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Kurita liked to come early in the morning to practice. If he got up early enough, he could be the first one at the school, before members of any sports clubs arrived, even before the custodian staff. Often before Doburoku got there, though sometimes he would still be at the school with the night's drinking not yet finished. Other times his trainer wouldn't get in until after the first period bell, so really it was luck either way.
And either way, Kurita liked the chill breeze in the morning when the sky is leached of color, glowing gray with the sun just over the horizon, still shaded behind blue tiled roofs. He liked the quiet, when all that could be heard on the schoolyard were birds and traffic and his own voice as he pounded himself against the blocking sled.
Doburoku had taught him to shout, to challenge with his voice as he attacked with his body, all his strength forced out together. But it was difficult when anyone but his trainer was watching. Kurita could feel the stares when he growled his mantra, even more eyes than usual shifting toward him, like he was an animal or a monster or the wall-eyed man on the train who counts his fingers aloud and then takes off his shoes to count his toes while the other passengers tighten their jaws and look away. If there were someone else practicing with him, then everyone would know it was just an exercise. But alone he looked crazy, crying out as he stubbornly assaulted the unmoving wood and metal hulk of the homemade sled. As a kid he might have pretended it was a game, but he had gotten too big for that kind of imaginary play.
So he liked to practice with the blocking sled first in the morning, alone, and in the afternoon after class he did running and lifting and ordinary exercises with the other sports teams. Everyone knew he wasn't part of their own club—he stood out too much to be mistaken for a forgotten member—but he could pretend he belonged to someone else's. He would probably be too embarrassed to actually lie if anyone ever asked him, but no one did.
But when he got to school this morning someone was there already, a lone figure jogging on the track around the field. His black running suit was a darker blot against the black asphalt.
When Kurita got a little closer he recognized his classmate. They were in the same year but not the same homeroom class, so they'd not met before, and Kurita had never seen him on the sports field, morning or afternoon. But the whole school could recognize Hiruma Youichi, and not only because he was the only student with bleached hair. School-wide speculation about that flagrant flaunting of the Maoh Junior High student code had ended after the first week, but for every rumor about Hiruma that died, two others sprang up to replace it.
No one usually bothered to share gossip with Kurita, but then no gossip was like that which accumulated around Hiruma. Kurita had overheard enough that he was neither surprised nor insulted when he said, "Good morning," and Hiruma didn't say anything, just kept running by as Kurita crossed the track onto the field.
Not many ignored him like that. As a junior high student, Kurita was already one of the tallest people in the school, taller even than most of the teachers, and he outweighed anyone easily. He couldn't step onto the field without being noticed, even if he didn't make a sound. Usually students and teachers both would greet him first; from a distance his silhouette was as recognizable as Hiruma Youichi's blond hair.
But Hiruma jogged by without a glance, not knowing Kurita, not caring. Like Kurita was too ordinary to bother noticing—not by Hiruma, who hung out with upperclassmen and even high schoolers and maybe teachers, too. Maybe more important people than that, some rumors had it. He probably was here not to hide from the staring eyes of later in the day, but because he would be too busy then. More important things to do.
He was too busy to take time to bother with Kurita. So all Kurita could politely do was ignore him, too, stop gaping at that unexpected black and yellow individual and get to his own practice, as determinedly as Hiruma was doing his own.
Kurita tried to stay quiet, his first few rushes, so as not to disturb his fellow student, but by the fourth he had gotten too involved in the exercise and the usual cry came out as he slammed his mass into the blocking sled, growling out of his throat and echoing across the field. He swallowed it short, going red, and looked around.
But the lone figure on the track hadn't paused, almost through another lap and jogging at the same steady pace. Ignoring him. Kurita turned back to the blocking sled, took a deep breath and charged forward, letting his mouth open and his bellow sound across the almost-empty school grounds, aggressive and triumphant, as Doburoku had taught him. If Hiruma heard it, his steps never faltered.
Doburoku had taught him, too, to charge with all his power, to not hold back even if he broke the sled, like he had the first time he had rushed Doburoku's original makeshift construction. He had tried to apologize but his trainer had refused to allow it, once he had rehinged his jaw from where it had dropped to the ground alongside the splinters and bent piping of the former sled. Instead Doburoku had hammered together a new blocking sled and told him, a gleam in his eye, "Okay, try to take this baby down."
It had taken Kurita a week to destroy that one. The sled he practiced with now was the third of its kind, and much more of a challenge thanks to the cement mixer that had conveniently been on the grounds for the expansion of the soccer clubhouse. But Kurita heard the creak of metal and wood as he impacted it. Probably not much longer. He was looking forward to Doburoku's grin when he saw the wreckage.
He was so looking forward to it that he didn't realize he was being watched until he stopped to have some water, and noticed that there was no longer any jogger on the track. Kurita turned around, and there was Hiruma Youichi, standing not four yards behind him and watching as quietly as Doburoku ever watched. Quieter, because the sloshing of Doburoku's sake jug always gave him away. Hiruma made no sound except the faint snap of his chewing gum.
Up close, the blond hair wasn't as striking as the pierced ears, and the angular, cat-green eyes. Those demon eyes were focused on him, and Kurita met them, then hastily and embarrassedly started to look away before he was staring back—two wrongs don't make a right. But then his gaze fell on Hiruma's hands. Hiruma was holding a football. An American Football football, and he held it like an expert, his long fingers hooked around the pointed end to tuck it firmly under his arm.
Kurita couldn't even care that he was staring. "You know American Football?" he blurted out.
"Yeah," Hiruma said, and grinned. Sharp teeth glittered behind his lips.
"I know football, too," Kurita said, almost choking on the words in getting them out as hurriedly as he could. "I want to play it someday."
"Yeah," Hiruma said, not fast or impatiently but cool. Still grinning. "I figured you weren't practicing for the sumo team with a blocking sled."
Kurita couldn't always tell if he were being teased or insulted, and didn't mind anyway. "You're Hiruma-kun, aren't you?" he asked anxiously. "We're in the same year. I'm—"
"Kurita Ryoukan," Hiruma said. He still held the football in one hand, but in his other he now had a small black book, keeping his place with his thumb and the spine clamped between index and middle finger as he read, "Homeroom 2-B, GPA in the bottom third percentile of the Maoh Junior High class. Resides at the Mourensou temple on Takatsuji Street with mother, father, grandfather; no siblings. No club membership, no extracurricular activities, no regular acquaintances. No other relevant information." Hiruma frowned, arched eyebrows curving down. The black book disappeared from his fingers.
"Yes, that's right," Kurita said. "That's me. Except I want to be in the football club, but there's nobody else to be in it with me, so it doesn't really count. I have a trainer, though."
The eyebrows curved up again, green eyes under them gleaming. "A trainer?"
Kurita nodded. "Doburoku-sensei. He could train you, too, if you want. He's really great, he knows everything about football."
"That's Doburoku Sakaki?" The black book reappeared in Hiruma's hand. He flicked through it, sharp eyes running over the pages as the grin returned.
"Do you want to play football, Hiruma-kun?" Kurita asked.
"Of course." Hiruma said it like there was no other answer that could even be conceived of in this world. Like Kurita wasn't merely stupid for asking but dangerously insane. He made the book vanish again and flipped the ball into his right hand, long fingers curled securely around it as his arm drew back for a throw. "I'm going to be the quarterback."
He threw the ball. The pass was long and powerful, crossing half the field to bounce down on the asphalt track outside the end zone. Out of the reach of any receiver, even if there had been someone else with them on the field to catch it.
"That's—great," Kurita said, almost not hesitating at all.
Hiruma snorted. "It's shit," he said. "A quarterback can't pull off a damn thing if he can't throw the ball where he needs it to go."
That was true. "But it's a strong throw, it went really far," Kurita said earnestly. "You just need to practice to get your aim better—" Then he shut his mouth, because Hiruma was looking at him, and he didn't know anything about passing anyway. "Sorry, I can't help you with throwing," Kurita mumbled. "But Doburoku-sensei could, if you have the time to wait for him, he might be in this morning..." Hiruma's eyes, watching him, were very green and not very human, the eyes of someone who had better things to do than hang around so early in the morning with a stupid fat classmate who was making fun of him without meaning to. And it had been an okay pass, for a beginner. "You could practice a few hours with him, you only need to get a little better..."
Another beat passed, and then Hiruma laughed, showing more pointed teeth. "No, I need to get a hell of a lot better. And a trainer would help. I didn't know there was anyone—I didn't hear until yesterday that anybody else practiced American Football at this fucking school." He said it impatiently, as if that lapse were somebody's fault.
Anybody else. "You mean," Kurita swallowed, not daring to believe it, "would you have wanted to practice here? If you knew? I mean, now that you know, do you want to—"
Hiruma cut him off. "What are you going to be?"
"What?"
Hiruma snapped his gum. "Your position, fucking fatty. What are you going to be on our team?"
Kurita almost didn't realize what he had said at first, not because Hiruma said it quickly, but because he said it with that same certainty he had had before. Like it had always been this way and it wasn't worth remarking on because even a baby would know it, same as gravity. Our team, like they had been teammates since the beginning of time and would be until the end. Like those words changed reality forever.
Kurita blinked as if he were dizzy, as if the world really had shifted around him. He put out his hand to catch his balance on the blocking sled.
That was a mistake, because he leaned with too much of his weight. With a crack of wood and the whine of abused metal, the sled collapsed in on itself, sawdust rising from the remains like white mist.
Kurita hastily straightened himself up, blushing. "Er," he said, keeping his head down. He wondered what look he would see in Hiruma's demonic eyes. It wasn't the first time he had broken something simply by being his massively unwieldy self. When he was younger the look had usually been irritation at his clumsiness; now, as a junior high school student who had broken a couple metal chairs just by sitting quietly in them, he more often got astonished horror, or else flat-eyed, impatient disbelief at the ill manners of his size.
Only Doburoku had never looked at him with either; the trainer's initial astonishment was not horrified but simply amazed.
But Hiruma had watched him practice already. And had shown nothing, no surprise or fear or scorn or anything. Kurita steeled himself, lifted his head to meet those green eyes. "I," he answered, "I'm a lineman."
Demon eyes, but the look in them as they raised from the ruined sled to Kurita was like the reverence with which monks came to his family's temple. "Fuck yeah," Hiruma said, barely breathing it, and then he grinned, so that every sharp point in his mouth glittered in the recently risen sun. "This," he said, with the unshakeable conviction of the universe behind him, "is gonna be one hell of a team."