The whistle blared loudly on the football field, cutting through the crowd's murmur and players' gasps like a clean blade separating the air into two halves. The foul had been committed outside the area, but close enough to give goosebumps to anyone who understood the danger involved. The boys quickly repositioned themselves, some exchanging tense glances, others feigning a confidence they didn't feel, while the coach stood motionless on the sideline. He was a quiet man, one of those who did not need to shout to impose presence, and he was rarely heard to raise his voice; however, his eyes were fixed on one of the players with an intensity that clashed with his usual serenity. He was not looking at the best of the team, nor the most promising, but at Akio, the very one who used to stumble over his own nerves and make childish mistakes in decisive moments.
"Akio, get up," the coach ordered in a neutral but firm tone.
Heads turned almost in unison, and confusion spread across the bench like a shape-shifting shadow. Why Akio? The question floated in the air without anyone daring to ask it out loud. The coach had been hired from one day to the next, after the sudden death of the previous coach, found lifeless in his apartment in circumstances that no one had been able to clarify. The cause? Officially, it was still under investigation, although the entire city muttered increasingly far-fetched theories, and not only there; Even humans across the sea seemed to be aware of what had happened, fueling the story with speculation that crossed borders with unsettling ease. Since his arrival, the new coach had been reserved to the extreme, correct, efficient, almost impeccable, but there was always something in his way of looking that was difficult to decipher.
The play ended without fatal consequences for the scoreboard and the change was made between scattered applause and agitated breaths. The substituted player, Kia, cleared his throat insistently, his throat parched after the accumulated efforts. He put his hand to his neck and stretched his arm to the side of the field, as if waiting for a bottle of water to appear in his palm out of pure desire, and for a moment his expression hinted at a mixture of wounded pride and basic need. When he realized that no one seemed to pay much attention to him, he opened his mouth with a certain awkwardness.
"Water over there?" He asked, trying to sound carefree.
The coach was already holding a bottle in his hand, although no one had noticed when he had taken it. Without saying a word, he threw it with calculated precision towards Kia, which caught him in flight almost reflexively. The gesture was greeted with a sincere surprise from the player, who thanked the attention with a quick smile, perhaps too confident for someone who had just been substituted. Kia slumped into the stool and began to drink anxiously, the water sliding down her chin as she swallowed greedily, almost desperately, like an animal quenching a primitive thirst; And, in a way, at that moment that was exactly what it was, although few in the stadium seemed to remember that underneath the uniforms and the rules of the game beat natures that could not always be tamed.
Joseph's gaze, the coach, stuck to Kia with a fixity that was uncomfortable to hold, though no one seemed to notice it in the midst of the bustle of the game. It wasn't the anxious gesture of drinking that captured his attention, nor the unseemly way in which the water ran down his chin; it was something more intimate, more difficult to name, an interest that transcended the purely sporting and that was insinuated in the almost unnatural stillness with which he followed each of his movements. While the rest of the bench alternated glances at the pitch and nervous comments, Joseph did not blink as often as usual, as if he feared missing the slightest detail.
Kia soon carelessly tossed the empty bottle onto the grass and dropped against the wall behind him, resting her head and staring at the overcast sky. Suddenly, without anything in the course of the meeting justifying it, he began to speak with a lightness that was not his own, as if he had just remembered a private joke that no one else knew.
"Hehe, what a blast, isn't it?" He commented with a disoriented grace that made a couple of colleagues exchange glances.
"Last?" The boy next to her repeated, frowning.
"Are you aware that we are losing?" added another from the opposite end of the bench, unable to hide his irritation.
Joseph watched in silence, unmoved by the incipient tension that threatened to erupt among his players. His face did not reflect anger or surprise, only a concentrated, almost clinical attention, as if he were witnessing an experiment whose results he had already anticipated. If Kia had uttered those words without that playful giggle, perhaps it would have all remained an out-of-place comment, floating in the air without much consequence; but laughter contaminated everything, made it inappropriate, strange, out of rhythm with the gravity of the moment.
"But cheer up, kid!" Kia exclaimed, slapping his companion on the back as he let out a laugh that, in any other context, would have passed for everyday. It was the laughter that escapes in a lively after-dinner conversation or in a relaxed dressing room after a victory, even that which arises from discomfort; but it didn't fit in there, with the score against and frustration beating in each failed play. His companion pushed him away with a gesture of disgust and indignation, without deigning to answer him, as if he feared that this misplaced joy was contagious.
The game continued its course and Kia seemed to find a reason to laugh in every stimulus that crossed its field of vision. If they conceded a goal, he laughed at the goalkeeper with a lightness that bordered on cruelty; if an opponent committed a serious foul and left one of his own lying on the pitch, a new laugh escaped from his throat; Even as a drop of rain began to fall timidly from the gray sky and splashed his forehead, he responded with a wide, oversized smile, as if the whole world had become a private spectacle meant solely to entertain him. And through it all, Joseph continued to watch him undisturbed, his arms folded and his face barely bowed, as if Kia's laughter was not a troubling anomaly, but the silent confirmation of something he had been waiting for a long time.
The final whistle came like an exhausted sigh that freed the stadium from the accumulated tension, and the players left the field with somber expressions, carrying the defeat on their shoulders like a silent slab. Kia was the last to get up from the bench, still with that misplaced smile on his lips, as if the adverse result was part of a private joke that no one else understood. In the locker room, while the steam from the showers fogged the mirrors and the smell of wet grass mixed with sweat and disinfectant, he changed slowly, humming an improvised melody between brief laughs that escaped him for no apparent reason. Some classmates looked at him out of the corner of their eyes, uncomfortable, unable to decide if that attitude was simple immaturity or something more difficult to name; He, oblivious or pretending to be, put on his street clothes with clumsy but carefree movements, as if defeat did not weigh on his conscience at all.
When he left the locker room, the hallway was almost empty. Joseph waited leaning against the wall, with that impeccable composure that never seemed to crack. When he saw Kia, he drew a wide smile, too wide for the context, and with a calm voice, soft as a caress that is not quite sincere, he said: "I hope to see him again for the next game." The emphasis on that "hopefully" did not go unnoticed, as it did not sound like a polite formula or a simple sporting wish; he slipped between the two with an ambiguous, almost expectant nuance, reminding Kia that his presence in the team was not permanent, that he was only there in practice capacity, occupying a place that did not yet belong to him. Joseph held his gaze a second longer than necessary before turning away, and though his smile did not fade, something in his eyes seemed to glow with a satisfaction that was hard to justify.
Kia left the stadium still laughing at any trifle, crossing the streets of the illuminated city where humans and animals coexisted in a balance as fragile as it was everyday. Out of habit, to feel like one more in the crowd, he used to adopt his human appearance when he returned home, blending in with the surroundings to avoid unnecessary glances; However, that night, distracted by the constant hilarity that caused him even the blink of a traffic light, he forgot to transform himself and continued on his way with his natural appearance: that of a lynx with speckled fur and ears topped with dark brushes that waved to the rhythm of his laughter. Some passers-by gave him quick glances, but no one said anything; In that city, rarity had too many forms to stop at just one.
As he turned down the alley he always crossed to shorten the way to his apartment, the bustle was left behind and replaced by the hollow echo of his own footsteps. The damp walls returned his laughter in a distorted murmur that seemed to mock him from the shadows. Then, without warning, his body stopped responding to him. It was as if an invisible thread holding his muscles had been suddenly cut. His legs failed, his vision blurred and he collapsed to the ground with a sharp blow, his head impacting violently against the pavement.
"Holy shit..!" He exclaimed between his teeth as he briefly regained consciousness, putting a trembling hand to his temple, and at that moment his figure returned to human normality because of the strong blow, as if the pain had forced the involuntary transformation.
For a second he looked bewildered, but the confusion broke into another absurd laugh that echoed through the empty alley. He tried to sit up leaning against the wall, his legs refusing to obey him, his fingers slipping on the wet cement. He laughed at his own clumsiness, at the dizziness, at the warm blood that was beginning to slide down his forehead, as if it were all part of a perfectly executed joke. The minutes passed and his breathing became irregular, heavy, until even the effort of laughing began to be exhausting. Finally, his body gave way completely and he was left lying on the cold floor, with a wide smile drawn from side to side on his face, his eyes half-open looking nowhere. Before the last breath left his lips, he murmured in a thread of voice that still retained a tinge of amusement: "How funny is death..." and the alley, indifferent, fell silent.