Rating: G.
Pairing: None
Summary: To be able to run so quickly was a gift, the best one that he had ever received.
Notes: Not hugely into ES21 anymore, Pokemon, of all things, has sunk it's claws into me, but I've got junk lying on my computer and you've got one hell of a slow moving fandom.
I think we can help each other out.
To be able to run so quickly was a gift, the best one that he had ever received. It was a gift that an overconfident, undersized young brat and bestowed upon Sena when Sena, really, hadn't had anything else.
Since then Sena had been able to avoid the pain of bullies. Perhaps it was by being their errand boy, but nonetheless the days of sore arms, twisted out of place, stinging bruises covering his back and eyes swollen shut were gone once and for all. And when he was flying down the street, down the hallways, through the park, he didn't mind that he was being a gopher. He didn't mind because the wind whipped through his hair and across his face playfully, his feet hit the ground rhythmically and his vision tunnelled, leaving only that precious, safe, goal in his mind. There was a thrill to it, an exhilaration like he was almost flying, gliding along the ground on wings that, perhaps, were too weak to lift him up into the sky but not too weak to lift his burning legs just off the ground.
And then he was brought crashing back down again as he presented the bullies with his money, or their books topped with his money, or a coke that he had bought them with his money. If he was lucky they'd grin and tell him 'good job', if he wasn't they would push him out of the way and, usually, into a wall.
American football had changed that.
Suddenly he was whipping down the field with 11 people who wanted him pulverized into a bloody pulp, and the faster he ran the more they wanted him crushed. There was no way to placate them, no amount of lunch money that would stop their conquest to turn him into a smear on the field. It was just them, all stronger, all bigger, all more experienced, and on the most rare of occasions, faster, against his weak, pitiful self.
But it wasn't the same as before, it was immeasurably different, because at the same time that those 11 people wanted to drag him below them and crush him, he had 10 people who wanted to save him, to lift him up into the blue sky. There were 10 people who would throw him into the air and let his weak wings fly him higher than ever before. And when he reached the goal on those pathetic wings, blown by the wind his team had created just for him, those people wouldn't drag him down or push him around. They would embrace him with all their might, latch onto him, and they'd all fly with all their strength. And Sena, who had stood at the top of Tokyo Tower, who had flown in a plane thousands of kilometres from the ground, could safely say he had never felt like he was higher up in his entire life than when his team scored a goal.
Maybe it was naive, but if he could do one thing then he would like teach everyone how to fly that high, just like one overconfident, undersized brat had done for him.