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A small, steep hill rises modestly over a suburban neighborhood in Chiba. Its contour is marked by a two-lane road that is bordered by light woods on the inside and a wire-rope barrier on the out, allowing passers-through its low-high view of the rooftops and cherry blossoms below. The sounds of civilization are vague and distant, but too close to be replaced by the sounds of nature, creating a doldrum quiet of only gentle wind. There is a great and unusual stillness.
Slowly, a definite sound trickles its way up: the thin, mechanical beat and rhythm of a bicycle being ridden, approaching.
A young man rounds the top of the hill. He is dark-haired, fair-skinned, and Colnago-branded all over. Breathing hard, he taps the phone mounted to his handlebars, unclips one foot, and lets it skid along the dirty asphalt until he rolls to a stop.
“...And that’s time!” says Sugimoto. “Haa...”
He closes his eyes and rests for a few seconds, panting. The sun glistens on his face. The air is sweet and mild.
He comes back to attention with a subtle jolt.
“Okay!” He rights himself and claps his hands together. “Good work! It’s time for a break!”
He shifts his weight to unclip his other foot while swiping at the phone's screen. He smiles with a noise of satisfaction.
“Steady progress...” He dismounts the saddle. His other foot touches the ground, and with the click of a buckle, his helmet comes off with shaky flourish, revealing short, sleek hair in curtain bangs. “...as always~”
Bicycle leaning against his hip, Sugimoto tucks the helmet under one arm and navigates his phone again. A timer begins to count down.
“It’s important to pace yourself over long distances, and even take breaks when you need to,” he says, gesturing with his free hand, “but if your muscles cool down too much, you’ll have trouble starting again.”
His voice doesn’t carry far: the sound either gets lost in the woods, or finds nothing to echo off of in the open air. There is no response.
“A well-timed break will improve your performance, not worsen it,” he adds, in a reassuring tone.
Sugimoto looks up, down, up, down the road before walking his bike to the other side. He rests it gently against a tree and announces:
“This is a good time to go over our supplies!” He re-fastens the chin strap of his helmet and puts his arm through, letting it hang from his elbow, then reaches into the back pockets of his jersey.
“Patch kit!” He holds up a flat plastic case with a variety of small objects inside, packed snugly enough not to rattle around. “A flat tire can strike at any time, for a variety of reasons. It's important to be prepared for as many of them as possible.” He pockets it again, then pulls out —
“CO2 cartridges!” A few ampoule-shaped and -sized metal canisters. “To reinflate a flat tire. These are much lighter to carry and much less effort to use than a compact air pump. As a downside, they aren’t reusable, but they are recyclable.”
“General-purpose multitool! ” Its colors match his kit. “This has juuust about everything you need to work on a bicycle, whether at home or on the road.”
“Chain breaker!” A small metal tool that doesn't fold, but can lay flat. “And extra links~” He jingles them confidently in his hand, but nearly drops one and flails to catch it mid-air. It lands in his helmet instead. He picks it out, clears his throat, and tries to regain composure. “Ch-chain failure is less common than a flat tire, but a very real possibility, and an easy one to prepare for.”
“And, finally...” A handful of individually-packed bars, gels, and gummies. “Some snacks! They should be high-calorie...” He puts back all but one and carefully opens its wrapper. “...with simple carbs and electrolytes. 'Always pack more than you think you'll need.'” He exaggeratedly inspects the ground and his helmet to make sure he didn't drop any gummies, then dumps them all in his mouth and crumples the wrapper into his pocket. He washes them down with water from his bottle before speaking again.
“Of course, these things aren’t just for yourself!” He re-cages the bottle and starts to turn. “A well-prepared cyclist can also assist...”
Sugimoto finds himself looking outward, and somehow, though he knew in his head there was nobody with him, he is surprised and confused in his heart by the lack of another person in his line of sight. A ghost had vanished into thin air, and the sight of the buildings — the mountains — the sky in the distance, in the hole where he expected it to be, strikes him with a feeling like the same air that whispers through the trees is passing straight through him.
Sugimoto is alone.
“...others, they... meet on the road.”
His voice feels small at the back of his mouth.
He takes a deep breath in and lets it out as if to watch it make fog. If he listens closely, he can hear, with the same indistinction as the cars and people below, the sounds of birds and insects — ones whose calls he's been hearing his entire life, but only now realizes he does not know the names of. It’s difficult to even place what direction the sounds are coming from. Behind him? All around?
His helmet finishes drifting down to his hand, dangling now by the strap. The warming daytime breeze is still cool in his damp hair.
It is spring break: the brief liminal space between middle and high school. The idea that so much newness lies at the end of such a short, easily-quantifiable period of time is difficult for Sugimoto to comprehend. He is the oldest he has ever been, facing the beginning of the rest of his life. These statements are always true, at every moment, of every living thing, but they are things that one rarely thinks or feels about unless something draws them to attention. Sugimoto feels a lot about it, now. He feels the agony of anticipation, and the bracing of oneself for change, and something that's not as much like excitement as it usually was.
There are many high schools in Chiba. Sohoku isn't the nearest-by or most prestigious of them, but it's a respected institution, and though not visible from where Sugimoto stands, it isn't on the other side of town from where he lives, either. The thing that makes it stand out, the apple of his eye, is its road-racing club. The Sohoku High School Bicycle Club participated in every Inter-High for the last twenty years, has the support of a local bike shop — the closest a high-school team can get to a sponsorship — and boasts both some impressive alumni in college teams and beyond and an extraordinary core group of will-be third-years. Seeing those three in action was what set Sugimoto's heart on Sohoku. They were the best in the city. They had to be. They even have a coach, or so he's heard. Imagine that.
And he knows he won't be the only cyclist drawn to Sohoku. Sugimoto wonders if anyone he's crossed paths with will soon be in the same club as him: competitors from prior races, as rivals turned teammates; people who only rode casually before, as beginners needing guidance; maybe even people who would be new to the city, as wildcards he never expected to see again. He wonders if they'll remember him, too.
He wonders —
Bee-bee-bee-beep! Bee-bee-bee-beep! Bee-bee-bee-beep! Bee-bee-bee-beep!
Sugimoto’s eyebrows jump at the sound. His phone flashes 0:00.
He taps the screen and brings his helmet back under his arm.
“Break’s over!” he says, loud, clear, and authoritative. “It’s time to finish the route!”
He checks and double-checks the road once more before walking his bike back over. The helmet buckle slides apart and clicks back together under his jaw.
“'If every hill is a battle',” he says, swinging his leg up and over to re-mount his bike, “'then going up is when you attack, and going down is when you defend.'” He rotates the pedal back with his ankle until it's in position to clip in. His shoe secures with another click. “A safe descent is just as important as a strong climb.”
Sugimoto's gaze is drawn, one last time, over the barrier to the neighborhood below — at the dainty pink petals, scattered over shingles and piled in roof valleys, snow-like. He shakes his head, turns forward again, and navigates his phone until a map is displayed.
“Alright,” he taps the screen. “Let's go!”
He pushes off with his other foot, clips in at the end of the same motion, and continues cautiously down the hill. The sounds of bike wheels turning against the gentle touch of break pads gradually fades away. The wind is picking up.