The Second String
"I—I think a cough's coming on."
Jack made a show of heading for the bathroom and quietly slipped out of his seat. Devon, who had no way of knowing what any of it was about, could only blink.
What had the question been, again? Ah. Had he asked why I owned so many Ultimate clothes?
"I happen to like the brand."
"Liking it means you can buy all of it?"
"They're a little particular, yes."
"You get them on resale?"
"Some of them."
Devon pushed his lips out.
"I want them, and nothing fits."
"What size do you wear?"
"4XL."
A size no ordinary brand would stock.
"They released a big size exactly once. I gritted my teeth and bought that one."
Right. He meant the T-shirt I'd seen before.
"Perhaps you might take the chance to lose a little muscle?"
"Wouldn't it be faster if they just put out big sizes?"
"I suppose it would."
Who could ever have imagined discussing Ultimate with my teacher? Half amusement, half sheer novelty. I left the half-eaten pizza in front of me and gave him a pleasant smile.
That night I had sat down to leave a post, and one of them caught my eye.
A boy who loved to step forward was never going to let a thing like this pass. Nor was it only the one post.
Recruiting a Vice President to Run With Me
Peter clicked it, as if it had his interest.
We are recruiting talent to assist the finest of presidents.
The foremost virtue of a vice president, I believe, is boundless trust in the president.
A mindset that respects the leader and devotes itself to him in any situation… (abridged)… talent capable of placing the emphasis on challenge, passion, and growth rather than on immediate results… (abridged)… We aspire to a relationship like family…….
Oh, this was going to go beautifully.
Quite a few posts besides Julian's had gone up. Most of them were idle chatter.
Well. It was that era. Hardly anyone was used to a computer, so of course they couldn't get a feel for it.
Anyway. Peter tapped the box for a new post and looked back at me.
"What are you gonna post?"
"I'm recruiting a rugby team."
We were going to play the upperclassmen. The reason was simple.
Still, I couldn't treat that as the true mood of the school.
Even so.
Merely letting it be known that we were preparing a match against the second-years ought to do something. All I had to do was wait, calmly, for the rumor to travel.
Two days later, quite a few boys stepped forward to play rugby in PE, and that let us try all sorts of things. One of them was a match between the first-years' first team and their second. I volunteered for the second string. The real fixture would be the first team's to play anyway. Even so, I wanted to stand with the second string and meet them, if only to take the measure of our strength.
The first team's lineup was showy enough. Jack held the very front, and the defensive line was manned by Gary and James, both of them enormous.
The two of you on the same side is cheating.
They were the ones who had objected to Jack and me playing together. Skill went without saying; in the physical contest and in defensive sense, they ranked among the best of the first year. We, by contrast… There's a reason they call us the second string. The one small mercy was Leo, quick on his feet.
Still. We've trained hard. It was time to spend what we had learned.
A whistle cut the air, and the lopsided match began.
The first attack was ours. They came down hard, without so much as a probing phase, and Jack worst of all. When he committed and charged, our side came apart.
"Ghk!"
Rattled, we kept shoveling the ball backward. Rugby allows no forward pass, so the moment you send it back, your room to move shrinks by exactly that much.
"Aaaaah!"
Jack came again. Panic. Not knowing what to do, my teammates fed the ball backward until there was nowhere left to go.
"Here!"
Leo's call went out, and someone flung the ball left in a hurry — the deepest point of our own half. We had to break out. Leo simply ran, blind, beyond the reach of Jack's range.
Had they read even that? The other side moved to wrap him two deep, then three. In the middle of it Leo glanced over and found me first. He had seen Jack sticking to my side, so he chose to buy time: a twist of the shoulders to the right, as if he meant to pass, and then a burst away to the left.
They were not simply going to take it. A few bit on the fake, but the rest of the defense was already launching at Leo. His quick feet slipped one tackle. The one that came from the other side, he could do nothing about.
He seemed about to go down in a heap — and even as he fell, he got the ball away toward me. A pass thrown with his body already broken. Hoping for accuracy would have been greed. I sprinted for a ball that looked too long.
The man I had to beat was Jack. He might have had me in raw explosiveness, but once I was fully up to speed I gave him nothing. Speed was not the only variable. We were going to hit.
Shoulder met shoulder, hard. I was the one who found my balance first, and I scooped up the ball we had fought over. That was not the end of it. Jack, righting himself a beat late, threw a tackle with everything he had, from point-blank range.
No chance of dodging.
I would have to absorb it. Damn it. Ball in my right hand — could I hold Jack off with only the left? What else was there?
The moment his tackle slammed into my legs, I drove down on his shoulder and refused to be lifted. At the same time I dropped my weight back and clawed a little distance open. Jack came again, just as hard. I loaded his shoulder once more, selling the idea that we were about to lock into a contest of strength — then twisted, and let him slip off me. He went down.
Now.
The instant I saw him fall, I ran for my life into their half. They had never imagined Jack would go down. I could see the shock on them.
"Hold your positions!"
Gary barked the order from deep, but the defense had already spilled toward me in a muddle. Holding the lanes and meeting me body to body would have been doubtful enough. Coming out to race me in the open? The ending was plain as daylight.
I ran their half alone. All that remained were Gary and James, the last defenders. Swinging wide and carrying it all the way to the posts would not have been difficult.
But a teacher's lesson came back to me. In a war, this is the melee. Slow, and the surest way forward. I ran straight at Gary and James on purpose. Open grass everywhere, and I chose the gap between the two of them.
They seemed to think they were being slighted. Speed, maybe. You think you'll lose a shoving match?Fine. Come on, then. The two of them lit up at once and set themselves like a wall.
I threw my body and crashed a shoulder into them, and they staggered in the same instant, as if they had agreed on it. I gathered myself and hit them again. They went over together and sat down hard.
It had worked. From Jack all the way through the last line of defense, I had gone straight through. I reached the try zone and slowly turned.
"Hah. Haaah."
The defenders who had meant to stop me lay strewn across the grass, blank with disbelief. On our side, Leo and the rest were already celebrating.
"Waaaah!"
I clicked my tongue. I could not simply be pleased. Playing it the way Devon had taught me was satisfying enough, but a side that can't even hold me, and I've only just taken up rugby…
At this rate, never mind Carl Bernstein — could we even stop the vice-captain properly? Raising individual skill in the time we had left would not be easy. It was not as if there was no way at all.
Wait! Don't fly out — watch it all the way! Now! What are you doing! I said now!
When Devon took command of a defensive line, they became a different team entirely. Which means what we need is a leader for the defense. A face rose in my mind, and I turned to look at one side of the field.
Tennessee Grosvenor was watching Park Jihoon from a distance.
He had said he wanted to invest. Why was there no answer? Jihoon had behaved as if he would reply later, and then nothing. Complete silence.
Don't tell me he forgot.
They crossed paths every day, coming and going. Each time, Jihoon offered a small smile, so it did not seem he had forgotten outright. Tennessee held his tongue.
Someone, he supposed, might wonder why he did not simply walk over and ask, if he was that curious.
That will not do.
He let out a breath. Unlike Tennessee, burning up inside, Park Jihoon was ranging over the grass with not a care on his face.
What is even fun about that.
Tennessee had played rugby for a long time himself. Aristocrats, as a rule, cannot sidestep the game. Most of them throw themselves into it precisely to prove they are superior in mind and in body, and Tennessee had been dragged onto the pitch by his tutor's hand more times than he could count. In the end he had been made to live as a player.
Perhaps it was the athletic gift he was born with. He grew into one of the notable prospects of the region. That was all. Not once had he walked out because he wanted to.
Every time he turned toward the ground, the same order followed him. Go and prove how special the young master is. How did the man manage to repeat it without altering a single word? There were afternoons when the tutor's voice buzzed in his ear for every minute he ran.
Was it the past he had no wish to remember? A bitter smile touched Tennessee's mouth.
Why am I thinking about rugby all of a sudden.
Unable to stand the sight of it, he turned his eyes away at once.