Tuesday afternoon
Second training
Weather hot and sticky
Coach Daigo stood near the midfield line
Today they were doing attacker versus keeper drills
One on one finishing
Strikers lined up with balls
Keepers rotated every four shots
Ren and Taka took turns
Ren noticed Arata had tied his boots extra tight
He looked different today
Focused
No smirk
First up was Mizuki
Quick feet
Sharp cut
He chipped the ball clean over Ren's shoulder
Goal
Ren nodded
Next attempt
Ren guessed left
Dove fast
Blocked it with both palms
Mizuki grinned
"Nice one Tokyo wall"
Then came Arata
Ball under his arm
Eyes locked
First shot came fast
Ren reached low
Got fingers on it
But it slipped through
Goal
Arata turned without a word
Second shot
Harder
Top corner
Ren jumped but missed
No chance
Third shot
Ren faked left
Then pounced right
Stopped it cold
Ball bounced off his chest and rolled back
Arata stared
No smile
Last ball
Silence around the pitch
Even Daigo stood still
Arata stepped back
Lifted the ball with his toe
Then shot with a snap
Straight toward the corner
Ren leapt
Caught it
No bobble
Full catch
Gasps around the field
Even Mizuki whistled
Coach Daigo wrote something on his clipboard and walked away
Arata said nothing
He walked past Ren and bumped shoulders
Hard
Ren stayed still
Taka walked over
"You stopped his best shot"
Ren nodded
"He does not like that"
"Good" Ren said
Back at home that night Ren iced his fingers
His mom passed him a bowl of noodles
"You block a train or something"
"Something like that"
She smiled
"Train comes again tomorrow. So finish your food"
He looked at his gloves on the table
The palms were darker now
Not from dirt
From use
Real use
And he liked how they looked