Sunday, August 2
Atobe went down to the river. He went alone.
Oh, he attracted notice along the way, with his saunter and toss, expressing wealth and power without words. No one knew him, though, and so left him alone. At the water's edge, Atobe realized how warm the day was, and a little windy. The spell of good weather wouldn't last for long.
The water rippled strongly across the surface of the river, hinting at the current. It made him restless. That urgent body of water whispered that things were changing.
A little idly, he looked up and down the banks for the fox, thinking it might have stuck around. There was no sign of the creature, though.
It was a little funny that it was true you didn't notice things until you might lose them. It shouldn't have been a big discovery, finding out that he had friends. All he wanted now was for the river to reassure him that his friends weren't strangers, that they wouldn't buy into Fuji Shuusuke's smile.
The reality, as Atobe watched water go by, was that change came even as waves rocked the shore. It took a long time. He found himself extremely displeased, and showed it by coolly crushing a passing ant in the grass. So he could be petty; what of it? He'd wanted to fling rocks into the river, but felt the physical relief would be too emotional and silly. Atobe, at least, would not change like melting clay. Not yet. He'd know when it was time.
Atobe remembered the years side by side, all the way from early elementary school. Those were people he knew well - had met Kabaji and Jirou in second grade, Oshitari in third, and Shishido in fourth. They each had a set of memories associated with them, some more blurry than others.
The first encounter with Jirou, for example - Atobe had stumbled over the snoring boy during lunch hour and Jirou hadn't even woken up. Instead he'd just turned vaguely over. Atobe had been incensed, but had left Jirou alone, for it was ridiculous to bully someone sleeping. Besides, Jirou would get in trouble for napping once lunch was over and he slept through class, so Atobe felt he hardly had to get involved. It had worked out as he thought.
Over all those years, and with the coming of tennis, it was impossible not to know one another. It was true that maybe Jirou had started tennis because Atobe did, but it was hard to say in the end. Those memories were shaky. In any case, they had visited each other's houses, though Jirou went to Atobe's far more often than the other way around. It worked as well as it had to.
More recently the memories of eating ice cream and meeting a city fox, dusted with summer, felt all the more concrete for they had happened by the banks of this same river. Here was assurance that it was real, not some construct of the hopeful mind.
Under the cloud-shorn sky, Atobe felt the importance of the past. It occurred to him that perhaps he was made of these memories, that his identity was inextricable from them. What did that mean?
It was an uncertain way to be, on one hand. On the other, the years and the river convinced him it was true.
More importantly at the moment, what would he do? For something had to be done. It wasn't puerile to want a tangible victory; that would be easy enough to arrange. Atobe would decide once the storm broke.
In a way, perhaps, Fuji should be thanked for his untimely arrival into Atobe's life. At the very least it cleared a film of denial from Atobe's eyes. Thanks to Fuji, Jirou was more than himself; had acquired danger and value. Atobe cursed his uncharacteristic lack of insight. How could he have missed.
Well, it wasn't too late.
Weathermen had been issuing warnings for days. So far they had all been incorrect, as the sky remained unnaturally blue and clear, and people everywhere scoffed. For himself, Atobe believed that the rain would definitely come, and when it did, there were those who would regret it. In fact, there were clouds on the horizon, when he looked.