9. Chapter Nine #4
Ryowoon’s legs are a menace. He’s always been quick, twitchy and explosive, but the extra inches of stride he’s gained make him a nightmare to keep up with.
He blows past me, the ball glued to his feet, and I have to sprint until my lungs burn just to close the gap.
When I do catch him I throw my weight into the tackle, both of us crashing into the grass with grunts and curses, wrestling for the ball, yanking each other’s shirts, laughing when one of us eats dirt.
He steals the ball off me again and I grab a fistful of grass and hurl it at his face as he cuts past. He sputters, spitting grass out of his mouth, and the look of indignation is so funny I double over wheezing.
He retaliates by scooping up his own handful and shoving it down the back of my collar.
It sticks to the sweat on my skin and itches horribly and I howl, swatting at my own back while he dances away cackling.
It devolves from there. Less soccer, more war.
We slam into each other going for the ball, skid across the turf on our knees, leave long green streaks on our uniforms. The sun burns overhead, sweat rolling down my temples, stinging my eyes.
My lungs protest after every long sprint, my chest feels tight and my breath starts to get thin and wheezy.
I peel my shirt off first, too hot to care, tossing it toward the sideline where it lands in a heap.
Ryowoon follows a few seconds later, pulling his over his head without breaking stride and throwing it behind him.
The difference between our bodies is starker than ever, him broader across the shoulders, the muscles in his back and stomach clearly defined, arms already cross-hatched with old scars and burn marks.
He’s grown angular and adult. I haven’t come near to catching up yet, and standing across from him on the grass, shirtless and panting, I feel every inch of skinny frame and narrow rib cage I’ve got.
He still can’t beat me at dribbling in tight spaces though.
I dart past him in a burst that makes my chest ache and slot the ball through the gap between two water bottles we set up as goals, whooping.
He curses, grabs the ball, and comes tearing after me, and I let him chase me until we’re both stumbling, dizzy with heat and exertion, the grass cool under our bare feet where our shoes got kicked off in the chaos.
I collapse first. My legs fold and I drop into the shade at the edge of the field, under the overhang of the equipment shed, flat on my back, chest heaving. The sky overhead is a clean washed blue. Every muscle in my body hums.
Ryowoon drops beside me a few seconds later, both of us gasping, reaching for the bottle of water we left in the shade. He drinks, throat bobbing, and hands it to me. I drink what’s left and dump the last trickle over my face.
“Pathetic,” he says between breaths, grinning sideways at me. “You were gasping after ten minutes. I was running circles around you out there.”
I tilt my head toward him, still panting, and press a hand to my chest. “Smoke damage. Remember? My lungs are working at like sixty percent capacity.”
“Excuses.”
“Besides,” I gesture loosely at the length of him, “your legs have gained a ridiculous number of inches. Your stride is twice mine. It’s not a fair contest anymore.”
“It was never fair. I’ve been faster than you since we were six.”
“You were not.”
“Was.”
“In your dreams.”
He laughs breathlessly as I roll over onto my stomach, put my head down on my folded arms and close my eyes.
My skin is cooling in the shade, the sweat drying, the breeze whipping through my damp hair and raising goosebumps across my shoulders.
I can feel my heartbeat slowing, all the tension I’ve been storing in my shoulders and my back from weeks of hunching over desks unwinding muscle by muscle.
Maybe Ryowoon was right. Maybe I needed this.
I’m drifting, half-asleep, the sounds of the neighborhood faint and far off, when I feel his finger, pressing into the skin of my lower back. Poking.
I crack one eye open. “What are you doing?”
“You’ve got freckles here.” Another poke, slightly to the left of the first. Then another, lower, and another. “Right here, there’s a whole little patch of them.”
I can feel the pad of his finger tracing across the skin, landing on each spot individually, pressing lightly. One, two, three. Four. Counting.
“I know I have freckles.”
“Yeah but have you seen these? They’re all clustered together.” He pokes another one and I twitch. “Look at that. They look like a constellation. A little cluster of stars.”
I press my face further into my arms, hiding the twitch of a smirk. “Stop poking me, it tickles.”
He laughs, and I hear the soft scratch of him drawing something in the dirt beside us. I open my eyes, turning my head just enough to look. He scrapes a patch of earth clear with his palm and presses dots into it with his fingertip, one by one, connecting them with lines drawn between.
“See?” He angles his body so I can look at the crude constellation he’s drawn out. “Like that. Your back has its own little star chart.”
“I wouldn’t know. I can’t exactly see my own back, genius.”
He grins with all his teeth showing, the scar on his jaw pulling taut. “Trust me.” He pokes me one more time, right in the center of the cluster. “It’s very cute.”
I roll over and kick him square in the side and he topples backward laughing, catching himself on one elbow.
“Shut the fuck up, asshole.”