SURGE
Ch.1: Tiger
I've successfully avoided thinking about the issue for a good many years now, but one of these days I'm going to have to grow a backbone and write that jerk a thank-you card. If it hadn't been for his offensive intrusion into my comfortable life, I would never have looked twice at soccer. I would never have met Shimazuka Ami and Sakurai Haruka. The Co-ed Soccer Movement would never have been conceptualized, much less brought into existence. So even if he is technically completely disgusted by the revolution going on in the soccer world, and even if the Movement is kind of the bane of his life right now… Huh. You know what? I might throw him a public parade, just for kicks.
But as I was about to say. Everything changed the day he came to school.
Up until that afternoon, life had been perfect. I stood at the pinnacle of fourth-grade stardom, having been accepted into the Meiwa Cheerleading Squad, which besides myself and two other close friends consisted entirely of fifth- or sixth-grade divas. As usual I donned my much-coveted uniforms (a black and white sleeveless top with a matching skirt) and prepared to practice cheering routines with the rest of the Squad, conveniently bestowing support upon whichever lucky sports team happened to be training outdoors. Being a few inches shorter than the upperclassmen, Hanako, Miharu and I were stationed at the front of the lineup, in clear view of the soccer pitch on which the Boys' Soccer Team was engaging in a rowdy game of tag that it considered warm-ups.
We literally had front-row seats to the drama when a squat, ape-like man ambled up to the side of the pitch, observed it in one sweeping glance of distaste, and brought the tip of his wooden umbrella crashing down on the packed-dirt ground with a crack like a whip.
Everybody within a sixty-foot radius froze and stared.
"Listen up, ya young 'uns, my name is Coach Kira and I'm here to whip your pansy asses into shape!" the man announced in a drawling yell. He looked around again and tapped his shoulder with the umbrella impatiently when nobody reacted. "And here I thought ya Meiwa twerps had fancy manners and all. Ain't ya gonna come say hello to your coach?"
"You can't be serious," Hanako said disgustedly. "He's got to be a drunk who wandered in by mistake. Wasted enough to think someone put him in charge of something."
"Maybe," I said, although I had already ruled that one out as a possibility. The boys' team seemed…concerned, as they gathered around Kira, but hardly as surprised or confused as they should have been. Evidently, they had been expecting Coach Kira. Well, they had been expecting a Coach Kira. Nobody could have predicted the man who actually showed up.
He was distinctly un-Meiwa. His old, scruffy, rumpled clothes contrasted sharply with the boys' smart uniforms. Forget expensive stud-shoes; he was barefooted. His hair was of no particular style, unless a shaggy mane counted as a style. A bottle of sake left on the pitch-side bench confirmed that while Nanako was wrong about him not being a real soccer coach, she was right about the state of his sobriety, or lack thereof.
"Now, I'm warning ya, so don't say I didn't—from now on y'all will be doing real training. Anyone who objects can drag his spoilt rich ass off my court right now. Those of ya who stay better be prepared to work until you're crawling through the dirt on your sissy stomachs."
I was beginning to seriously question the judgment of whoever hired this new coach. Nobody as rude and politically incorrect had been allowed on the school premises since as far back as I could remember. The boys' team appeared to share my sentiments and looked horrified, although whether it was in reaction to the upcoming workload or the dirt, I couldn't be sure.
"If this is someone's idea of an Apirl Fools joke, I'm going to get my dad to sue their pants off," one boy declared.
"It's still September," his teammate reminded him impatiently. "I don't get why Principal Yamanaka set us up like this. There's nothing wrong with the way we train now!"
"Did you hear that? I think he's going to try and kill us!" one particularly excitable member exclaimed frantically.
The coach turned his gaze heavenward. "If I didn't need this paycheck for the sake…" I saw him mouth. Then, after rapping his umbrella sharply on the ground, "Well how the hell else are ya gonna learn soccer? Soccer is about always attacking, always winning. Attack! Attack! Attack!" He pounded one large fist into a meaty palm in synch with each 'attack'. "Tell me how you're gonna do that without training, huh? How're ya gonna win? You tell me if you're so smart." But the dissatisfied muttering just got louder.
Then, amid the worry and complaints, a clear, firm voice rang out:
"If you're scared of a little hard work then quit playing soccer."
This one pithy recommendation reduced the general babble to silence, not because the other boys had come to any sudden profound realizations, but because they were so speechlessly outraged.
The speaker extracted himself from the cluster of his teammates. He was a good deal shorter and smaller than the others, even though he capitalized on every inch by holding his back straighter than the average royalty; I would have noticed him much sooner otherwise. His deeply-tanned skin was at odds with the relatively fair complexions around him, and similar to Coach Kira, barber shops were apparently not his thing. His wiry black hair was even wilder, and resembled a lion's mane more than anything else. I'd barely had time to get a good look at him before he was snatched up by an extremely annoyed upperclassman by the front of his shirt.
"Who d'you think you are, fourth-grader, talking to us like that?" the older boy demanded.
The young upstart seemed unfazed by the fact that he was practically being lifted off his feet. In fact, he smiled rather condescendingly. "Age doesn't matter in soccer," he said as though stating the obvious. "I'm in fourth grade but I'm better than all you sixth graders."
Dismissing the snarling upperclassman entirely, he dispassionately freed his shirt, turned to face Coach Kira, and shocked everybody into silence for the second time in forty-five seconds flat by dropping to his hands and knees in front of the coach, who had enough presence of mind to raise a startled eyebrow.
"Coach Kira, please teach me soccer," the boy said, determination infused into every word. "Teach me how to always attack, always win."
Even the upperclassmen forgot their indignation as they stilled and waited, holding a collective breath, for the coach's reply. I couldn't have looked away for anything. I'd never seen anything like this happen. It reminded me of the old samurai days from history books, before disciples and apprentices became obsolete. Back when the bonds between master and student were said to run deeper and stronger than those between parent and child.
I was perfectly content to stare at the back of the kneeling boy's head, but someone else caught my attention. It had rained recently and a few puddles were still on the ground. One of them was close enough to show a reflection of his face. One moment I was all curiosity and fascination. The next, everything seemed to fade into insignificance as I locked gazes with his image. Gone were any last traces of the tempered expression I was used to seeing in the faces of myself, my family and my acquaintances. There was nothing but wildness, intent and ferocity in his eyes, the hard line of his jaw, and his pursed thin lips.
The spell was broken by Coach Kira, who had seen all this as well, and liked what he saw. He smiled a small, crooked, speculative little smile. "What's your name, boy?"
"Hyuuga Kojiroh."
"Ah." The coach nodded. "A good name."
Normally, so much information about other people was automatically passed on to me that it was more than a little surprising to discover, by the end of the next day, that I still didn't know enough about Hyuuga Kojiroh to write a decent length paragraph. As suspected, he was a fresh transferee, and was adjusting well to Meiwa. So well that he felt no need to make new friends or even talk to anyone unless absolutely necessary. Miharu, who was in the same class as him, reported that he glared more than was strictly (or even loosely) polite, and often for no self-evident reason.
I wrote this off as being within expectations; nobody with the guts to toss insulting remarks at upperclassmen and the self-abandon to plead for what he wanted on bent knees could possibly be too big on social awareness. He was a tiger in the garden, an untamed entity who simply didn't know what to do with himself in polite company. Or that was as close as I could get to accurately articulating my reasons for still wanting to meet the kid. It never occurred to me that he was just a jerk.
Most embarrassingly, my friends caught on to my interest in Hyuuga alarmingly quickly. They were unwavering in their belief that I had a crush on him, an accusation that was far from the truth as an eggplant.
"It's so obvious," Hanako groaned one day when we were having lunch. Our inauguration into the Cheerleading Squad meant a daily invitation to eat with the other members in the clubroom (actually an unused classroom heavily decorated in the school colors), which we as a rule accepted. Except, apparently, when it was deemed necessary to discuss my alleged love interest.
"Why, because I wondered if his hair is naturally messy?" I grumbled.
"Obviously," Miharu said earnestly, eyes wide. "It's the same idea as when boys want to know how a girl looks without makeup. It's all about making sure what you're seeing is true beauty as opposed to the result of hours of vain preening."
Except I hadn't thought of Hyuuga's hair as 'true beauty', just unprecedented on a normal human being. That aside, I had carelessly let slip a few offhand comments on how skilled he was in soccer and how I admired him for being so accomplished while still so young, and it was the thing about his hair that gave me away? Seriously.
"You're overreacting," I insisted tiredly, going so far as to say this with food still in my mouth to highlight my impatience with this topic. "What better way for anyone to catch my attention than to rip Yuushi a new one? Use your head."
They didn't.
"Ooh, so he 'caught your attention'? Finally admitting it?" Nanako prompted eagerly while Miharu giggled.
I chose this moment to take a big bite of rice to spare myself from having to address their silliness any further.
A week passed without any progress, unless confirming and reconfirming that cheerleading practice brought me as close to Hyuuga as I was naturally going to get counted as progress. Granted, my options were severely limited. Having a friend introduce me was out, partly because for that to happen I'd need a student already on speaking terms with him, but to the best of my knowledge such a student didn't exist, and partly because I didn't want to risk people misunderstanding my intentions as Hanako and Miharu had. Nor was it of any help that my brother was on the Boys' Soccer Team. The kindest, most generous opinion that could be had of Kamida Yuushi was no opinion, so affiliating with him would hardly score me points with anybody. There was good reason to think this true especially in Hyuuga's case, the boy having been less than impressed when my bully of a brother had manhandled him during their first day on a team together. Nearly lifted him up by the front of his shirt, to be exact.
I was at a loss. My social network was my kingdom, and here was a person to whom it did not extend. Throughout cheerleading practice I watched him with an attentiveness that regrettably resembled that of a crush more than anything else, transfixed by the raw power he displayed. He did no fancy dribbling. He made no expert passes. In fact he did nothing more than orient himself in the direction of the desired goal and tear a straight path through his opponents' defenses. This kind of tactic (if it even qualified as a tactic) would have been disastrous if it didn't work so incredibly well, which made him all the more fascinating. Everything he did, he threw himself into with a vengeance, burning energy like he was perfectly willing to pass out the next minute when he actually meant to last a full two hours. All I could think was that he was so very present, like every anchor of his being had grounded itself deeply in this soccer pitch. His soul was a compass whose arrow pointed unerringly at the ball. I had never seen anyone play soccer like that. I had never seen anyone do anything like that.
It was essential that I talk to him somehow. After the Squad had called it a day I slipped away while the others were changing and getting ready to leave, heading back out to the pitch. He was alone, running a last few laps with rubber tires secured to his waist by thick ropes. Waiting until he slowed to a walk, I nervously followed him to the sports shed.
The little shed where Meiwa stored all its sports and athletics equipment was dimly lit inside, the only lighting being the setting afternoon sun. When I peeked inside I could see nothing clearly at first, but heard slight shuffling noises as Hyuuga stacked up his tires. Taking a deep breath to ward off a nervousness I hadn't felt in years approaching someone my own age, I stepped into the gloom.
His coppery skin was a deep chocolate brown in the darkness, and his hair a pitch black. The whites of his eyes stood out startlingly as his gaze fixed on me.
"What do you want?"
I swallowed. A smile was too much to hope for; I had expected neutral curiosity at best. But he already seemed angry, and I hadn't even said anything yet.
"I…well…"
It had been a while since I'd had occasion to plan out a speech beforehand, and an even longer while since I'd had such an occasion and miscalculated by not having anything planned out. My mind tripped over itself stringing together the right words, which I was so used to just coming to me. At odd moments in the last two hours other Squad members had called out encouraging things to him, how well he was doing and how awesome and cool he looked scoring goal after goal. He had ignored everything. Somehow I knew compliments on 'looking cool' didn't cut it with him.
"I'm Kamida Yume, from the Cheerleading Squad. I just wanted to say that I admire you for…for working so hard," I settled on stammering. "During training you were always so focused and gave everything your best. No one else even came close to that."
He continued to glare at me, but at least didn't get angrier.
"So…yeah." I forced a bright smile and got ready to wrap up our 'conversation'. "I just wanted to say that, and since you're new, please enjoy your time at Meiwa and have fun on our soccer tea—"
"Soccer isn't for fun and games."
His snarl cut through my babbling and I immediately fell silent. Adrenaline rushed through my veins, my heart pounded painfully and I forgot to breathe.
"You don't even know what working hard means," he said sneeringly. "I bet you've never focused that airhead of yours on anything in your life. So shut up about things you don't understand!" Without a second glance at my openly stricken face he brushed past me and strode out of the shed.
Minutes passed before I could even rally the courage to turn around. I felt like breaking down into tears on the spot, but made myself walk back to the empty cheerleading clubroom before lowering myself shakily into a chair.
Why had he said those things? I had just wanted to say something nice… Sure, there were mean people out there, people who said awful things for no real reason. Maybe he was one of them. If so, I should discard his opinion with the same amount of respect as he had shown me. But then…why? Why did I feel exactly like the worthless airhead he'd said I was?