'Okay okay, Gigi you're terrible at turns and leaps. Mounts and dismounts are great, acrobatics are generally fine but you need to up the difficulty. But geeze will you practice the stuff you don't like!'
I was my own worst enemy at times, especially when it came to my craft. Yes I was not the best at turns or leaps, they took up all of my brainpower to execute in trying to keep upright or land on the damn beam, never mind however many spins I had to do or what foot I had to land on. I was better at turns whilst stood up, but anything tucked was not my strong suit. I could handle two and a half spins on a wolf turn but I always pushed for three and was nearly there, but never got it perfect. I was terrible at Shushunova's and hip circles too, because I always misjudged them and I'd always end up hitting my boobs on the damn bar. My old coach always gave me grief about my boobs as in, I actually had them. None of the other girls did, but there was oddly a strange stigma about it.
Hitting your chest still didn't hurt as much as dislocations or breaks though. Thankfully; I had only ever dislocated some fingers and my right elbow once before, plus I got the standard huge amount of bruises and sprains from falls doing gymnastics. In fact, I got injured more when practising martial arts than I did gymnastics and what was even funnier, I barely got injured when exorcising curses either!
Well my pride got hurt more than I did when exorcising curses, that's for sure. But I had an audience again today. Gojo, I mean… Satoru had wandered in to the gymnasium and walked straight over to where I was on the beam instead of loitering around like he did the other day. It was obvious I was having a hard time concentrating today even without anyone watching, so I wasn't going to stress about not landing anything perfectly.
'Good morning Gigi.'
'Morning Satoru. Did you sleep well?'
I turned on the beam to face him in side position before composing myself for a moment to execute a back handspring with a step out. I wobbled slightly on landing, but I felt pretty good about it. At least starting and finishing in the side position I could go straight in to another move, a back handspring into a Yurchenko loop which was basically a back hip circle. The handspring helped me in landing this back hip circle better as it sort of deadened the fall; but I thought I had enough momentum to carry myself right the way round the beam, which was possible. I didn't though. I landed a bit awkwardly but my boobs got in the way and I just sort of folded myself over the beam with my stomach and slid backwards. I somehow managed to hook my arms over the beam with my chin nearly touching it.
'Ah shit.' I whispered to myself, before using my strength to pull back up on to the beam and sit on the thing facing Satoru. I was a bit sore now, the beam wasn't exactly the softest thing to land on.
'I slept really well, did you?' Satoru looked concerned at my mishap just then but realised I was okay.
'Oh I was sleeping brilliantly. Heh heh…' I thought to myself.
'I slept better than usual.' I smiled but a bit of a giggle escaped. But I could feel the heat rising to my face as I began remembering my sexy little dream from last night. Oh God I wanted to do that girly hide your face and giggle thing; it felt like a weirdly natural reaction, but I managed to knock that on the head.
'I just thought I'd practice the beam a little, it's not my strongest discipline.'
'Does it not hurt landing on that thing?' Satoru asked as he pointed at the beam.
'A little, if you don't land correctly. To be honest you're more likely to get injured on the dismount.'
We chatted for a little as I tried to practice some more turns on the beam. I was getting bored on the beam though, I much preferred the uneven bars and vault over the beam any day, but floor gymnastics was my favourite. I did enjoy tumbling too, but that was never featured in the Olympics. I had done quite a few tumbling events though, usually when the artistic gymnastics events weren't on.
'Hey um. I got some errands to run so I need to head in to the city. Can I come find you later?' Satoru asked me. I had jumped down off the beam at this point and grabbed my water bottle, I was practically tipping the liquid down my throat.
'Sure thing. I'll be about somewhere, I found a nice tree on my run before on the other side of the school grounds I might be chilling there.' I said. I was planning on heading over there after I got showered and have some time to myself so I could "talk" to my mother.
'Okay! Great! I'll see you later then.' Satoru smiled at me. He seemed a little hesitant to leave for some reason, but he did eventually make his way back over to the gymnasiums exit. I decided to do a little routine on the sprung floor mat now, a bit more dancing than anything because I was in a better mood and Build You Up by 50 Cent had started playing on my CD player. Yep, I was gonna have a good day today. And show my mother that I was okay.
Gigi seemed to be coping today. When I got up this morning I felt like I needed to go see her and found her in her natural habitat of the gymnasium. I didn't hang around like a weirdo like I had done before, so I just went over to the beam she was practising on. She mounted the beam spectacularly from a spring board and had performed a few complicated looking flips, none of which I knew the names of; but they were impressive considering the balance beam itself was only about ten centimetres wide.
'Good morning Gigi.' I greeted her.
'Morning Satoru! Did you sleep well?'
She was calling me by my first name now. I don't know why but it made my heart beat just that little bit faster when she did. I think she was beginning to feel more comfortable around me now, I liked that. She turned to face me, still on the beam sideways on with a slight look of concentration on her face before she did what I think was called a back handspring, but with this one her legs swung underneath the beam as if she was about to swing right the way round. I think she was supposed to sort of land on the top of the beam with her stomach then swing right the way round, but it was like she didn't have the speed or momentum. She slipped a little on the beam and grabbed on to it; hitting her chest as she managed to stop herself from falling off, her arms wrapped over the beam. She looked like a cat that had slid off a table and was trying to cling to the side or something. She just made a face at her mishap.
I started to walk over if she needed a hand but she didn't. Gigi had some serious strength in her and easily managed to sit herself on the beam from such an awkward position. I told her I had slept really well and asked her if she did, but she was doing that spacey thing again where she couldn't look at me but her eyes had glazed over. She was giggling to herself.
'I slept better than usual.'
Her face was going red, then she literally shook herself back to reality. It was odd, she was acting weird. Well, weirder than usual. She even sounded a little… suggestive?
'I just thought I'd practice the beam a little, it's not my strongest discipline.'
We spoke for a little while but I had some stuff to do today. Nothing major, just a few errands that probably could wait but really I needed to get them out of the way. Namely picking up my damn dry cleaning. Yeah I had loads of designer gear that was absolutely not going in any washing machine, especially if I had anything to do with it; washing machines were not something I dealt with regularly. So I paid to have it all properly laundered. I mean there were attendants here at the school that took care of laundry and stuff, but nah. I liked getting my stuff back all nice and crease free in those weird dust bag things that kept everything clean.
But I was gonna take a little detour and get some sweets and snacks for later. Some that I could replenish my secret stash with, but some I could share with Gigi. I knew a great place that did a lot of traditional Japanese sweets and was near one of my favourite bakeries too, so I could get some cakes and pastries also. I could have asked if she wanted to come with me, but I don't think she would want to come pick up my dry cleaning with me on the anniversary of her mothers death.
'Hey um. I got some errands to run so I need to head in to the city. Can I come find you later?'
'Sure thing. I'll be about somewhere, I found a nice tree on my run before on the other side of the school grounds I might be chilling there.'
I knew exactly where she meant. There was a huge ginko tree on the opposite side of the school that was on a bit of a hill, but it had a nice grassy lawn surrounding it. It was peaceful around there, I can see why she was drawn to it.
'Okay! Great! I'll see you later then.'
I didn't want to leave, but I had stuff to do. And Gigi obviously needed some time to herself, time this morning which I had quite clearly interrupted; but she entertained me nonetheless. The least I could do was leave her alone for a bit, go sort my own stuff out and come back and see her. I had already decided to get some cherry mochi and if I could find any; some cherry Pocky. In fact I would get a bunch of different Pocky flavours for my own stash as well as some of my favourite sweets. That was my plan for today. I turned back to look at Gigi was was now dancing around on the floor mat, with a huge smile on her face as she tumbled and twisted. I just wanted to stay and watch. Further more, I wanted to know what she meant earlier about "sleeping better than usual" along with her beetroot coloured face and girlish giggling. What had she been up to?
I casually walked through the school grounds, pulling my phone out of my pocket to text Suguru.
'Hey, I think Gigi might be in to me.'
'Oh hi Suguru, hope you're enjoying your long weekend away from the school. How are you?'
God he wound me up sometimes. I was having a dilemma here!
'Yeah dude. I spoke to her before and she went all red and couldn't look at me.'
'I feel sorry for the girl.'
'Huh?'
'She likes an idiot.'
'Oh ha ha Suguru. Ha ha.'
'Seriously though. Be nice. Women like her don't come along that often.'
'Dude you sound like an old man giving life advice.'
'Ugh Satoru. You really can be insufferable sometimes.'
