Published at 25th of August 2019 10:15 pm

Book 1 Chapter 2 - Who Is That Cat?

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

When Asaki Kayoko showed up again, Tomoki had thought “As expected”, and although he had expected that they would meet again, he still kept his eyes open for the unexpected shape their reunion would take.

A week after that, Kayoko showed up again at the Tatsumi Swimming Center, this time greeting Tomoki and the others in a black athletic swimsuit.

Tanned skin. Her long hair gathered at the top of her head. While she was slender, her body suggested hints of strong muscle. Long eyelashes framed her cat-like eyes as ever, and as soon as she spotted Tomoki, they shone like they had on that day, but there was also a mischievous light, like a child waiting for the moment a secret is revealed.

The reason for that would be discovered soon.

Today, when the stretching exercises before practice were finished, Coach Fujitani called everyone over and introduced Kayoko.

“From today on we will have a new coach here. This is Asaki Kayoko-kun.”

The elementary school students cheered over the unexpected appearance of the new coach, Tomoki and the other middle school students looked at her blankly.

This woman is their new coach?

Moreover, Kayoko said she would succeed Coach Nakanishi, who had transferred out of the club.

The MDC originally had three coaches: Ooshima, a portly man, was the coach of the elementary schoolers; Coach Nakanishi was in charge of the middle schoolers; and Coach Fujitani was the head coach who supervised both groups. In other words, Kayoko would be in charge of Tomoki’s group.

“I will work hard to send out strong competitors from this club.”

Before the dumbfounded middle schoolers, Kayoko greeted them like a cat hiding her fangs. In the circle, Coach Fujitani asked Youichi a question.

“What are you going to do? Do you want to be instructed by Coach Asaki from now on, or will you continue practicing with Coach Abe like before?”

“I’ll do the same as before,” Youichi answered without hesitation. “But I will do the dryland training together.”

“Well, okay. If you aim for the top, either way it’s better to practice with people older than you rather than younger than you.”

Coach Fujitani nodded, knowing that there was no opponent at Sakuragi High who could motivate Youichi. Despite being father and son, Youichi and Coach Fujitani had a certain distance between them. Tomoki always marveled at how strangely formal they were with each other.

“Well then, let’s start practice. Ah, a word to elementary schoolers. During practice, please don’t pluck the poolside plants. Plants are for enriching the eyes, not tearing…”

With their backs to Coach Fujitani’s voice, Tomoki and the others slowly went to take showers.

“Seriously? She’s our coach? Is she even qualified for it? Sheesh.”

Next to Ryou, who had a torrent of complaints, Reiji also looked uneasy.

“No way, she must be Mizuki’s spy, right? She must be a bad coach sent by them to destroy us.”

“I don’t think so. It’s a weird thing to do. Mizuki can close us down whenever they want. Besides…”

Besides, Kayoko had said that she hadn’t come to destroy the MDC, but to protect it. Tomoki now understood that this is what she meant.

Nonetheless, if Kayoko really was serious about wanting to protect the MDC, she would need to devote all her strength and perseverance into it.

Diving was a sport where the coach wielded a great deal of influence. Obviously, the diver would not be able to see their own form when diving from a platform or springboard. Things like how precisely is their body moving, or how big of a splash are they making during entry, were completely unknown. When they received the explanation from their coach about what they are missing, the diver would know how their performance was for the first time. At the same time, issues and problems were pointed out, and tips for improvement were given. Without that relationship of trust, there was no chance for improving one’s skills.

“Well, if she’s a fake coach, then she’ll be fired. Let’s check that today.”

While Ryou fixed his eyes on the diving board in an aggressive manner, Tomoki secretly made a checklist in his head.

First, how much did she know about diving at such a young age?

In conclusion, for today, it wouldn’t be Kayoko who would be checking them strictly, but the other way around.

_______________________________________________________________

“First of all, I want you all to try diving one by one.”

Prompted by Kayoko, the first one on the platform was Ryou. Being a show-off, Ryou tended to choose a fancy move that was more than he was actually capable of, perhaps wanting to display his good points in front of the new coach, and he was standing on the tip of the platform longer than usual to build up his fighting spirit. Finally, when he raised both his hands and was about to dive, Kayoko clapped her hands from the poolside.

“Alright, I see now. Get off.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t need to dive. Please come down from the stairs.”

The one who appeared next on the platform, Reiji, was by nature a careful diver. Today he also closed his eyes lightly, concentrating his mind on his performance from now. Then, before actually diving in, Kayoko’s cruel voice rang out. “Yes, it’s fine. Come down.”

Tomoki, who was last, was also similar. In order to not follow Ryou’s and Reiji’s examples, he was intent on diving as soon as he got onto the platform, but he didn’t stop at the edge for three seconds before Kayoko hurriedly clapped her hands.

“Yes, good, it’s over now. Please get off quickly.”

The three made their humiliating descent off the platform, and were made to do “standing posture” practice on the poolside. They hadn’t touched the water even once during today’s practice.

“A diver who can’t stand in the proper posture cannot perform proper dives.”

“You’re exerting too much force in your necks. Pull in your butts more. Your arms are straight, but not stiff. Align your fingers, but don’t exert force into it!”

“Relax your upper bodies, but stiffen your lower bodies tightly. Gather all your strength into the center of your stomachs.”

“All of you have been diving for years, but you can’t even do proper body alignment?”

Body alignment—something Kayoko fussed over a lot. In a few words, it meant the correct position when diving. She wanted them to imagine a plump bunch of grapes. If you drop the bunch from off the platform, it would be broken apart and rain down everywhere as its center of gravity was tilted, and landing in the water in an ugly way as its balance was disturbed. But, would this happen to a cucumber? A straight cucumber would fall in a straight line and cut into the water vertically. Body alignment isn’t the ability to distribute power around the body (e.g. grapes), but to turn your whole body into a stiff board during your performance (e.g. cucumber). It was the foundation of a beautiful aerial performance and a no-splash entry, and Kayoko tried to drill it thoroughly into their heads on the first day.

However, that persistence was opposed by Tomoki and the others.

“We just stood on the poolside for an hour!”

“She’s crazy. It’s just not sane.”

The first half of practice has passed, so Kayoko told them to take a ten-minute break before continuing. They had all dashed to jump into the Jacuzzi bath, where they let loose everything that they had been forced to put up with up till then.

“How many times did she keep talking about how body alignment is? It’s stupid thing to do for one and two hours. It’s like telling a land athlete to stretch their Achilles tendon for an hour.”

“It’s a strategy, a strategy. She’s making us do weird things on the first day, to freak us out. Isn’t this her true plan?”

“Yeah, she’s that type of deceiver. Those underhanded tricks are only used by those who have no self-confidence.”

Then, to the ears of the three people who yammering on and on in the same vein, came Youichi’s voice.

“It’s true that type exists.”

Turning around with a start, they saw Youichi’s shadow floating on the other side of the frosted glass that partitioned off the Jacuzzi bath.

“Youichi-kun…”

“I’ve met them too, that type of coach. When I was at a training camp in middle school, a male coach from America came and he taught exactly like how that woman teaches. The first day was all about body alignment. The second day was dryland training. The third day was take off and approach practice. In the end, we were never actually taught diving itself. Just like you guys are doing now, everyone was complaining nonstop about it.”

“I thought so.”

The three all nodded, but Youichi continued on. “But, after that coach went back, I saw that everyone’s diving had become almost unrecognizable. It was like a toddler who could only walk suddenly started skipping. The Japanese coaches were stunned. Also, I learned this later, but that coach also trained the American gold medalists.”

“…”

On the other side of the speechless trio, Youichi stood up with a splash of hot water. Tomoki chased after him as he went back to the poolside.

“Wait, Youichi-kun. Does that American coach have something to do with her?”

“No, not really. It’s just that their coaching styles are similar. But, it doesn’t seem like that woman is an ordinary person.”

“Why do you think that?”

“It’s said that you’d know a first-class diver just by looking at them standing on the platform. And somehow, you’d know a first-class coach just from looking at them on the poolside,”

Following Youichi’s gaze to the poolside, there was Kayoko’s figure, wearing a yellow t-shirt over her black swimsuit. It seemed like she was helping with the elementary schoolers, making it harder for her to return to Tomoki and the others. She was using hand gestures to instruct the little divers, who were moving around restlessly. Certainly, her unique presence and elegance were affecting.

Diving pool.

Main pool.

Sub-pool.

There was a lot of noise coming from these three inside the building.

Water was spraying on people.

The aloof diving tower that overlooked everything.

The springboard that’s next to it.

The sounds of the footsteps of the elementary schoolers running along the poolside.

The dazzling lights from the ceiling.

The smell of the pool chemicals.

The drowsiness that could attack him in a moment—

Because she’s used to it, Tomoki thought. That woman had been accustomed to all of it, as though she’d fused to become a part of it.

“She has a nice butt.” While blushing from what Youichi murmured, Tomoki was thinking about it once again.

Who is that woman?

_______________________________________________________________

“Hey, you’re Sakai-kun, right? Wait up.”

Tomoki was called by Kayoko after they were finally released from two hours of torture, as the others staggered off towards the showers.

“I want to give something to you. Will you come to the lobby before you get ready to go home?”

“Sure.”

While conscious of Ryou and Reiji staring at him, Tomoki tried his hardest to nod as though he wasn’t interested.

Something she wanted to give me?

However, while he was changing clothes, Tomoki was silently thinking about this a lot, making it very obvious that he was interested in it.

The three of them changed clothes in silence, and left the locker room which echoed with the shrill voices of the elementary schoolers. At some point while the atmosphere was strained, Reiji greeted his father and left with him, and Ryou said he’d “go on ahead” to Crostini on the first floor, and left quickly.

Crostini was a coffee shop which overlooked Akebono Bay from a glass window. The mother who was on pick-up duty usually waited for the two of them there while reading.

Left alone, Tomoki waited for Kayoko as the perfume of the synchro-moms flooded the lobby.

“Sorry for the wait.”

Twenty minutes later, Kayoko appeared, who had let down her hair in a pretty hairstyle, fixed her makeup, and glossed her red lips.

Even though she was keeping a middle school student who was exhausted from practice after school waiting, she still took the time to put on makeup. That just shows that I shouldn’t put much trust in this woman, Tomoki thought resolutely, but without voicing his thoughts, he said, “The thing you wanted to give me, what is it?”

Kayoko took out several pieces of paper clipped together from her well-worn leather bag (1).

“This is it.”

Taking them and looking at them, Tomoki was speechless.

“What are these?”

“A training schedule for every morning.”

“For who?”

“Don’t play stupid all of a sudden!”

“This…must be a joke…”

Indeed, he cannot believe that she was sane. The self-training schedule Kayoko made was intense. It seemed time-consuming, like digesting French food, and it would take two hours to digest a full-course meal properly. That was described how much time he was going to have to spend on this every morning.

“It’s self-training, so I’m doing this voluntarily, right?”

“I don’t have to tell you to, after all, since you’re all Japanese kids.”

“I will do it, sometimes.”

“What kind of mediocre athlete would you be if you only do this sometimes? Extraordinary athletes always do extraordinary training.”

“I’m mediocre anyways.”

“I know. During last year’s Junior High School Championships’ Kanto meet you were tenth place out of twelve. You couldn’t even participate at the national meet. When you were in elementary school you had no success at the Junior Olympics, and finished without leaving an impression in either the tournament’s records or in people’s memories. You might be even below mediocrity.”

Tomoki glared at Kayoko sullenly. Her beautiful face was armed with makeup, with eyeliner firmly applied to that hateful thing.

“So, is Coach saying that giving me self-training is going to turn me from a below-mediocre to extraordinary?”

“Exactly. But I will check on you in this case. However, what exactly do you think is extraordinary?”

“Like…winning the Japanese Championships.”

Winning the Japanese Championships. Tomoki smiled weakly at the extremely overambitious words he had just said.

But Kayoko did not laugh at him at all. “You’re a small-minded boy, huh.” She told him seriously.

“What?”

“What we are aiming for are the Olympics.”

_______________________________________________________________

On Sunday the next day, on a road in Setagaya Ward brightened by the morning sunshine, Tomoki was running alongside his pet dog Chikuwa.

Chikuwa was a stray dog found by Hiroya six years ago on a rainy day. His wet fur was then blow-dried, and when he was shown the refrigerator, the pitiful little dog jumped in joy. He ate as much as he was given. He liked eating chikuwa (2) so much that Hiroya named him after it, but when Tomoki thought about it later, he realized that was probably because he was just hungry. He would have been named “Cheese” if there was cheese in the refrigerator, or “Kamaboko” if there was kamaboko (2). Every time he saw Chikuwa, Tomoki kept thinking about the role fate played in that.

The neighborhood in the freezing early morning was deserted, and still covered in an opaque thin mist, but when they passed by people occasionally, they looked surprised to see Tomoki and Chikuwa going through it at a fast speed.

Chikuwa swung his bushy tail, his milk-colored body shaking with delight. Tomoki, who constantly made Hiroya take a walk with him instead, rarely took him outside, and he made him run at a faster speed than usual at a much longer distance. No matter how much Tomoki panted as he gripped his leash, or how sweaty his whole body was, those things became irrelevant to Chikuwa.

Tomoki’s exercise clothes were damp. Tucked into his pocket was the schedule Kayoko had given him yesterday.

Why I am doing this?

Why am I doing exactly what that woman told me to do?

He kept running, not understanding anything. As he let Chikuwa drag him ahead, Tomoki’s head swirled with the words Kayoko had thrust at him yesterday.

“I’m telling you this for your own good. Even if you think about falling into the gutter, give up and listen to what I’m saying. First of all, do some jogging every morning. If you have a dog, you should run together for at least an hour. Don’t forget that anything that happens in your daily life can count as training. Of course, you don’t wear socks and stuff like that at home, do you? Diving is a barefoot sport, so isn’t it good to try to sharpen the sensation of being barefoot everyday?”

As soon as he finished jogging for an hour, Tomoki returned to his room as quickly as he could, taking off his jacket that was sticky with sweat. After a short break, he started to do stretches in his T-shirt. From his ankles to feet, arms, shoulders, neck…his whole body was stretched. Tomoki’s double-jointed body, which was discovered by Kayoko, certainly bended well.

“Basic physical strength is the basics of basics. Okay? There are a lot of intervals in a diving competition, and it seems easy at first glance compared to other sports like soccer and basketball, but in order to do the nerve-wracking performances that last until the end in those long competitions, you will need extraordinary muscle strength, concentration skills and mental strength for the performance. I think in the end these will all form the foundation that is basic physical strength.”

After stretching, it was muscle training. Since Tomoki was a middle-schooler, his body hasn’t matured yet and therefore he could not use machines to do full-scale muscle training. However, Kayoko said that the most minimal muscle strength should be trained from now on to create a foundation in the future.

Abs and back muscles, and then push-ups. He did fifty push-ups for one set for a total of three sets. In other words, he did a hundred and fifty of them. How much is minimal? Tomoki thought as he gasped for breath.

“And after that, though I’ve said it many times, it’s thorough body alignment. Every morning and evening, check your posture in the mirror. Are you exerting force into your shoulders? Is your stomach sticking out? Are your buttocks tight? You have to keep that posture until the very last moment to ensure that you have a good water entry. And in order to keep that posture, you must have the corresponding muscle strength and power.”

While doing it in bursts of intervals many times, he finally finished muscle training. He dropped down onto the floor and could not move. But he was still not released from Kayoko’s schedule yet.

He had to do handstands for thirty seconds ten times.

“Doing a handstand on the platform is in the sixth category of diving.(3) Many Japanese divers are not good at it. The reason for that is obviously from lack of practice. The muscles necessary for handstands can only be trained from doing handstands. Every day, do handstands to death. If you have free time, or during recess at school, do handstands. If you get called the Handstand Boy behind your back, that’s great. Since diving is a mental competition, if you’re confident about an event that everyone else isn’t good at, it will definitely lead to a wide margin during the competition.”

Tomoki summoned his remaining strength and got up, and placed his trembling hands on the floor as he kicked his feet about it. He raised his lower body with a great amount of effort, and felt lightheaded as his toes approached the ceiling. However, because his fatigue from the muscle training dragged on his arms, he had no strength to support his entire body and…

Thud. Tomoki fell forward and hit his forehead against the floor.

It hurts. It’s painful. I feel dizzy. Oh, I feel awful!

“Hey, what do you think are the qualities that a diver must have? Good proportions, excellent leg muscle strength, explosive power, a feel for rhythm, strong force of will and expressiveness…as many qualities as there are, I think the most important one is flexibility. It’s obvious if you look at who’s at the top in the world. Their bodies are very pliant. That pliancy gives their performances beauty and stability. Speaking of flexibility, you are born with qualities that they cannot not defeat. And beyond that…well, we will do that another time.”

A cool wind blew through the open window, comfortable against his sweaty skin. On the other side of the billowing blue curtains was the even bluer sky with scattered pale clouds that hovered over it.

The sky looks like a diving pool this way, Tomoki thought suddenly.

A blue boxed in by a square border.

I’m always boxed in by the world outside the pool…

“I only promise one thing. You will definitely grow. You improve as much as you polish your skills, and perhaps you can become a greater diver. Of course, it’s not going to be easy for you, having to do self-training every morning and attend practice after school, not to mention homework. But, you will definitely seize that result only if you work hard. It should be a result that’s the most realistic thing that you’ve ever savored so far, pleasant, and easy to understand. Is there anything else in this half-hearted country that can make you feel like that?”

School and home were enjoyable in their own ways, but they always felt constrained somehow, and he felt like he’s surrounded by a box. A very small, cramped box. It made him sad to think that even he himself was small-minded.

It was an unclear feeling of suffocation, or an unidentifiable depression.

By comparison, everything looked so much clearer in the water.

“Aim for the top. You are a kid who can do it. Focus on ascending to a higher place.”

To a high place?

“Yes. Always ascend.”

Ascend.

“There’s a scenery that only you can see.”

Scenery.

I can go beyond the box—?

_______________________________________________________________

“Hey Tomo, phone.”

Suddenly, a voice from reality sounded outside his head. Tomoki, surprised, returned back to himself.

He looked up to see Hiroya peering in from the half-open door.

Hiroya, who was getting into river fishing recently, would be going to a river sometime today. He was wearing a thick navy blue down jacket, and was handing him the phone while telling him to “hurry up”.

“Miu?”

“No, it’s Hirotaka from Class A.”

Relieved, Tomoki raised his aching body up and took the phone.

“Hello, Hirotaka?”

“Ah, Tomo. Are you free today? Everyone’s talking about meeting up in Ishii.”

“Um…actually, I’m doing dryland training this afternoon.”

If it was before, he would have skipped practice after some hesitation, and go out with Hirotaka and the others.

While thinking this, he said, “That’s why I can’t go, sorry.”

“Diving again? Oh well, I’ll just ask someone else.”

“Sorry, maybe some other time…”

The other side hung out before he finished talking.

Beep—beep—beep.

Tomoki listened to the cold machine sounds for a while, slowly moving his gaze at the receiver in his left hand to his right hand.

In his right hand that was damp with sweat, he clutched Kayoko’s crumpled-up schedule.

Holding a handstand for thirty seconds ten times. Then jump fifty times. And lastly, cooling down exercises. Carefully massage the whole body around the wrists and toes.

Tomoki let go of the phone, and quietly continued his training.

_______________________________________________________________

Translation Notes

1. More specifically, “bag made from cow hide tanned using tannin”.

2. Chikuwa is a tube-shaped fish-paste cake, and kamaboko is a steamed seasoned fish cake in a semi-cylindrical shape.

3. There are six groups of dives: Forward, back, reverse, inward, twisting, and armstand.

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