Chapter Text
Of course, Chiyo had always known that, one way or another, that was not her last time meeting that abrasive and arrogant boy with the dark teal hair and long lashes.
Well, actually, that was a lie. That afternoon, she had stomped back to her dorm at INSEP, sulked over her interaction with him for a few lingering minutes, before falling asleep and waking up the next morning as if her memory had been scrubbed clean by the night.
Only now, that he was standing right in front of her, was it that she even remembered he existed.
“Uhm…”
“Oh! There you are!”
Chiyo’s brain short-circuited. Nothing connected. The visual input — him, standing in the very room she was about to enter — did not compute with the sound of her physio’s chipper voice or the casual way her hand rested on his shoulder.
“Oh, don’t look so confused,” the woman laughed, giving the boy a final pat before stepping aside. “Rin here was just about to head out.”
Rin. Chiyo blinked once, unamused.
Great. Now he had a name.
“He’s my other athlete from Japan,” her physio added, like this was a delightful coincidence. “Football. But he’s been playing here in France for a while now. You two might get along!”
Neither Chiyo nor Rin so much as twitched.
The girl stepped inside the room, expression unreadable, and dropped her duffel bag on a lone chair with a thud. Rin nodded slightly — a dry, curt little gesture — and muttered a polite, “Thanks,” to the therapist as he turned toward the door.
Chiyo just watched him pass, and then, right as he stepped out of her immediate reach, she leaned over to the female physio, voice pitched low.
“Did you know your patient’s a filthy, inconsiderate gym rat with the manners of a raccoon?”
He paused.
Stopped clean in his tracks like someone had yanked the leash. For a beat, he didn’t react — then his head turned, just slightly. His gaze caught hers in the mirror on the wall.
“I heard that,” he said.
“I meant for you to.”
No real spike in her tone, no raised volume. But the intention was there, tucked between her words, and in the look in her eyes, too. He looked at her for a long second, studying her. Like someone reading fine print on a bomb he’d already decided to kick.
Rin’s eyes narrowed not with anger, but with a calm, impersonal edge.
He opened his mouth, clearly seconds away from muttering something smug, maybe cruel—
“All right, children,” came the physio’s voice, equal parts tired and unimpressed. “No throwing dumbbells or insults in my clinic, thanks.”
Chiyo didn’t respond, just exhaled sharply through her nose and straightened. Her jaw clenched so tightly it almost creaked.
Rin let out something like a laugh — not a real one, more a single dry puff of air—and turned back toward the door. He pushed it open with one hand, stepped through, and let it swing shut behind him without looking back.
The click of it closing was all too satisfying for Chiyo..
“Unbelievable,” she muttered, still partially in disbelief of the fact that she had, indeed, seen him again, when she had wished so hard she would not.
Her physio gave her a look that was mostly bemused, with the gentlest touch of exasperation. She gestured to the padded treatment table.
“Up,” she said. “On your back.”
Chiyo climbed on and settled stiffly, arms crossed over her stomach, jaw still tight.
The physio began prepping her kit, muttering something about calf tightness and overuse before pausing. She raised a brow as she rubbed her hands with sanitizer.
“So…” she said lightly. “What’s with the tension between you two? The manners of a raccoon? Really?”
“Ugh. Don’t even get me started.”
✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧
That evening, as she was trying to stretch the soreness out of her muscles on her bed, Chiyo received another message from her coach: an email, this time.
The lazy, fatigued part of her was going to leave it there, sitting in her inbox, rotting until it came back to bite her in the ass in the form of Hayashi’s constant complaints. But then she remembered that, right before her first encounter with the current biggest pest in her life — Rin, as she had just found out he was called — she had also decided to ignore her coach’s message.
“It’s the butterfly effect,” the lazy, fatigued part of her whispered, so she had no other choice but to pick the phone back up.
From:
[email protected]
To:
[email protected]
Date :
16 july 2025, 09:02
Subject :
Confirmation de participation – Table ronde “Regards croisés : athlètes internationaux à l’INSEP”
Bonjour Monsieur Hayashi,
Nous vous remercions pour votre retour positif concernant la participation de votre athlète, Mlle Chiyo Fujisaki , à notre table ronde intitulée “Regards croisés : athlètes internationaux”, organisée dans le cadre de notre série d’échanges culturels sportifs.
L’événement se tiendra le jeudi 24 juillet à 15h00 , dans la salle de conférence du bâtiment principal .
La table ronde réunira quatre athlètes internationaux actuellement en résidence à l’INSEP, issus de disciplines variées, afin d’échanger sur leurs expériences personnelles, les défis rencontrés et la richesse du multicultu…
That’s as far as Chiyo got before closing the app with a roll of her eyes. She hadn’t understood a single thing she had just read.
Why did Hayashi keep sending her everything in French anyway? It’s not like he wouldn’t have to translate it for himself. So why not just give her the Japanese version? They both knew she wasn’t going to learn a new language in just 9 months of staying in the country — with very minimal contact with locals at that — but still the man kept insisting. Eventually, Chiyo had given up and decided to stay quiet about it, but that did not stop her from using her translator app. Language learning just wasn’t a priority at the moment.
Dear Mr Hayashi,
We thank you for your positive feedback concerning the participation of your athlete, Ms. Chiyo Fujisaki, in our roundtable discussion titled “Intersecting Perspectives: International Athletes under the magnifying glass,” organized as part of our Sports Culture…
Her eyes skimmed over the translated version, the phrases stacking into a pile of polite phrasing and boring formalities. Something about time slots and a Q&A. Great.
She would probably show up there after practice, concoct something about being “grateful for the opportunity,” and leave.
With a sigh, she tossed the phone beside her on the bed and rolled onto her back, cracking her neck against the stiff hostel pillow. Through the thin walls, she could hear someone blasting music from the weight room downstairs — trap or techno, she couldn’t tell — and for a brief second, she considered heading down to complain. Then she remembered she wasn’t in the mood to potentially run into anyone there.
Her phone buzzed.
Tyrant
Did you see my mail?
Remember to wear something
with your team logo.
And don’t be late. Seriously.
She stared at the screen.
Chiyo
what even is it
roundtable? press thing?
i didn’t rly read it
Tyrant
It’s for a TV special. Roundtable and
photo ops. Just soft PR, nothing serious.
Some French and also Japanese junior
reporters will be covering you.
She chewed on the inside of her cheek. She wasn’t very fond of such stunts, but it’s not like she could decline now, after her coach had already confirmed. But that wasn’t going to stop her complaining to he who set her up for it.
Chiyo
so why me
there r like 12 other international
athletes here rn
Tyrant
Because even though you hate it,
you’re good at handling the media.
Also you owe me.
Now the teen girl raised a brow.
Chiyo
?? for what
existing?
Tyrant
For last week. You know what.
A groan. What a pain he was. And what an even bigger pain it was that she’d be nowhere if not for him.
Just be there, smile, and speak in
full sentences.
And don’t be an ass, I mean it.
Your attitude will seriously become
a problem one day if you don’t start
working on it.
There was a pause, then another bubble appeared.
You’re not even going to be alone
with the Japanese media.
Some footballer should be there too. From PXG.
Chiyo blinked at the little screen in her hands. Footballers. Because clearly, the universe hadn’t thrown enough of those at her lately.
Chiyo
k
idk what that is but fine
She tossed her phone face down again, arm tossed over her eyes.
PXG. Whatever.
Footballers were all the same to her anyway. Angular and blank-eyed. Skin scattered with tattoos, more so than necessary.
‘Well, that Rin guy didn’t seem to have any––’
What. Ever. She certainly wasn’t about to get worked up over that now. Not when her left ankle still ached from a dumb mistake she’d made on the ice that morning, and not when her back was tight from the new lift sequence she’d been put on since Monday.
✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧ ✦ ✧
Lunchtime was over at the INSEP cafeteria, the hall now as close to empty as Chiyo had ever seen it before. The girl basked in the quiet afternoon lull at the facility, unbothered by the few athletes and staff who were still milling around.
The ugly red plastic chairs reflected the midday sun, scattering it across the room, onto the blue-white walls, which were all adorned with multiple TVs, running replays and compilations of a variety of sports events. The screens were all muted, though, loud commentary and roaring crowds replaced by the faint clatter of cafeteria trays, the hum of conversation, and the subtle buzz of an espresso machine in the background.
Chiyo felt at peace like this, at her corner table, earbuds in but not actually playing anything. Once a week, she had to make time for this — logging onto the portal for her remote courses, squinting through lecture slides from ten thousand kilometres away, and trying to remember that she was still technically a student at the University of Tokyo. It wasn’t easy keeping up, not with training blocks, physio sessions, and competitions stacked back to back, but she’d committed to finishing her sports science degree on time.
So here she was, sipping iced coffee in a French cafeteria while writing a midterm paper on the long-term biomechanical effects of early athletic specialization in East Asia — straddling two worlds with the determination of someone who refused to drop either.
Chiyo leans back with a sigh, eyes travelling around the room to give them some relief from the constant exposure to the blue light of her laptop. She should really consider getting some glasses, or at the very least, consider installing one of those eye-saver filters she kept forgetting existed.
She raised the plastic straw of her coffee to her lips, took a slow sip, and stretched her neck until it cracked — the kind of satisfying pop that came from years of stretching out muscles trained to obey. The table was cold under her forearms. Her cursor blinked on an unfinished sentence.
Her gaze drifted up to one of the mounted cafeteria televisions, the closed captions running too fast to catch.
Some kind of football highlight video was playing.
It was nothing new — the INSEP screens rotated through a predictable cycle of athletics updates, Olympic flashbacks, promotional videos, and match recaps. Most of the time, she didn’t bother looking up, only granting the screens a rare glance when she was feeling extra bored. Today was no different.
She took another sip.
On screen, the montage kept rolling. ‘PXG vs Ubers’ Chiyo read in the upper left corner, the former name sounding suspiciously familiar.
‘Oh, right. That’s the club. The one the guy from that weird multicultural exchange thing plays for.’
She watched the players on screen a little more intently at the realisation, but was still not interested enough to actually register their faces. All she saw was sliding tackles, crossbars, and the repeated shot of a low, clean goal into the bottom right corner. Arms thrown up in celebration.
Then there was a pause. A single frame, shown longer than expected.
The camera caught one of the players mid-run, breath almost visible in the cold air, sweat clinging to his hairline. He wasn’t conventionally posed, but striking nonetheless: intense, unflinching focus carved into his expression like it was muscle memory. His lashes caught the light. So did the distinct teal colour of his irises.
Her eyes flicked away before her brain could assemble any kind of recognition.
Just another guy.
A cluster of boys — late teens, maybe twenty – had claimed the table two downs from hers, loud in the way athletes always got when they thought their sports’ expertise was superior to anyone else’s. Judging by the logos on their training jackets, they did either track or judo. Or maybe both.
“He doesn’t even blink in post-match interviews,” one of them said, voice full of awe. “It’s like he’s not even human.”
“Bro, he’s built for it,” another cut in. “This guy doesn’t miss. You ever seen him crumble under pressure? Even once?”
Chiyo snorted into her straw at the shallow commentary.
“Get a grip,” she muttered, mostly to herself.
The straw made that hollow, empty-cup sound, so she set the drink back down.
She didn’t look back at the screen. The moment had passed, and she had work to do.
Her hands returned to the keyboard. Fingers scrolled, re-read, rephrased. She adjusted a sentence that had been bothering her for the past ten minutes. Swapped out a citation. Her notes sat open in a separate tab — something dense on growth plate stress in adolescent gymnasts. She told herself that was where her attention should stay.
But man, all she really wanted was to leave this academic bullshit behind and finally go back to competing properly.