Sports Day (2)
"Ah... ah... The tug-of-war will begin shortly. Third-grade Class 1 versus Class 2."
"Oh! I think it's our class's turn! Let's go, Hana!"
"W-wait... just a little more!"
"Where do you even have time to eat more!"
Jiyu and Yumi all but dragged me off. I looked back at the lunch boxes still sitting there, somehow forlorn, while Bora waved as if to tell me not to worry. It wasn't as if the thought—what if Bora eats all of it by herself—had actually crossed my mind. Still, you never knew.
What if Bora suddenly got hungry and finished every last bite!
"All right, is everyone here? We're doing the tug-of-war!"
Under the teachers' direction, Class 1 and Class 2 lined up side by side. They were only third graders, and yet some of the children were tiny while others had shot up as if they'd been pumped full of growth hormone. Taken altogether, Class 2 was simply bigger than we were. Had those kids done nothing but eat and sleep? How did a person even get that large?
My own pint-sized self started to seem pitiful. I wanted to be as tall as they were... but this damned body refused to grow another inch. Surely I wasn't going to have to live my entire life at this height?
Maybe because we didn't even number twenty, it felt nothing like the tug-of-war matches I remembered. In my day, more than forty kids would haul on a single rope, but people had so few children anymore that the two classes combined didn't even reach forty—and that was the whole match.
"Hana, you know you've gotta pull with everything you've got, right? We absolutely cannot lose to Class 2!"
"Obviously! Our class losing to Class 2 is unthinkable!"
Faced with Jiyu and Yumi burning that fiercely, I couldn't help wondering whether children were really this competitive. Their faces were so packed with resolve it felt like we were marching into a war.
"All right! Everyone, pick up the rope!"
At the teacher's word, I lifted the tug-of-war rope off the ground.
The match hadn't even started, and already a fierce war of nerves was underway. The rope was drawn bowstring-tight, and the children's faces said they were ready to begin at any moment. The teacher who checked it nodded in satisfaction—probably because the preparations were perfect.
The teacher set a whistle to their lips and raised the flag high.
The moment I saw the ready signal, my body locked up on its own. I braced so I could throw my weight in at any second, then watched the flag with aching impatience, waiting for it to fall.
Fweeeet!
"Start!"
"Waaaaah!"
The instant the flag dropped, the children seized the rope and hauled with all their might, chanting heave, heave. Parents lined the sidelines, cheering on their own kids. Bora was cheering for me too. I could see her clear as day, camera raised, taking my picture.
"Nnngh—!"
I pulled with every scrap of strength I had. Hard enough that my pale face flushed a raw red, I hauled on the rope as if my life depended on it.
"Pull harder!"
A shout from someone I couldn't place burst out to encourage us, but unfortunately our side of the rope was being dragged steadily toward the other team. We simply didn't have the strength. Too many big kids stood on the other side, and they were strong. We were pulled farther and farther, until at last the ribbon marker tied to the rope crossed the line drawn on the ground.
Our class had lost. The children must have spent everything they had; they lay sprawled across the ground. I was spent too, and sank down where I stood. It was a sand field, but I was in no state to care.
"Uuugh! We weren't supposed to lose to Class 2!"
Jiyu sounded as if she couldn't bear it. In truth, a little more teamwork and we might have won. Size decided a tug-of-war to some degree, but with the right tactics there was still a chance. Not that the event was important enough to be worth using them.
"Hana! You're not getting a nosebleed, are you? Your face is way too red!"
Yumi took one look at my face and blurted it out, startled. I'd probably strained that hard. I looked at her.
"I'm fine!"
We'd lost the tug-of-war, which was a shame, but plenty of events were still left. I could pay this defeat back later.
"Aaahn!"
I comforted myself for the loss with lunch. The food in the boxes hadn't been enough, so Bora had gone out to a fast-food place and brought hamburgers back to go.
I'd thought two three-tier lunch boxes would be plenty, but Jiyu and Yumi turned out to be surprisingly hearty eaters, and we came up short. If I'd known, I should have made one more when Bora and I packed them yesterday.
"Nom!"
I gripped a hamburger the size of my face in both hands and ate. It was the most ordinary thing on the menu, a bulgogi burger. Getting the whole thing into one bite was too hard, and sweet bulgogi sauce ended up smeared all around my mouth. My mouth was so small. Back then, I could have just opened wide and eaten a bulgogi burger without a second thought.
Seeing me glazed in sauce, Bora carefully wiped my mouth with a tissue. The soft paper cleaned the mess from around my lips until it was gone.
"It's good, it's so good!"
"Hana, you can take your time."
Maybe because it had been ages since I'd had a hamburger, every bite landed perfectly. I took a mouthful of bulgogi burger, then dipped a single fry in ketchup. It was the sort of moment a smile arrived all on its own. Losing the tug-of-war a little while ago didn't even cross my mind.
And for the finish, a cola bursting with fizz! Happiness filled my mouth. I smiled as I savored it. Eat like this and I might turn into a pig, I thought—but I was getting exercise, so it didn't matter.
"Hana! If you eat too much, your tummy's gonna hurt later!"
Watching me all but inhale the hamburger, Jiyu spoke in a worried voice. It was true that running right after a meal was a sure way to make your stomach ache. Even so, the hamburger was delicious enough to be worth it.
"It'll be okay, won't it? Lunch break's coming up—a whole hour of rest. That should be plenty of time to digest."
Yumi said it while mumbling around a french fry. She was right. I'd been cut from running in the relay, and the remaining events weren't the kind where you did much running. They were the inactive sort.
Unfortunately, the Blue Team our class belonged to was losing. The meet was split between Blue and White, and each event was worth a different number of points. Events with few participants awarded fewer; events like the tug-of-war, with lots of people in them, awarded more.
There were so many small events that they'd probably scored things that way. If every victory were worth the same, someone would have called it unfair.
"Winning team, our team!"
I had already risen above caring who won. Win or lose, I was simply taking in the atmosphere of the meet. A sports day was like a festival. Getting too invested had its charms, but I liked keeping a little distance, as if I were only there to watch.
I passed the time that way on the picnic mat, then watched the final highlight, the relay. The result was a razor-thin win for the Blue Team.
"Waaah!"
It was the school-retreat meta all over again. No matter how wide you opened the gap at the start, they loaded the last event with an absurd number of points, planting the notion that winning only the finale was all that mattered. Still, our own team had actually won, and that felt good.
And so my first sports day since I'd changed into this body came to an end. There were things to regret, but I'd enjoyed myself enough to be reasonably satisfied.
"Bye, Hana!"
"See you tomorrow!"
Once the sports day was over and I'd watched the closing ceremony through, I got ready to ride home in Bora's car. A sports day was all well and good, but getting home mattered just as much.
Jiyu and Yumi lived near the school, so the bus was more than enough for them. My house was a bit far, so I had to go by car.
"See you!"
I waved and said goodbye to Yumi and Jiyu. They were friends I'd see again tomorrow anyway, so a cool parting was the right way to do it.
"Hana, was the sports day fun?"
Bora asked as she drove. I nodded.
"Yeah! I wanna do it again next year! Next time I'm gonna be in the running race!"
I'd failed, sadly, to be picked as a runner, so making the team as a representative next year was my goal. Hearing that dire resolve, Bora laughed.
"Then you'll have to exercise hard until then, won't you?"
"Y... yeah!"
Maybe because I loved nothing more than rolling around in bed, the word exercise made me flinch. But if I wanted to run as a representative next year, steady practice was essential.
Right! If I just practice steadily, one or two days a week, that ought to be enough, right?
I locked in the goal with perfect confidence. There was plenty of time left, anyway.