Chapter Text
It was too cold for this. Fuyumi couldn’t tell whether her lungs burnt with exertion or the cold of the bone-dry air; even with the sun at its afternoon peak, the sweat her friend had promised she’d work up when she’d described the glory of runner’s high eluded her. Lactic acid buildup, she idly remembered when her legs began to ache after little more than three kilometers. Maybe she could turn that into some kind of lesson-
No, she thought rather forcefully after only a few seconds.
This had sounded like a great idea on paper. Exercise was important, and she’d readily confess that she rarely got enough of it with all the time she spent prepping lessons (and, if she were honest, binge-watching Korean dramas). It was something different, a goal to work towards, and she could use one of those. But it hadn’t quite panned out the way they’d expected it to.
The idea, which had begun as a pact among Fuyumi and three friends to train for a 5K together, had quickly been scrapped. Scheduling made any kind of collaboration too tricky and they’d agreed to run on their own, fitting their training in whenever they could, until the day of the race. For Fuyumi, who had to be at school by seven-thirty, that meant early starts – usually, the sun was barely up, and the air was still cold. Sundays like today were an exception, and the only days she had the chance to run in broad daylight, but it was still January, and the sun never seemed to do its job on days like this.
No matter how many layers she wore, it was cold, and even warming her core temperature with exercise did nothing for her burning lungs. True, she’d never expected this to be easy, but it wasn’t exactly pleasant. Rika, her college roommate, had always described running in near-rapturous terms, and she’d never really understood why; she still didn’t.This is how we make sure we don’t become heart disease statistics, she tried to remind herself, but it was as miserable as ever.
Ironic, considering the amount of Olympics merchandise – most of it emblazoned with the Atlanta 1996 logo, and all of it ridiculously visible – in every nook and cranny of her childhood home.
That had been part of the reason for her agreement to this plan: of her three siblings, she’d always been the one who shied away from sports, and the longer she had, the less she’d enjoyed doing anything active at all. They’d all been athletes above all else: Touya had been a promising hurdler up until he’d blown out his ACL in college; Natsuo, though he wasn’t exactly a standout player, had been on volleyball teams for nearly sixteen years before he threw the towel in; Shouto was – casually, and without much fanfare on his own part – one of the most talented high school soccer players in the prefecture. But Fuyumi – quiet, observant, clumsy Fuyumi – had never seen the appeal. Her father hadn’t even tried to convince her otherwise, for which she was grateful – her brothers, all of whom had received a lecture about ‘the true meaning of athletic greatness’ (whatever that meant) at least weekly growing up, hadn’t exactly had that option. Still, though she was grateful for having had the chance to study piano and chemistry and literature instead of practice footage, she felt a little deficient for that particular inclination of hers.
Sports left a bad taste in her mouth, yes, but it couldn’t hurt to get a little exercise. She might as well take this chance to outgrow the trepidation she felt towards physical activity of any kind. It had seemed like the kind of character-building opportunity that a life lived comfortably between the walls with which she’d boxed herself in rarely afforded her.
In theory.
It had been worse yesterday, sure, and it would be better tomorrow, but the temptation to give in to her desire to walk the remaining two kilometers of her route was almost overwhelming. Gritting her teeth in resistance, she turned up the volume of her music and tried to shut out the alarm bells sounding from every muscle in her body. It sometimes worked, though it had its drawbacks – she couldn’t have heard the ground split in two with indie rock blaring in her earbuds at such a deafening volume, let alone approaching runners whom she might need to dodge.
Like the one tapping at her shoulder now.
Face flushed from embarrassment, cold, and exertion alike, Fuyumi pulled out one of her earbuds. “I’m sorry,” she panted, weaving to the left of the runner whose path she’d blocked, but there was no one to dodge. Confused, she stopped and turned, and the person who’d wanted to get her attention couldn’t stop fast enough to avert a collision.
“Whoa, you okay there?” the runner asked, hands bracing her forearms to keep Fuyumi from knocking the two of them further off-balance.
“Yeah, s-sorry,” Fuyumi stammered. She couldn’t put distance between herself and this stranger with whose chest she’d just become so closely acquainted fast enough. “Was I in your way? I’m-“
“No, no, not at all!” the man – now that Fuyumi could see him – raised his hands in dismissal. “I was actually just saying hi. Sorry if I scared ya.”
Fuyumi’s eyebrows rose. He was lean and blond, with what had to be a foot of height on Fuyumi, and he seemed to be dressed for a different season entirely – shorts and a loose v-neck were all that served him for running clothes. One glance would’ve convinced her that he was the kind of pretty-boy overconfident in his own charms which she’d always hated, but on a second, she noticed something warm and inviting in his expression that she rarely saw on faces as handsome as his.
“I don’t know you,” she said, lacking any response of substance to give. “Why would you need to?”
“Aw, c’mon! Us morning-run people gotta stick together,” he said with a casual shrug. “I’ve seen you running here in the mornings a couple times. Early riser, huh?”
He began to walk; Fuyumi, grateful for the excuse not to run, fell into step beside him. “I’m a teacher,” she told him, as if that explained everything. “Usually those are the only times I can get a run in.”
“Dedicated, huh?” he gave her an easy smile. “How long have you been running?”
Fuyumi shoved her hands into the pockets of her vest, a little embarrassed. “Only about a week,” she muttered under her breath, half-hoping he wouldn’t hear her. “New Years resolution.”
“Got it, got it.” He nodded, pulling in front of her and turning to walk backwards so he could face her as they talked. Showoff, Fuyumi thought, beginning to rewrite her initial assessment in light of this new information. “Well, welcome to the club! Fun, right?”
“I’d hardly call it that,” Fuyumi answered flatly.
“No?” he raised his eyebrows. “Why not?”
“I’m kind of out of shape, if you haven’t noticed,” she said with a what-can-you-do-about-it shrug. “And I’m cold.”
“Well, the only way to change that is to keep going, so good on you for that.” He flashed her another smile and she couldn’t tell if it was the cold or his friendliness bringing a fresh dusting of color to her cheeks. “I mean, when I was training for my first marathon-“
“Your first marathon.” Of course he would. “Why does that not surprise me?”
“Is it my impeccable form?”
“It’s hilarious that you think I would know what that looked like.” He said ‘impeccable’? The schoolteacher in Fuyumi couldn’t help but note.
Points for vocabulary.
Some off for forwardness, maybe. But still.
To her surprise, he didn’t seem to take that as an insult. “Fair enough,” he laughed. “Well, it’s been nice having a new face around here. Just thought I’d stop and introduce myself, y’know? People who wake up at five to run before work are definitely my kind of people.”
“Uh…thanks?” Fuyumi had a hard time deciding what an appropriate response to that would sound like. “But you didn’t actually introduce yourself.”
“Oh, I didn’t?” he looked surprised, and Fuyumi couldn’t help but wonder how he’d missed that. “Sorry. Takami Keigo.” He gave her a quick, ironic salute. “Pleasure’s all mine, miss…”
“Todoroki Fuyumi,” she told him. “And really?”
“What, was the salute too much?” Keigo didn’t really look discouraged. “Sorry. That usually works.”
He was still walking backwards. It would’ve been impressive if it weren’t so cloyingly obvious that he was trying to charm her when she was determined not to be charmed.
“Well, no,” Fuyumi told him. Superficial overconfidence does very little for me, she wished she could say – give in once, and she’d find herself agreeing to all kinds of things she shouldn’t have. It’d proven true in her few attempts at dating in college, and then all over again in the classroom when she always, without fail, managed to get herself a student or two who thought they could get away with anything with an innocent smile and an alibi. Fuyumi was far too no-nonsense now for acts like these to work on her – never mind that she had a strange inkling that this one wasn’t all pretense. “I’m not sure what ‘working’ means to you, but no, I’m not finding myself particularly charmed.”
“Then why are you still talking to me?” he shot her a self-satisfied smile.
“Because I don’t see a compelling reason not to,” she replied.
“Then it must’ve worked-“
“No, it just didn’t repel me enough to convince me that you weren’t worth meeting.” She glanced over Keigo’s shoulder. “And you might want to look where you’re going.”
“Hm?” he threw a glance over his shoulder. It did nothing for him, though, now that it was about ten seconds too late for him to keep from backing into the trunk of a tree right off the path that he was quickly approaching.
“Charming,” Fuyumi couldn’t help but laugh. “Right.”
**
That, apparently, hadn’t even been close to the end of it.
Fuyumi had thought her conversation with Keigo would be a one-off – usually, people like that didn’t bother to come back for seconds. They picked their marks, flirted and connived their way to the end towards which that mark was to serve as the means, and ran; marks who couldn’t be swayed were swiftly discounted.
But he didn’t seem to be discounting her at all.
Either he was foolishly persistent or he’d actually taken an interest in her, it seemed, because he’d always catch her eye when they crossed paths. He’d tried to talk to her at first, but he’d quickly realized that he wasn’t going to get anywhere when she had earbuds in, so he’d taken to waving instead. Sometimes he’d stop her to chat if their runs ended around the same time.
“Looks like your time is really improving,” he’d told her once.
“Why are you watching me?” she’d countered. “Isn’t that kinda creepy? I still know nothing about you.”
He’d looked genuinely flustered for the first time since she’d met him, rushing to apologize. “No, no, it’s not like that!” he tried to reassure her. “I just knew you were new to this and I wanted to, uh…see you progress, I guess?” Keigo scratched at the back of his neck. If Fuyumi had to guess, she’d figure that it was beginning to become apparent to him how this looked. “Sorry,” he muttered again.
“Well, that’s still a little weird, but…all right.” It was oddly sweet, really, and he seemed entirely sincere. “And you noticed improvement?”
“Oh, yeah, tons.” He nodded eagerly, obviously relieved. “I’d be willing to bet it’s a lot less miserable now, aren’t you?”
“It’s still way too cold, but…” Fuyumi bit her lip. “Yeah. It is getting a little bit easier.”
“I’m glad.” He looked as if he meant it. “Running’s great. Good to hear that you’re starting to see the light.”
“Well, uh...let’s just say that the only light I’m starting to see is the one at the end of the tunnel.”
“The 5K?” Keigo guessed. She’d explained that once before, and he – bizarrely – hadn’t forgotten. “Oh, yeah, when is that?”
“About a month.” And I’m out of here, she didn’t add. “I feel like I’m going to make it.”
“Oh, for sure,” Keigo agreed. “You planning to sign up for another one after that?”
“Oh, no,” Fuyumi laughed uncomfortably. “This has been…okay, but running isn’t my thing.”
“Aw, why not? You’re getting so much better at it!”
“Hey, you’re the marathoner, not me.” He paused for a moment to take a drink of water and Fuyumi couldn’t keep herself from watching the elegant ripple of his every movement; she hoped he’d chalk the color in her cheeks up to exhaustion. “I don’t think I’ll ever be in love with running like you are.”
“Sad,” he sighed, drying his lips with the back of his hand. “Running is a way better girlfriend than any of my exes were.”
So he’s single. Probably.
That explained the interest.
“Is that so,” Fuyumi replied.
“Seriously, I think you should stick with it,” he told her. “It really is rewarding, and…I dunno. It’d be kinda cool to have someone to run with.”
“Is that your way of hitting on me?”
“Nah.” He dug in the pocket of his jacket for his phone. “I just think that would be fun, don’t you?”
“I still don’t really think that the words ‘running’ and ‘fun’ belong in the same sentence.”
“Well, I bet I could change that!”
“You look like you actually believe yourself,” Fuyumi commented. “Gotta give you points for confidence, but I’m pretty sure it would take an act of divine intervention to make me like sports.”
“Well, it’s not exactly ‘sports’ the way you’re thinking, right?” Keigo offered. “It can be, but you don’t even have to do anything with it. I mean, look at what you’re doing now. ‘s not a competition, is it?”
How did you know that was what I hated about sports?
“Well, I guess not, but…I’m not too athletic.”
“You don’t have to be, though,” Keigo pressed. “I mean, you’ve seen how much better you’ve gotten at running, right? Running doesn’t take talent, just persistence. And, I mean…” he shrugged. “It looks like you’ve got plenty of that.”
“You’re really invested in my running career,” Fuyumi laughed uneasily. “Why?”
“Well, I mean, I love this stuff,” Keigo offered. “Like, I love it. I like…I dunno. Helping other people like it, too. Having people to like stuff with is cool. Especially when you like the people who like the stuff that you like, y’know?”
“Or you’re insufferable and you want me to race you.” Fuyumi crossed her arms, trying not to let her real reaction to that surprisingly-earnest answer show.
“Well, I wouldn’t turn it down,” he said shamelessly. “If you wanted-“
“Trust me, I don’t.”
Her smile gave her away, true, but she thought she’d gotten her point across well enough.
**
This was…not a good idea.
No, it really, really wasn’t. But her friends had been begging for a photo of Fuyumi’s accidental workout buddy for weeks, and her brain wouldn’t leave her alone until she at least tried to figure out what she was getting herself into.
She hadn’t used Instagram since college and it took the entire minute that the app was redownloading and the three it took to reset her long-forgotten password to convince herself that she wasn’t shooting herself in the foot by typing Takami Keigo into the search bar. She tried distracting herself by imagining what increasingly-ridiculous things might be on it – sweaty post-race pictures, influencer-perfect photoshoots, blurry shots of long-ago parties surrounded by dozens of girls much more interesting than a no-nonsense elementary school teacher he’d run into a couple times – but…none of those materialized when she clicked on the first account bearing his name.
“Food?” she muttered, and it took all she had not to burst out laughing as she scanned his photo gallery. He’d posted plates of sushi and entrees that looked like they could’ve been taken from the pages of a cooking magazine and glasses of juice, some with accompanying videos demonstrating how he’d pressed them. Few of his posted photos showed his face, though the profile picture did, save for one in which he was gesturing towards a woman with the most muscular thighs Fuyumi had ever seen as if presenting her on a game show with a goofy grin as she laughed.
She’d seen enough Olympic medals in her father’s collection to know what that was around her neck and the date – August 2016 – all but confirmed it.
“Great,” she muttered. “He’s friends with literal Olympians.”
She felt just a little bit more self-conscious about her meager athletic accomplishments, knowing someone with such connections had been watching her.
Nevertheless, she’d come here for a reason, so – after ensuring anything embarrassing from college was deleted – she hit follow and wondered why that made her so nervous.
**
3 New Direct Messages
@callmehawks: RUNNING BUDDY!
@callmehawks: How’d ya find me?
@callmehawks: I mean I’m glad you did but
@todoyumi: ummm your acc is under your name?
@callmehawks: oh duh
@callmehawks: well hey! I keep forgetting to ask for your number so thanks for that haha
@todoyumi: why is your @ ‘callmehawks’?
@callmehawks: oh inside joke
@callmehawks: with Mirko
@callmehawks sent a post
@callmehawks: my best friend from college
@todoyumi: why does it not surprise me that your best friend is an Olympic medalist?
@callmehawks: she’s an absolute beast
@callmehawks: you’d love her
@todoyumi: you still haven’t explained why ‘hawks’ tho
@callmehawks: o yeah sorry
@callmehawks: she says it’s bc I go too fast
@todoyumi: ok but that makes no sense
@todoyumi: why not like ‘gazelle’ or smth? Hawks aren’t really known for being fast
@callmehawks: don’t ask
@callmehawks: she was probably drunk at the time
@callmegazelle: better? ;)
@todoyumi: WORSE
@todoyumi: I take it all back
@todoyumi: stick with Hawks
@callmegazelle: aw, it was growing on me :(
@callmegazelle: you really don’t like it?
**
5 New Direct Messages
@mirko_rumi sent a screenshot
@mirko_rumi: why did you change it??
@mirko_rumi: why????
@mirko_rumi: IS NOTHING SACRED ANYMORE?!?
@mirko_rumi: HAWKS EXPLAIN YOURSELF
@callmegazelle: haha sorry long story
@mirko_rumi: EXPLAIN
@callmegazelle: I met this girl who’s been running in that park I like
@mirko_rumi: AND YOU UNDID SIX YEARS OF TRUST?!?
@mirko_rumi: no but pls tell me everything
@callmegazelle: she found my acc and asked me why my @ was @callmehawks and when I told her she said that it would make more sense if the animal I was named after was fast
@callmegazelle: so I changed it to make her laugh
@mirko_rumi: …how do you already have it so bad????
@callmegazelle: I don’t! She’s just very
@callmegazelle: refreshing?
@mirko_rumi: as in?
@callmegazelle: she thinks I’m full of it and she says so
@mirko_rumi: okay actually I take it back
@mirko_rumi: I like this girl
@mirko_rumi: go on
@callmegazelle: she started running for a New Years resolution and she hates it
@mirko_rumi: unacceptable
@mirko_rumi: you gotta make her see the light
@callmegazelle: I'm aware
@callmehawks: working on it
@mirko_rumi: WAIT WHY'D YOU CHANGE IT BACK
@callmehawks: I don't think she'll notice
@callmehawks: she probably didn't expect me to change it in the first place
@callmehawks: anyway she's a second grade teacher
@callmehawks: seems kinda quite but she's very uh
@callmehawks: sassy
@callmehawks: lowk hilarious but she'd probably get all red and smack you if you told her that
@callmehawks: she works really hard
@callmehawks: kinda cute
@mirko_rumi: honey
@mirko_rumi: be honest with yourself
@mirko_rumi: you don't think she's 'kinda' anything
**
2 New Direct Messages
@todoyumi: 0559-830451
@todoyumi: because I know you tend to forget things.