The Grass Is Your Bed
And the instant body met body—
"......!"
My vision lurched, hard. It felt like throwing myself at a utility pole.
Is this thing even human?
Bang!
Jack came charging in right after me.
"Ugh!"
The groan, of course, was Jack's.
"What are you doing? We just hit him together!"
The first time, we hadn't known what we were running into. This time we knew perfectly well it was a utility pole. We hesitated—but only for a moment.
"Hah—!"
"Aaaah!"
We launched ourselves at the same time. Damn it. The result was carnage, nothing else, and the man still looked as if he could drag the pair of us, hanging off his frame, a good kilometer without breaking stride.
"What, giving up already?"
"Look. Get the contact right and you roll forward this easily. Why run until the sweat's pouring off your feet? That's all I'm saying. Well?"
That was when I asked.
"Sir, is it really all right if I use whatever I've got?"
Devon's eyebrow jumped.
"Why? You planning to shoot me?"
"Not that. It just might be a little dangerous."
"Dangerous, my ass! Whatever you can do is fine, so—"
He never finished.
Heave—!
Devon's heavy body rose into the air. It happened so fast that even with his feet off the ground, he didn't seem to have caught up to the situation.
"Wh... what?"
It didn't last.
Clamp.
He drove both arms straight down onto my shoulders. The weight gap was a bully all its own.
"......!"
I'd gotten him up. I never got him over.
"So close!"
Jack, beside me, let out a groan of pure regret.
Tch.
I set Devon back on his feet, and he muttered to himself as if the world had come unglued.
"That was... that was a wrestling tackle."
Well. Wrestling, in the middle of rugby. Of course it was absurd.
"You... what are you?"
"You said I could do anything."
"......"
"Still, wrestling's a bit much, isn't it?"
"No. That's not it..."
He hauled his ridden-up shirt back down as he spoke.
"I wrestled freestyle. In college."
"......"
"So this isn't supposed to come up. Not like that."
"It isn't?"
"Surprise or not..."
Not that I'd actually thrown him. What was there to mourn?
Right then Jack slipped in.
"He trained with the Olympic reserves."
"What? The reserves?"
"Wrestling's full of actual monsters."
Devon looked as if he'd been struck between the eyes. How long that lasted, I couldn't say.
"Let's flip it."
Out of nowhere, he proposed a wrestling match.
"I'll shoot. You defend."
"The weight gap's a bit extreme, don't you think?"
He still wore the face of a man who could not accept that he'd been lifted.
"I'll go easy. Just try it."
I nodded, and he came in slow, then drove his hands straight up under my arms. I slid off to the side and posted the back of his neck.
"Huh?"
Bewilderment rose in Devon's eyes. This is real? That was the look.
After that, he moved differently. The promise to go easy vanished. Muscle bunched and swelled all over him, ridged and ugly with effort. I can't match him on strength. I kept clearing his grips and circling out to the side. The wrist control was a bluff. Distance was the whole point.
It must have stung.
"Hah—!"
He barked, short and sharp.
Pop!
He dropped his weight and closed the gap in a blink. But a big move carries a matching risk. I turned as if I meant to slip the shot.
Tap.
What I actually did was hook his leg.
Faced with a technique he had never seen in his life, Devon went down to one knee. Ah... by rights he should have collapsed entirely. To think it ended at a single knee.
"Wh-what was that?"
"Ah. That was judo."
"Judo?"
"The national-team guys throw it in sometimes, like a joke."
When a body loads up with too much tension, you hook a leg and tell it to wake up. After that, the victim is supposed to roll across the floor in vain. Devon, even on one knee, whipped around like a monster and snared my leg at once.
"That's not civilian level."
I'm the one who ought to be surprised...
Anyway, wrestling was wrestling. The moment rugby started up again, we'd be rolling in the dirt as if none of it had happened, wouldn't we? Peace—if you could call it that—had never sat easily with me, and I was left clicking my tongue on my own.
A little later I took the ball and burst out, and Devon came after me and threw his body. Strange. Standing still and taking the hit had been fine.
I ran for real.
Crash!
The moment body met body—
Thud!
I was gone, instantly. Figures. And here I'd wondered whether wrestling might actually help at rugby. So much for that!
Devon held a hand down to me where I lay.
"Getting tackled on the run feels completely different, doesn't it?"
"I just get launched."
"Of course you do. He hits you while your feet are in the air."
In other words, he had timed the tackle exactly.
"Turn it around."
"......?"
"You put the variation in the run. Big strides, big strides—then you chop the stride short in the middle. A defender can't time the hit like that. Right?"
I nodded.
"And if he loses the chess match? He throws the tackle on a bad beat. Say, the split second both your feet are planted."
The words were barely out.
Pop!
Devon flung himself at me. Huh? I hadn't seen it coming, but—
"Hup—!"
I dropped my level at once, feinted a shot under his arm, and drove down on the back of his neck. That fierce momentum lasted only a moment.
"......"
Devon stopped.
"See? Your feet are on the ground, so you stop it. With wrestling."
Something about it still seemed to sit wrong with him.
"Wrestling in a rugby match... I'm not even sure it makes sense. Still. Slick as hell, isn't it?"
He rushed on before I could answer.
"Sharpen those reads and you could stonewall anybody one-on-one."
"Those reads aren't exactly easy."
"Experience will do it."
"And to get experience..."
"You fall. A lot."
"Ah."
"Which means—run."
"Sorry?"
"You run, I tackle. Go on. Hurry up."
"......"
"You wanted private lessons, didn't you?"
"This wasn't what I had in mind."
"And since when does the world care what you had in mind?"
Nngh.
From that moment I was running the field as if fleeing for my life.
Thud!
I must have been sent flying a hundred times. Even I, with the stamina I had, couldn't take another. I looked back at Jack.
He shook his head at once, the picture of a boy who had also had enough. I'd never seen Jack do that before.
Still. Jack and I had at least taken turns. Devon had never once stopped throwing tackles.
"What, is the grass your bed?"
And that man... how was he fine? Whatever state we were in, he added another line.
"So. Think you can do this every day?"
Ev-every day?
Then don't. Just teach me once. No more, no less—exactly one session. I might be the one who washes out first, you know.
The magic by which a one-time coupon becomes every day! What had I said? Athletes burn hot!
Heh heh heh.
While I was cheering on the inside—
"Thank youuuu!"
Jack blurted the answer at the top of his lungs.
"Then it's settled by majority vote. Training, every day."
"Jack's the only one who answered. How is that a majority—"
"What, I'm not a person?"
Ah. The teacher counts as two?
Heh heh heh.
Of course, if he'd asked me, I would have answered on spite and guts anyway.
"I've got to clock out. Up. Both of you."
At Devon's word, we scrambled to our feet.
Back in the teachers' lounge, Devon clutched the nape of his neck. He took ice from the freezer, dropped it into a plastic bag, waited until it had softened, and set it against his neck.
A stiffness he hadn't felt in years. This is only the start. Wake up tomorrow and it would be no joke.
Nngh.
He hadn't spent strength like that in ages. By rights he should have been the one eating grass! And yet Park Jihoon, that little scrap of a boy—all 185 centimeters of him—had held on like a demon.
If you're like this, why get your revenge on a rugby pitch?
Just go find them and put them all on their backs with wrestling!
Ah. Not a thought fit for a teacher...
Anyway.
The selection match between the first and second years? Honestly, he'd meant to refuse. The second-years had asked him to arrange a game so they could thrash the juniors and call it legal. And right then a first-year had walked in of his own accord. With fists, the first-year seemed to have won. Rugby was another world entirely. Someone could get hurt. He'd meant to send the boy off with a gentle no.
But that Park Jihoon hadn't so much as blinked while he made his case... What was the kid so sure of? Sheer curiosity had made Devon teach him once.
And once the brat started learning, he was good. Devon had already known about the stamina and the speed.
Who could have known he'd wrestle like that?
It was interesting enough that he collided with the boy a few more times, and somewhere in there he got himself good and hooked. At this rate he might never clock out. Overtime, every day...
You absolute idiot!
He cursed himself, and the corner of his mouth kept twitching anyway.
The next morning.
"Uuugh."
I woke, and my whole body throbbed. And here I'd thought I'd been building this body with some dedication.
"......"
As if to say that hadn't been nearly enough, knots had settled into every corner of me.
We're doing this every day?
I let out a hollow laugh at the ceiling. Fine. Think of it kindly. How often did a person get trained by a national-team rugby player?
"Heh heh heh."
I laughed like a man who'd lost his mind. To hell with it!
I hauled myself up and started with a hot shower. Hm. One day's work—what change could there possibly be? Was it in my head? The body in the mirror looked a little more carved, a little more like a proper man...
Anyway, I got dressed and left the room. Skipping morning training felt wrong, so a short walk and a cup of coffee would do nicely.
I was walking the long corridor when the shouts came slamming through the windows.
"Drive them!"
"Don't give ground!"
What?
I turned my eyes outside. A pack was tearing back and forth across the great field, earnest as if chasing a ball were the single greatest task on earth. Uniforms matched in brown. Protective gear on a few of them.
"Chase!"
"Bring him down!"
Rugby. Again... Ugh. The sound alone put an ache through my whole body. I was about to look away.
Fwip—!
A boy in an armband exploded forward at a ridiculous speed.
How is he that fast?
Thunder!
The defense went after him as one.
"Ah—!"
The farther they ran, the wider the gap, and the chasers could only groan. A clean try. While the boy who'd scored raked his blond hair back, his teammates came in and cinched the loosened armband tight again.
So that's who was so fast.
Him. Carl Bernstein, captain of the second years.
After yesterday, I'd wanted to steer clear of rugby from the moment I woke... But the source of the entire mess—Carl Bernstein, if you could pin it on one person—was out there displaying his skill in person.
I grinned, and I was walking toward the field before I had time to think better of it.