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Masumi did not have a single good memory about Sports Day.
Sure, he won a medal every year, but Sports Day victories were meaningless in the real world and empty in Masumi's point of view. The first few years were the usual sort of thing, where scheduling conflicts were the things holding Masumi's parents from attending, but eventually the absences became expected and the explanations were left unsaid. What was the point of winning if there was no one there to congratulate you?
This year wasn't supposed to be any different.
Masumi watched his shoes, hands stuck in his pockets, as his class headed outside to start the activities. Sports Day started how it always did—the annoying class rep gave a stupid speech about sportsmanship and teamwork and wellness and a ton of other lame buzzwords that get repeated every single year, and Masumi spent his time trying not to fall asleep. All he had to do was run the whatever-meter dash and sit on the grass until it was time to go home.
But one of his classmates elbowed him halfway through the speech. "Do you know those people?"
Across the field, right up against the outside of the fence, stood his troupe, minus Sakuya. Unsurprisingly, they were being as embarrassing as usual. Masumi couldn't even pretend that he wasn't associated with them! They had fans with his name on it, and Citron started waving widely with both arms when he realized Masumi was looking at all of them.
For a moment, Masumi wondered exactly how much trouble he might get into for ignoring them. Tsuzuru would lecture him, probably, in that way that made Masumi feel a lot younger than he actually was. He didn't feel up to being on the receiving end of that today.
Itaru gave him a thumbs-up when Masumi waved back, and Tsuzuru gave a wave in response that was, thankfully, much smaller than Citron's. As long as they didn't do a stupid cheer for him, he was fine with them watching.
...It might even be fun to have an audience this time.
The hundred-meter dash passed by in a blur.
His heart thrummed in his ears just like it did before opening nights; he could almost hear Spring Troupe's voices cheering him on over the rest of the crowd, but he could barely hear the crowd itself. Why was he so nervous? Why did he care so much about impressing them? They weren't even Izumi—just the lame, overbearing troupe adults!
The shrill of the whistle yanked him out of his thoughts, and he took off.
He was in first place up until the moment he wasn't, up until the moment his shoe caught on the ground, up until he was sent tumbling to the ground.
Masumi never liked Sports Day.
Ears burning, Masumi kept his head down and tried to place himself in the middle of the exiting group of students. If he blended in well enough, he wouldn't have to face that annoying group of adults. It wouldn't be hard to pace the perimeter of the school building until he found an unlocked door, and then he could sit at his desk until it was time to go back home. It'd give him time to make up an excuse for why he didn't want to talk about the whole thing.
Fourth place. Fourth! Embarrassing. The first time someone showed up to cheer him on, and he blew it.
"Masumi! Over here!"
Masumi looked up too quickly at the sound of Tsuzuru's voice to pretend that he didn't hear anything. Reluctantly, he nudged his way through the crowd until he emerged on the other side, right in front of Tsuzuru. He couldn't meet Tsuzuru's eyes, but he felt his hand on his shoulder.
"You did great!" Tsuzuru said. "You're a really fast runner. We set up a picnic blanket over there—"
"I wanna go home," Masumi snapped. "Don't talk to me."
When he finally looked up, Tsuzuru had that sort of look on his face that meant he thought Masumi was acting ridiculous. But he wasn't acting ridiculous. It was perfectly reasonable to conclude that he was the worst dasher ever after he faceplanted directly into the dirt. Thousands of kilometers away, his father was probably flinching at the shame Masumi just brought to the family name.
Maybe he was acting a little ridiculous.
"We can go home soon." Tsuzuru's hand dropped to Masumi's wrist, and he started to tug Masumi towards the direction of the picnic blanket. "You and I can sit there until Sakuya and Banri are done with their part, okay? Itaru and Citron are busy cheering them on. We'll all go home together after."
Masumi didn't think he really had a choice, with how tight Tsuzuru's grip was. Thankfully, the area they spread out the picnic blanket in was fairly quiet, even though it was only a few paces away from the sports field. At least it was far enough away from where most of Masumi's classmates were with their families. The worst part of Sports Day was always having to interact with his classmates afterwards.
"For what it's worth, I really think you did great!" Tsuzuru said as he sat down. "I was just okay at Sports Day, so you did better than I would have."
Masumi shrugged. "Didn't place. Doesn't matter."
"Sure it matters." Tsuzuru rifled through the troupe's pile of things for a moment before he emerged with a water bottle, which he passed to Masumi. The chill of the water soothed the scrapes on his palms. "The important part is that you got up and kept going! I think I would have quit if I were in your position."
"Liar." Masumi twisted off the cap. "You wouldn't have quit. You never quit at anything."
"I mean, yes? But also no—Masumi, you know what I mean!" Tsuzuru pinched the bridge of his nose. "Not giving up is just who you are! Plenty of other types of people wouldn't have bothered finishing if they fell."
Masumi nodded. "Like Itaru."
"That's a little mean," Tsuzuru said. "But yes, like Itaru."
Masumi was beginning to think going home soon meant going home in three-thousand hours in Tsuzuru-speak. He sipped at his water for a little while as he watched the other years in their events. The picnic blanket was in just the right spot where they could see part of the field through the metal wire of the fence.
The sting of not getting an actual medal began to fade away as the minutes passed. Besides, Tsuzuru said he was proud. Tsuzuru was hardly ever impressed with anything! Tsuzuru wasn't even impressed when Masumi wrote an essay about forbidden love for the essay contest earlier in the year…
It could only mean that he thought Masumi had actually done well, right? Tsuzuru wasn't really the type to say things just to make Masumi feel better. The praise must have been deserved, at least in Tsuzuru's mind.
"...Thanks," Masumi said, even though words like that were often way too hard. "Next year, don't bring the lame fans."
Tsuzuru laughed through his nose. "We'll have cooler ones next year. I'm thinking ones with your face on it."
"No way. You're uninvited."
"Really?! It was a joke!"
"Not really."
Tsuzuru heaved a sigh of relief. "Thank God. I was seriously gonna be worried if we couldn't come next time over a joke like that."
Ugh. They really were gonna show up next year now, huh? Somehow, that type of thing made his chest feel stupidly warm.
Maybe Sports Day wasn't so bad after all.