniors. He failed them. Once again.
"It's okay," comes a gentle whisper, two fingertips tapping on his wrist. "Not your fault."
"I know!" Mei harshly whispers back to one Kamiya Carlos Toshiki.
Carlos almost flinched back, but only smiled and rolled his eyes in the end. A few seconds later, a sharp pain shot to Mei's calf, where Shirakawa Katsuyuki kicked him with his cleats.
"That's rude!" Mei whispers, glaring at him momentarily.
"You're rude," Katsuyuki says, not backing down on Mei's glare.
"I know," Mei says again. "But words don't injure."
"Calm down," Carlos says, chuckling lightly. "Both of you are wrong anyway."
Mei only frowned deeper as his glare turned back to his coach, who allowed the members to cry their hearts out, and gritted his teeth in irritation.
"Thank you Mei-kun."
"Eh?" Mei's glaring eyes turned round, eyebrows rising as the weight on his chest seemed to turn lighter.
Yoshizawa Hideaki, kneeling on the ground, has his snotty face turned to Mei with a smile so big as if they have won.
"Thank you," he repeats. "Because of you–"
We lost.
"–we get to stand here. Thank you."
"Yeah," Hirai Tsubasa says. He wiped his years and bowed to Mei. "Thank you, Mei-kun. Because of you–"
We lost.
"–we played here again. My dream came true."
"Eh?"
An involuntary twitch of his muscles turned his mouth to an ugly smile, his face collapsing to an ugly twist as tears started filling up his eyes to the brink of release.
"Yeah, last year, I was just a bench warmer. This year, I get to play your fielder. Thanks, Mei!"
"Yeah, thanks Narumiya."
"Thank you. I can proudly say I played at Koshien."
"Thanks to you, I can brag to my future grandkids I played here!"
"Oi, we're still in high school, what are you talking about?"
"Thanks Mei! Next year, be sure to win it all!"
"Yeah Mei, get them for us!"
"Huh?"
And just like that, the previous atmosphere of defeat got changed to one of acceptance, letting go and hope for the future.
To one Narumiya Mei, as he looked at the one senior he respected so much and saw him smiling, the weight of responsibility on his shoulder got heavier as his hand descended on Mei's shoulder.
((*))