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Unsurprisingly, the whole thing is Fujiwara’s fault.
It starts out as a normal practice, the boys training while she practices relationing. It might have stayed a normal practice too, if Kohinata hadn’t made an offhanded comment along the lines of wishing that he had someone to compete with in gimmicks. He’s quick to defend his team mates, explaining he didn’t mean to offend, only that he was just… better. No one argues. He’s the trickster of Honan, and well deserving of the title. Nana notices that Fujiwara is staring at her, so she braces for whatever is about to come out of his mouth
“Sakurai-chan was one of the best at gimmicks in middle school”
She glares half-heartedly at him, her past is hers to share, not his. Her days of running competitively in Stride are over, for all that she could keep her toes in the water through relationing.
The boys have a range of emotions playing over their faces as she turns to face them, from Yagami’s cheery grin to Kadowaki’s utter shock. Kuga looks satisfied, as if he has just found the answer to a problem that had been bothering him for a while. Heath’s eyes are narrowed, his mouth set in his predatory smile, assessing. Kohinata is bouncing in place, excited.
Nothing for it then, she thinks.
“Do you want to race, senpai?”
He nods enthusiastically, so she heads to the club room to change. She knows that the boys will find or set up somewhere suitable for their mini race while she is gone. Nana is actually kind of looking forward to this, she hasn’t run against someone since the last race she ran in middle school. Practicing by yourself can be good, but she misses the focus running in a race could give her. She misses running for someone other than herself. She misses Stride, for all that she is still technically a part of it all.
No one is there when she gets back, so she settles in to stretch. Once she has fully limbered herself up, she moves into practicing stunts and strength exercises. She handsprings forward and back, she flips and cartwheels, she dives and rolls. Setting herself up on the back rest of a park bench, she lifts herself into a hand stand position. From there, arms straining and abs burning, she scoops her torso forward until she is parallel to the ground below. Then she goes back up, spins her body around to face the opposite direction, and falls so that she lands perfectly in the seat.
Heath is grinning and shaking his head in pleased surprise from where he must have been watching for some time. Nana smiles sheepishly back and moves to join him. Dan sensei had sent him to give her a chance to look over the course before running it. He doesn’t talk at all through their circuit, but the smile doesn’t leave his face, so she isn’t worried. They spy the rest of the club members a short way ahead, and her nerves start to flare, for all that they are tempered by a steady self-confidence.
Everyone waves them over excitedly, even the ever stoic Fujiwara is showing the faintest hint of a smile. Dan Sensei explains the route to them, it has been specifically picked for the high amount of gimmicks already present, and for the amount of possible shortcuts. So long as they don’t deviate too far from the given path, they can run where they want. From what she saw on the walk through, it was as close to perfect as they would be able to get on such short notice.
Slinging an arm around each of their shoulders, Heath wishes them both good luck and ruffles their hair slightly. Kuga nods his approval, calmly smiling at his kohai. Kadowaki is fervidly wishing Kohinata good luck, while Yagami does the same for her. Fujiwara just looks her in the eye and quietly tells her to win. Nana raises her hands expectantly, the two slapping a palm each into her own.
It’s time.
Dan Sensei gives the call and they’re off.
Her legs are pumping, stride widening and speed rising with each step forward she takes. Kohinata is keeping even, his yellow scarf flickering in the corner of her vision. The first set of gimmicks is right ahead, six rows of stone benches in front of a slightly raised stage. They both leap up and stride widely, each step landing them on a new bench, leading into a vault up onto the stage and a scramble up its backing wall. He spins down while she uses her forward momentum to leap onto the roof of the public restroom. She knows that the stream is right ahead, and that a stone wall leads from the restroom to the water’s edge. Kohinata is probably taking the bridge. Nana won’t be.
Instead, she runs down the narrow wall and leaps.
She clears the river with a hand span or two to spare, tucking into a roll and diving back into running. Coming up next is a narrow set of ascending stairs followed by a sharp left turn backed by a high wall that leads up to the road above. Her muscles ache, her lungs burn, her feet scream, but she doesn’t care. It’s been so long since she felt this good.
Footsteps sound behind her as she jumps up onto the wooden hand rail and starts zig-zagging her way to the top. Mid dismount, she realises she is going too fast to stop normally. She pushes harder with her back foot, throwing herself at the wall and flipping quickly off of it.
Ah, he’s passed her.
She lost time in the extra motion, and he had used it to slip past. Maybe half a second ahead, he reaches the next gimmick just barely ahead of her. The children’s monkey bars had been adapted with their Stride gear to be a maze of horizontal and vertical bars. Kohinata follows his usual habit and takes the high road, his good balance keeping him from toppling as he sprints along the bars. Nana weaves lithely through the mess of bars below, feeling glad she chose the lower path when the maze ends three meters before the bars he runs on do.
By the time he is running again from his dive roll off, they are even.
They just need to cross the river once more, and the finish line will be almost in sight. Noticing a rope swing tied to a tree, she detours again from the path, leaving Kohinata to run for the next bridge. Nana runs at full speed and catches the seat of the swing in both hands. Holding it tight, she throws herself over the river, releasing her grip at the highest point. She sails across the rest of the distance, throwing in a flip and a twist for the fun of it and safely landing in a roll on the opposite bank. Back on her feet, she starts after Kohinata again, hoping to get back in front of him before he could cross the bridge.
She manages, just barely.
Nana knows the finish is close, but there are five temporary Stride walls set up between her and the ribbon. She rolls over the first and uses the second as a springboard to leap onto and claw her way over the third. The fourth is vaulted normally, but she handsprings over the fifth and final obstacle. She’s having fun, for all that Kohinata is running right next to her. And then ahead of her, just barely. And. Oh. She lost. Damn.
She collapses to her knees, her breath coming in short gasps of air. Two hands are offered to her simultaneously, she knows without looking that they belong to her year mates. They tug her back up to her feet, and Nana smiles. Yagami tells her that she was amazing, where did she learn how to improvise like that? Fujiwara, being the infuriating person he is, still smiles smugly at her. She does thank him though, for all that he had kind of thrown her to the wolves, she had missed this so, so much.
Kohinata comes over next, and his eyes are alight.
He has a giant grin plastered on his face, and she can understand why. He now has someone to practice with who is near his level, without needing to search out Ban-chan at Saisei. She grins back and thanks him for the race, tells him they should definitely do it again sometime. Dan sensei is nodding to himself, pleased with the development. Nana thinks this may have turned out to be one of the best days in her high school Stride experience, second only to knowing she helped her team win the End of Summer tournament. She can run with her boys, her team, who like her for her and don’t think she’s after their spots.
Content no longer fits.
Nana is so, so happy.
She even forgives Fujiwara. Well, until she spies a new Honan video online. Titled ‘the Quick-witted Queen of Honan’, it documents all of her race with Kohinata. Apparently, the non-competitors had been filming the whole thing.
As always, it’s all Fujiwara’s fault.