High Speed!

Chapter 10 – Feel

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Chapter 10 – Feel

–– Before practice begins, I’d like you to come to the back of the pool.

Summoned by Ikuya, Haruka unwillingly walked after Makoto and Asahi with a reluctant expression. It’s bound to be something bothersome anyways. It stank of the presentiment that he’ll get caught up in something useless.

When they went to the back of the pool, Ikuya was standing there with a serious face. There’s a hole dug at his feet, and a cookie tin is placed inside it with its lid off. And a bunch of photos in Ikuya’s hand.

“Everyone, thanks for coming. Now, I’m going to break away from the past. So, I’d like you to see it through.”

Oh dear. Just as Nao had told him, it seems that he’s intending to reveal himself. He leaves the complaining to Asahi.

“Why do we gotta see it through? S’thing like this.”

“Aren’t we in the same first year boys’ group?”

Ikuya’s long eyelashes quiver.

“Like I care. Do it alone!”

Makoto grabbing his arm as he tries to turn on his heels, Asahi grimaced.

“All right, Ikuya-kun. We’ll see it through properly.”

From Makoto’s words, Ikuya’s stiff expression suddenly softens.

“Okay.”

Ikuya puts one photo into the cookie tin.

“Sports day.”

Then, he puts in another one and another one.

“Amus.e.m.e.nt park. Playing in the sand. Bath. New Year’s. Kite flying……”

There were three people in every photo.

“This is a photo of when Natsu-nii won a compet.i.tion for the first time. This is when Satomi’s essay won a prize. And this is when my picture got the Mayor’s Prize.”

It was a photo where they were holding a portrait of the three of them. Each of these are probably filled with memories, he thinks. He understands the sentiment, but couldn’t he put them all in at once? Also, he thinks that Makoto doesn’t need to nod after every single one.

“I thought that it’s enough if the three of us are together. I thought that I can live with just the three of us. I thought that I didn’t need anyone else. I thought that I… don’t need something like friends.”

While saying that, he puts in photos one by one. Watermelon splitting, and a photo of eating that watermelon. Tanabata, fireworks, the Milky Way. The stars don’t show on it, but it was written as such on the border of the photo.

“But, I’ve decided to stop being fixated on the past.”

Pancakes, ice cream, takoyaki.

“From now on, only forward––”

Snowman, snow hut, s...o...b..ll fight.

“I’m going to gaze at only the future!”

Photo of a pool.

“And when I graduate, the me who has grown will dig up these photos!”

Photo of a pool. Then, a photo of a pool again.

“Me, who’ll have grown enough that everyone can laugh away that I used to be fixated on the past––”

Putting a close-up of the three of them in last, he puts the lid onto those smiles. While making the ends of his long eyelashes glimmer just a little, Ikuya covers the cookie tin with dirt.

Makoto is watching over Ikuya with a kind look in his eyes.

Perhaps because he was influenced by Ikuya’s ceremony, Asahi is unusually tight-lipped with an earnest look on his face. All of a sudden, that Asahi raised his voice.

“I––. I overtook Haru in the medley, ya know.”

He’s been told many times.

“Then, in the semifinals, Haru overtook me…… At that time, I didn’t understand what I was overtaken by, at first. It sounds weird, but I really thought so.”

Ikuya looks up at Asahi with wet eyelashes and Makoto gently releases Asahi’s arm.

“When I was overtaken, Haru’s lane shined. Some kind of big light came at an incredible speed, I was overtaken like pchoo, I got surprised, swallowed water, sank cuz of it, and pee–……, forfeited……”

Asahi doesn’t look at Haruka’s face. He wouldn’t look.

“Uncool and miserable, I was ashamed to look everyone in the face, ……and then, I became unable to swim the free.”

–– It’s your fault!

It felt like he’s shouting that again.

“Until I become able to swim it again, I’m not going back to Bandou SC. ……I can’t go back.”

Ikuya had finished covering it with dirt, and as he’s about to say something while standing up, he swallows it. Perhaps it was consolation, or sympathy, or maybe words that he was about to direct towards Haruka.

–– It’s your fault.

Ikuya’s voice that sounded like a spell is revived in his ears.

“I played hooky a lot to begin with, so, probably no one’s worried, I’m sure they think it’s just as usual.”

The feeling that he wants them to think that is in his words.

“Ya know, I was pretty good in the SC, even if I didn’t practice much. I didn’t remain until the finals, but I thought it’s fine like that and doesn’t really matter. There’s a name for this kind of thing, right?”

King of the castle. Frog in a well. Planarian stuck to a rock.

“At the compet.i.tion, Sakuyuki told me. Why do I continue swimming even though I’ve become unable to swim. Why do I continue, for someone who hates practice. ……I don’t know why, either. He told me to come to practice if I like swimming, but I don’t really get it. …..I can’t remember the first time I swam the free. I wonder how I swam it. I wonder what I should do so I can swim it again……”

Asahi drops his gaze onto the soil where Ikuya had buried it. Makoto gently put his hand on his back.

“Sometimes, I become unable to swim, too.”

Asahi and Ikuya direct their eyes towards Makoto. Raising his brows, Makoto was showing a good-natured smile.

“I get hopelessly afraid of the water, and when that happens, I become unable to swim anymore.”

Makoto’s hand leaves Asahi’s back, and he tightly grabs onto just the bottom edge of Haruka’s clothes.

“You know, a little while ago, too, the rubber boat my siblings were riding in was carried away by the sea…… But, I was scared and couldn’t go save them……”

Still smiling, Makoto’s grip gets stronger.

“In the end, Haru saved them for me. I can’t do anything unless Haru’s there.”

After tightly gripping once more, Makoto releases his hand and directs his gaze toward Haruka.

–– Haru, what do you think?

Makoto asks a question. He can’t answer. He doesn’t understand anything about Makoto.

Asahi looks at Haruka while the wind makes his spiky hair sway.

–– Haru, why do you swim?

If there’s a reason for swimming, he’s given it up long ago.

Ikuya stares at Haruka, with light still gathered on his long eyelashes.

–– Nanase, where are you trying to move towards?

He doesn’t know if there’s anything beyond swimming. He’s just swimming, feeling the water.

While understanding that the three of them are asking him questions, Haruka turned to the side and averted his gaze. He thinks it’s ridiculous. He doesn’t know what they’re expecting, but he’s getting the worst of a stray blow. He got caught up in quite the confession tournament. ––He can’t go along with it.

“Makoto, let’s go to practice.”

Only saying that much, Haruka turned around on his heels and started to walk.

“……Haru.”

While hearing the sound of Makoto’s footsteps coming along with him, he felt it on his back that the other two were standing still. If they want to be there, they can stay there until they’re satisfied. It has nothing to do with him.

On the way home after practice, perhaps because she had sensed Ikuya’s refreshed mood, Satomi asked somewhat delightfully.

“What happened? Ikuya-kun.”

“What?”

He says on purpose. It’s showing on his face, he himself knows that much.

“Did something good happen?”

It did. His new self took a step and his companions accepted that from him, he thinks. Probably……

“I decided to become strong. I vowed that to Nanase and the others today.”

Satomi smiled from Ikuya’s words bubbling with hope.

“Really? I’m happy. You finally came back to being the Ikuya-kun you used to be. Aiming for the Olympics with Natsu-nii––”

She was about to say ‘Like you did back then’, then swallows her words.

“I am. Because it’s our dream, right? For the three of us.”

“––Yeah!”

Satomi replied vigorously and cheerfully. It really is good when Satomi’s cheerful, he thinks. A sunken expression doesn’t suit her. However, it’s none other than Ikuya himself who had made her make such an expression. At the same time as feeling a pain in his chest when he thinks about it, he felt something like a sense of duty welling up that he must protect that smile.

“For the sake of that, I left the past behind.”

“The past?”

“I buried old photos behind the pool.”

“Photos?”

“Photos with the three of us in them. I’ve stopped being fixated on the world that was just the three of us. From now on, I’ll walk with my new companions––”

“What kind of photos?”

Satomi’s words cover the end of Ikuya’s sentence.

“Uhm, like the sports day, the summer festival, the pool, the bath.”

“––Bath?”

Satomi’s expression becomes clouded and she stops.

“When we were little, we often went in together, didn’t we? It’s a picture from then.”

Ikuya stops as well and directs a smile towards Satomi.

“Nanase-kun and the others saw that?”

“Yeah. Everyone saw it through. That’s why we’re already companions––”

Before he finished saying it, all of a sudden Satomi’s open hand flew at him.

“Idiot!”

Her dry voice echoes and Ikuya holds his cheek. Without even knowing what happened, Satomi suddenly began to run towards the school. Still holding his cheek, Ikuya watched Satomi’s retreating figure for a while, but concluding at last that Satomi must be in a bad mood today, he decided to go home alone.

The Ikuya at this time had no way of knowing that another day, he’ll be standing still at the back of the pool, having discovered the tin’s dug up hole.

“Captain!”

When Asahi ran up to him while shouting, Natsuya turned around with a sun-tanned smile.

“Ohh, it’s Asahi.”

“Can we go home together?”*

It was the first time Asahi went along with Natsuya on the way home. He had several chances, but being reserved taking precedence after all, he couldn’t really muster the courage for it. However, he has a just cause today. He had something that he must report to Natsuya.

“That’s rare. What happened?”

Asahi looked up at Natsuya while he’s gasping for breath.

“There’s something I have to tell Captain, no matter what. The truth is, today––”

When Asahi talked about Ikuya, Natsuya turned his face away, pressing the inner corner of his eye.

“Ikuya…… to you guys…..”

“Yes. It’s kinda like he’s matured–– Huh? Captain, you crying?”*

“I-idiot. There’s no way…… I’d cry.”

“You are crying. Your voice’s choked up.”*

“…… Don’t tell Ikuya.”

“Alright, but in exchange, can I run together with Captain for the noon training?”*

Even after becoming able to swim in the pool, Natsuya doesn’t miss out on the training during the lunch break. Nowadays, he’s gotten so famous that there isn’t a single first year who doesn’t know him.

“Like Captain, I wanna get the girls’ attention, too!”*

In spite of it being an extremely impure motive, Natsuya’s consent came easily. Although it was a dirty trick that took advantage of his weakness, with no self-awareness of it to begin with, Asahi was innocently frolicking with a yahhoo.

While walking on the road that runs parallel to Minogaseyama’s ridgeline, he found the blue buds of hydrangeas beneath the eaves. When he looks up, while thinking it’s that season already, a swallow was trying to build a nest on the edge of the eaves. In the sky, swallows that held straws in their beaks are restlessly flying about. While looking at the swallow cutting through the wind, Haruka was hazily remembering the way home from the hospital.

While cutting through the wind coming from the sea, the four of them were running. Even though it’s not like they were competing for something, they ran with full force. When he thinks of that, he laughs at it, though it’s quite late now. That it’s almost as if they were like children.

“Hey, Haru––”

Suddenly, Makoto calls for him and he returns to reality.

“Don’t you think that we’re like water?”

Makoto says while following the swallow with his eyes.

“With no defined shape or anything, it can change in any way it wants. Waves rise just by the wind blowing, it becomes disturbed while it raises small splashes, but while mixing together and clashing together, it creates a single shape.”

Unconsciously, Haruka was following the swallow with his eyes, too.

“I thought that unless Rin and Nagisa are there, we can’t do something like that ultimate swimming anymore. That even if we’re on the same team, we wouldn’t be able to have the same feelings.”

Speeding up so much that he can’t follow it with his eyes when it comes close, it disappears from his field of vision.

“But, that’s just forcibly trying to decide my own shape, isn’t it?”

How many swallows could there be in this sky? After it disappears from his field of vision, it appears anew again.

“If we’re water, there’s no need to be fixated on shape. If we’re water, I’m sure, that with Asahi and Ikuya-kun, we can become the greatest team––”

While replacing each other, mingling together, they’re flying around right and left.

“That’s what I think.”

Makoto squints his eyes at the sky. What sort of future could he be drawing in this sky? What sort of dreams could he be laying over these swallows flying in the sky?

All of a sudden, he thought that the swallows restlessly flying around were like themselves. Both the future and dreams, they might be beyond the point where they flew around until their endurance ran out. What it’s shaped like, what it smells like, what its touch is like, he doesn’t know yet, but……

While looking up at the sky sparkling from the light of early summer, Haruka squinted his eyes just like Makoto.

After Sunday’s practice ended, Haruka and the others were in the gym. Kisumi was taking part in a basketball game, so Makoto forced them to accompany him. Asahi got entangled into it as well, he’s standing beside Haruka with a sour face.

In the practice for the relay’s exchange, they dived in over 50 times. They’ve long surpa.s.sed the limits of their endurance. No wonder that Asahi’s grumbling about wanting to hurry up and go home. Ikuya had something to take care of, so he cleverly succeeded at escaping with Satomi.

Making their reaction time ‘0’. That was the day’s task. Capturing the rhythm of the partner you’re doing the exchange with, it’s practice where they measure the timing for starting. A delay of 0.7 seconds comes up if you began the movements after the touch. If there are three of those exchanges, the loss becomes 2.1 seconds.

For the relay, there’s no need to be at a standstill at the time of the exchange, it’s okay to build up momentum, but if you build up too much momentum, there was also the possibility that the start’s timing will be slightly off. You can save about 0.2 seconds by building up momentum, but if it ends up being slightly off, it’ll end up losing its meaning. Nao’s theory was that if that’s the case, it’s more reliable to reduce the reaction time to ‘0’. Anyway, they repeated the 25m x 4 relay over 50 times, while being conscious of entering the water by matching their timing, rather than diving in farther or diving in stronger. His endurance as well as his nerves had ended up being thoroughly worn down. He doesn’t have any spare energy left to be interested in Kisumi’s basketball.

“Kisumi came to cheer for us, didn’t he?”

Says Makoto. He has no recollection of asking him to do so.

“Uwah, a shot got in again. They suck.”

It’s only natural that Asahi grumbles. In just the first half, they’re down by about half as many points. Ahead of the game between the regulars, they’re holding an exhibition match with the first years, but the difference in their abilities is too much. They’re unable to do anything right, not the dribbles, not pa.s.ses, not the shoots. On top of that, Kisumi was completely isolated. No one pa.s.ses to him.

“Go, go, let’s go.”

“Go, go, kiss me.”

“Please, love me.”

“Please, kiss me.”

“Geh. What’s with that gross cheering? If it was me, I’d die of embarra.s.sment.”

Unusually, his opinion was identical to Asahi’s. It seem that the girls in the cla.s.s had all established a cheering squad for Kisumi.

“Look, Kisumi cut into the ball’s way.”

Makoto says happily. However, the outcome has long been decided. No one’s trying to run any more. Kisumi’s the only one who’s enthusiastic about it. Even if he rushes into the drive-in, his allies aren’t coming. If he waits, he’ll only be surrounded by the enemy. So he attacks by force as a last resort. He’s clearly asking for a foul, but only the ball was beautifully taken from him and Kisumi fell over, drawing attention to himself.

Standing up right away, he turns to defense. His opponent doesn’t hurry to attack any more. He goes up, while leisurely making the pa.s.s. Kisumi leaps into that pa.s.s and strikes the ball. The ball went bouncing in the court. Kisumi chases after it. Somehow catching up to it, he shifts into the attack like that, but he’s blocked again and falls down, drawing attention to himself. Then, he stands up again and chases the ball. He’s running out of breath, his feet trip up.

“Kisumiii!”

It was Asahi.

“Kisumiii! Ruuun!”

His breathing rough, Kisumi looks at Asahi.

“Run! Ruuun, Kisumiii!”

Kisumi nods with a fresh smile playing on his lips. Then he chased the ball while making his silky hair sway.

The shot his opponent threw missed. Kisumi seizes that ball––.

Stretching his arm out even while he topples, he somehow keeps it.

“Kisumi, over here!”

Kisumi sends the pa.s.s towards the voice without hesitation and he struck his body hard. Kisumi tumbles down onto the floor.

And yet he somehow tries to stand up while grimacing from the pain. After the ball that Kisumi sent was pa.s.sed through three times, it was sucked into the hoop.

“Hey Kisumi! You did it!”

When Asahi leans forward and waves his hand, Kisumi replied by showing the whites of his teeth.

“Haru, look.”

Where Makoto’s gaze was pointing to, Kisumi was exchanging high-fives with his teammates.

“They became a real team, huh? Kisumi and the others.”

“Aah.”

He nods to Makoto’s words. It felt like he understood a little why Kisumi is playing basketball.

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