Chapter 5

The house today was finally quiet.

Yuri was in her academy. Dad was at his high school training his baseball team, and Mom had gone out to run errands as usual. 

For this entire morning, I had the entire living room to myself.

I lay stretched out on the sofa, staring up at the plaster ceiling. A pale patch of winter sunlight crept across the wooden floorboards, moving so slowly you could barely track it. 

It was comfortable. It was peaceful. 

It was also completely boring.

I shifted onto my side, pulling my phone from my pocket to tap the screen awake. 

I scrolled past the boys' group chat, past Yuuki complaining about his new crush didn't want to go for a second date, and paused over a name near the top of the list.

Narita Top Road.

I tapped into the thread. 

The chat log was remarkably short. We had only exchanged a handful of messages since our meeting at the shrine on New Year's, and the spacing between them was wide. 

I was deliberate about that. She was preparing for her crucial classic year, which I was sure she had tight routines filling her calendar from sunrise to sunset. Since Yuri also had a very disciplined schedule and she hadn't even started her racing career yet, Top Road must've been even busier than that.

The last thing she needed was some guy with too much free time clogging her notifications with empty chatter. 

Though, most of the messages had been initiated by her. 

Two days ago, she had sent a short paragraph detailing how Yuri had managed to sleep through nine separate alarms, only waking up when she pulled the duvet completely off the bed. Yesterday afternoon, she sent a photo of two pieces of toast burned into black squares, with a caption explaining that Yuri had tried to multitask while stretching.

I had laughed at both of them, firing back quick replies to tease my sister through her roommate. 

Her chats were not only about Yuri and her shenanigans. 

After handing me that piece of paper at the shrine, she had actually followed through about soccer. She mentioned that through her father, she had been a devoted supporter of Arsenal since forever.

She's a Gooner, huh? I thought, staring at the past chat with an amused smirk. 

It was an unexpected detail, though more importantly, I could clearly see her personality came through her messages.

She didn't use abbreviations, slang, or sarcastic remarks. Every sentence ended with proper punctuation, every greeting was polite, and every message carried an earnest tone that was impossible to mistake.

She typed just like she ran. It was bright, open, and sincere.

I stared at the blinking cursor at the bottom of the screen, resting my thumb over the keyboard. 

I wanted to ask how her training was going this week, or if her trainer had already scheduled her next start on the turf. 

My thumb hovered over the glass, then slowly drifted away.

I locked the screen and let the phone drop onto my chest.

It was a strange feeling. 

I enjoyed talking to her. There was no point in lying to myself about that. Seeing her name pop up on the screen gave me a quiet lift and anticipation. 

Yet at the same time, I didn't want to become a distraction. More than that, I didn't want to overstep the boundary of being her roommate's brother. Keeping things polite, distant, and light felt like the only sensible choice.

A soft vibration buzzed against my ribs.

I picked up the phone, half hoping her name was on the screen.

Instead, a white envelope icon sat in the notification tray at the top of the screen.

I blinked at it. 

I rarely opened my email. Outside of automated receipts, spam newsletters, and the occasional administrative notice from our middle school, my inbox was essentially a ghost town.

I swiped down and tapped the preview.

The sender address was official.

Musashi Gakuen University Affiliated High School Soccer Club.

My eyes dropped straight to the subject line: 

Invitation for Incoming Scholarship Recruits: All Japan High School Soccer Tournament Semifinals.

I pushed myself up off the sofa so fast my head spun.

I sat on the edge of the cushions, both hands gripping the phone, reading the message line by line.

The email was formal and concise. It congratulated us on our sports recommendations, expressed the coaching staff's excitement for our arrival in April, and extended an invitation to attend the national semifinals at the Japan National Stadium on Saturday, January ninth. 

Attached to the bottom were a digital guest passes and seat assignments in the reserved school block.

My thumb froze over the screen.

Our future high school, Musashi High, had been tearing through the national tournament all winter. 

Shizuo, Yuuki, and I had watched every single match on the official channel from the prelims to the quarterfinals, screaming at the screen whenever their front line pressed the opposing defense into mistakes. We knew they had reached the final four. 

What I hadn't expected was for the program to reach out to us. 

As expected of a powerhouse, I thought, letting out a breath that sounded half like a laugh and half like a sigh.

In middle school, our team was completely ordinary. 

We practiced on a dirt pitch, hauled our own water jugs to away games, and washed our own bibs in buckets behind the equipment shed. When the high school scout had approached us after the regionals in August, I was mostly relieved that I wouldn't have to study for entrance exams. 

I hadn't fully grasped what stepping into a powerhouse program actually meant back then.

Now, I understood that they weren't just giving us a place in a classroom. An inclusive environment where even the incoming freshmen were treated like official members before orientation had even begun was also part of their culture.

My phone suddenly vibrated again, the screen instantly transforming into an incoming group video call.

The caller tag read: Yuuki

I tapped the green button and brought the phone to eye level.

Yuuki's face filled the screen instantly, his bleached hair sticking out in three different directions as he shoved his camera right up to his nose.

"Guys!" Yuuki screamed, his voice cracking with pure panic. "Tell me you got it! Tell me you saw the email!"

"I saw it," I said, leaning my head back against the sofa. "And stop yelling. You're going to blow out my speaker."

A second window popped open on the screen, showing Shizuo sitting at his study desk. 

Unlike Yuuki, Shizuo was dressed in a clean training shirt, his buzz cut neat and his expression completely focused. On the desk behind his phone, a laptop was open to a soccer news portal displaying the tournament bracket.

"They're treating us like big shots!" Yuuki shouted, waving his arms wildly in his bedroom. "We haven't even received the school uniform yet and we're getting free tickets to the semifinals! Is this what private school money feels like?!"

"They aren't just free tickets, Yuuki," Shizuo pointed out. "They're recruit passes. It means the coaching staff expects us to show up and pay attention."

"Who cares what they call it?! We're going to the National Stadium! And for free, haha!" 

Yuuki leaned in until only his forehead and wide eyes were visible. "Do you know how hard it is to get tickets for the semifinals? Every single seat sold out within ten minutes! I myself tried to buy general admission and got stuck in a queue of forty thousand people!"

"The matchup is huge," Shizuo added, tapping the keys on his laptop. "Kokugakuin Kugayama versus Musashi High. It's an all-Tokyo semifinal. There's also the fact that Kugayama is the favourite of the tournament."

I looked at the bracket information on my own screen.

Shizuo was right. Not only they were the favourite, they were also famous for their patient possession and fluid positional play. It was what you call a beautiful football. So many fans always crowded their games.

"We need to plan this properly," Shizuo said, crossing his arms. "The match kicks off at one in the afternoon. The crowd around Sendagaya Station is going to be massive."

"What are we wearing?" Yuuki asked suddenly, his expression turning deadly serious. "Do we wear our middle school blazers? Or club tracksuits? I don't want the upperclassmen thinking we're sloppy."

"Clean windbreakers and dark pants," I said, rubbing the bridge of my nose. "Don't wear your school uniform. We aren't going to a funeral, but don't show up in torn jeans either. Just look presentable."

"Ten in the morning at Sendagaya," Shizuo stated, locking down the schedule with his usual decisiveness. "That gives us two hours to get through the security gates, find the managers as per instruction, and pick up the badges."

"Got it," Yuuki said, pumping a fist. "Ten sharp! Don't you dare oversleep, Yama!"

"I never oversleep," I said flatly.

"Whatever! Just be there!"

The call disconnected with a soft chime.

The living room returned to silence. 

The quiet was the same as it had been twenty minutes ago, but the air felt entirely different now.

I looked down at the digital ticket barcode displayed on my screen. 

My thumb swiped back to the home screen, where the messaging app sat with its single unread notification from the group chat.

Beside it, the chat with Top Road remained quiet. Though I was sure she was working hard today too, pushing her limits on the track without making excuses.

This opportunity to watch my senpai up close and thinking of her doing her best made me didn't want to lose. 

I set the phone down on the wooden coffee table, stretched my legs out on the rug, and let out a long, quiet breath.

I had some work of my own to do.