The quiet determination Wakashi had found on the dusty field clung to him all the way home. The 'clown' chants still echoed, but now they fueled a different kind of fire, a cold resolve. He slipped through the door, his mother, Akari, already asleep, exhausted from her long day. The small house was silent, save for the distant murmur of the sea.
He went to his room, but sleep was far from his mind. He needed a ball. Not Hinata's precious offering – that was meant for Hana, if she would even accept it. He needed something he could batter, something that matched the rough, untamed anger still simmering within him.
He began to search for materials, his eyes scanning the cluttered corners of the house. As his gaze drifted towards a forgotten box near the back door, something caught his eye. A dark, crumpled lump. His breath hitched.
It was the orange and white football, the very one he had viciously slammed against the rocks on the beach. He remembered the sickening rip of the material, Hana's desolate, tear-filled eyes as she watched him destroy it. The memory still burned with shame. Days later, after he had mumbled his awkward apology and left Hinata's ball on the sand at Hana's feet, he had turned to walk away. His path back to the main road took him past the dilapidated building near the makeshift football pitch. There, tucked away in a shadowed corner, lay the very ball he had ruined. Someone must have picked it up from the beach and discarded it here. It was a pathetic sight, its once vibrant colors faded, its deflated form a testament to his uncontrolled rage. A strange compulsion drew him to it. He bent down, his fingers brushing the torn rubber, the mangled plastic. It was a symbol of his failure, his outburst. Slowly, almost reverently, he picked it up, cradling the ruined sphere in his large hands.
He didn't see the figure watching from the school grounds, a small girl with wide eyes, her previous frown replaced by a flicker of something new – curiosity, perhaps, or a nascent understanding. Hana had seen him.
Wakashi stared at the torn ball in the box. Its sight, a stark reminder of his destructive past, was precisely what he needed. Not to use it, but to fuel his resolve. He wasn't going to destroy anymore. He was going to build.
He scoured the house and the small, dusty shed outside. Old plastic shopping bags, crumpled and forgotten in a cabinet. Under the sink, a tangled coil of discarded rubber tubing, once part of a leaky washing machine. In the shed, a roll of ancient, sticky electrical tape his father had left behind. Not much, but enough.
He worked in the dim light of his room, his brow furrowed in concentration. He started by crumpling the plastic bags tightly, forcing them into a dense, irregular sphere. Then, he began to wrap the rubber tubing around the plastic core, layer by painstaking layer, trying to create a more stable, spherical shape. It was awkward, frustrating work. The tubing would slip, the plastic would shift, but he persisted, his jaw set. Finally, he bound the entire makeshift sphere tightly with the electrical tape, crisscrossing it in every direction until it held together.
The result was misshapen, lumpy, and far from perfectly round. It was heavier than a real football, dense and unforgiving. He bounced it once. A dull, thudding sound. It was his. His homemade ball, a physical manifestation of his desperate new resolve.
That night, under the cold, indifferent gaze of the moon, Wakashi crept out of the house, his crude ball tucked under his arm. He walked past the school, ignoring its silent invitation, and headed straight for the coast. The tide was out, leaving a vast expanse of hard-packed sand, perfect for his purpose.
He placed the makeshift ball on the sand. It wobbled slightly, an ungainly lump. He stared at it, then at his feet. He had no idea what to do. He thought back to the boys on the school field, their fluid movements. He mimicked a vague kicking motion he'd seen, took a deep breath, and swung his leg.
Thump!
His foot connected with the hard, lumpy surface. The impact jarred his ankle, and the ball didn't fly gracefully. Instead, it shot forward in a surprisingly powerful, albeit uncontrolled, straight line, skittering across the sand with an uneven, bouncing trajectory. He watched it go, then chased after it, his long legs devouring the distance. He trapped it clumsily with his foot, sending it bouncing wildly off to the side.
Again. Thump!
Again. Thump!
He kicked it too hard, too soft, too far to the left, too far to the right. The ball often veered off course, defying his clumsy attempts at control. He tripped over his own feet more times than he could count, sprawling onto the sand, gritty and frustrated. His muscular legs, so powerful in an aimless charge, felt foreign and awkward when trying to manipulate this simple sphere.
But with each miss, with each wild kick, he found himself not giving up. The humiliation of the "clown" label, the memory of his disastrous game, the old man's cutting words about his unrefined strength – it all fueled him. He ran, he kicked, he chased. His lung capacity, his raw explosive power, the sheer endurance of his lanky frame, began to assert themselves. Even with a terrible ball and no technique, the underlying athleticism that the old man had glimpsed was undeniable. He might be clumsy, but he was tirelessly, powerfully clumsy.
The moon cast long, distorted shadows on the sand. Wakashi, sweat beading on his forehead despite the cool night air, retrieved his bouncing, lumpy creation. He stood panting, staring at the misshapen sphere, a raw, untamed force aching to be properly channeled.
"Ohoo, the clown got a good ball, didn't he?"
The voice, quiet but clear, cut through the night. Wakashi spun around, his heart leaping into his throat. There, leaning against a gnarled, wind-swept pine tree, was the old man. The same one who had watched him on the field, his face partially obscured by shadow, but a playful smile clearly visible on his lips. He had been watching.