Saturday morning I woke up at 11am, got dressed in my gym clothes. A black and red track suit, even though it was warm enough for shorts, I much preferred longer articles of clothing. I then went to the combini for some onigiri as my breakfast before heading over to Koen park. Finishing it by the time I got there.
Koen park was every kids dream land, the playground was kept up to date with new stuff holding swings, slides, monkey bars, sliders, and other cool items. The park itself was massive, it had a number of benches, it was next to a small river, it had a fair amount of trees that were spaced out, and best of all it was never that busy. Although it was well known and was the perfect place to play, read a book, walk an animal, or whatever else you can think of, it was so spacious that no one got in one another's way.
As I arrived, I saw Kimori and Himori sitting on a bench under some shade. Hiro was kicking a ball towards a tree close by, he would kick it fast at the center of the tree, catch the ball with his chest, toss it from his chest to his head, bumped it towards the tree then repeated the process, alternating which foot he kicked with each time.
'"Why aren't you two playing with Hiro?"
"Because if we did we would be too exhausted to play by the time everyone got here." Kimori said. "Yeah, he's been at it since before we arrived, seriously where does he get this much stamina?" Himori added.
"That sounds like him." Kimori and Himori had the same idea that I did of wearing the school's gym clothes, but they chose to wear shorts instead. Hiro wore his old middle school's gym uniform.
"Who all is coming today?"
"Goda should be here any minute, and I invited Tsu, but she declined the offer." Hiro said this without breaking concentration on his practice.
"Hiro." A plain sounding voice came from behind where I was standing, before Hiro stopped what he was doing, and ran over to Goda. Hiro jumped in the air just to high five him. "Hey there! It's been forever!"
In terms of partnerships no one beats Hiro and Goda. Kimori and Himori are twins who understand one another, which does make them a good duo. Me and Hiro have been best friends since elementary school and understand one another almost as much as the twins do. But when it comes to Hiro and Goda they are a force of nature, like an unstoppable force teaming up with an unbreakable shield. This is the duo that led our middle school's soccer team to win the youth national's two years in a row after all.
"Alright everyone, let's get this party going!!" Hiro yelled. All five of us walked over to the perfectly spaced out trees that acted as our goal posts. Someone, or maybe it was just nature's doing, put down four trees, two pairs that are close together, but were pretty far apart from the other pair, however they were parallel to one another, making a rectangle. It was a really good makeshift soccer field that we have used for years.
"Who are the teams?" Kimori asked an honest question. "I was going to have me and Goda on a team and then Kyo, Himori, and you on the opposing team."
"No! That is so unfair for us!" Kimori exclaimed.
"Fine, fine. Then how do you suppose we do this?" Hiro asked.
"You and Kyo on a team vs us three" Kimori suggested.
"As long as Goda permanently stays in the goal post I have no complaints," I said.
"Sweet! I get to face off against Goda before an official match can't wait." Hiro was overly excited.
"Seriously, how did you not see this as an option before Hiro?" Himori said poking fun at him.
"Well at least I have an excuse for my stupidity, since I am the only one here to not get into a preppy private school, so what's your excuse Himori?"
"I always knew that this is how the teams would end up being like, I just didn't say anything." Himori was desperate, but his argument was unconvincing. "Uggg, whatever, let's just start!" trying to get the pressure off of him.
"Same rules as always, two strikers will go for the ball in the middle, wherever it goes after it's kicked is fair game!" Hiro said. I was the goalkeeper for Hiro, and he was the striker. While the opposing team had Kimori as their striker, Himori as defense, and Goda as goalkeeper.
Goda counted us down. "Ready, set, go!"
Hiro and Kimori sprinted towards the ball, Hiro was faster though, kicking the ball to the left, away from Himori. At the edge of the line he kicked it towards their goal post. Goda did an impressive jump catching the ball, then drop kicked it towards Kimori. Hiro had to sprint from the far left side to about the middle and catch up to Kimori, but as he caught up to Kimori, he took his chances kicking the ball to my post from pretty far away. It pretty much rolled right to me. I wasn't as impressive as Goda was in terms of control, so I just tossed the ball over to Hiro.
"Good job Kyo, I won't miss this time!"
Hiro started to run with the ball back down the middle towards their goal, Kimori tried to catch up to him, but Hiro juked him by kicking the ball between Kimori's legs and away from Himori, then picked up his speed re-catching up to the ball. Hiro had a clean close shot to Goda's goal, but ultimately, Goda once again caught a seemingly impossible ball.
"Better luck next time Hiro."
"Oh whatever, just you watch Goda, I will get a point on you!!"
Hiro was obviously annoyed, not at Goda himself, but that Goda was the one thing that could stand in his way. A wall he aimed to beat. The game went on for about an hour, in the end, neither side scored a point. It had been nearly two months since all five of us had met up like this, so although no one scored, we all had fun, just like old times.
"Hiro, you're the leader here, what's next? Because I am too tired to move." Himori started to complain.
"To the playground!" Hiro seemed like he hadn't even used up a quarter of his energy, as he started marching over to the slides.
Himori laid under some shade to catch his breath, Kimori tried his hand at some of the new stuff like an egg cracker, apparently it was a magnetic piece of equipment that had a seat, when you sat on it, it would spin around the metal bar it was connected to, you could move pretty fast with just your legs pushing you, but he asked Goda to spin him as fast as he could. "Woaaahaa thiiiisssss iiisssss awwwwsommmeee" Kimori tried to say. "Don't talk, you might bite your tongue off!" Hiro said from the top of the slides. "Yeeeahhhh youuurrrr rrrriggghhhttt, myyyyy baaaadd, ahhhhhh" Hiro was now at the bottom of the slides, "what did I just say?!?"
Meanwhile I preferred the swings and was watching them from above. Goda joined me after he helped Kimori with whatever he was up to. We sat in silence just hearing the wind and seeing everyone have a good time.
After about forty five minutes of playing around, we decided to get food. "Where do we want to get lunch?" I asked since I was probably the least picky eater out of all of us.
"Maid Cafe!" Kimori was a little too excited about even the idea of going.
"Wickdonald's?" Himori said.
"I want a restaurant" Goda was blunt in his answer, but vague at the same time
"Yeah, but what restaurant?" Hiro asked. "Any." Goda, no matter how much you pried, was blunt and simple at all times.
"At least maid cafes have melon soda and pudding." I interjected, I wasn't happy that Kimori got me into them though.
"Yeah but their food is always pretty bland," Hiro exclaimed.
"See Kyo agrees with me that maid cafes are the way to go."
"I didn't agree with you, just out of the ideas stated it's the best option."
The conversation continued like this for some time before we finally agreed to go to a conveyor belt sushi chain. As we sat down we each got three items. Hiro got the spicy salmon sushi roll with some wasabi, for a side he got cooked muscles, and a peach soda as his drink. Kimori and Himori each got a lemon tofu sushi roll but Kimori got a side of takoyaki and grape soda; while Himori got a side of squid salad and a strawberry soda. Goda was the simplest out of us only getting a crab sushi roll and water. I got an avocado sushi roll also with a side of takoyaki and a melon soda. After eating and talking at the restaurant it was about 3pm.
"I have to go," Goda said while standing up. "Thank you for today," He paid his share and left.
"No problem, glad you had fun, later Goda!!" Hiro said profoundly.
"As straightforward as ever." Kimori said, looking at Goda as he left the shop. "Me and Kimori have to get home soon anyway, so this was a good time to call it." Kimori looked puzzled by his brother's desire to leave, "what do we have to go home for again?" Himori looked disappointed, "our fathers birthday is tomorrow we need a gift, and to wrap it. I would like to do this before my legs give out." His legs were still in pain from running around earlier. "Riiight, welp see you guys later." They went up, paid their share, and walked out. It was now just me and Hiro.
"What do you want to do now Kyo?"
"Wanna go see how my place looks now that everything is unpacked."
"Yes!"
My aunt was kind, not only did she give me a place to live but ordered a new dresser, desk, and bed for me. House appliances came already installed, but daily room stuff was for tenants to get for themselves. Now that all the stuff had arrived and been installed, my place looked a lot more like a home than what it was two weeks ago.
"Hey Kyo, can I spend the night at your place?"
"Sure I don't see an issue with that."
"Sweet!"
After we got to my place we took off our shoes, and he immediately went to see my room, "Great work Kyo, it all looks so cozy." I smiled, it was nice to have a friend over and hang out for long periods of time. My mother never allowed this; it was a new experience for me. In the end we played games, talked about life, ate dinner, and slept. "I wish everyday was as fun as this one." I said with a smile. Hiro looked at me smiling. "Yeah, me too."