Ποδόσφαιρο.

Fútbol

футбол.

Fußball.

Football.

The sport that Reo once believe would shape his future. His one outlet to see his dreams through. A sport, a world, a stage, made solely for him.

Yet, life came at him all too soon. Now football for him was but a bitter memory.

And that same sport, was now coming back to haunt him once more.

Tying his shoelaces, the old, borrowed cleats dug into the grass as he stepped onto the pitch. He was allowed to borrow them from an old box full of football boots around the dressing room area, and their pure black color and leather touch reminded him of eras gone by.

Reo jogged towards the center of the field.

Ah.

The whiff of the pitch, the sound of spikes against it, and the fresh feeling of stepping into what used to be his domain all mingled to create a single emotion. Anticipation.

Yet with it, came dark, haunting memories. He had to work hard to keep his heart from beating out of control.

How the hell did I wind up here, again?

❖ ⚽ ❖

A FEW MINUTES EARLIER…

“Soccer?” Reo repeated Totori’s words, utterly unamused.

“I don’t know if you’re aware but, here in Hinami…”

“It’s all about football.” Toraichi completed for his friend, as he rose from his seat.

“Really?”

He didn’t know if that was some sick idea of a joke on their part, or even if his mother herself was in on it. But Reo certainly didn’t find it funny.

“As real as it gets, partner! There’s a high school football team in every other island in Shinrin too, and we all compete in the same league.”

“A league?”

Were they serious? What kind of nonsense where they spouting?

“Thing is, people hear view the team, and the other teams like legitimate professional football. Like let’s say Liverpool, or Real Madrid, and not the wishy washy crap you see in other high school sports competitions.”

Apologize to Karasuno, now.

“And that interests me, how?”

“THING IS!” The energetic young man bounced on his feet, and seized his friend’s arm with renewed vigor. “There’s a tradition in Hinami. Every student, needs to at least try out for the team. If you’re good enough, maybe coach Gonda will even let you in for real—“

“Not interested.” Reo mouthed, trying to break free from his friend’s grasp.

So it really wasn’t his imagination. Nor the posters in the hallways. Nor Totori’s tendencies. And certainly not the humongous stadium behind the main school building. All of it seemed like a weird excuse for a jest, specifically set up to rattle Reo and open up old wounds.

He left Kyoto to get away from football. And where did he run off to? A football crazy island in the sticks. The middle of nowhere. And somehow still, soccer clung to him like a virus. A leech he just couldn’t shake off no matter what he did.

“Eh? Come on, man! It’s just one try!”

“I am not interested, Totori…” Reo sighed, but his friend’s grip was firm.

“Didn’t think you’d be so against it.” Toraichi voiced somewhat surprised, clutching his backpack over his shoulder, ready to head to training as it  seemed.

Reo only wished Totori was this understanding too. He took a deep breath, and tried to avert his eyes away from the two. A silence swept across the classroom.

“I’m just not… good at football. I’d rather not embarrass myself.”

A lie. But he couldn’t very well reveal his past to them, either.

“Pfftt!” Totori spluttered as he laughed. “You wouldn’t believe what coach Gonda has seen because of that tradition! Really, you don’t have to worry!”

“Sorry but I—“

“Hey, what’s going on here?”

Without any care in the world, Shuna, the class rep Reo was introduced to earlier in the day stood in the doorway, hands on her hips.

“S-S-Shuna?!”

“…You three coming or not?”

“Coming?” Reo questioned her choice of words, as the empty classroom stood silent once more.

“Oh, didn’t we tell you?” Totori flashed a grin.

❖ ⚽ ❖

So the girl that had caught Reo’s attention…

The class rep…

The charming Shuna…

Was the coach’s daughter. And assistant. And club manager.

“Just. My. Luck.”

Reo grumbled all through his mini warm up sessions, as he performed a few hops to get his ankles going.

Somehow he was actually roped into this mess, before he had any chance to refuse. Shuna’s appearance was like a critical hit to his HP bar, and before he knew it…

He had already been given a pair of black, old football boots and was thrust onto the pitch for training. Of course, Totori and Toraichi were there, but the unknown faces far outweighed the familiar ones.

Some Reo managed to recollect from his class, and others he had only seen for the first time. There was quite the bundle of characters dressed in black and white training gear.

Amongst them all, stood a tall, sturdy man, with a brown full goatee and a black cap, bearing the crest of the team.

Hinami Pirates.

That was the name of the team. And the man himself was Takehiro Gonda.

Besides the man, stood a girl. Her short straight hair was flowing behind her, the top held down by her own white sports hat. Her striking blue eyes trained on each and every player shortly as they all gathered round. Soon, Reo found himself in that same circle too.

The tall man, presumably coach Gonda, spoke in his gruff heavy voice, as he fixed his glasses. “As you’re all well aware, the school surprisingly enough has a transfer student. Yuusaki Reo, who will be joining us for training today. I know we don't get many new faces around here, but be good to him..." At the end of his speech, the man of authority smiled. "...But not TOO soft.”

With that out of the way, he gripped the whistle around his neck, and eyed each and every one of his players. He didn’t seem particularly strict, but not lenient either. Reo felt like he had a calming aura to him, for some inexplicable reason.

“Let’s start with some laps around the field.” He blew the whistle. “GO!”

As the 15 or so players kicked off the ground and formed a long group along the touchline, training practice commenced.

And right as he stood in the middle of the group, unfamiliar faces all around, Reo’s thoughts drifted to his first ever training session at Kyoto middle school. It was just like that, where he didn’t know anyone. But everybody seemed to have heard of him at least.

Here he was just another face in the crowd.

And that’s exactly what he wanted to remain.

A nobody.

Today, he’d deliberately show, that his football skills were below par. That he wasn’t worth having in the team. And then maybe… he could just leave football behind him for good.

Today was the last time he’d touch a football or step foot in a pitch for a long while.

“Soooo….”

While his thoughts had cut him out of reality itself, Totori’s face right up against him snapped him back into it quickly enough.

“What’s your first impression? Coach Gonda seem strict to you?”

“Not particularly.”

He is quite intimidating from afar though, with how tall he is.

“Well he might appear a liiitle strict, but he’s actually a softie. You’ll see.”

“Ah, at least Shuna-chan is as angelic as ever…”

Besides Reo, an unknown player emerged. His hair was cut in a peculiar buzz cut, with various shapes and symbols seemingly drawn on it with a razor. And as if that weren’t enough, the hair remaining on his head held a certain purple hue as well.

Such an odd look, for such a plain face, Reo thought.

“So, what’s your impression on Shuna-chan newbie? Ready to join our cult?” The new acquaintance narrowed his eyes as if he harbored the world's secrets in those few words.

“There’s a cult?”

“Haha, don’t listen to Sekine here! He gets a little carried away when it comes to Shuna!” Totori, always the one to be friendly, even with weird people, tried to explain.

“As if you’d understand…” The young man with the purple hair, probably matching Totori's height, cast him a disdainful sidelong glance “I’m Umio Sekine. Nice to see a new guy here. Now tell me, how would you rate Shuna-chan and her beauti—“

“Umio, put a sock in it already.”

A taller and more athletic player reduced his jogging pace to glance back, fixing Umio with a reprimanding glare that visibly unsettled him. The player, adorned with sports goggles, spoke again.

“I won’t be held accountable if Gonda overhears you.”

“Maybe the reason you’re always on the bench is because you keep ogling coach Gonda’s daughter, Umio.” Toraichi who was jogging a few steps behind them, joined the conversation with a well-placed jab.

“Oye! Who said I’m always on the bench?!”

“That’s Aki Magowski. But we call him Mago.”

Totori whispered as he pointed at the bespectacled player in front of them.

“Mago?”

With his short-cropped white hair and distinctive goggles, their straight-laced teammate had an even more peculiar name to add to his already unusual appearance.

“Mago as in grandchild?”

“No, you idiot!” Aki Magowski’s ears seemed to redden in embarrassment, as he ran ahead, “I’m polish! Polish!”

“I see…”

Reo had to wonder how a Polish 15 year old got to a remote island in japan. Judging from his first name and face though, he was probably half-Japanese.

After a few laps, and a few additional stretching exercises, the real training session could finally begin.

When it came to using a ball, Reo tried to keep his movements to a bare minimum, taking only the necessary actions. He had decided not to show off any of his strengths, and just display an unwillingness to engage.

Soon after a few passing drills, some run and shoot regimes and a few crosses, training winded down to some rondos.

Rondos were a training exercise involving a group of players forming a circle to exchange passes. The twist? A designated player, the pursuer, positioned in the center was excluded from the passing team, and instead had to chase the ball around, disrupting the passing sequence and attempting to gain possession of the ball himself.

It resembled a mini-game, where the player who last touched the ball before it was stolen by the pursuer became the next pursuer, while the previous pursuer joined the passing circle in his place.

“Oraaaah!”

While Totori was enthusiastically striving to reach the ball in the rondo circle across from Reo's, the young man himself couldn't be bothered to engage even half as heartily in his own. Sluggishly moving about the ball as the pursuer, he failed to stop it as it wheezed past his feet multiple times.

In said circle, was only a single familiar face. The so-called Mago. However, the most prominent figure among the attendees in the circle was a tall player, distinguished by sharp features and medium-length hair slicked back. His strict blue eyes scrutinized Reo with a hint of annoyance as they tracked the young man moving lazily about.

Despite him noticing it, Reo knew the training session was about to come to an end sooner or later. He didn’t care about his teammates’ or coach’s impression on him one bit.

“Oops!”

The ball seemed to slow down, hit slightly weaker than intended, and yet Reo still couldn’t be bothered to intercept it.

“Ah, that’s 100… Still wanna continue?”

A slightly tall young man, with curly black hair gave a crooked smile as he stopped the ball with his cleats. He had a clear feathery voice, and his kind eyes suggested he was often the voice of reason within the team.

There was an unwritten rule in rondos for when the circle managed to exchange 100 passes without them being cut off. And that was to change the pursuer with someone else.

Finally.

Reo almost said aloud.

“No, Kaoru. Let him continue.”

The tallest of the bunch, and the one that eyed Reo with the most contempt, spoke without a hint of a change in his stony expression.

“Uh… If you say so, Housen-kun.”

Housen, huh?

So that was the name of the teammate that had rubbed Reo the wrong way. Throughout the whole training session, it felt like this tall individual was looking his way every so often. One could even say he was analyzing him.

Something about that so called Housen, got on Reo’s nerves. Maybe it wouldn’t really hurt if he just…

In an instant as the ball glided towards Housen, Reo lowered his center of gravity and waited, ready to pounce. As the tall and not so agile young man controlled the ball, the shorter and more mobile newbie closed the distance between them and quickly moved between him and the ball, taking advantage of Housen’s heavy touch. 

Just like that, Reo had managed to get ahold of the ball.

“It seems you’re up, Housen-kun.” Kaoru smiled slightly, as Housen stood there, flabbergasted. Maybe he still hadn’t gotten to the bottom of how quickly Reo had outsmarted him.

In soccer, first-hand experience played a big role in judging situations. Just like in other sports, a tall sturdy build could be outdone with pace by a smaller one, if utilized in the fullest during a situation where one’s such attributes gave him the edge. If a bigger player took a heavy touch on the ball, where he would need to move further than a step away to reach it, an agile, shorter player could easily get stuck in between him and the ball, using his lower center of gravity as an advantage.

Of course, that didn’t always work, and many other factors played their part , but typically, Reo’s own agility did the trick.

As Housen positioned himself in the center of the circle, slightly glaring at Reo, Gonda blew his whistle.

“Rondos are over! Gather round!” With a cheeky smile, the man tipped his hat and announced.

“Now that we’re nearing the end, let’s have a quick 8 against 8 mock match.”