Managing the Underdogs...

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - The Little Prince

Aven liked learning. Not the school shit. Movies, books, music. That was learning according to Aven, and that was learning according to her parents.

It was Aven's first weekend in the Miyagi Prefecture, which isn't filled with moving boxes and packing tape. There was no extra volleyball practice due to it being the end of the season. There was nothing to distract her.

Aven is currently sitting on the edge of her bed, wrinkling her plaid blue duvet and glaring at her cell phone which is on her desk. She is wondering if she keeps on staring whether it will blow up to a million pieces, but soon she realizes she is not a Jedi. And no amount of concentration and self-induced headaches would make her phone and its contacts disappear. She needs to get this over with.

Her talk with Tilly last night had made her wonder about Sora. How was she doing? What was she doing?

Even though, Aven didn't blame Sora. She hadn't spoken to her since she heard the rumour spreading around the school. The rumour of the accident, of the reason why Aven Kimiko had moved to Hyōgo out of the blue. Everybody had treated her like the plague, even the players on the volleyball team.

When her grandparents immediately started to make plans to move, Aven didn't object. She hated the idea of why they chose to move, but she was a social pariah.

Aven quickly stands up and dials the number, it rings for a nerve-racking thirty seconds before the recipient picks up.

"Hello?"

"Hi Sora, it's Aven."

"Oh, Aven. I'm so sorry about everything, I didn't-" Aven didn't hesitate to interrupt 

"Please don't apologize, what's done is done. I don't mind it that much; it was going to come out anyway."

"God you are always so stubborn," Sora lets out a giggle and Aven follows suit. "You should feel angry about what happened, about how they treated you."

"Okay next time I see one of them, I will send my fist straight into their face."

Laughs are all that come out of Aven's end of the phone, Aven's smile grows on her face. This is something she didn't realize she hadn't missed so dearly. It had been over a month since she had talked to Sora.

"So how is the blog? Astrophel..." Aven asks, feeling Sora's embarrassment from the other line.

"God Damn it, why are you always so observant." Aven chuckles once again with her friend's response.

Astrophel was the username of a notorious sports blog that covered different athletes, but mostly from Japan and mostly in high school.

"It became a little obvious when the blog started focusing on high school volleyball in Japan."

The blog was respected by people, even her new advisor Takeda read it sometimes. It was well known, a bit of an internet sensation.

"So Aven, why did you call? You're not the person who calls just to say hi." Ouch, that stung a little bit.

"I have two favours, One I will 'call' in later." Sora could hear the joke in her voice, her friend was always like that. Making jokes out of everything, was almost a defense mechanism. "Do you happen to know anything about middle school volleyball teams?

"Which one?" Sora knew much about volleyball teams, no matter which prefecture, school or age.

"Kitagawa Daiichi."

The call hadn't lasted much longer, Sora had to leave anyway. It was still only Saturday mid-day and she had time to kill. She had run into Tilly early this morning when taking the trash in, her new friend was going to train with her soccer team for the day.

Aven hated having time to kill, it made her anxious and her mind wander. So she filled her day. She jumps from finishing her homework early to helping her grandmother in the garden. Aven learned two new songs on her drum set Saturday night and had finished reading a book by Sunday morning.

Lying on her bed, eyes shooting back and forth between the glued-on stars that cover her ceiling, Aven thinks back to last Friday and how it made her feel.

Fuck it. She hops to her feet and scrambles out of her room making a beeline for the garage. After sorting through unpacked boxes, she found the correct ones. Having to make two trips she got the boxes up to her room. Opening the first one and pulling out the old chunky tv. The TV that her parents could barely afford back in their small home in Tokyo. She plugged it in and set it to one side of her desk.

Breaking into another box, Aven found her VHS tapes. The only format her parents could afford back then, but Aven treasured them greatly. She popped in an old Disney movie, not before running downstairs to make popcorn on the stove. The way her mother would make it every Friday movie night. Ten minutes later she was sitting against the end of her bed, watching a movie for the first time in years.

For once since her parent's funeral, the sickly sweet feeling of nostalgia that swept her body only left her feeling better than before.