Chapter Text
I.
August, 1973
Takami Keigo arrived at Yuuei Preparatory Academy for Boys with ten dollars crumpled in his pocket and a measly knapsack slung over his shoulder.
Possessions weren’t exactly common with orphans. When you are born, you have parents. When you are orphaned, you no longer do, and that not having tends to seep into everything else like spilt black ink. He could count on one hand his “haves”: a t-shirt, two pairs of underwear, a copy of Dazai Osamu’s The Setting Sun, and his lacrosse cleats.
With his scholarship, the school promised to provide all his other essentials. Things like a toothbrush and shampoo and clothes to wear. Things that non-orphans had in excess. Most of them, at least.
Except orphan was a title Keigo hated more than anything. Orphans were children selling matches on the corner dressed in rags, faces caked with dirt. Keigo, on the other hand, was sixteen years old and fairly built for such an age. He had lacrosse to thank for it, especially the one warden at the orphanage who let him sneak out to play for the club every other night. It was pure luck that one of his games was scouted by Yuuei. He found his acceptance letter slipped beneath his door the very next morning.
But Yuuei had only ever been a place of rumor to him.
His roommates had mentioned the vast, rolling greenery and towering, sky-piercing buildings with ancient crown-molding framing every window and roof slat (not that any of them had seen it with their own eyes). The richest in the country sent their young boys there to study, or perhaps to twiddle their thumbs for four years and leave with a prestigious enough degree to take them anywhere they wished to go after the fact.
To see it, truly, turned Keigo’s feet into heavy stones at the top of the grassy knoll. The heat of summer paraded around him, hugging in close like a bustling crowd. If he moved any closer to the grandeur of stone and brick, it might paralyze him entirely. He’d never been somewhere so big. Everywhere he turned his gaze, there was more of it to be seen. Keigo swallowed a pocket of air and hiked his knapsack further onto his shoulder.
People milled down the pathways, interrupted by the occasional lamppost, all black-wrought iron curling like ribbons around the glass fixtures, each slightly different from the one before. The students, however, all walked with a similar sort of gait, their mothers following close behind in sleek updos and sensible pumps while their fathers hung back, narrowed gaze watching their sons’ every move as though to give him a thorough critique upon their arrival.
Keigo tried to ignore his out-of-place appearance as he neared the school. A ratty blue t-shirt, khaki pants that he’d grown out of two years ago, and his swollen gray-brown tennis shoes. He’d sold his lacrosse sticks for some pocket money to get a haircut, but the barber had shaved it a bit too short. His blonde locks now looked like baby bird feathers, fuzzy and stuck out in erratic positions. It was sort of fitting to how he felt, though—like he’d fallen out of the nest still covered in newborn goo, thrust into a world he couldn’t have known before.
Keigo’s eyes darted to every movement of the new world around him, the rustle of a shrub, the click of a heel against the cobblestone, a shifting cloud in the sky. His penchant for observance was a tactic of survival. In the orphanage with five to a room, your things were often stolen. Keigo slept with an eye open, it seemed, waiting for a thief to strike. And it was your fault if you said the wrong thing to someone on a down day and got into a nasty fight. It was best to wait, watch the quirk of their brow and the grit of their teeth, before greeting them.
Thus, Keigo’s eyes were weary by the time he reached the crowded front doors of the main dormitory hall. He was happy to be out of the blaring sun, but the crowd of voices and limbs made him cower into corners as he limped towards the stairwell. But the momentary pauses allowed him just enough time to look up and take everything in.
The marble floors polished into mirrors, a grand oak staircase oiled and wiped until it was silky to the touch, a vaulted ceiling that went so high Keigo felt dizzy just looking at it. He’d never been in such a nice building, and this was only one of the many on the campus. He felt sick, all of a sudden. But he couldn’t decide if it was the good kind of sick or the kind of sick that drove him into bed for days.
There was a significant crush of people at the bulletin board. Keigo tried to perch himself on his toes to get a better glimpse of what they were looking at, but there were too many heads taller than his, and the letters were so small on the sheets of paper that it wasn’t even worth his time.
Room assignments, he heard someone say over the bustle.
Keigo sighed. The hallways of the first floor looked empty. Maybe his best bet was to walk down and read every name, even though there had to be hundreds. It would get him away from the mayhem of the front hall and perhaps give him his first chance to breathe all day.
So he traversed the marble floors with his knapsack pulled close to his back. Not that any of the people here would be interested in his things, but habit was a hard thing to knock in Keigo’s case. And beyond his habit of holding his things close to his chest, he had a nasty fixation on escaping situations such as the one in the main hall. Conflict, turmoil—these were things Keigo avoided, and for good reason.
His walk down the halls was rather peaceful once the din of people descended into a mere hum, occasionally reminding Keigo that he was not totally alone. He made his way to the second floor. Then the third floor. He was halfway down the east hallway when he read his name on the plate of the door.
Takami Keigo
And in the spot where his roommate’s name was supposed to be, there was nothing.
Keigo’s hand trembled as he reached for the handle. He let himself inside and felt the warm sunlight from the window brush his bare ankles. There were two beds stationed on opposite ends of the room pressed up against the white concrete walls. The old wood floor creaked under Keigo’s feet as he set his things down and made his way to the bed on the left.
He ran his calloused hand over the quilt and the sheets beneath it. He’d never felt something so soft. His bed at the orphanage was like sandpaper on concrete in comparison. He wanted nothing more than to shed his shoes and climb in, snuggling into a long, needed sleep.
Instead, he distracted himself with the things on the nightstand: a toothbrush and a tube of toothpaste, a washcloth, a bottle of shampoo and a bar of soap, and a wide-toothed comb. They laid idle like fallen soldiers, a respectable amount of distance between them to have only been intentional.
A brand-new toothbrush.
His excitement was almost too embarrassing to even admit to himself.
But it was the first time he didn’t have to share such meager necessities. He wouldn’t have to ration the shampoo for his roommates or blister his fingers trying to squeeze the last drops of toothpaste from the tube.
Still, Keigo had the urge to scoop it all up and keep it in his knapsack, or maybe in the drawer. Everything being in plain sight like this made his stomach sink.
Maybe that was part of the reason he didn’t have a roommate. Without one, the room was as quiet as the dead, Keigo could hear his own breathing echoing off the walls. He’d never been without a low hum of noise—in the boy’s wing, someone was always shouting or stomping around or trying to get someone’s attention.
Maybe they knew he’d be erratic like this, orphan boy sleeping with his backpack strapped to his shoulder distrusting of everyone around him, so they gave him a room of his own.
He’d certainly be more focused all alone like this. And if he had any hope of keeping his costly lacrosse scholarship, he had to keep his grades up. That’s what the letter said.
In the closet was a modest collection of uniform clothes: two suit jackets, a woolen vest, three pairs of slacks, three button-ups, one striped tie, and a pair of brand-new brown loafers. Keigo ran his fingers over the material and tested the weight of it all in his palm. Nervousness grew like a balloon in the center of his chest, but he found he could mistake this feeling for excitement too.
There was a schedule for the day. He’d laid in bed with his acceptance letter memorizing it in case the paper got lost somewhere in his travels. There was check-in, which was happening now until two o’clock, then an assembly at three o’clock sharp in the chapel down the hill, and then the first dinner of the year at five o’clock.
Keigo didn’t exactly know where this chapel was, and he didn’t exactly have a roommate to ask. He planned to follow where everyone else went, become a shadow for a short while. Then, once he reached his destination, he could slip into the cracks, finish his year one step closer to the diploma that could change everything.
Because lacrosse was only one part of Keigo’s plan.
That was his in, the thing that happened in the background while he secured the future ahead of him. If he could get a degree like this from somewhere as prestigious as Yuuei—the thought wrung out his brain with an ebbing anticipation.
You’re smart, Keigo, his old teacher had told him, but your lack of ego, that’s what you have that others don’t have.
Keigo unbuckled his knapsack and started taking things out:
His t-shirt,
Ego is what buries people in the ground before they’ve even had a chance to speak.
one pair of underwear,
It strips men down, bares their soul to everyone—ego is the self, amplified.
another pair of underwear,
The higher your climb, the harder your fall.
his copy of Dazai Osamu’s The Setting Sun,
The ego-less man is happy in the end. He is safe.
and his lacrosse cleats.
You’ll be just fine, Keigo. All those other boys are going to hell.
II.
Keigo awoke with a stomachache, but he didn’t mind at all.
Rather, he rejoiced when he awoke nearly nine hours after consuming his first meal at Yuuei, he could still taste it in his mouth.
He’d never experienced anything like it. The weight of the plate alone in his hand made it feel full, but there was still sizzling steak and creamy garlic potatoes and marbled beef cuts and saffron rice and whatever else Keigo could possibly imagine. The richness collected just beneath his skin and gave him a sort of glow, or that’s how it felt when he trudged back to his room and took a look at his round, happy face in the mirror.
Sure, he’d sat alone. But that wasn’t totally unexpected. At the orphanage, everyone at together, so it was impossible to get a moment for yourself while you hacked away at your cardboard slab of meat. He enjoyed the rumble of the ornate dining hall, the occasional shout of boys reuniting after a long summer apart, and the scrape of the weighty silver utensils against the porcelain dishes.
Keigo dutifully kept his head down as he walked back up for seconds.
Even in the early morning, he could still taste the rich browned butter against his tongue as his stomach lurched at the thought of an equally filling breakfast. He glanced haphazardly over to the neighboring bed. Still empty.
Morning sunlight and chirping birds greeted him to his first day of classes. Keigo stretched out his aching limbs and headed for the closet. He tore off his ratty t-shirt and shorts then slipped on the slacks first. He put on a shirt, remembering how his old teacher had taught him to button it up, tuck it into your pants, and then sip everything up. Otherwise, it would look lumpy.
His hand wandered between the jacket and the vest for a while, mind lingering on more important things. He chose the jacket and held onto the sleeves of his top with his fingers as he put it on. Keigo looked in the mirror. He picked at the clothes until he was at least half satisfied.
They fit well, the clothes. Too well. Everything felt tight and winding, especially the collar around Keigo’s neck. He tended to wear oversized things from the older boys since it would give him something to grow into, but this was the perfect cut for a sixteen-year old boy of his stature. It accentuated the squaring-off of his shoulders with a stich like a cliff at the edge. It revealed the span of his chest as well as the bony prodding of his ribs against the fabric.
Keigo pawed at his hair. It was no use, though. He was satisfied just brushing his teeth and splashing cold water onto his face.
His new shoes pinched his toes as he descended the stairs and found himself out on the sunny grounds. There were hundreds of other boys milling around in matching outfits to his, some more untucked and disheveled than his own. But these boys certainly didn’t have the same worries that Keigo did, with losing a scholarship and all. They could afford to leave their shirts untucked and their ties loosened.
My tie.
Keigo had forgotten about it entirely. He pressed his palm against where it should be on his chest and felt his heartbeat quicken. He could just rush up the stairs and put it on, then be back on his way without losing a minute of his morning.
But there was one glaring problem with his plan.
Keigo didn’t know how to even do up a tie. No one had ever taught him.
They couldn’t kick you out just for not wearing a tie, right? That would be ridiculous. And only some of the other students are wearing ties. Well, most of them. What if that was the only required piece? Everything else was up to your discretion?
Keigo’s breath trembled past his lips. He had the urge to gnaw at his nails again, but they were already bitten down to the bloody nubs from the train ride.
My schedule.
Keigo’s mind reeled as he pulled the sweat-stained bit of paper out of his front pocket where his class schedule had been typed out for him. There was the name of the course, then the name of the professor, as well as which room it would be held in.
But Keigo didn’t know where Room 12 was. He didn’t even know what building it was in.
“Jesus Christ,” he hissed to himself.
He was an idiot. He should’ve walked around the grounds yesterday rather than shoving his face with food. He should’ve had the courage to just ask someone, anyone, because now he was going to be late to his first class which would surely get him kicked out of Yuuei and dash all of his chances.
Keigo felt like crying. No, he was about to cry. Right now, in front of everyone. And then he would pack up his things and go home and pretend like he’d never come here in the first place.
“You alright?”
The sudden voice made Keigo’s heart leap. He whipped around to find himself face-to-face with a towering figure. A student only evident by his uniform. He had coily black hair and deep skin. His eyes were round and kind, and they looked warily at Keigo.
“Excuse me?” Keigo muttered.
“You seemed a little stressed,” the student chuckled.
“I’m—” Keigo began, schedule tearing in his vice grip, “I’m not sure where I’m going.”
The student smiled. He took Keigo’s schedule from his hand and peered at it. Then, he stuck out his hand.
“Shinji Nishiya,” he introduced himself, “class president.”
Keigo heaved a sigh of relief.
“Lucky me,” he joked.
“Lucky you,” Shinji teased right back.
He took another look at Keigo’s schedule and patted him firmly on the back.
“This way,” he said, “I’ll walk you there.”
And together they started to stroll through the summer air. Keigo squared his shoulders, but he couldn’t come close to the height of Shinji nor the broadness of his back that made him seem more like a mountain than a man. Even so, he was still slim, he parted the sunlight like a ship’s mast through fog.
“You’re new,” said Shinji.
It was more of a statement than a question. Or perhaps an accusation. No matter what it was, Keigo was flush with the need to defend himself.
“Oh, yeah,” he stammered, “I’m playing for the lacrosse team.”
“Ah,” Shinji tilted his head back, “you’re the new cannon, huh?”
“Excuse me?” Keigo asked again.
Shinji smiled down at him.
“Lacrosse team’s always been good but ever since—” his face fell, “well, they lost a good player. In a bad way.”
Keigo shifted his bag on his shoulder to account for the sudden change in atmosphere. Shinji gritted his teeth, trapping something behind it.
“Anywho,” he shook his head, “they’ve been on the hunt for a new star. Looks like they’ve found it.”
Keigo’s cheeks burned at the insinuation. Sure, he was good at lacrosse, but he wasn’t a star by any measure. He was just—Keigo.
“There,” Shinji pointed to a large square stone building in the distance decorated with spires at each corner, “is where all your classes will be.”
He pointed to the ground floor.
“Any class that begins with the number one will be on the first floor there,” he said, “starts with the number two, the second floor, so on and so forth.”
He presented the crumpled schedule back to Keigo with a small smile.
“As long as you can count, you’ll be just fine.”
Keigo chuckled and felt just a smidge of the nervousness in his body dissipate.
“And when it’s time for practice,” he pointed to a green expanse at the bottom right corner, “that’s the lacrosse field.”
“Thanks,” said Keigo sheepishly.
“Sure thing,” Shinji turned to leave, then caught himself halfway, “what was your name again?”
Keigo fiddled with the corners of the schedule. He collected his thoughts just in time.
“Keigo Takami,” he replied.
Shinji nodded.
“See you around, Keigo,” he said.
“See ya,” Keigo replied weakly.
But by the time he’d thought to say it louder, Shinji was already gone.
Keigo let out a long breath. The sun had started to bear down on his neck. He could already imagine the red burn it would leave all across his skin. He checked his watch and rushed down to the building Shinji had showed him.
One.
Two.
Three.
Twelve.
Twenty-nine.
The numbers of the rooms spun around Keigo’s head like a dizzying carousel ride.
Sixteen.
Eight.
Eleven.
Seventeen.
He swallowed hard. He opened the grand front doors.
As badly as he wanted to stand in awe at the massive entryway of yet another fanciful building, he didn’t have time to do so. And there were students all around him shoving and milling around, chattering loudly to old friends.
Keigo slipped through the crush of people and found darkened hallway. He read the numbers by the doors, all plated in gold. Room 12, that was his first class. Chemistry.
Room 12.
Chemistry.
Hirabayashi.
Keigo sighed when his eyes caught the blessed one and two. A flush of light brought him out of his haze when he realized he was there. The torturous, uncertain morning was finally coming to an end. But his stomach felt tight, he should’ve eaten breakfast. Maybe they had real pork sausages and buttery eggs and piping-hot soup.
The thought alone almost convinced him to run off and spend his hour in the dining hall instead.
Because just as he entered the vast, wood-paneled classroom, the sudden courage in his body dissolved into near nothing.
He knew people were talking about him, he’d known since the prior night. Whispers brushed along his skin, leaving goosebumps in their wake. Eyes followed him like a dog caught on a lead, immune to any of Keigo’s tugging.
But in the echoey classroom, it all seemed magnified.
Keigo stared down at his feet and took a seat at a table in the front row. He knew he could bet on it being empty, so he’d planned to sit there in every class. At least then his classmates didn’t have to turn around to look at him and whisper; they could talk behind his back with ease.
He heard the beginnings of chatter as he opened his backpack and started to take out his thinning notebook and half-dull pencil.
I heard he’s from the orphanage.
I heard his parents died in a car crash.
I heard that they were drug dealers who got arrested.
Keigo picked at the wood of his pencil with his fingernail.
I heard his dad threw him out on the street, broke both his arms.
I heard his mom tried to gouge out his eyes, that’s why he got sent away.
None of them were right.
Perhaps because the truth was that much worse.
But they seemed to be entertained by these fantasies of Keigo’s life. Maybe they’d never met someone who was poor before, so all the things that couldn’t be true for them could suddenly be true for someone so different.
Keigo kept his head low. He sighed in relief when the teacher sauntered up to the board.
That was his plan, after all.
Get the grade. Keep your head down.
Stay alive.
III.
The first lacrosse practice of the term was set for the end of that very day.
Keigo packed up his things from his final class, Literature, and headed back out to the rolling landscape of Yuuei. The blazing sun made his vision pulse in and out, fluid shifting in his ears as though he’d been underwater all day.
Granted, Keigo hadn’t had any lunch.
Maybe he was just so nervous about his first day or realized he didn’t have anyone to sit with or was that worried about finding his next class that even the allure of scalloped potatoes and thinly-sliced beef couldn’t coax him away from the comfort of the three-stall bathroom on the second floor.
Silence surrounded him as he sat with his back to the toilet and his legs pulled up to his chest. He’d only marveled for a second at the white marble floors and delicate porcelain sinks before retreating to one of the stalls which was more of its own room. The toilet had a cover and there was a little wooden table beside it. Keigo couldn’t devise what it could possibly be used for.
But even with a grumbling stomach, Keigo was at peace. All the whispers seemed to pile up in his ears, and he needed a true moment of silence to let them seep back out. The bathroom smelled like lemons and perfume, so much so that he wondered if he’d gone into the girl’s bathroom by mistake. But it seemed unlikely at an all-boys school.
He set aside his uncertainty while he sat with his knees hiked up to his chest and his eyes trained on the brass stall handle. The church bells chimed in the distance. Keigo checked his watch. 12:11pm. Four minutes until afternoon classes. Four hours until his first lacrosse practice of the season.
Sure, he was hungry, but not unbearably so. He could tough it out for a few more classes and maybe even through practice until they were released to dinner. The plan felt foolproof as he sauntered down the halls as quiet and as unassuming as a bug crawling between the stones of the walls.
By the next chime of the church bells, Keigo couldn’t tell if the fluttering in his stomach was nerves or excitement or oncoming starvation. Students crowded the halls with rousing cheers. Keigo listened in on their conversations about going to some wall at the edge of campus or claiming a tree on the grounds for all their friends. Keigo certainly wasn’t included in any of these grand plans, but he was happy to not hear whispers about him anymore.
He took a deep breath of crisp outdoor air, no matter how humid it may have been. He glanced up into the sun with a sudden wave of dizziness, the light pulsing in his vision and leaving flares behind his eyelids. Keigo swallowed hard and started down the hill. He replaced thoughts of decadent food with thoughts of lacrosse.
Back at the club, he was in charge of repairing the pockets on the crosses when they tore. It wasn’t exactly regulation to have them all knotted up like that, but regulation was a fuzzy thing for those coaches. That’s how Keigo got more scars up his legs than a sixteen-year-old should reasonably have.
But other than his shoes, which he’d had shoved at the bottom of his bag all day, Keigo was coming with nothing. What if they’d wanted him to bring his own stick? Should he have grabbed one of the less battered ones from the club? Even if he did, it would probably look downright primitive to the other players. He should’ve brought it anyways. Just in case. Now he would look woefully unprepared and the coach would have no choice but to ask him to leave the team and the school altogether.
Words appeared before his eyes in bright yellows, screaming themselves into Keigo’s attention, symptoms of his onset paranoia, no doubt.
Or it was just the banners on the wall of the locker rooms.
That seemed more likely. The crimson fabric embroidered with golden, swooping names, indicating the year of the championship and the players who brought it home. Keigo slipped through the door and took in the silence. Empty. He’d arrived almost embarrassingly early for a reason.
He wanted a moment to himself to observe the real tile floors beneath his feet, how the grout had been scrubbed clean in anticipation for the year. He wanted to feel the oak shelves, find the brass plate with his name embossed. Keigo’s breath caught in his throat when he found it. He let his eyes roam across the name until he was sick of it.
TAKAMI KEIGO
The cubby was stuffed full, just like all the others. On the bottom shelf were practice clothes: crimson t-shirts with the school’s logo pressed on the front and breathable black shorts. Keigo carded through the hanging clothes with his mouth agape, fingers dancing along the heavy fabrics. A bloodred jersey, gold shorts, shiny new shoulder pads. His helmet was perched on the top shelf along with a brand-new pair of socks and a cup which made Keigo shiver with the memory of some of his more personal injuries on the field.
Suddenly, he could hear chatter outside the door. He was early but not so early that he wouldn’t be caught alone admiring the clothes. So he grabbed his practice outfit for the day and dashed off to the bathroom which smelled of bleach rather than lemons like before.
There, he changed. And there he sat while the world turned right outside the door. Some boys came into the bathroom to check their hair and talk crudely about someone at the neighboring girl’s school, but they never noticed Keigo in the middle stall. He kept running his hands down the front of his shirt where the school’s crest stood proud. He let the boisterous chatter fade to the background of his thoughts.
His shoes in comparison to the rest of his outfit were nothing short of dismal. He considered scrubbing at them in the sink, but then they would be wet and Keigo’s feet would get that painful rash like when the roof at the orphanage leaked and soaked his only pair of sneakers.
When he heard the assistant coach bellow over the chatter that practice was beginning in three minutes, Keigo rushed out of the stall and stood before the mirror.
He pawed at his hair, uneven blonde patches with the occasional streak of brown. His eyes were muddied in the lights, dark circles gaping below. Keigo tried to square his shoulders and stand tall like his old teacher had taught him. But with the first step he took towards the door, his posture fell. He became small again, almost invisible, and eager to remain that way through practice.
“Over here! Line up,” the head coach shouted.
Keigo slipped into the group already headed in that direction. He joined the second line, perfectly hidden by the tall first line of players. He clasped his hands behind his back and mimicked the attentive pose of the rest of the boys.
The coach was a scrawny man no older than forty. He was wearing an old visor and a polo tucked into some khakis. A whistle glinted off his chest. Keigo wondered how he was managing the heat in pants.
“We’ll be meeting here at exactly five o’clock each afternoon except for Fridays and the weekend,” the coach shouted as he meandered back and forth, “Saturdays you’re here at eight unless we’re playing a game that night, Sundays you’re off.”
Keigo committed it all to memory as he had with his class schedule.
“But I’m not giving you a day off so you can leave campus and drink yourselves sick,” said the coach, “don’t groan at me, I know what you boys get up to.”
Some of the players chuckled and nudged their friends beside them.
“Take care of your bodies, and they’ll take care of you during the game,” he said, “and if any of you show up hungover to my Saturday morning practices, I’m telling the Headmaster and you’ll be outta here quicker than a dog on a jackrabbit.”
Keigo gritted his teeth. He wasn’t planning on drinking Friday night, but the possibility of doing it and getting kicked out still made him nervous.
The coach reached to his right for the clipboard in the hands of his assistant.
“I’m calling roll, listen up!” He shouted.
He peered down at the sheet of paper.
“I’m here!”
Keigo worried that someone’s name had been called and he just hadn’t heard it. But everyone had looked to the front gate of the field where a tall student in a girl’s uniform was sprinting head-on towards the locker rooms.
“You’ve got four minutes to change,” the coach huffed without even looking up.
“Roger!”
From such a great distance, Keigo could barely pick out anything but the billow of her gray skirt and a flash of her silvery hair before she disappeared into the stone building. He turned his attention back to the coach when he started to hear names.
Akiyama!
Here.
Furukawa!
Here.
Ikeda!
Here.
Matsushida!
Here.
Okamura!
Here.
Sano!
Here.
Takami!
Keigo’s throat got tight. He wrenched his head upwards and choked out a weak noise before gathering his bearings.
“Here!” he croaked.
The rhythm of the coach’s voice stopped. His deep-set eyes with their folded-over lids swept up to the rows of boys.
“Where are you?” He asked.
As if on cue, the rest of the boys on the team turned to stare at Keigo with laser-sharp accuracy. He swallowed the knot in his throat and raised a tentative hand. The coach met his gaze, then nodded.
“Glad you made it,” he said gruffly, then addressed the rest of the team, “watch out for this one. He’ll blow all of you right out of the water.”
If their simple stares hadn’t been bad enough, Keigo could now feel heat searing into his head from their fury-filled eyes. He hunched his shoulders, cowering back into the crowd while the roll continued.
Taniguchi!
Here.
Todoroki!
Silence.
The coach sighed. He looked up.
“Any sign of him?” He asked, annoyed.
A few of the students shook their heads. Some shrugged. Most did nothing.
The coach sighed again and returned to the roll.
“Guess we’ll see if he bothers today,” he muttered.
And like nothing had happened at all, he continued on.
Usagiyama!
“Here!”
It was the same voice from earlier, now much closer, positioned at the end of the line.
She stood proud, almost half a head taller than the average player. Her arms and legs were tanned and thick, evident from the stretch of the practice jersey and shorts around them. Her silvery hair, even when pulled up into a ponytail, reached the middle of her back, long and straight strands glittering in the sunlight.
Her eyes were fiercely narrow, focused only on the task ahead but still attuned to every extraneous sound and movement. She stood with her hands folded behind her back and her nose pointed towards the sky.
“Nice to see you again, Rumi,” the coach said.
And she didn’t cower like Keigo did, she didn’t even smile.
“Thank you, Coach,” she said plainly.
Urano!
Here.
Watanabe!
Here.
Yamagishi!
Here.
Yoshida!
Here.
And Yuuki!
Here, Coach.
And that was that. No sooner had they been lined up than they were on the field warming up with the assistant coach’s. Keigo found himself at the far left side, close enough to listen in on Coach and Rumi.
“You know I can’t let you play this year, right?” He said.
“I know,” Rumi sighed, “but you’ll let me practice, right?”
“I could help you draft up another petition for a team at the girl’s school,” said Coach.
Rumi shook her head, “They won’t go for it. I already asked a million times.”
The coach’s shoulders fell.
“Fine. You can practice. But regulation won’t even let you sit on the bench for games.”
“No problem,” Rumi replied, her energy restored, “thank you, seriously.”
Then she rejoined the warm-up, stretching her legs further to each side than any of the other players could hope to ever reach.
Still, even as practice began in full-swing, Keigo found himself watching the gate, waiting for the fated missing player that no one seemed to care much about in the first place.
Coach announced their positions for the day, a quick friendly scrimmage to get to know each other again, get a feel for the new team. Keigo was the last to be placed as Attack. He acknowledged his temporary team with a nod.
“Furukawa will fill in for Goalie, I guess,” said Coach to the other team.
Todoroki. Missing. Goalie.
Keigo filed away the information for later.
He took one last look to the front gates as everyone took their positions for the first match. Then, he closed his eyes, feeling his feet rub up against the familiar sides of his old shoes, observing the push of the soles into the plush grass below. He imagined his teammates as well as the space around them, painting an abstract recreation for himself in his head. That way, even when he blinked, he could see everything.
Of everything he’d encountered since arriving at Yuuei Preparatory School for Boys, this was the first moment where Keigo felt like he belonged.
He tried to focus on the shape of the field instead of the shape of his new school shoes he wore all day, how they pinched his toes into an unnatural point. He tried to focus on the players out of the corner of his eye rather than the vast green fields and towering stone buildings in the distance.
He watched the arc of the ball and heard it snap into the pocket of someone’s cross. Keigo started to back up. The offense was gathering behind him, he could feel their energy shift. So he watched as the midfielder accounted for his options.
But if Keigo remembered correctly, he had a straight shot for the stocky offensive player who’d stood in the front while the coach gave his spiel. He was at a strict diagonal, poised to shoot right around the goalie’s corner.
“Here!” Keigo cried in a full-bodied voice.
If only he could’ve sounded like that during roll.
The midfielder hesitated just for a second before passing the ball.
Keigo’s eyes never left its edges, even as it swept into the pocket of his crosse. The weight was so familiar to him, his hands could’ve danced with joy. But instead, they were slick with sweat wrapped tightly around the taped handle. Keigo turned and eyed down the offensive player who was right where he’d imagined him to be.
Their gazes locked. Keigo passed the ball as the opposing players crossed the field to him and the goalie rocked from foot to foot.
The pass was near perfect, barely hitting the plastic ring of the pocket. And with a swooshing sound, the ball was in the net and Keigo was being patted hard on the back.
“Nice pass, Takami,” someone said.
“Good eye!” Another player shouted.
“It’s not fair,” Keigo overheard someone from the opposing team say, “we have someone filling in as Goalie.”
Keigo looked down at his feet. They were right, it didn’t really count, not when their goalie hadn’t bothered to show up. Keigo had much more to prove than making a goal.
Thankfully, he had an entire practice to do so.
With excitement filling the empty spaces in his stomach, Keigo dashed down the field and completed a quick interception—another goal, another slap on the back.
He completed a dozen more passes to the offense that put him in one degree of separation from the goal itself. More goals, more bruises on his tender back.
And just as the other team’s grumblings became obvious, Keigo was checked with an opposing stick.
The assistant coach blew his whistle, the sound peeling through the boys’ shouts like a whip.
“Okamura! Come on,” he groaned, beckoning the player to the bench behind him with a flick of his head.
Rumi wasn’t half-bad, though, despite being on the losing team. She’d scored their single goal early in the match, simply by being faster than anyone else and faking out the goalie right at the last second. When there wasn’t any action on Keigo’s side of the field, he enjoyed watching Rumi dance around the other players and always pass with a sharp grunt.
It was a shame she couldn’t play in the official matches. Keigo could already imagine a million plays they’d be able to run together.
They didn’t get to talk until the break though when Keigo was trying to get the stars out of his eyes from standing up too fast.
“You play a mean game out there,” Rumi said to him.
Her voice was melodic yet sort of gravelly, like she’d yelled her throat raw before coming to practice.
“Thanks,” Keigo muttered.
“Where’d you play before?” She asked.
“Oh,” Keigo’s cheeks went red, “just—at a club.”
“Right,” Rumi nodded, “where are you from?”
Keigo looked up at Rumi’s round, sweaty face where her eyes were shining curiously. He thought about his day, all the whispering and giggling and whatnot.
Maybe the news hadn’t reached the girl’s school yet.
“Fukuoka,” he said.
“Oh, cool,” said Rumi, taking another gulping drink of water, “see you out on the field, yeah?”
And then she was gone, leaving Keigo with just the memory of the second normal conversation he’d had since arriving at Yuuei.
The assistant coach blew the whistle, and the team was back on its feet, switching sides for the second half of the match. Keigo was a little unsteady on his feet with the ascent, his head filling with this strange cottony sensation, but he shook it off in time to hear the muted whispers of his teammates, eyes pointed to the front gates.
Someone was sauntering in, tall and lean, almost slinking past the locker rooms and towards the field. Keigo tried to make something out of the blurring shapes as the figure got closer, but the sun was bearing down so hard that all he could see were blobs of black.
“Shit, I didn’t think he’d actually show,” someone on his team whispered to their friend.
The figure got closer. Keigo could make out his tight, black shirt and rough-hewn gray workers pants. His thick black boots crunched into the clay track that surrounded the field. His hair was jet black, standing up at every end.
The Coach stood with his arms crossed as he neared.
Todoroki.
“Kind of you to show up,” Coach grumbled.
Todoroki placed his hand mockingly over his heart.
“Always a pleasure, Nishida,” he said sweet as tar.
“That’s Coach to you.”
“Right,” Todoroki said, gnawing carelessly on his thumbnail.
The rest of the team watched in silence. Keigo wondered if everyone was stunned like he was or simply uneager to engage.
But the coach’s earlier speech still echoed in Keigo’s ears. He could only imagine what he would do to this punk. Maybe he’d get kicked off the team in front of everyone—talking back to Coach like that on top of being late, he was really in for it.
“Just—” the Coach waved him off, “go get changed.”
Todoroki smiled insincerely before turning on his thick rubber heel and heading towards the locker rooms. Keigo stood in disbelief. After all that, he was still going to be allowed to play?
“Take another five,” Coach grumbled, “we won’t start until he’s out.”
This guy better be a damn good goalie.
In fact, Keigo was so curious that he stood a little closer to the opposing team’s net as they all set themselves up for the second half. He tried not to stare as Todoroki strolled out in his practice clothes, stick in one hand and his helmet in the other. The rest of the players seemed to have moved on from his sudden presence, leaving Keigo wondering all on his own.
The play began the moment Todoroki was in place. Keigo tried to push all thoughts of him to the side as he watched the ball soar through the air and cut clean lines through the cropped grass. He got ahold of it, the rhythm of the play the same as before. He almost smiled when he looked up and saw his teammate ready to receive.
But he couldn’t ignore Todoroki out of the corner of his eye, his long, spindly limbs and sickly pale skin. He passed the ball then got up close to the net, eyeing that same player to let him know he wanted to take a shot.
Then, the ball was back in his own pocket and Keigo had positioned himself perfectly for an underhanded shot at the sliver of available corner. He thrust the stick forward and imagined how the ball would look hitting the back of the net, imagining where his teammates would hit him on the back in celebration.
Instead, the ball hit a different sort of net.
Particularly the pocket on Todoroki’s stick.
The opposing team cheered louder than Keigo’s team had the entire match. Todoroki leaned on the top of his stick and picked his helmet up off his face, letting Keigo get his first good look.
The hair was only a small part of his jarring appearance. Everything else was holes, silver capped holes in his nose and his lip and all up his ears. When he smiled, everything stretched and caught the sunlight. He had a smile that made Keigo shiver, even in the blazing heat.
“Nice shot,” Todoroki teased.
Keigo pursed his lips. He let out a hot sigh.
Fuck, he thought.
He’s a damn good goalie.
Once Keigo believed something, he was unlikely to un-believe it, but that didn’t stop him from trying to prove himself wrong.
He started making more shots than before, constantly asking for the ball from the other players just for another chance at a goal. But every time, without fail, Todoroki was there with his smug smile and piercing blue eyes. Keigo could feel a woozy sort of determination building up inside of him like cement.
Another shot missed. Keigo cursed to himself and hoped Coach wasn’t watching.
“Alright, Keigo,” he heard the assistant coach shout, “let’s not forget about passing.”
But that made him even more furious, especially when he couldn’t help but look over at Todoroki after it was said.
Yet another shot went right into Todoroki’s pocket. Yet again, he smiled.
Keigo had taken a firm step away from the goal afterwards when the first wave hit him. It felt like nausea, but it had to be more than that. His fingers and toes were buzzing, and the definite shapes of the field had turned to blobs.
“Y’okay?” A player had asked him.
“Uh-huh,” Keigo grunted.
But he was certainly not okay after another step. He hunched over, feeling another wave of awfulness overcome him from the top of his head to the bottoms of his feet. He could feel people gathering around him.
No. He had to pull it together. He had to play.
“Sorry,” said Keigo, forcing himself upright, “just feeling a little—”
Whatever he’d planned on saying, it was lost in waves of black, the same black that was closing in on his eyes. He swayed backwards.
Then, there was nothing.
IV.
It had been a good dream, at least.
Because when Keigo awoke to a hard-rock bed under his back and a faint smell of chemicals, he knew he’d woken up back in the old orphanage. Soon enough, a crowd of boys would come crashing in, shouting, causing a stir enough for Keigo to never even hope of falling back asleep.
But it had been a damn good dream.
He could almost touch it all, still, the stone walls and the lacrosse stick and the soft leather shoes. He could imagine the taste of that rich dinner and the smell of the bathroom he’d skipped lunch in.
A beautiful, hopelessly unreal dream.
“Keigo?”
The voice was soft and resonant.
“Hey, Keigo.”
Maybe he was dead. Perhaps this was an angel.
“I know you’re awake, just open your eyes,” the girl’s voice broke through the swimming in his ears.
Wait.
Girl?
Keigo’s hazel eyes squinted open just enough for the sharp lights overhead to dizzy him all over again.
Ah. So that’s what had happened.
That beautiful dream he’d had, it was all real, particularly the goose-egg that was throbbing on the back of his head.
“Ahh,” Keigo grunted as he tried to sit up in the stiff clinic bed.
“Easy tiger,” the voice said again.
Keigo blinked the bleariness out of his eyes and saw Rumi sitting next to him, her legs and arms crossed tight and her foot wiggling impatiently. She was still in her practice clothes, but practice must have been long over judging by the sliver of sun that still remained over the horizon, dusting the wood-paneled walls of the clinic in a rare purplish glow.
“Shit,” Keigo hissed to himself as he grazed the tender spot on his head with his pointer finger.
“Passed out pretty hard back there,” said Rumi.
Keigo sighed. He looked at his hands, still rubbed red from gripping his lacrosse stick. The bed beneath him started to ache against his backside, and the paper crinkled with every breath he took.
“I didn’t eat lunch,” he admitted.
“That’s a stupid thing to do,” replied Rumi.
Keigo almost laughed. He might’ve if he’d had the strength in his body.
“I know,” he whispered.
Rumi uncrossed her arms and started fiddling with the ends of her hair.
“And with how hard you played, no wonder you were sheet-white when you went down,” she teased, “Touya really put you on, huh?”
“Who?” Keigo asked.
Rumi reeled back a little.
“Touya?” She said, “The goalie?”
Ah.
Keigo’s chest started to feel hot again, all his limbs awakening at the memory’s resurgence. He thought about his smile and the way he’d spoken to the coach. But what was more infuriating than any of that was how good he was at his job and how impossible it had been for Keigo to get anything past him.
“Guess it’s good you’ll be playing on the same team,” Rumi shrugged.
“How come he got to play at all?” Keigo asked sourly, reaching for the cup of lukewarm water on his nightstand, “Being late and all, why didn’t Coach bench him for the rest of practice?”
Rumi leaned forward with a look as though Keigo had suggested they jump from a window and test the boundaries of human flight. Her lips fell open.
“You don’t know who he is?”
Keigo looked around, “No?”
“You grow up under a rock or something?” She asked.
No, an orphanage.
“Something like that,” Keigo said instead.
“The Todorokis,” said Rumi, “they’ve got more money than God. His dad practically runs the country, this school included.”
Maybe it was true, or maybe Rumi was just pulling his leg and when he looked like he really believed it, she would smile and laugh at him forever about it.
“For real?” Keigo asked as casually as he could.
“Yeah,” Rumi leaned back into her seat, “and Touya’s in line to inherit everything. So, basically, Touya gets away with everything because if the Todoroki cashflow gets pulled from this school—”
She pulled her thumb across her neck and made a squelching noise of death.
“Oh,” said Keigo.
If he was one to read the tabloids, he probably would’ve seen plenty about such a prestigious family, but the orphanage only had three magazines that were all a decade old. But the boys were more interested in the politics of who had to clean the bathroom at the end of the week than any actual current events.
“He’s an asshole, sure,” said Rumi, “but he’s a damn good goalie, too. So we’ve learned to live with it.”
Keigo couldn’t help but agree.
Not that it made him feel any better. If he had it his way, he would’ve spent all this time that he was passed out trying to get the ball past Todoroki Touya, betting his life on it if he had to. And maybe, at the end, he’d be able to pin that asshole down and punch that smug smirk off his face for good.
Keigo shook the thought from his head. A sinking feeling overtook his insides.
No.
I can’t think like that.
Not how he thought.
He needed to think of something else.
“Oh! I brought you dinner,” Rumi exclaimed.
Keigo could’ve cried with relief.
She set up a small table over his lap and placed the covered dish atop it. Keigo could already smell the potatoes and the steaming stew. He tried not to seem so famished in front of his new friend.
“Akiyama brought your clothes and shoes up to your room,” said Rumi as she stood, dusting off her practice shorts.
“You’re leaving?” Keigo asked, instantly regretting how pathetic it sounded.
“Gotta get back to the girl’s school before curfew,” she said as she passed the foot of his bed, “Eat up. I’ll see you at practice tomorrow.”
She disappeared with a swish of her hair down the hall and around the corner. Keigo stared into his distorted reflection in the silver lid of his dinner tray.
Touya gets away with everything.
There were kids back in the orphanage like that. Not Keigo. He could never get away with anything, not even a white lie. Someone always ratted him out.
He tried to think about his dinner as he was eating it so that all the space in his mind that might be filled with other things was occupied with something that didn’t much matter. When he was done, he left his dish, scraped clean, on the bedside table and started to ease himself out of the clinic.
They’d given him something, maybe an IV of sorts since his elbow ached. It made him steady enough on his feet to find his way out of the administration building and down the hill to the dormitory.
Dinner was long over, the straggling boys either back in the comfort of their rooms or already out on the streets, celebrating their first successful sneak out of school. Keigo didn’t mind the eerie emptiness. He was content to walk all on his own as slow as he pleased.
Keigo sighed in the dusty air when he reached the dormitory. His eyes were heavy with fatigue even though he’d been knocked out for an hour or two. All he wanted was to stuff his face into the soft, silky pillow and not let it back up until morning broke.
He lusted after the heavy quilt and the crisp white sheets. With a full stomach like this, he would be gone in an instant, drowned in the land of dreams.
Keigo smiled a bit as he opened the door to his room, ready to welcome his bed with open arms. His eyes were trained on it. He was ready.
Then someone cleared their throat.
Keigo turned.
Someone was standing at the opposite bed, unpacking, clothes already littering the floor. Jet black hair stuck up to the heavens and a million silvery bits littering their face, there was no mistaking him.
Todoroki Touya.
He smiled, just like before, and pointed lazily at Keigo.
“Hey,” he hummed, “aren’t you the kid that passed out?”