Chapter Text
Ashito was 5 years old when the life he had so far known got uprooted suddenly and in its entirety. His mom, Noriko, had let him and Shun know that they would be moving somewhere far away. To Spain, all the way in Europe.
“It’s where they play those football matches we watch on TV, Ashito.” His brother, Shun, had whispered with eyes glinting in wonder. Ashito couldn’t help but mirror his excitement.
It had been an average Tuesday afternoon when she told him. And now their entire life was being packed away and sorted into neat little boxes. All their belongings fit carefully into a large truck, to be shipped off to their new home.
The first thing Ashito noticed about Barcelona was the sky.
It was sharper than he expected. An endless sweep of blue with no clouds, no trees stretching up to meet it, only a few mountains far off in the distance. He’d never seen a sky that big before.
They had arrived in July, following their father’s new job assignment. He worked in some kind of office building Ashito had only seen once. The building was tall, stretching far up into the sky, and the glass covering every wall resulted in Ashito being blinded by the sun if he tried looking at it for too long. Their dad came home late, left early, and didn’t talk much. Shun said he was a very important man at work, that’s why he was always so busy. Ashito didn’t really know or care for what that meant, except that they were in Barcelona now and he wasn’t sure if he liked it yet. Barcelona was loud, sun-warmed, and always moving. The streets were covered in patterns he didn’t recognise. The air smelled like salt, smoke, and something sweet that stuck to his fingers after every trip to the market.
Since they arrived in the middle of summer break, Ashito and Shun spent their days mostly the same. The first week went to helping their mom unpack all the boxes into their new home. Afterwards, the two brothers would walk around the neighbourhood to explore. When Noriko started her new job at a café nearby, she had brought the two sons with her.
“There’s a park right outside the café, so you can play there while I’m at work.” she explained as they walked together. Ashito was busy moving his head back and forth to take in the scenery. They walk from their new apartment to his mom’s work was through a busy market street. The street was loud with the people around them, some rushing on the way to their own jobs, others taking advantage of the sunny morning to roam around the market stalls set up across the road. He’d brought his football as always, but it was held tightly in his arms after a reprimand from Noriko about kicking it in the middle of the street.
When they finally arrived, Shun had to physically hold Ashito back from immediately running off. The park was right across the street from the building their mom had stopped at. It was a large park, with trees along the outside edges surrounding a bright green field of grass, and pathways with various benches along the way.
“Well then, I won’t keep you waiting Ashito,” she said with a smile as she looked down at her two sons. “I get off work at 16, so I’ll come pick you up if you’re not back here by then.”
Shun voiced an agreement before finally letting go of Ashito. There was a group of kids at the park already, who seemed to be around the same age, and were kicking a ball amongst them. As Ashito approached the group, he could hear the shouts from the other kids while they played. The words they were saying were fast and Ashito didn’t understand a single bit of it. When there was only a few meters in between the group and the two brothers, Ashito hesitated.
Probably understanding his hesitation, Shun put a small hand at his back in reassurance. One of the kids in the group, a tall boy who looked a bit older than Shun, noticed them. He stopped running as he looked in their direction and yelled something at them. Ashito didn’t respond. How could he? He didn’t understand a thing that was said. When the boy didn’t get a response from either of the two brothers, he walked up to them and said something else. This time, he accompanied it by pointing at the football still clutched in Ashito’s hands, and then pointing back at the group behind them, and ended it off with a smile.
This time, Ashito smiled back and nodded.
-
Ashito and Shun went over to the same park every day their mom was working. Usually, they’d be there a few hours before going over to their mom’s café for a quick lunch and something to drink, and then back again to play some more. The same group of kids was there on most days. Sometimes, one or two were missing and other times, there were a few new ones they hadn’t met before. But every time, there was football.
Ashito still didn’t understand most of the words, but on the field it didn’t matter. He was starting to pick up on a few basics though, like ‘hello’ as well as ‘ball’ and ‘pass’, he knew down to a pat. That’s all the words he needed anyways, in his own humble opinion.
At some point, Shun had started taking language classes. He was due to start in first grade in only a few months and so he needed to learn more of the language. Ashito, who still had an entire year left before he started school, had more free time. On the days when Shun said he needed to stay back to study, Ashito would simply go to the park by himself. The other kids knew him at this point, and would happily let him join in.
It was only months later, when September arrived, that this schedule would change. Shun started school and a few hours or the occasional day spent studying, turned into him having to go every single day. Much to Ashito’s dismay, who would now have to find out how to spend his time alone. Apparently, most of the other kids they played with during the summer also went to school. When Ashito showed up to the park that first day of September only to find not a single other child in the vicinity, he promptly walked back to his mom’s café and sat down at a table to wallow in his misery. This of course lasted for an entire thirty long minutes, before Noriko turned on the TV in the back corner that showed a recording of the La Liga match from the previous day, promptly stealing Ashito’s attention away.
Nevertheless, those thirty minutes were enough for Ashito to realise he would need to find a way to play football by himself when there was no one at the park. Of course, he could be at the park alone, but a whole field of grass was miles more disappointing when he had no one to pass to and no one to dribble past. He looked up at the TV, where the game was now in its second half. Ashito didn’t understand the commentary, but he didn't care. The language didn’t matter when it was football.
At first, he just watched. Still and quiet, like he was trying to memorise something important. Not just the goals, everything. The way the players moved when they didn’t have the ball. How they turned their heads, where they placed their feet, how they shaped their bodies before passing.
It was like a secret code.
And little by little, Ashito started to copy it.
He waited until Noriko and the other staff weren’t looking. His mom had told him not to play with the ball inside the café, so he crumpled up a page from an old newspaper, and dropped it to his feet. Then he tried to mimic the movements from the screen. The sideways shuffle before a cross. The drag-back turn. The low, snapping kick that sent the ball darting under a table leg.
He turned the space between the stacked chairs into goals. The tiled floor became a grid in his mind, with invisible lines and zones. The wall near the coffee machine was a perfect rebounder if he hit it just right. He moved in silence, careful to keep out of the way from the customers and furniture around the room, letting the rhythm build under his feet. Shifting, twisting, resetting.
Hours later, the ball rolled to a stop near the leg of a chair.
“Still playing, huh?”
Ashito looked up to see his mom standing near the doorway to the kitchen, apron untied, hair pinned messily back. Her eyes looked tired, but her voice was warm. Ashito looked around to find the café was empty of other customers. It was closing time already, huh.
“You’ve been at it for a while,” Noriko said, walking over. “Aren’t your legs sore?”
Ashito looked back up at her again. He shook his head and nudged the ball closer to him with his foot.
“I’m practicing!”
Noriko crouched down beside him. She was quiet for a second, then tapped the ball with two fingers, considering.
“You really like this, don’t you?”
Ashito didn’t answer right away. He looked at the ball, then at the TV still glowing quietly in the corner, then back at her.
“I do,” he said.
Noriko smiled, brushing a hand through his hair.
“Then keep playing,” she said softly, before her voice turned more strict and she raised an eyebrow at him. “Just don’t knock over the salt jars again. And don’t kick the ball into the stomachs of any more customers.”
Ashito grinned.
“Come on, let’s pack up and go home.” She said as she stood back up.
As they moved to leave, Ashito glanced back once at the tiled floor, the table legs, and scuffed wall. At the faint outline of the game he’d created in the space no one else used. He didn’t have a team. He didn’t have a coach.
But he had a small, paper ball.
And for now, that was enough.
-
A few months into the school year, Shun had come back home and told Ashito that another Japanese boy had started in his class after moving here recently.
“His name is Kuribayashi Haruhisa,” Shun told him. They had just finished their dinner, and Ashito was sitting on the floor in Shun’s room while Shun himself was sitting on the bed with a notebook for homework completely ignored in his lap. “I think he was relieved that there was someone else who knew Japanese here, ‘cause he agreed to join me for football practice on Saturday even if he didn’t actually seem that interested in football.”
“Huh?! How can someone not be interested in football?! I’ll give him a good talking to on Saturday then. This is an insult to Japan and Spain at this point.”
“Ashito, people can have different hobbies. Also, I think baseball is more popular in Japan anyways so what do you mean by insult to Japan? Honestly.”
After he started school, Shun had learnt that most of the kids they played with at the park were all part of a local football team in the area. Pedro, the boy who had been the one to approach them that first day, was in Shun’s class and his dad was apparently the team’s coach. The team had practices every Saturday and Wednesday. They didn’t have any serious matches yet because they were so small, but Ashito had learnt that regular matches in a small league would start when he was a few years older.
Ashito had of course tagged along to the practices when Shun said he wanted to go there. A few weeks in, Shun had also let him know that some of the other kids didn’t like it when Ashito tried to score too many goals by himself instead of passing to them. They just didn’t understand! Ashito would be the greatest forward in the world when he grew up! With all the practice he was doing at the café, imitating the plays he saw on TV, he was going to score so many goals. They just had to wait and see.
The following Saturday was maybe the first time Ashito was jealous of someone when it came to football, without having the proper word to describe it at five years old. Ashito did in fact not give Kuribayashi a piece of his mind, despite having practiced a whole speech in front of the bathroom mirror the day before. Watching Kuribayashi on the field that day gave Ashito an odd feeling in his stomach. This feeling only grew as he watched the way both teammates and coaches praised Kuribayashi. Kuribayashi himself, looked like this was the most natural occurrence in the world. As if playing like that was as simple as breathing to him. And he wasn’t even that interested in football?! Ashito would show him how amazing football can be. He will be as good as Kuribayashi and he’ll make him want to play football as much as Ashito himself wants to.