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“Okay, so then Rinko actually says –”
Mantaro fell silent. He cast blue eyes across the locker room, where Robin – with notebook in hand, pen in fingers – walked through the large double doors. The light caught from his helmet, momentarily causing Mantaro to flinch and shield his eyes, but quickly he angled his head to look about the group and gone was the light. He did a small double-take. He looked at his notebook. After realising he was in the wrong room, he left the way he came.
A sigh of relief fell from Mantaro, as he fell back on the bench. Kid and Jade sat on the adjacent bench, where they waited for the end of the anecdote, and Kevin – trying to appear as inconspicuous as possible – fidgeted around with his locker. He moved the same bottle of water around several times, as he sought to appear busy, and occasionally glanced over his shoulder at the three friends gathered around for a good gossip, but none resumed the conversation at hand. He furrowed his brow beneath his mask. He huffed.
“Well?” Kevin asked. “What happened next?”
Mantaro jumped. He looked around for the source of the voice, until his eyes landed upon Kevin standing at the lockers with a towel thrown around his shoulders. The older teenager finally slammed shut his locker, as he gave up all pretence of not listening to their stories, and – hands pulling on the edges of the towel – leaned back on the metal and looked right at them. A thick sweat ran down his bare chest, and his hair was matted with exertion, but his body was angled no longer to the showers and instead directed at them. Mantaro replied with a simple:
“Huh?”
“You heard me. What happened next?”
“I . . . er . . . wait, what?” Mantaro rapidly blinked. “What were we talking about again? Oh, right! Rinko skipped school and headed to that biker bar, and that guy was trying to start something with her, but she was all – she was all . . . eh, she said . . .”
Mantaro blushed beneath his mask. He thought back to how Robin disturbed them, and the shock that Kevin had listened to them, and then tried to go back to ‘Rinko’. Each time his mind went back, it made it as far as the disturbances and stopped. It was a mental wall. There was no connection between the story and the distraction, and so – no matter how hard he tried – he just couldn’t work out how to get back to that point. He scratched at the back of his neck. He looked to Kid and Jade, who both looked eagerly back, and finally admitted:
“You know what? I can’t remember.”
The silence changed. Kevin drew in a sharp intake of breath, while the thick muscles of his shoulders and arms tightened, and his head lowered by a fraction of an inch, as the dark mesh of his mask obscured his eyes completely in shadows. A cold chill ran through Mantaro. He paled a little, as he thought back to their match in the Olympic finals. A shiver ran down his spine, even as he forced a smile and twitched his lips, and yet Kevin showed no sign of recognising the little signs regarding his change in emotion. He simply spat out:
“You can’t remember?”
“Nuh-uh.”
“How can you not remember?”
“Is it even that important?” Mantaro asked. “Just ask Rinko later.”
“I don’t want to ask Rinko later! I’m asking you now.”
Mantaro rolled his eyes. He leaned back, until he hit nothing. The bench lacked a back, and so there was nothing to stop his descent, forcing him to throw out his arms and wave them like a bird in flight. He quickly regained his balance, as he threw himself back forward. A combination of adrenaline and confusion combined into basic annoyance, as he rested his forearms on his knees and leaned forward. A cold glare was aimed directly at Kevin, who seemingly glared back. Mantaro pouted his lips and shot out:
“Dude, who even cares?”
“I care,” mumbled Kevin. “Just tell me!”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t remember!” Mantaro scoffed. “Hey, it’s your dad that totally blew my rhythm and made me lose my train of thought. Look, why don’t we just talk about something else, okay? Like, Meat was saying he saw you with Warsman at the –”
“No, no, no. You need to finish your story!”
“Okay, but why?”
“Because I need closure, Junior! How is this not bothering you?”
Kid laughed. It was deep and hearty, almost a distraction in itself, but a good sign of a good humour. Jade, meanwhile, smiled a smile so warm and sincere that it was almost contagious. It left Mantaro feeling a little softer; he drew in a deep breath, letting his heart slow and his muscles relax, and cocked his head to one side, as he took a long look at Kevin. A few seconds passed, with no one daring to be the one to break the silence. Mantaro took that time to compose himself, before he waved a casual hand and asked in a genuinely curious tone:
“You know you don’t always get closure, right?”
“Well, maybe you don’t, but I do.”
“Okay, but . . . what about when someone dies?” Mantaro asked. “I never got to really say what I wanted to say to a lot of people. Don’t you ever really love someone and they just go, but there’s this big weight of unresolved conflict or unspoken words, and something just dies with you when they die, because . . . because . . . because there’s this thing inside you just bursting to get out, only it can’t come out! So . . . so you just squash it down, but it hurts so bad?”
Kevin stopped. He rolled his shoulders and cricked his neck, before he folded his arms over his chest and dropped back against the lockers. No one dared speak. There was only the ticking over the clock above the door . . . tick, tick, tick . . . it was a sound that was matched by the beating of Mantaro’s heart, as he awaited Kevin’s reaction . . . thump, thump . . . there was never any way to know how Kevin would react. He could fluctuate between sportsmanship and cruelty on a seeming whim, but – for now – he remained calm.
“No,” said Kevin. “Never.”
“Oh, I’ve got one!” Kid interrupted. “Okay, slowpoke, do you ever get real into a movie – like super invested and all on the edge of ya seat – only summat happens? I don’t know . . . maybe the power goes out, or someone knows on your door, or the streaming service pulls the flick, and you’re kind o’ like – I dunno – just left desperate to know what happened?”
“That’s never happened to me,” says Kevin.
“What? Never?”
“Nope.”
Kid glared. He rolled his eyes, and folded legs and arms. The way he faced away from Kevin, looking only at Mantaro, spoke more than any words, and an audible hiss spilled its way through flared nostrils. Jade simply hummed, as if taking the answer into consideration. He took off his green helmet, so that blond locks spilled out wildly over his face, and took a cloth from his pocket to shine the thick plastic, so that he did not look at Kevin. A warm expression softened the otherwise indifferent action, so that a calm and casual atmosphere followed.
“I once got into an argument with another chojin,” added Jade. “I misunderstood what he said, because English is my third language and English was his second language, and I think we were both using the same word to mean different things. I later was told by Kid that there was another meaning to what was said. I felt very guilty.”
“Oh? What happened?”
“Well, the chojin had already left the country. I could not find his contact details, as this was not during a match, and so I just had to live with the fact that I could not apologise. I could not ask how he meant what was said. I never knew whether it was a misunderstanding or not.”
“And that . . . you’re okay with that?”
“Ja,” said Jade. “Why? Would you not be okay?”
Kevin tensed again. This time, he joined them. He came around and took a seat on a bench, so that he was close to the three friends and yet not a part of their group, and he sat half-clothed and with spread legs in a relaxed manner. It was growing humid in the locker room, as steam billowed out from the shower cubicles, and Check Mate sang a song in the distance, while Scarface argued loudly with Meat Alexandria. Kevin ignored all the background chaos, while his lips and tongue moved, like one literally chewing over his words. Kevin said:
“I don’t like not having closure, no.”
“How’s it feel to ya?” Kid asked. “All bad?”
“Well, yes.” Kevin huffed. “It’s this horrible itchiness in my brain. It’s this awful sense of incompletion; like you’re waiting eternally for something that never comes, that your brain is on high alert expecting the unexpected. I can almost feel this palpable anxiety, like something brewing deep in my soul. It’s so intense. I need to know. I want to know. You know?”
“Yeah, that ain’t normal. You sure you ain’t got a problem?”
“Well, he is a perfectionist,” added Jade.
“And a control freak,” said Mantaro.
“Oi, shut it, you wankers! Look, I don’t know why it is what it is, but it is what it is, and what it is is a pain in the arse. It’s like my mind splinters off like a spider diagram; I think of one possible scenario, which spawns more scenarios, until I’ve concocted a multitude of worlds and ideas and hypothetical situations, and my brain has planned for every potential and possible thing that could happen at any given time or place. It’s stressful.”
“So you can’t just deal when something doesn’t have an ending?” Mantaro sighed. “Man, that sounds the worst! It’s a bit like when you know there’s a big match coming up, but then Ikemen springs on you some crazy rules? That always stresses me out.”
“But you expect crazy rules. That is closure in itself.”
Kevin dropped his head. He softened his body, while his fingers toyed with his cuticles. It was growing warmer within the locker room, until each man was starting to grow sticky with sweat, and what was once a short anecdote had spiralled into a serious discussion. Mantaro grabbed at his body-suit, which he pulled out and used to fan himself. Kid guzzled down some water from his reusable bottle. Jade was almost impervious to the heat, as he looked to Kevin and continued to kindly press the matter with a series of soft questions:
“So if I sung half a song and then just stopped?”
“I’d need to finish the song.”
“And if I read half of a story and then never finished?”
“I would read until the end.”
“And if I only played half of a film?”
“I’d bloody well watch the rest.”
They listened with great respect. The truth was that Mantaro could not relate. He rarely had a long attention span, often moving from love interest to love interest, hobby to hobby, studies to studies . . . he could not remember the last time that he saw anything through to the end. He lifted his hand to his face, where he tapped a finger against his chin. Kid was definitely the more obsessive type, and Jade was very steadfast, so perhaps they would have a better understanding of what was shaping up to be a complex issue. Mantaro continued:
“Okay, but like . . . what’s the worst thing?”
“The worst thing?”
“Yeah, like what’s the worst thing for you?” Mantaro shrugged. “I mean, you need closure and hate when things are incomplete, so . . . what would be the absolute worst thing for you? What’s the one thing that cuts through you the worst? What’s like nails on a chalkboard?”
Silence. Kevin took in a deep breath. The clock ticked by ever louder, marking every second with the weight of a gavel and the severity of a death sentence, and each man sat on the edge of their seat, as they awaited the answer that only Kevin could provide. Kevin drew in a deep breath, as he pondered the severity of the sentence, and weighed the question over and over in his mind . . . the worst feeling of incompletion, the worst need for closure . . . he swallowed hard, while he clasped his hands tight between his thighs. He lowered his head.
A heavy pressure followed, as all eyes were upon him. The world drifted on around them, with their teammates oblivious to the conversation at hand, and any second now – at any point – someone would come in to tell them to shower, someone would leave and noisily dress . . . someone – something – would interrupt them. It was possible that they would never have an answer. It was possible their wait would never have an end. Kevin took time to mull over his words, until – finally – he answered slowly and with all seriousness:
“I guess the worst thing is when a story doesn’t have an –”