*Well, this is a translation I made for "Empat Pertemuan" since someone PM'd me asking whether I could translate the fic. English is not my first language tho, so beware with grammatical errors (I suck in grammar and I don't have any betas D:) and spelling mistakes. As always, Yowamushi Pedal is Wataru Watanabe's, Mata Kokode Aimashou is GLAY's, and this story is mine. Enjoy!*
if you get lonely come see me again, ok
I'll go, yes, go to that place I promised to
with an undying prayer
Chiba, August 2010.
"Sakamichi-kun, it is the fourth time we met, isn't it?"
The voice won't be able to reach you, so let him do some monologue, will you?
Finally, both of you met again, for the fourth time. This time, all of Inter-High contestants are there, witnessing your sacred meeting with curious eye, since apparently no one knows how you meet, and the story behind all your encounters. Surely, you won't be angry if all the stories behind your encounters are being told to them, right? After all, curiosity kills the cat.
Your first encounter was funny, to say the least. You, being utterly hopeless from motion sickness and writhing in the hotness of Hakone's highway, accidentally met him, who skipped his class in order to hike. He gave you a bottle, and you delightedly finish all the content. The way you drink won't lie; from the first sight, he knows that you ride bicycle. He was utterly happy to meet you, and begin to babble nonstop about you in the rooftop (in which students were forbidden to enter, actually, but being a trouble-maker since the start, it's quite an expected behavior of him. Deal with it.)
Those babbles, we heard it. At first, since we don't know anything about you, we dismissed them, reckoning that all the talks about you were purely his delusion. His sense of reality is kind of screwed when it comes to anything related to bicycle, after all. Moreover, aside from small annoyances, it doesn't really affect our practice routine, so why bother?
And a few days later, you both met again. This time, he was on a mission, to "scout" your training camp process. He was told to observe a "godlike" climber, one with a style unmatched by any climbers in the earth. After all, he is also a climber with candidacy to Inter-High position, and isn't it natural for an athlete to be curious of their rival? He was delighted to accept the task, but he didn't met the aforementioned climber. Instead, he met you, and raced with you.
He then continued to tell the team all he found about you. How you climb with smile and inhuman cadence of a hundred and fifty rotation per minute despite your modified bicycle (seriously, Kinjou. His technique is a mess, and moreover he's still an amateur. Forcing him to ride like that, and you call it a training camp? You're a devil.), how your eyes shine when you see his bicycle (his bicycle was a standard one, and it's clearly an underling in the looks department compared to mine, of course), and how dearly you see him, we don't think we can forget those stories. More importantly, we apparently won't be able to forget your name, either. Onoda Sakamichi, right?
He didn't hear anything about you after your training camp ends and you, along with all Sohoku High Bicycle Club members, got back to Chiba. He was too dumb, apparently, to forget to ask your phone number or email address. However, being a romantic he is, he remembers one thing: your promise to meet him again in the Inter-High, where you will represent Sohoku in the fierce battle. Only the strong will win, and the rest will be forced to deal with loss.
Despite that, you're still trying to protect your promise to meet him in the Inter-High, and you prove your faithfulness by making it into Sohoku's regular position. The first day of Inter-High marks your third meeting. Your bonds are strong, we can feel it. Everytime you feel down, especially when comments about your looks were spouted carelessly, you would look up to him, riding side-by-side to eliminate those negative thoughts built up inside. When you did that, he smiled, babbled some nonsense, patted your back, and that was enough to make you feel better. Even when you fell, you will chase upon him, unwilling to let him go anywhere else. Truth to be told, anyone who saw that kind of act will be jealous.
I, too, am one of the jealous pack.
However, when you fell back then, with a pack of climbers soon after the checkpoint were taken by Sohoku High, you can no longer climb.
At least, in the same track with us, to the winner's podium, doing head to head battles until the very last drop of resource spent, marking the finish line with a smile, and victoriously stand with the trophy in hand.
You strayed, you climbed your path to a divine finish line instead, where everyone, be it a cyclist or not, will eventually rest.
(A deep condolences to Sohoku High, dealing with a loss of a valued climber won't be that easy, I reckon. Surely if you, a first year and a beginner to boot, were put into regular team, it must mean that you possess that good of a talent, right? Too bad I wasn't able to see it with my own eye to confirm.)
Then, finally, we're here. In Sohoku High, you met him again. This time, your body is being prepared to be burnt. In fact, soon after all the Inter-High contestant who came to Sohoku to visit you left, your body will be returned to your parent's place, where you will be given standard Buddha treatment to honor the deceased. He saw this as his last chance to properly come to you, and so he did. He caressed your face, mumbled something to your ear, and you smile, a frozen smile that won't change.
"When we meet again, let's race together... In heaven, maybe?"
His mumbles was heard by a few of us. We were right in the back of Sohoku's team, after all.
"Manami Sangaku! Go back to your pack!"
He was called back to our team.
(Kinjou, seriously. Can't he get some more nostalgia time?)
He sighed, and took his sweet time to come back to his place, as if he didn't want his last meeting with you to end. By then, it is obvious that all of your four encounters are done. Those four meetings were short, but meaningful. Not a lot of words were spoken in all of them, but the memories created from those encounters are beyond words to explain.
When he came back to our place, his face was sad, but not a single tear was shed. Not even a tear masked with his signature smile, and also not even a word were spoken by him until the time we left Sohoku for Hakone. After we arrived in Hakone, he finally said something.
"Sakamichi-kun will be happy to see slopes in the heaven, right?"
I can only nod to his statement. Suddenly, a realization came to my mind, then I sighed.
If Maki-chan were to die, will I be able to act as tough as Manami?
(The question was never fully answered, and it always came back to my mind whenever I saw Manami's climbing face, an enigmatic smile covered a svelte touch of sadness inside his eyes.)