Published at 25th of August 2019 10:20 pm

Book 1 Chapter 11 - Diamond Eyes

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

That child might not come.

That was Kayoko’s first thought on her bed when she woke up earlier than usual the next morning, on the day of the qualifying trials to Beijing that they were betting on.

She didn’t hear rain. The practice before the competition could go through as planned. Her students would meet up at the Sakuragi High pool in the morning, and were supposed to go to the Tatsumi Swimming Center in the afternoon. Everyone’s faces would be stiff with either nerves or blunt fighting spirit when they gathered. But, that child might not be among them…

It wasn’t the first time she’d been betrayed by a student who she had her eyes on. They didn’t care about their coach’s feelings, and quit diving easily. Because they were scared. Because it hurt. Because it was cold. Because they fell behind in their studies. Because their parents opposed it. Because they got tired. Even if they were possessed jewel-like qualities that everyone envied, they quit diving for reasons that were like common pebbles. The important thing was to change heads quickly. Don’t drag back the athletes who left, and dedicate yourself to those who remained.

Kayoko finished her breakfast of ham and eggs with toast, prepared quickly, and left home thirty minutes earlier than usual today. In order to carry positive feelings on this melancholic day, she made it a custom to do something that went against her heart. She went to the gym when she was feeling lazy, and when her feet felt heavy going to practice, she left home early. When her friends asked her when she was going to rest, Kayoko answered, “When the Olympics are over,” with a joking smile.

She couldn’t rest.

There was one more year until the Olympics.

In order to protect the MDC that her grandfather had built, Kayoko could only keep on moving.

In order to protect the MDC—. She remembered how Tomoki had asked her if she came to destroy it, and she had answered with the caustic words of “I came here to protect it,” when she had first visited the Tatsumi Swimming Center.

It hadn’t been a lie or a bluff. Fujitani Youichi. Okitsu Shibuki. And also, Sakai Tomoki. It was possible to protect the MDC if those three were there, and Kayoko was convinced of that when she was strangely uplifted watching Tomoki’s performance for the first time that day.

On the train ride to Sakuragi High, Kayoko noticed that she had been unconsciously thinking about Tomoki again, and sighed.

He was a boy whose body and mind were still immature.

An unfinished diver who still hadn’t noticed his own talent.

Will he leave the water as he was, with his innate talent still slumbering?

While thinking that she should just forget it and give up, she looked out the window at the train passing by on the opposite tracks. Kayoko’s chest was almost bursting with regret to the point of insanity thinking about Tomoki’s outstanding ability—the diamond eyes. At just the moment the up-train and down-train passed each other, for that instant of point-something seconds, if Tomoki could see a passenger on the other train through the window, he would have been able to see things like what kind of clothes would they’d be wearing, what kind of expression they had on, in great detail. Even the headlines of the newspaper they were reading might have been burned into his eyes.

The ability to perceive objects moving at high speeds at a single instant with the eyes—kinetic vision.

One of the essential elements for a diver who aspired to high-level techniques.

When athletes did aerial performances while falling down at great speeds, even though it looked like they were just spinning recklessly, in truth, athletes were closely measuring their timing while moving. The first turn benchmark, the second turn benchmark, the third turn benchmark—those visuals are memorized by sight during practice. If you could see that red roof, that was one turn, and if you could see that window, that was two turns, and so on. Since if your kinetic vision was weak you couldn’t perceive the benchmarks, no matter how much you practiced your rotations won’t be stable, which would invite disturbances in your entry. No matter what, you won’t “rotate well”. Conversely, for athletes with good kinetic vision, everything that passed before their eyes was like looking at a still image, and so they will naturally be able to rotate well. The higher the level of performance, the more pronounced the differences were between the two.

How many divers had cried and left diving because they weren’t blessed with the “eyes” that were difficult to get by acquired training? Only a small handful of athletes could say that they were endowed with the blessing of kinetic vision. And the possibility of them having that along with flexibility, muscle strength, leg strength, expressiveness and other elements was very similar to trying to win the lottery.

Tomoki was exactly that special prize.

That flexible movement born from having good eyes in the air. Rarely making mistakes with the timing of the rotations. This special ability allows for the complete covering of failures that would be fatal for other athletes, though there were more boring failures. Since she first saw Tomoki dive, Kayoko had intuitively sniffed out this rare potential. And in only turned into conviction when he succeeded at the 3½ in just four months. Even if you used your intuition for 2½ turns, you wouldn’t be able to do 3½ turns unless you have excellent kinetic vision. Ah, that child still had the diamond eyes…!

An unrefined diamond still covered by dirt. That’s why she wanted to polish him. She wanted to polish him, let him shine, and see how far he could grow. The person in question was completely uninterested in his own abilities, and was repeatedly indecisive and hesitant to the point that it was irritating, but Kayoko believed that an athlete like that would improve dramatically if he gathered his courage together just once.

However, that expectation had dissolved into bubbles, and Kayoko got off at her usual station with that empty desire in her chest. During the day, the street was stuffy from crowds under the midsummer sun, but right now there still wasn’t a lot of pedestrian traffic, so it was still faintly cool from the moisture left from dew. The clacking of high heels sounded as she walked through the shopping district, directly went through the old townscape, and approached the school route that was lined with cherry trees, in about ten minutes. She could already see the old-fashioned building of Sakuragi High School sticking out over the concrete wall that was in front of it.

Sakuragi High School would be celebrating its eightieth anniversary soon. Kayoko had never once passed through that imposing front gate. Today as well, she went around behind the school buildings and passed through the rusted back gate. The shabby backyard. The mesh from the remains of a broken aviary. A deflated soccer ball sunk into the weeds. Making her way quickly through the drab scenery, she came under the leaves of huge tree that would throw its branches into disorder before long, from which her eyes were drawn to the conspicuously drab building. That was the sad-looking diving club clubroom that they had on a one-year contract. When she was first introduced to here, Kayoko was seriously lost as to whether she should just go back to America, but now she even came to be attached to it because no one else knew about it. On the contrary, when she opened the door to the sour smell of the clubroom, she felt relaxed for the first time that day.

However, staying too long was useless. Throwing her bag onto the locker’s shelf, she stripped quickly, and put on a black athletic swimsuit. She wore a white t-shirt over it, then casually piled up her long hair at the top of her head. Kayoko, having completed her preparations, took her blue towel in one hand and went out to the diving pool.

It had been about five months since she became a coach at the MDC. Until now, she had never given anyone else the refreshing feeling of being the first one at the pool. She enjoyed the feeling of her bare feet pattering beneath the blue sky, and when she turned towards the giant pool of water that reflected that blue, she felt like the dregs of heart were quickly, faintly ascending to the sky. Even the chemical smell that Shibuki hated was like a scent reminding her of her hometown for Kayoko.

She passed through the shower room, went through the disinfection area that usually stored water, and the usual sights were spread in front of her in the open space ahead.

The diving pool that was filled with the still-cold morning water.

The springboard trembling in the wind in the corner.

And, the awe-inspiring diving platform that towered at the center.

When Kayoko stood on the chilly poolside and looked up at the diving platform that was backed by the morning glow, she let out a small “ah” as her eyes took in the full width of light.

There were three platforms that pushed out on the water.

It was because she saw on the ten-meter platform, which was the very top, the silhouette of a boy hugging his knees.

－it was Sakai Tomoki.

_______________________________________________________________

“I remembered what happened when I first saw this platform.”

While looking at the water below the ten-meter, Tomoki continued to sit as though he was stuck to the tip of the platform, and didn’t respond to Kayoko no matter how many times she called to him, so she went up the stairs, and he spoke in a low voice with his bent back facing her.

“At that time, I was eight and still small, and the diving platform was huge. It was insanely big. It was like a monster when I looked up at it from the ground. Since then, I threw a lot of things in order to tame this monster. If I didn’t meet diving, I could have been playing, studying, travelling, falling in love…I definitely could have been able to do those things like everyone else. But, I didn’t choose them.” Tomoki paused.

Kayoko sat lightly on the railing of the platform, and whispered, “That’s right,” like she was urging him to continue.

“Yes, you didn’t choose those things.”

“Hiroya—my brother who stole Miu—was, for me, someone else that I didn’t choose. In my heart, I longed for things like playing with my friends normally and doing my hobbies as much as I wanted to, but I cannot have them. Hiroya is the symbol for them. That was what I thought, after thinking about it in many different ways, why I didn’t feel that frustrated until my girlfriend was stolen from me.”

Tomoki’s light brown back bathed in the morning sun still seemed forlorn, but his tone of voice was filled with animation that wasn’t there yesterday.

Boys these days were soft. That’s why they got hurt immediately. But with some sort of strange resilience, they recovered right away.

“But, I’d decided already. I will give up on what I haven’t chose. No, not give up, but surpass them. Surpass…I thought that all the time since a little while ago.”

Tomoki turned to face Kayoko for the first time.

“But, can you just tell me one thing before that?”

“What for?”

“What is my weapon?”

“…”

“What is the super dive that no one had ever done before?”

A strong wind blew between the two of them, spreading ripples on the surface of the water below the ten-meter.

“It’s important. Youichi-kun has diving in his blood. He has the blood of Coach Fujitani, who is a former Olympic athlete, and the blood of his mother, who used to be a diver. His diving is textbook-perfect, and he has great proportions as well as mental strength that never gets shaken. Youichi-kun really does have everything. Okitsu-kun also has the blood of his ancestors who dived into the Sea of Japan, and the blood of the former genius diver. And he has that big body, and a dynamic dive. But I have nothing. I don’t have any important blood flowing through my body, an advantageous physique, or my own unique performance…I even lost my girlfriend.”

“That’s why,” Tomoki sounded like he was entreating to her as he spoke. “So, please tell me what’s my weapon. It’s hopeless if I compete against those two as I am now. If I had a weapon, I can make full use of it anyway I want, and I want to beat those two.”

He wanted to beat them. It was the first time that Tomoki had ever spoken those words so strongly. It was the face of a risk taker who had abandoned the innocence of a young boy. Ah, this kid is starting to change himself!

Kayoko gave him a dazzling smile, and nodded greatly. “Okay.”

“I will tell you your weapons. They are the diamond eyes that are envied by all divers. When you make the most of that strength, you will be able to obtain a dive that only you can do that neither Youichi-kun nor Okitsu-kun can do.”

“A dive that only I can do…”

“Yes. A super dive that no one will be able to imitate—the 4½.”

The morning glow had disappeared from the sky gradually, and golden sunlight poured onto the houses across the concrete wall. Tomoki absentmindedly gazed at the light, then moved his eyes to the scraps of clouds floating across the sky. He had a doubtful face, like he was suspecting that somewhere the world had gone crazy.

4½. Regardless of all times and places, there were no athletes in this world who had ever successfully pulled off this great feat at a regular competition.

The world’s first 4½.

Why was she able to say such outrageous things? For he who had struggled so much with even 3½, what basis did she have for expecting him to do 4½ somersaults? Was it really possible to do 4½…?

There were a lot of things he wanted to hear about.

However, Tomoki kept his eyes wide open, and continued to stare at Kayoko silently.

If she said she was going to do it, she would do it. Because while he was full of questions, that was the only thing that seemed certain.

BOOK 1 END

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