Work Text:
i.
To Noriko, football has always been a nuisance. It’s a paper ball that knocks over glasses, has her boys bump into the regulars, and lands in her customer’s martinis.
But her boys have to kill time and Noriko can’t watch them. She begs them to stay still but it doesn’t work because of course her boys can’t stand still. They’re hers. And so, they get a makeshift ball, they crumple up a newspaper, dribble around the bar, and try to avoid the customers.
It’s a risky game; maybe that’s why they love it so much. Noriko pretends she doesn’t see them. She used to yell at them, but since they didn’t listen, she gave up. As long as they don’t disturb the customers, it’s none of Noriko’s business. It’s already bad enough that she needs to bring her kids to work; the less attention she puts on the little devils, the better. Noriko has too much on her plate, and she trusts Shun to stop Ashito before he messes up (because of course her idiot son is going to mess up).
There are a few accidents, but getting an earful never stops Noriko’s boys from playing football.
ii.
To Noriko, it is clear that football is what kept her eldest from becoming an adult too soon. Football is the last little string tying Shun to his childhood. He always had to be a parent to Ashito— not a brother. Noriko doesn’t understand the hype, but it’s her sons’ secret language, so she lets them play together.
Football isn’t fun to watch either, not that she’s watched many games. When the TV is on, you can be sure there’s a match, and if there’s a match, her boys are glued to the screen. Noriko wonders how there can be so many matches, she wonders how they can always find something to broadcast about football. Hell, there are even entire channels about football.
It doesn’t make any sense. It’s just twenty people running around after a ball.
iii.
Still, Noriko tries. She can’t understand what’s so interesting about running after a ball, but she decides she doesn’t have to understand or care. The pitch is her boys’ happy place. So she goes and sees Ashito’s final match. Football's rules are confusing (what even is offside?), and the game is boring.
Ashito’s about the same on the pitch as he is at home. Loud. Mischevious. Carefree. Her son’s team is about to win, and Noriko knows she should feel proud, but all she sees is just good old Ashito, fooling around. He’s not different. He’s not any different. She wonders what the point is, what she’s doing here. But she took a day off. So, she stays. Until Ashito does something that makes her regret coming to see him play.
Did her idiot son just headbutt another kid?
iv.
There are many feelings flowing that night.
The first is disappointment. Noriko doesn’t think she’s raised her son to be violent. But on the one day she makes an effort, on the one day she takes off to come and see Ashito play, he gets thrown out of the game for assaulting another player.
The second is disbelief. Because this isn't Ashito. This isn't her idiot son. He’s intense, he’s loud, but deep down he’s sweet. Noriko doesn’t want to believe he did this (without a reason).
The third is shame. Because it’s never, never comfortable to see a mirror of oneself. Ashito is too much like her.
Ashito doesn’t come home. Noriko trusts her son not to be an idiot, to come to his senses, to think long and hard about what he’s done. She lets him do what he has to do.
Some part of her can’t help but think she’s partly to blame.
v.
Noriko can’t say she is overjoyed at Ashito’s idea of going to Tokyo. She’s his mother; of course, she's worried.
It still slips. Because it’s true. Football is taking her precious son away from her, but there is nothing she can do except let him fly.
She avoids the subject, she does her best to hide her worries, to work behind the scenes, like she has always done. To get the money on the table, to do the chores, to do everything she can, and not ask for any help. That’s how she’s always done it. Never show any weaknesses.
Especially not to her boys.
vi.
Noriko runs the numbers with Hana. She’s honestly surprised someone so young knows how to handle a budget, how to calculate expenses. Noriko listens. Hana talks about the facilities, she knows so much about the world of professional football, but when Noriko asks, one day, if she plays herself, Hana keeps silent, then says, I don’t know a thing about football.
There’s more to it, there’s something she’s not saying, but Noriko doesn’t pry.
She knows more than anyone else how it is to not want to talk.
vii.
Noriko pretends she doesn’t see Shun saving money to send Ashito to Tokyo.
viii.
Noriko isn’t good with goodbyes. She hates complicated speeches, she hates it when things get mushy. She knows herself, she knows her son, she knows it’ll get mushy. He's too much like her.
She gets Ashito everything he’ll need, and at first, she only thinks about stopping there. No need for a letter, right? No need to talk to him, right?
And still, she writes everything down. Everything she wants to tell him.
It’s still early when she checks the time and realizes Ashito must be on his way to Tokyo. He must have read the note by now.
Noriko adjusts her glasses, takes one last look at the sea, and gets back to work.
ix.
Ashito doesn’t call Noriko. She can’t say she’s surprised. She doesn’t know what’s going on in that hollow head of his, but he’s probably having a hard time, all alone in the city. His first time out of his depth.
She’s pissed at her idiot son’s attitude but tries to remember.
No news is good news.
x.
Noriko gets a call one night. She guesses her son has reached his first wall. He doesn’t say much because of course he doesn’t. So, Noriko says what she knows will always be true.
It’s just football. You can always come back home.
I will always be here.
That’s more or less what she says. (it’s completely what she means.)
She hangs up.
xi.
It’s radio silence for months.
Noriko doesn’t know if it shows that she’s worried, but it probably does since the regulars get her a ticket to go see her son in Tokyo. If they got her a ticket, might as well do the trip.
As she gets a strange Hana on the phone, Noriko wonders what her idiot son has done this time. She figures she’ll learn it when she gets there.
xii.
It feels surreal to get a break, it feels surreal to get away. It’s almost stressful.
Noriko hasn’t left Ehime in years. She hasn’t been to Tokyo in… decades. (maybe it has been longer than that.)
Hana guides her, thankfully. The talk with the coach is… a confirmation of Noriko’s fears, but she feels like they absolutely don’t speak the same language.
What happens when she finally sees her son… honestly, she’s too stunned to say anything.
There is something off with Ashito, and Noriko isn’t sure how to deal with it.
xiii.
Noriko holds her breath unconsciously. She doesn’t know what’s about to happen — she doesn’t understand football — but she has an unsettling feeling that Ashito is growing angry, frustrated, and desperate. There is something in how he moves that evokes someone drowning, desperately flapping their arms and legs, trying to get enough air, trying to go back to the surface. He’s fighting something. It’s not a wall he has to go over; it’s something attacking him. And Noriko thinks she knows what’s holding him back.
She calls out to him, but he doesn’t listen. Even if he heard her from the pitch, over the loud cheers and shouts, this is her idiot son. Does he ever listen?
But when Hana shakily stands up by Noriko’s side, her hunch is confirmed. Because Hana doesn’t care about football. Hana doesn’t know anything about football. So if Hana is scared, if Hana is upset, if Hana is trembling, it means it’s not about football. It’s about Ashito, and something bad is about to happen.
Noriko is unable to say anything. She watches anxiously, and then she hears them both. Hana’s cry and the coach’s command, begging and ordering her boy not to strike that ball.
Ashito freezes. For an instant, Noriko sees him younger. She sees an image her mind conjured up often when she was working. She sees the little boy from Ehime in his worn out football boots and oversized football jersey covered in mud, lost and confused as he stands alone on the pitch (the other kids had to go home for dinner; Ashito’s dinner is reheated leftovers Noriko left for him and Shun since she has to work). Ashito looks unsure, but at least he's safe— for an instant.
For an instant only, because then panic rushes in, he raises his arm, and the ball hits him hard.
xiv.
Noriko knows how much Ashito resembles her, and often, she wishes he didn’t.
She recognizes his passion, she recognizes that ironic tunnel vision he gets when he’s absorbed into something. She’s the same. She forgets everyone around her. She neglects everyone around her. And she pretends it doesn’t hurt her, she doesn’t need anyone, she can do it all alone because she has that one thing she is absorbed in and can do. Must do.
It's a sense of duty born from love and passion. It's an all-consuming nightmare you choose to live every day. You wouldn't have it any other way.
Being able to move forward after everyone forgets about them… It’s a false idea of what strength is. Ashito needs people around him. They give him strength. He’s lost when he’s alone. He loses himself when he’s alone. But Noriko doesn’t hold it against him, to have believed it. Who has never made that mistake? (she knows she has).
This is Ashito. This is who he is. And it’s all her fault.
xv.
The flight back home feels longer, heavier, but somehow, Noriko is relieved. She has seen it with her own eyes, she knows how everything is going for her son, and she has seen the environment he’s in now.
Ashito… has changed. But Noriko also got to see how determined he is to go pro and how difficult it is. She hasn’t prepared Ashito for hardships. She always let him live his life as carefree as possible because she never got to do that. She put so much pressure on Shun, too.
But Ashito will be fine. He is not alone. And anyway, this is the path he chose.
Noriko has no say.
To my idiot son. I’m about to go on a plane in Haneda to go back home.
Noriko locks her phone, but picks it up again.
You suck, but keep giving your best.
xvi.
Noriko has to tell the regulars how it went. She complains about her son having been thrown out of the match, how dare he, when she was here, watching him from the stands.
The regulars laugh. They’re not surprised, they know Ashito, and boys will be boys.
Noriko smiles and pours them another drink. Her mind drifts back to Tokyo. She hopes Ashito learned his lesson. If it’s something he discovers himself, he’ll remember it forever. Noriko would prefer it if it hadn’t hurt everyone close to him in the process.
She’ll need to check on Hana. She might call her tonight.
xvii.
Noriko sits behind the bar. It’s the last calm moment of the day. Customers will start flooding her establishment in a matter of minutes, but for now, it’s peaceful. Shun is out, playing football with his club. And Ashito…
It’s been weeks since Noriko flew to Tokyo. Actually, it’s been months, but time flies by so fast, and sometimes, it feels like yesterday. Ashito’s horror-stricken face, and how quiet the Esperion fans were. Dumbstruck.
Noriko takes out her phone and looks up the latest information about Esperion. She’s started seeing Ashito in articles a little more lately. It seems he’s back to playing as a regular, for whatever that means. Noriko stops as she sees her son in a picture. Smiling, looking so happy.
Noriko sighs as she stares at her son’s face. She doesn’t know anything about football. She doesn’t understand what it means for Aoi Ashito’s name to be written in an article. But she knows one thing. All his talks about not having accomplished anything yet… they sound wrong to Noriko. She would like to differ.
What even is football anyway? It’s not a crumpled newspaper, it’s not a dangerous game her boys were playing, it’s not a hindrance. It allowed her son to see the world and to grow. It’s shaping him into an adult at a grueling pace, but is it any different from what went on with Shun?
Ashito has already accomplished so much. But after all, it isn’t strange that he wouldn’t notice that all the progress he’s made is an accomplishment in itself.
He’s her idiot son, after all.