The Descendants of Ardwall

6. Hajime's Blind Hope

Ronnin training started the next day. Now that they officially had their positions for the team, Luke could focus on training Hajime and the other Ronnin club members according to their strengths. They wouldn't have a professional coach – teams weren't allowed to have one for fairness' sake, according to Academy policies – so Luke was the only one experienced enough to take the lead.

From the time they spent together at lunch with Raiden and Reymie yesterday, Hajime knew that Luke had been captain of their Median soccer team. While Luke had proudly alluded that Raiden was a fellow skilled soccer player himself, Raiden had avoided the topic altogether. At some point, he'd seemed to imply that he wouldn't be joining the Ronnin team, despite Luke's many implicit hinting and even outright invitation.

Again, it was hard not to be reminded of how much of each other's lives Hajime and Raiden had missed. Still, after yesterday, maybe there was a chance they could become good friends again...

Practice went on for an hour. When they were finally done, Luke poured half a bottle of water on his head from the sweltering heat, tempting everyone else to do the same. He led them into some after-practice stretches just so they wouldn't get home too sore. Hajime could already tell he'd go out like a light once he got to bed later.

"Hey, Luke, is there any word about when the next Ronnin tournament is going to be?" Kai Rogers suddenly asked in the middle of their cool-down, dark hair plastered to his forehead and neck.

Luke's face scrunched up in a frown. "Nada." He shook his head. "You know how those things go. The intervals between dates are never set. It might take years until the year of the next tournament is announced."

"I hope we don't graduate before the next one." Rogers stared blankly out onto the field. "It'd be great if we had the chance to compete."

Luke nodded. "Agreed." He spoke to all of them this time, pasting the trademark Luke Evans grin on his face. "You know, we could totally be the next Listing Ronnin team to represent the Ardwall region in the next tournament. The last team that did that from the Academy was years back. And even years before that, the greatest feat any team from here ever has accomplished was winning the championship as second-years. Can you imagine? Second-years! They'd only been a couple years older than us when they beat every other team competing in the final round!"

Hajime had to admit: while he didn't know too much about the game, even he could acknowledge what an amazing feat that was. It must have been normal for fourth-year teams to be the ones who made it to the finals. After all, the teams in the Academy were divided according to year level. Somewhat an unfair advantage, but such was life, he supposed.

"Yup, you heard right: second years," Luke said, enjoying the attention he garnered from knowing the fact. "That was years and years ago though, before any of us were even born. I even remember in that same year one of the players on the team got the award for Most Valuable Player for the entire tournament. That was massive. I can't seem to remember his name anymore though." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "I think his name was David or Danny or something."

Some part of Hajime had this childish hope that the man Luke was talking about was his father. His father's name was David. But he knew it was ridiculous to think such a thing – his father David was a Median. The part of him that wanted to believe it was true was probably just longing to have some kind of a famous and achieving parent figure to make up for the fact that Hajime had never really met his father. Still, when you were a teenager, curiosity could sometimes still get the better of you. While Hajime knew all of it was just wishful thinking, he knew that he wanted to extinguish those hopes with more certainty.

So when Luke dismissed them all, congratulating everyone on their first successful practice, the first person Hajime went up to was Noah. He knew nobody else who could help him with his sudden idea.