Takumi heard from Leo several times daily for the next two months. He'd even found a site for them to play chess online together, and Takumi was slowly getting better. According to Leo, he'd even come close to beating him once, although Takumi was half-sure that he was only saying that to make him feel better about losing all the time. Especially seeing as he hadn't even noticed that he'd gotten close to beating Leo, so he wasn't doing it consciously even if he had done it.
He'd also been practising for his competition daily. Archery was his absolute favourite thing and he liked being good at something that his siblings weren't immediately better at him than. But he couldn't just be good, he had to be the best. And if he lost these competitions, he wouldn't be the best.
The night before the competition, he couldn't sleep and Leo stayed up with him, calling him an idiot and assuring him that he was definitely going to win. As odd as Leo's compliments were, they really did help to ease Takumi's nerves. He slept through the day instead, because he really did need to concentrate for the competition, and he couldn't do that if he was half asleep from exhaustion. He just got Ryoma to get him off school for the morning saying that they needed the time to travel, and thankfully his brother understood his difficulty sleeping under stress.
As for the actual competition, Takumi realised he needn't have worried so much. As soon as he got his hands on his bow, everything fell into place and he was as calm as he'd ever been. He took first place easily- as he got home, his first priority was to send Leo a photo of himself smiling with the trophy he'd won.
'well done!' The message came back instantly and Takumi couldn't help but hope that Leo had been waiting for him to get back and see what had happened. 'you should be proud of yourself.' He smiled. He was proud of himself. He was so happy that he was just as good at archery as just about anyone in the area. He wasn't the absolute best, of course, but he was trying to get there.
'Thank you! I've been practising so much, I might have been neglecting my German practise a bit...don't worry, I'll probably remember enough to talk to your family still :)' Takumi grinned as he sent the message- it was only days now until he saw Leo again, and he didn't know how he was going to survive that long, honestly. He'd missed his friend so much, it was ridiculous honestly. He hadn't expected to miss him quite this much, even though he knew he would miss him a bit. Sometimes he thought of Leo and his throat hurt, or his chest hurt, and he'd get sad. It was his chest hurting that happened the most, and it was a feeling he got when he'd think about Leo's smile, or his funny enthusiasm for things, or the little blush that Takumi had seen on him once. He sort of wanted to see it again.
'about that... ;)' Takumi's heart raced when he saw the winky face, even though he mostly wanted to know what Leo meant by his message.
'What do you mean? About that?' He could imagine Leo's smug grin and his laughter, but he sent it anyway.
'nope'
'D:'
':D'
Takumi rolled his eyes and gave up then, telling Leo that he really needed to go to bed, which he did. What he didn't say was that he'd probably spend a good half hour smiling into his pillow thinking about Leo. And thinking about what that winky face could possibly have meant.
As he came to the time when he was going to be going to Germany, he got simultaneously more nervous and more excited. He couldn't wait to see Leo again and that often made him too excited to sleep, but he also often got too nervous to sleep because going to another country and staying with someone who was possibly abusive to his own children was very, very scary.
All of this combined to make him incredibly tired on the day that he was finally due to leave for Germany. He even managed to mess up putting his hair in its usual ponytail, and Sakura giggled and redid it for him after he came down to breakfast looking like a dishevelled horse. Ryoma was busy, but he managed to spare the time to hug Takumi and wish him good luck in Germany, and Hinoka insisted upon driving him to the coach.
"You'll be okay Takumi, I promise," she said. "And you know that if their father is really bad, you can call your teacher and tell them, because that's why you have their number." He knew that. He knew all of this, but he was worried that if he had to get himself out of there, Leo or Elise or Leo's other sister (Camilla, maybe) would take the brunt of the blame and he would be responsible for them getting hurt.
"I know," he said, resting his head against the car window and tiredly watching the grey streets pass by. Hinoka dropped him off at the coach with one last hug and a promise to text him every day, and then Takumi was left alone with his luggage. He went to go find Hinata, sure that his friend would be able to wake him up a little.
He found Hinata half asleep with his head on top of his suitcase. When Takumi approached, his friend looked up and blinked slightly blearily. "Hey Tak," he said, apparently too tired to even finish speaking his name. "'m tired."
"Yeah, me too." Takumi dropped his suitcase on the floor and sat down next to it, mimicking his friend's posture. "You looking forward to Germany?" Hinata just made a sort of noncommittal groan, and Takumi laughed. "How have you and Odin been getting along?"
"Don't think I've messaged him more than twice since he came here, honestly," Hinata looked resigned to his fate. "What if his parents don't speak much English either?"
"His mum is a nurse," Takumi said. He remembered talking about her to Leo because she had apparently extended a quiet, implied offer to Camilla that she would help them get away from their father if they needed to. "She probably speaks a decent amount of English."
"I hope you're right, because my German is terrible." Hinata sighed, burying his face in the suitcase to block out any light. "Lemme know when we're leaving, I'm taking a nap."
Takumi just laughed again, leaving his friend to nap for fifteen minutes until the coach pulled up and everyone had to load their luggage on board. He was closer to nervous than excited now, because he'd been reminded of the cruelty of Leo's father and also that he would now have to spend the next ten hours in the presence of his classmates. Most of them were complete strangers to him despite having been around for a good four years, mostly because when he was eleven he'd been half unable to speak their language and completely unable to tolerate any of them. The only reason he had a friend in Hinata and Oboro was because they recruited him for their 'we hate all these white British people being unable to pronounce our names' club.
The coach journey was just as terrible as Leo had made it sound- people playing loud music and flinging sweets at each other, and a couple of half-hearted sarcastic singalongs of 'the wheels on the bus' that sounded more suited to a group of drunk people than some tired teenagers on a bus. They stopped for lunch, and Takumi texted Leo to let him know how things were going. The near-immediate response was 'at least you're halfway here now, you nerd'.
'I think I'll die before I reach you, do you have an equivalent to the song 'wheels on the bus'?'
'yes, we have that too and I pity you deeply. Stay strong.'
'Thanks, I'll try. See you soon :)'
'not if i see you first'
Takumi didn't text anything else back- Leo liked to have the last word, and Takumi was too tired today to fight him over that. he just smiled before tucking his phone back into his pocket.
"Who're you texting?" Hinata gave him a sideways sort of look. "Never seen you smile like that before."
"Leo," he said, and he could feel his face heating up for no reason. No reason at all, nope, there was no way that he was embarrassed by the implications of what Hinata had just said.
"Hmm," was all his friend said, but it was a judgemental 'hmm', the sort of 'hmm' that meant 'I'm going to be teasing you about this later when I'm not quite so tired, Takumi'.
Takumi chose to ignore the 'hmm', and instead focused on getting back to the coach. Just another five hours of this to go. And then Leo.
