I woke up in a dim room. I recognized the marks on the ceiling. Took me a bit to figure out where I was and what had happened. That being the nurse’s office, and that I’d passed out. I was in one of the beds. All I remembered post-race was taking a can of oxygen square in the forehead.
“Oh. You’re up,” someone said gently.
I tried to sit up. Only managed to wince and grunt.
Yakishio, sitting in a chair by my bedside, supported my back. “What hurts? Your head?”
“Not my head. Well, my forehead, yeah, but mostly everything else. I…” I looked at her.
She was in her uniform. She pressed her hand against her chest and smiled, relieved. “Thank god. I dunno how I’d sleep at night if I killed you by oxygen can.”
Good news for her beauty rest.
“So, uh, the race. Who won?”
Yakishio pursed her lips. “Do you have any idea how much trouble it was carrying you all the way here? You better be glad Konuki-sensei was here on standby just in case.”
“Konuki-sensei’s here?” I whipped my head around. “Where?”
She smacked my forehead. Ow. “Chill. She stepped out.” Crossing her long legs, Yakishio shot me a stern look. “I’m serious. You better thank Komari-chan and Yana-chan later. Komari-chan nearly broke her phone when she dropped it running to you, and Yana-chan kept trying to force-feed you fish. It wasn’t easy getting her to stop.”
No rest for the lit club president, even unconscious. I was immensely grateful for Yakishio’s assistance in regard to Yanami.
“Where are they now?”
“Who knows. Maybe they read the room. Gave us some privacy.”
Just couldn’t stop teasing me, could she? I started to banter back but stopped when I noticed the look in her eye. “So who won?” I remembered practically falling over the finish line, but not much else.
Yakishio prodded my cheek teasingly. “I was seriously counting on you going full slug. Totally crapping out so I could snag a win by default.” She tried to look upset—it wasn’t very convincing. “The go-home club would’ve been fun, y’know.”
“So I…?”
She dropped the act and grinned. “This is all your fault, Nukkun.”
I’d done it. She was staying with the lit club. She was staying with the track team. And she had to give them both a hundred and ten percent. That was the deal. Everything I wanted, I got. But it was Yakishio’s burden to bear. So I’d had to wait until now to ask the question burning inside me all this time.
“Would you have really quit if I lost?”
“I said I was serious.” There was no hesitation in her answer. She looked off into the distance. “I had all these plans to dump it all and live life like one of those cliché high school girls TV and manga like to pretend are real. Hang out with friends. Go out to eat together. Talk about boys. Study for tests.” Her eyes shut. “Maybe fall in love again. At some point.”
A lull came, quiet and thoughtful. Filling it, imaginations of a different world. A world where the only numbers Yakishio cared about weren’t times but test scores. Where she would giggle and whisper to friends about relationships. Eventually find the courage to reach out. To join hands with and walk the path of life with someone. A boring world, but an idyllic one romanticized by the likes of teenage dramas.
Yakishio quietly opened her eyes. “I’d have to seriously start considering cram school. Can’t get into college on a sports scholarship if I quit. Maybe the one Chiha-chan and Mitsuki go to.”
Okay, that was just masochistic. “They’re dating. Wouldn’t that just be awkward?”
“Uh-huh. That’s what you’d be there for.”
“Says who?”
She shrugged. “Says me. That was gonna be the plan if I won. We go-homers gotta stick together.”
“Is that part of the club description?” For such a simple task as going home, that “club” sure went pretty hard by the sound of it.
“I can’t just insert myself between them. If it was the both of us, though, then it’s just friends gettin’ together.”
“I’m not so sure that’d keep them from getting lost in each other’s eyes, if I’m being honest.”
Yakishio gave a toothy grin. “That’s when I get to complain.”
“And I have to listen, I’m guessing.”
“I’d listen to you too. Goes both ways.”
This was too complicated a scenario for going to cram school. All for what? Subjecting ourselves to near daily PDA? So we could gripe about it together? I could imagine it. Us, walking home after lessons, gagging, throwing all kinds of shade, calling them names.
“That…actually sounds pretty fun.”
Fun. In a mundane kind of way. The kind of life for teenagers like us.
Yakishio leaned forward, eyes twinkling. “Doesn’t it? We could be like, a squad, us four. But they’d be all over each other twenty-four-seven.”
“A nightmare.”
“Imagine the roasts, though. Forget lessons, I’d be thinking up new ones all day.”
“Sounds like a waste of money.”
We looked at each other and laughed. We laughed at this fake future that could have been.
“You’ll have plenty of cliché moments. Better you’re not around me so much anyway,” I said. “Ups your odds of finding a boyfriend.”
“I mean, it’s not like I’m dying to get one ASAP or anything.” Her eyes darted around the room. “Like, Mitsuki was so special. And he still is. I don’t think I’d wanna date anyone unless I loved them like I loved him. At the very least.”
“How’re you gonna find him with me glued to you?”
“I’m just saying, like, we’ve still got two more years and all.” Yakishio hopped up and sat on my bed. It groaned, the subtle smell of deodorant and perfume mingling about my nose. She pinched a lock of hair hanging around her ears and played with it. “Plenty of time to grow it out. Right?”
She cast her eyes down shyly. With every breath, the ribbons on her blouse rose and fell, and the bed creaked.
“Uh, I mean, the captain has a ponytail,” I said. “Grow it out if you want.” Suddenly, Yakishio froze. Several moments later, she let out a long, heavy breath. “What?”
“That right there, Nukkun.” She stood back up, put her hands together, and stretched.
“That right wh—”
“Nowhere. Coulda had a life where I studied, got into college the old-fashioned way, and found me someone special. But it’s all what-ifs now.” She trotted over to the window and threw the curtains open. “A deal’s a deal. I’m not quitting the track team. I’m not quitting the lit club.” The beaming sun lit up her profile, and the childlike grin that adorned her face when she turned to me. “But I am gonna switch to middle-distance.”