1.
Wataya Arata throws a wrench in everything with his Fukui accent and the quiet hunch of his shoulders. In no time at all Chihaya has flitted to his side, and Taichi gets this feeling, a strange combination of loss and fear and something else. Something that makes him lash out. Something that makes him push Wataya Arata and Chihaya into a puddle; something that makes him want to see Chihaya beg for them to be friends again.
Something that makes his hands clench when he learns: Wataya Arata has memorized the Hundred Poets, too. Wataya Arata could beat you in karuta. Easily.
And so he sits across from the Fukui boy. His classmates are packed in the room, shoulder to shoulder, and in one corner his mother stands, filming. Wataya Arata's eyes are a strange, melancholy blue, slightly unfocused without his glasses, and yet—
And yet he takes the first card. Lightning fast.
The room gasps.
If there's one thing Taichi has learned from his mother, it's that talent must be uncovered, nudged—fed with late afternoon lessons and preserved in time by trophies. But Wataya Arata is a different species entirely, all serious gaze and catlike reflexes that Taichi knows no amount of memorized flash cards can outmatch.
The glasses burn in his pocket.
And then Chihaya is shoving Arata aside and taking his place, and Taichi is equal parts terrified and relieved because this, at least, is a fair fight. He can beat Chihaya. He doesn't need to cheat to do it, either.
Except she does beat him, in a mass of flailing limbs and daring dives, while the room watches, equal parts stunned and amused, and Wataya Arata sits and watches her play for—for him? wonders Taichi. In the back of his mind, Taichi hears his mother's disappointed sigh.
Later, when he hands back Wataya Arata's glasses, trembling and hot with shame, the word "coward," is tossed at him for the first time.
It will take the rest of his years to erase it.
2.
It is the word "coward" that comes to mind again as he and Chihaya walk under the cherry blossoms, side by side. Chihaya is deep in thought, lost to the world around her.
Does he dare close the gap?
It would be so easy, he reasons, watching her from the corner of his eye. He begins to lift a finger—one, then two—
A bike whizzes by; Chihaya must have heard it before he did, because she turns around in a millisecond, running away. He misses her hand by a hairsbreadth. Call it fate, or timing, or—fear.
Taichi knows, in his bones, even before he chases Chihaya down, who will be lying in a dirty mess beside her. Familiar blue eyes blink through the same silver-frame glasses, and Taichi breathes a sigh of acknowledgement and resignation.
It always comes back to Arata.
3.
He is not proud of the fact that it takes him more than a minute to turn his phone over. Arata's message blinks at him from his phone screen, almost mockingly, although maybe Taichi is just imagining it. It takes him a few minutes to deliberate—a few agonizingly long minutes.
No more cowardice, Taichi thinks as Chihaya comes towards him, waving her spoonful of pie.
Afterwards, he wipes a crumb from the corner of his mouth and tries not to think too much about the way Chihaya's face flushed when he showed her Arata's text.
The pie tastes bittersweet.
4.
He loses himself to karuta, to the sound of his teammates' heavy breathing, palms slamming downwards, cards skidding across the tatami mat. It is funny, after years of the same mantra being ingrained into his mind: win, win, win. It is funny to be doing something that has no immediate reward. He will probably never be Meijin.
But he belongs to a team. President, they nominated him, and he takes it upon himself to learn their signals: the hitch in Chihaya's breath, the worry in Kanade's eyes, the tension in Tsutomu's shoulders, Nishida's tightened fists.
At the same time, he wonders. Wonders what he could do to improve, wonders if there is a point to all this, wonders if there's something missing. Why does he play? Who does he play for?
Where is your passion? asks a voice.
Two players down, he sees Chihaya's ponytail whip through the air, her hand a knife cutting the cards away from her opponent, all fire and brimstone.
He breathes in. Out. Focuses on the cards in front of him. I can be good, he thinks, then wonders when it became this way, when he finally succumbed to karuta and its call, the lilt of the reader's voice.
He feels a bead of sweat trickle down the back of his neck. I can be good.
I can be this team's backbone.
5.
Second place is just first loser, his mother would say. Defeat rams into him, straight through his chest. He starts to compose himself, to push it away. Compartmentalize the loss, move on, because it hurts too much otherwise.
He stops, curling his fingers into a fist. Their pads are red, raw. They throb, but nothing compared to his heart. Nothing compared to the ache sitting at the back of his throat.
It hurts to devote time to something and come out empty-handed. It hurts, the futility of it all, and he is terrified because what if it's all a waste? Time on karuta is time that could be spent on other things—his mother has reminded him often enough. He thinks of all the people he has seen, backs bent, cracked open on the floor. The jagged, broken smiles of defeat, the stuttering "Thank you very much," as they try to regain their composure.
It scares him.
It scares him because he signed himself over to this world a long time ago. This world where victory and loss are inseparable companions, where dreams rise and fall on a few syllables.
Taichi thinks: this is a kind of courage, too. Facing failure.
He lets a tear fall. He opens himself up to it all: the bitterness, the disappointment, the frustration.
I will no longer run away.
6.
I could spend my whole life on karuta, he'd once said.
I could spend my whole life loving Chihaya, he thinks now.
Out loud, he says, "She doesn't belong to either of us," and for the first time realizes—fully—that love is not a contest. It is not a game. It doesn't matter what he brings to the table, because who knows what goes on in Chihaya's head? Hers is the only verdict that matters, but Chihaya is blind to everything except karuta.
And Arata.
Except she is so much more than that. Chihaya is compassionate and pushy and stubborn and stupid and he is still hopelessly, hopelessly in love with her—
—but maybe his love isn't hopeless, Taichi thinks, as Chihaya bumps her head against his shoulder and smiles up at him with all the radiance of a summer day.
Who knows what she's thinking? he wonders as he nudges her back.
Who knows?
A/N: And so my first foray into the fandom begins :)