Published at 25th of August 2019 11:18 pm

Book 3 Chapter 4 - Next Stage Coming

This chapter is updated by NovelFree.ml

As it turned out, Youichi skipped practice for only one week, not because his headache was completely cured, not because Tomoki gave him moth orchids, not even because the fortunes of Leos had sharply increased.

“You probably have your own plans for yourself. But, stop here.”

The morning on the day when it had been a week since he first started skipping, Keisuke finally got impatient.

Youichi thought that somewhere in his head, he had been waiting for this day. Will he explode, or will he guilt-trip me by crying? But Keisuke spoke as the head coach of the MDC to the last, starting off with a request.

“From my standpoint, I cannot overlook you skipping practice any longer. You don’t even know how out of shape you will be if you neglect muscle training for even one day, and how much time you will need to recover it. Besides, it is now the time when you must adjust for your next competition.”

“Next competition?”

“The JASF has invited four divers to the Sino-Japanese Goodwill Competition that will take place in November. There was an official announcement yesterday.”

Keisuke and Youichi watched each other’s expressions over the breakfast table.

Keisuke still hadn’t dealt all of his cards yet. Having that hunch, Youichi waited for him to continue without changing his expression.

“So…”

Just as he thought, Keisuke turned over his next card.

“So, based on the results of the Sino-Japanese Goodwill Competition, the JASF plans to publicize yours and Teramoto Kenichirou’s Olympic representative decisions after the competition.”

“Based on the results of the competition? How the…I still haven’t done it yet, so there’s no way they can know my results, right?”

“Oh, they don’t know. But they can predict them. President Maebara judged that you can do it. This time, the four Chinese divers that Coach Sun is bringing along are still young rookies, so Teramoto’s certain to win the championship. Now that Kaneda and Kurauchi are out, it would be hard to threaten your second place unless there was a very large upset. Even if you did make a mistake, you can remain at third or fourth place. After that there is only the hope that your career and future prospects will carry you through.”

Keisuke’s tone could be taken as irresponsible, and he pinched the wrinkles between his brows with his fingertips.

“What…”

Ever since he had been informed of the representative decision, something cold had been building up within Youichi. It was like ice, like glass, freezing up a part of him again.

One could not simply think that adults were filthy and children were pure. Up to now he had participated in various diving events, and Youichi had been made aware many times of how adults operated politically, how they worried about their appearances in society and conducted themselves cunningly, and how they used random stopgaps as soon as they thought of them. That might be what it meant to live as a real human being, and even Youichi flew off the stage that they had prepared. But…

“What if I lose? If I lose to a Japanese diver other than Teramoto-san, then what would happen to my right to represent at the Olympics?”

Keisuke’s fingers, still pinching his brow, stiffened to Youichi’s sharp gaze.

“Your selection has been decided. The problem for the JASF is when and how to announce it smoothly. Because there were no formal qualifying trials this time, honestly, the timing of the announcement was difficult. Then Coach Sun suggested a good time would be after the Sino-Japanese Goodwill Competition.”

“So, what if I lost the competition?”

“Therefore, your selection has already been decided.”

The intensity of their locked gazes grew.

“Even if a Japanese diver other than Teramoto beat you at the competition, it is obvious from your overall results up until now that you are better. It is not difficult to infer that you were nominated based on your career, as long as you won within six places.”

“What if I couldn’t win? What if I keep messing up there? Are they still going to push through my selection? What are the other divers at the competition for?”

His voice cracked from being overly agitated. The water in his glass shook, and when he looked he found that it was his own arms that were shaking the table. I want you to race to the top in that usual cool way of yours, he remembered Reiji saying. I came back to dive with you again, he remembered Shibuki saying. He remembered the moth orchids that Tomoki gave him—

“So, shouldn’t they have used that Sino-Japanese Goodwil Competition as the Olympic qualifying trials instead?” Youichi practically gasped out, and Keisuke tilted his head back, then slowly shook his head.

“You might also make a big impression, but you don’t know what will happen at a diving competition. The favorite to win might fall all the way to the bottom, and a no-name newcomer might sweep first place. President Maebara, who is cautious for the sake of winning medals, does not want to take the risk of deciding on the representatives in just one meet…probably. Truthfully, I also don’t know what the organization is doing.”

He sighed, looking tired, but then continued talking as though he was rousing himself up.

“There is just one thing that I know for sure. You…Fujitani Youichi, will never mess up at an important competition.”

Keisuke steadied Youichi’s wobbling focus.

“How do you know that?”

“Your faultless, steady performances. It is your greatest weapon, after all.”

He wasn’t being praised. Those words were by no means compliments. Youichi knew that Keisuke preferred Okitsu Shibuki-style dives, where the soul shone in their wildness, fully exposed, rather than stable dives. But, he still only got the sense that his father was entrusting something to his “faultless, steady performances.”

“If you fully display that weapon, you will win the Sino-Japanese Goodwill Competition and go to Sydney without a doubt. The survival of the MDC is riding on your participation in the Olympics. The futures of the little divers toddling around the poolside are at stake.”

Before his father who was only protecting one thing from only one angle, Youichi said, “Understood,” while enduring the waves of headache pain that had been gradually pressing onto him.

Understood. I had understood that for a long time. That’s why even when I’m talking about whatever, I’ll still return to practice in the end. Even if I’m not fully satisfied with the selection of the representatives, there’s nothing more to dig up, right…?

_______________________________________________________________

Thus, the curtain closed on the modest rebellion, and after school on that day, Youichi went to the Sakuragi High School diving club and Tatsumi’s swimming pool. Youichi, who hadn’t shown up once since the practice spot was moved to Tatsumi’s indoor pool after Sakuragi’s outdoor pool closed, had arrived at Tatsumi for the first time since July’s Asia Joint Training Camp qualifying trials almost a month ago.

He had a sullen-looking face as he walked towards the poolside, but right then, he felt like he had betrayed his body, which had refused to practice so much, too easily.

He breathed in the smell of the water for the first time in a long while.

The special, steamy chemical odor peculiar to indoor pools.

Just as Shibuki, raised at the sea, flourished in the scent of salt water, for Youichi, raised at the pool, the scent of his hometown was the artificial chemical odor. His whole body lost its stability after his long absence, and his skin buzzed with the desire to feel the familiar sensation of water. Youichi, his heart lifted like a traveler who discovered an oasis in the desert under a blazing hot sun, swam a few laps in the main pool to cooldown so he wouldn’t risk the danger of standing on the diving platform in that excited state. Then he began his regular practice.

In addition to belonging to the MDC, Youichi was also part of the Sakuragi High School diving club. Usually, he practiced at the pool with the diving club, and did dryland training with the MDC. There were those who suspected that having his father as a coach was hard to deal with, but Youichi simply doubted Keisuke’s coaching. Keisuke, who always said that the most important thing was spirit, turned all failures and setbacks into issues of feelings. Coach Abe of the diving club was still young, and she just said whatever was in the manual, but Youichi chose her bias- and compulsion-free coaching.

On this day also, he performed warm-up exercises according to Coach Abe’s instructions, and when they finished thorough flexibility exercises in pairs, Youichi performed “starting entries” by the poolside several times, before finally climbing the steps of the diving tower.

For the first time in a long time, he looked up at the concrete dragon that was his natural enemy, as well as old friend. From overhead illuminated by the ceiling lights, Tomoki, Reiji and the others had already begun to dive, but it was still too early to join that line.

First, from the three-meter springboard.

Next was the five-meter platform.

Then it was the seven-meter.

And then finally, the ten-meter.

Youichi diligently followed that sequence. That was how much he carefully, steadily ascertained his own condition. Keisuke often said things like, “Be like a bird” and “Dance with the soul,” but if a good performance could be done with such things, nobody would go to practice everyday.

Diving was a precise collaboration between the mind and body. The chest muscles. The springs of the feet. The sharpness of the rotations. The rhythm that controlled the movements from takeoff to entry. They changed everyday as if they were living creatures, disorienting Youichi. When those hard-to-deal-with creatures were bent to his force of will, when he was able to accomplish a performance where everything was perfectly harmonized, he was able to get intoxicated from the ecstasy of the victory that controlled him. It was somewhat similar to the piano tuner tuning the sound of the piano and bringing about a beautiful harmony.

However, this day was a series of dissonances. His mind and body were out of sync, and nothing moved according to his directions. His body grew dull over that one-week break, and he couldn’t prevent the mistakes that he could usually prevent with his strength. The timings of his entries were off, as though his very diving intuition had gone completely out of whack.

Don’t get flustered. You’ll destroy yourself if you do that here. Youichi told himself those things while trying twenty, thirty basic dives, but his intuition never returned, and in the end failed terribly as he violently hit the water.

A shock like lightning ran through his body, numbing him at first, then transforming into pain.

It had been a long time since he had felt this pain—.

While coughing out the water that flowed to the back of his throat, Youichi dragged his confused body onto the poolside, pushing his red-stained body up from the water.

“I never thought that even Fujitani-kun could get struck by the water.”

As he laid completely exhausted on the poolside, Coach Abe came over, looking like she just saw a monkey fall from a tree. (1)

“When I was struck by the water for the first time, I thought about quitting diving, but even now I still think that, the moment I was struck by the water.”

Coach Abe smiled as Youichi grumbled.

“Everyone is like that, only at that moment. But, do you want to think about the reasons for your failure in a constructive way?”

“The rhythm of my takeoff was bad. Because my jump was messed up, I felt like that had an impact on my rotations and entry.”

“That’s the correct answer. But, the normal Fujitani-kun would have been able to fix the jump in midair, even if it was messed up…the cost of one week was too much after all. Well, let’s get you back to form slowly.”

As Coach Abe left, Youichi’s eyes suddenly went to the opposite side of the pool, meeting the eyes of Keisuke, who had his whistle hanging from his neck. Despite Youichi returning to practice like he wanted, he had a bitter look on his face, perhaps because he saw his earlier failure. He might have been thinking that that happened because he hadn’t been thinking like a bird enough, or that his soul wasn’t struggling, or something like that…

Youichi exhaled loudly, his eyes diverting from Keisuke to roam over the pool.

And for the first time, he noticed that Shibuki and Asaki Kayoko weren’t anywhere to be found.

_______________________________________________________________

“Oh, Shibuki went with Coach Asaki to do electrotherapy for his back today, and then he’s going to ballet lessons.” Ooshima, Shibuki’s roommate, said that immediately when Youichi asked for Shibuki’s whereabouts during break time.

“What, ballet lessons?”

Youichi was hooked, and was on the verge of letting him going on, but a strange feeling was left behind in his ear, and he was a little late to being surprised.

“Ballet…like ‘un, deux, trois’ ballet?”

“Ah, that’s right. Not the ‘serve, receive, attack’ volleyball. (2) Well, of course he’s still only in the beginner’s class.”

“But why…is he going to be a ballerina?”

“No, you dummy. He’s just incorporating it as a part of training.”

“Oh.”

Now that he said it, that was probably the case.

Although it was not heard of much in Japan, all Russian divers learned ballet from childhood, and even the Chinese have actively taken bar lessons and the such. In the United States, there were also diving clubs that include classical ballet into practice every day. Ballet lessons were effective for improving balance, toe extension, instantaneous muscle usage, and other skills when in midair, as well as useful for cultivating the delicate expressiveness of the fingers.

“But, even so…”

That Okitsu Shibuki was doing classical ballet!

Won’t that be like an elephant doing tap dance, a tiger playing the ocarina, or an orangutan learning to use natural dyes?

“Of course, it wasCoach Asaki who suggested it, and thought that Shibuki would hate it. But surprisingly, he easily agreed to it.”

As Ooshima said that, he placed his hand on Youichi’s shoulder. “Your body’s a bit cold,” he said, and prompted him to go to the Jacuzzi baths.

“Oh, now he looks like he’s been put through the wringer and he still looks dejected at every lesson, but Coach Asaki is enthusiastic. Because he can’t do new dives with that back of his, he has to make a painful plan to strengthen his expressiveness and polish the skills that he already has.”

When Ooshima opened the door to the bubble baths, the elementary schoolers who were crammed in the tubs during their break all pointed at Youichi and shouted, “It’s Fujitani Youichi!” “It’s the Olympic athlete!” It looked the number of applicants who wished to join had really increased, as his eyes rested on several unfamiliar faces.

“He’s not a panda! Hey, get back to practice now!”

The elementary schoolers scattered in a flash at Ooshima’s scolding, and the two of them submerged themselves into the hot bath, shoulder to shoulder.

“So really, Coach Asaki and Shibuki are doing very well. But honestly, I’d love to see what’ll happen when the art of ballet is added to Shibuki’s dynamism. I’m looking forward to the Sino-Japanese Goodwill Competition in November.”

“The Sino-Japanese Goodwill Competition? Is he going to participate in it?”

“Ah, yes.”

“But, that competition is…”

That competition was for Teramoto Kenichirou and Youichi. No matter how much effort he put forth there, the right to represent at the Olympics will never come around to Shibuki.

“I know what you want to say.”

Hot water flew from Ooshima’s fingers onto Youichi’s bewildered face.

“Even Shibuki knows that. Tomo and Reiji are also aware of that, and are willing to go to that competition.”

“Aren’t they…frustrated?”

“It’s because they are frustrated that they are going. At the competition, they want to show off their strengths in front of those self-important blockheads from the JASF. The energy from that anger isn’t stupid, and recently Tomo and Reiji have been practicing like crazy. Tomo in particular has been shockingly fired up. I think he dived as many as two-hundred times last Sunday.”

“Two hundred times?”

Youichi couldn’t believe his ears.

Certainly, it seemed that before there was a time where increasing the number of times jumping from the diving platform during practice was regarded as good, but nowadays great importance was placed on reasonable numbers, and it was stressed that how one dived is what should be concentrated on. It varied between individuals, but the number of dives that a person could do one day was probably at most a hundred. Even in the hardest adjustment period, one hundred and fifty dives were done at most, so two hundred could be said to qualify as a superhuman amount of practice. He climbed up those tall steps two hundred times, and dived from them two hundred times.

“That’s the strength of Tomo’s competitive spirit.” Ooshima murmured, then turned to face Youichi.

“Tomo is still fourteen years old. If your representative decision provoked him to work so hard like this now, who knows what kind of monster he’ll turn into five years from now. You shouldn’t be shutting yourself up at home, either.”

He grinned, and stood up with a splash.

“If Shibuki knew you came back, he’d definitely be happy. Don’t make your rivals so lonely, okay?”

When Ooshima went back to coaching the elementary schoolers, Youichi, as if to confirm what he had heard just a moment ago, went towards the area where the full view of the diving platform could be seen.

The poolside separated the main pool used for swimming and the diving pool. From that position, where potted plants lined up at even intervals, the towering concrete dragon could be seen directly from the front. When Youichi looked up, Tomoki had just appeared at the tip of the ten-meter.

Ever since Asaki Kayoko took the job as coach seven months ago, that boy, who had no achievements or ambition, had accomplished an astonishing change, and a stability and dignity could be seen in his standing posture as well. His somewhat unreliable body had tightened, and he seemed to have gained some more muscle in these several weeks.

Tomoki’s well-built body floated into the air, and he approached the surface of the water quickly as he traced his usual light circles.

The forward 3½ somersault in tuck position.

Tomoki had already made a skill that he had just mastered this summer completely his own. The speed at which he vigorously absorbed everything was amazing.

As Youichi held his breath and looked on, his body, which should have done 3½ somersaults, made too many extra movements, and Tomoki missed the timing of his entry as he fell at a bad angle.

Failed.

Nevertheless, it was an odd way to fail. He didn’t think that Tomoki had cat-like reflexes when it came to moving in midair.

Before Youichi’s puzzled eyes, Tomoki got out of the water and, without resting for even a moment, went towards the diving tower, ascending the steps untiringly again. There was no wastefulness in that series of movements, and a determination to dive as many times as he could within his limited practice time, where even one minute was long and even one dive was a lot, could be felt. Youichi also got like that when he was extremely focused. He couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t hear anything. Only himself and the dragon and the water. Because Tomoki was in this condition today, he didn’t seem to have noticed that Youichi showed up to practice a long time ago.

However, when Tomoki appeared on the tip of the ten-meter again after waiting for the other divers to go, despite concentrating just as much, he made the same mistake again with the forward 3½ somersault in tuck position. The reason was still the excessive movements just before entry.

What’s going on?

Though Youichi puzzled over it, Tomoki single-mindedly headed for the diving tower without thinking about the reason for his failures, as though he was possessed.

It was when he saw Tomoki enter the water the same way for the third time that he realized what he was doing.

“No way, is he doing 4½…”

The forward 4½ somersault in tuck position—.

Those extra movements after the 3½ somersaults. Those were meant to be an attempt to do an unprecedented final somersault, weren’t they?

As soon as he realized that, even though Youichi already had the right to represent at the Olympics in his hands, somehow, he felt like Tomoki left him behind.

_______________________________________________________________

Translation Notes

1. “Monkey that fell from a tree” is also a Japanese idiom that means “person who has lost something they used to rely on,” so there’s a double meaning here

2. Ballet in Japanese is “バレエ” and volleyball here is written as “バリボール,” which is a bit unusual as it’s usually written as “バレーボール”

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