At five minutes to six the next morning, the school gate creaked open and Arakawa Daichi staggered through it carrying a cooler box the size of a small coffin.
"I'M HERE," he announced, to the empty courtyard, to the sleeping school, to the sky. His eyes were red. His hair stood up on one side. He smelled powerfully of mackerel. "I'VE DONE FIVE HOURS ON THE STALL AND I BROUGHT FISH!"
Ren, standing at the touchline in his training kit, watched him cross the grass. "You really brought fish."
"I said I would!"
"It's six in the morning."
"IT'S FRESH!"
Behind Ren, the other nine players had gathered in a loose half-circle, each wearing the expression of someone who was not sure whether to laugh. Takeru held his nose. Yūto was already grinning. Sōma, the goalkeeper, simply stared at the cooler box with the grave patience of a man contemplating the sea.
Coach Ishikawa lifted the lid and peered inside. A silver layer of ice glittered over a dozen neatly wrapped parcels.
"Grilled?" he asked.
"Dried!" Daichi said. "My father's recipe. He doesn't know I took them."
"Then I suppose I'm an accomplice." The Coach tucked one parcel into his jacket pocket. "Eat after training. Everybody on the pitch."
They lined up. For the first time in two years, the Shirogane football club stood in a row of eleven.
Ren counted them without meaning to. Sōma in goal. Takeru and Yūto at the back. Hayama, the captain, with his bad knee. Mikio, Hikaru, Daichi. Narumi on the wing. Endō, who looked as if he had been woken from a nap. Gōki, arms crossed, scowling at nothing. And himself.
Eleven. A full squad.
It did not look like much. But it was real.
"Today," the Coach said, "we find out whether you're a team or a collection of people who happen to wear the same colour. I want a drill. Six attackers against four defenders, full pitch, one goal. Defenders win the ball, they go the other way. Attackers lose it, they run back. No stopping. Kageyama, you sit out the first half."
Ren nodded. He had expected it.
"Tachibana, Narumi, Endō, Sano, Kimura and Ōshiro attack. Hayama, Sawada, Arakawa and Nakagawa in defence." The Coach frowned at his clipboard. "That's only four. We'll make do."
"Three plus a goalkeeper!" Daichi shouted. "WE CAN DO IT!"
"Please stop shouting."
"I CAN'T!"
The whistle blew.
Ren settled onto the bench with the notebook in his lap and watched.
For two minutes, nothing worked. Gōki received the ball on the right, ignored the open man on the left, and drove straight into Daichi. There was a crunch. The ball squirted loose. Daichi shouted, "MINE!" and sprinted the other way, with Gōki snarling behind him.
"Pass it, you idiot!" Takeru yelled.
"Get out of my way!"
"I'M TRYING TO HELP YOU!"
It was chaos. Hikaru, bewildered, kept running to the wrong places. Narumi hung on the touchline with the ball glued to his boot, unable to decide whether to cross or cut inside. Endō stood in the penalty area like a lamppost.
The seventh minute brought the first goal, to the defenders, after Gōki lost the ball a third time and Daichi lofted a hopeful pass to Hayama, who tapped it past the goalkeeper. Hayama wheeled away with his fists raised and then winced at his knee.
"One–nil!" Mikio shouted.
Ren turned a page and wrote a single line.
*Gōki is the problem. Daichi is the solution. Neither of them knows it.*
By half-time, the score was three–one to the defenders, and the attackers were shouting at each other. Gōki and Daichi stood nose to nose in the centre circle, sweating and furious.
"You tackle like a maniac!"
"YOU DON'T PASS LIKE A HUMAN BEING!"
"I don't need to pass!"
"EVERYONE NEEDS TO PASS! THAT'S WHAT TEAMMATES ARE FOR!"
Gōki bared his teeth. "I'm not your teammate."
"You are! The Coach said so! I'M IN THE SAME TEAM AS YOU, YOU GIANT, STUBBORN—"
"That's enough."
Ren had not planned to speak. He found he was standing between them anyway, with his bib already on.
"Second half," he said quietly. "I'm in. Gōki, you're up front. Daichi, you're in midfield. Everybody else, stay in your lanes."
"Who died and made you captain?" Gōki muttered.
"Nobody. Hayama's the captain." Ren looked past him at the older boy, who had limped over and was watching with raised eyebrows. "Hayama-senpai, may I?"
Hayama considered it. His eyes went from Ren to Gōki to Daichi, and a small, dry smile crept across his tired face.
"By all means," he said. "I'm curious."
The whistle blew for the second half.
This time, Ren did not hurry. He took a position in the centre of the pitch, a little behind Gōki, and waited. He let the map come. Eleven points of light. Four on the opposing side, six on his own, and one, himself, at the centre.
Daichi won the ball in midfield with a tackle so clean it almost looked polite. He looked up, saw Ren, and instinctively rolled the pass across. Ren took it first time, turned, and saw Gōki sprinting into the space ahead.
Third Pass.
The ball floated over Hayama's head. Gōki, running at full tilt, met it with the outside of his boot and slotted it past Sōma with the calm of a man pulling a drawer shut.
Three–two.
"Again," Ren said, to nobody, and jogged back.
The second came faster. Daichi won the ball. Ren moved. Gōki ran. It was almost a reflex now, a kind of rhythm. Daichi, in midfield, was shouting his usual nonsense, but something odd was happening to his shouting. It had started to sound like instructions.
"LEFT! LEFT! MIKIO'S COMING! GO WIDE! NOW, NOW, NOW!"
Narumi, the shy winger, heard the roar, flinched, and ran wide. Mikio, caught off guard, hesitated. The ball dropped into the space between them. Ren cut across and slid it back to Daichi, who, to his own astonishment, was suddenly in the penalty area with the goal gaping in front of him.
"DAICHI, SHOOT!"
"ME?"
"YOU!"
He shot. The ball flew in off the post.
Three–three.
There was a very long silence. On the pitch, eleven boys stood dripping in the morning light, staring at each other like people who had just woken from the same dream.
"What," Takeru said in a small voice, "was that?"
Ren stood in the centre circle, breathing hard, his hands trembling slightly. He had felt it. A strange, bright hum, like a wire pulled tight between two points. For one moment, every player on the pitch had moved as one. No signal. No word. Just a quiet, perfect click.
Gōki stared at him across the pitch. There was no sneer on his face. Only wariness, and a hint of something raw.
"You felt that," Gōki said.
"Yes."
"What is it?"
"I don't know."
Coach Ishikawa lowered his clipboard slowly. His tea had gone cold in his hand. There was a look on his weathered face that Ren had not seen before, something between hope and fear.
"Resonance," the Coach said, almost to himself.
"What?" Mikio asked.
"Nothing." Ishikawa shook himself. "Nothing. It's early. Everybody run laps. Ten. And then we eat the fish."
"YES, COACH!" Daichi roared.
The others groaned. They ran.
It was while they were circling the pitch for the fourth time, legs heavy and lungs on fire, that Ren noticed the figure at the fence.
A boy was standing behind the wire mesh, hands in the pockets of a long, expensive-looking coat. Golden-blond hair. A smirk that did not quite reach his eyes. At his feet, half-hidden in the damp grass, sat a pair of boots so glossy they looked like they had never touched mud.
He was watching Ren.
Their eyes met across the pitch. The boy raised two fingers in a lazy salute, the kind that said I've seen enough. Then he turned and walked away, his boots clicking on the pavement.
"Who was that?" Hikaru panted, jogging beside Ren.
"I don't know."
"He was watching for a long time. He had a notebook, too."
"Did he?"
"I think he was drawing."
Ren looked at the empty fence. A cold, curious prickle ran down his spine, not fear, exactly. The feeling of a door opening somewhere he could not see.
"Whoever he is," he said slowly, "he's going to be trouble."
Beside him, Gōki, running with his hands on his hips, let out a short, delighted laugh.
"Good," he said. "I was getting bored."