Episode 11: The Long Promise

I swim for myself.
I only swim for myself, and I’m responsible for my own swimming. I don’t want to lose because of someone else, and even if we win, it’s not just because of my own ability. I find that boring.
His face when I said those words suddenly came to my mind.
It happened the one and only time I swam in a relay with him in elementary school. We didn’t do well and after the race, I said that to him in the locker room. I swim for myself. Swimming is a solo sport. Once you dive in the water, you’re alone. You can’t even swim faster with the knowledge you’re with others.
“What’s that? Sousuke, are you making fun of relays!?”
His face when he yelled those words and lunged at me.
Even now I have flashbacks of his face at that time all the time.
I’m trapped by him––– by Rin.

I walked around the city while thinking and became lost.
It’s always like that. I get lost. Even more so since this is the first time I’ve been to this city.
Where am I?
I was standing in a crowded, neon back alley off of the main road.
I could hear a drunk singing bad karaoke from some store. They were singing about how the future wasn’t so bad. It was a song that wasn’t suited for me right now. It was just a bunch of phrases that sounded nice. They were just shallow wishes. In order to escape from the song, I exited the alleyway. An unfamiliar road appeared before me. Cars passed in front of me. The signal changed and turned red. Stop. I had come to a standstill again. I saw what looked like a salaryman who had just gotten off work come out of a convenience store holding a bag containing a bento. Only while the automatic door was open could I hear the store’s soft music coming from inside. When the Door closed again, the music was cut off. I could still faintly hear the drunk singing in the distance. At a loss, I once again asked myself, but this time out loud in a mumble.
“Where… am I……?”
It would be fine if I were just lost in reality, but I had lost my way in life and didn’t know the way forward as well. When you’re lost in reality, there are maps. You can ask someone else. But in life, when you lose your way what should you do? No one can tell you the right way forward. Actually, there is no true right way. Just where exactly am I headed–––?
That’s no good. I’m being sentimental tonight. I’m just being an idiot romanticist.
I’m being the same as him……
I laughed bitterly to myself and looked up at the night sky. Then I started looking for the hotel I had just checked into and glanced around the unfamiliar city. The unfamiliar city where, tomorrow, the inter-high regional tournament would be held.

I’d decided to come to his city by myself when I received an email from Gou.
“Are you doing alright, Sousuke-kun? My brother’s school Samezuka Academy made it past the regional tournament! If you both win and advance to the national tournament and were able to meet, that’d be great!”
I didn’t respond.
Even after I lost contact with Rin, Gou would sometimes send me status update emails. That’s why I knew Rin came back from Australia this spring and had entered Samezuka Academy that was famous for swimming.
I haven’t been in contact with Rin at all in 4 years. I gave the last letter I received from him to Nanase. Because it wasn’t meant for me. It was just a letter he had written to Nanase, and then had only changed who it was addressed to.
Ever since then the letters from Rin stopped coming. I wonder what happened in Australia? Since I thought he’d run into some sort of wall, I couldn’t bring myself to ask. Rin would be fine. No matter what wall he ran into he’d overcome it. I’m sure of it.
Then he came home. I don’t know whether he climbed over that wall or destroyed it but either way, he came back. I’m certain I’ll see the results tomorrow at the regional tournament tomorrow. That was the whole reason I’d come to this city.

Before long the business district ended and I approached a quieter street.
There were small businesses mixed in with apartments and private houses.
Another street over and it was a residential district.
I stopped once again and looked around to confirm where I was.
Was the hotel in this direction? I don’t think so.
I’d made the mistake of thinking I was just going out to get dinner, so I left my map in my room.
If I strained, I could hear the sound of a train carried on the summer wind. If I remember correctly the hotel was near some train tracks. I could see some traffic lights flashing down at the far end of this road. It’s a large road. I think that’s the highway near that the hotel is off of.
When I started walking forward, two boys who looked to be elementary schoolers ran past me.
At this time they’re probably going home from cram school, I guess?
I looked towards the residential neighborhood that the two of them were running to. The image of their running backs reminded me of us in the past. The scene of the rural residential neighborhood at night disappeared and was replaced by an image of a summer sky in my mind.
Ever since we entered elementary school, me and Rin were always together.
And yet when I think about Rin, the images that pop into my head are always in summer. The sounds of cicadas and waves crashing on the beach. The image of Rin and I running through the seaside city under a blue sky filled with huge summer clouds fills my mind.
Back then me and Rin competed over everything.
At everything from rock paper scissors to arm wrestling, card games, who could eat their lunch the fastest, test scores, and of course swimming. Butterfly and free. On top of that, we competed over who could hold their breath the longest, and who could make it to the next turn the fastest. Every single thing in our daily lives was a chance to compete. We couldn’t be satisfied with the result of winning or losing. We had to bet something. The things we bet were also various. Who would be able to eat the last piece of chocolate. Who would drink the only juice. Who would be the first to read a manga on the day it came out.
I wonder which summer it was.
There was a time at a candy shop there was only one cola ice cream bar left, so we competed with rock paper scissors for it. No matter what we were competing over, we always took it seriously. The cola ice cream could break into two pieces so we could’ve just broken it. There was be no reason to compete over it. We could each get half. But that was never an option to us. It was either 1 or 0. Win or lose. Win it all or nothing. People in our class were confused why we were so serious about ice cream. “Do you guys actually not get along?” they’d ask. But they just didn’t understand. It’s not that we didn’t get along. Actually, I think we understood each other the best. We weren’t exactly best friends. It felt awkward saying the word “best friend” it wasn’t that light of a relationship. We were always serious about competing. We had an extreme competitive spirit between us.
“Isn’t that called rivals?”
I think Kisumi who was in the same class as us said.
Even now I remember the feeling of rightness I felt when I heard the word.
That’s right, Rin and I rather than being best friends are rivals. That’s what fits the best.

We did it just for the competition, or in order to get something, we competed over all sorts of things, but just one time we competed over something a bit different.
I believe I’m the one who said it.
That what we’d wager was a promise.
The one who lost would make a promise to listen to whatever the one who won wanted.
I won the competition.
At that time I put my request for Rin on hold. I said I wanted to think about it for a while.
I still hadn’t collected on that promise. So that means he still owes me something.
Since there was no expiration on the promise.
Since we’re so similar, we often competed at the swimming school.
I think the results were about 50 50. Then one day, Rin said to me
“Hey, Sousuke. Would you like to try swimming in a relay?”
I didn’t really feel like it but I had no reason to refuse.
It was the first relay I swam in, but the results were awful. I felt it keenly then. That it would be better if we weren’t on the same team. Swimming is a solo sport. Once you dive into the water, you’re alone. You can’t even swim faster with the knowledge you’re with others. My thoughts on it haven’t changed even now.
At that time, Rin fiercely lunged at me.
“Are you making fun of relays!?”
Rin’s father had once won a relay. That’s why it wasn’t unreasonable for Rin to get upset about someone making fun of relays.
“I’m not making fun of them. I just don’t think I’m suited for them. That’s all.”
I just said my true feelings.
Rin made a devastated face.
But Rin should have understood. We’re very similar. Rivals. He should know that we shouldn’t swim in relays together. That topic was dropped and we went back to normal. Like nothing had happened.

After that, there was just one time that Kisumi said something to me.
“It shouldn’t matter if you think you’re suited for them or not. Rin likes relays.”
“I know that”
“Then you should just swim in them for him.”
I was irritated by his words and glared at Kisumi.
“Swim for him!?”
Kisumi pulled back a little in shock.
It seems he didn’t think I’d react that strongly.
I responded to Kisumi in a firm tone.
“Doing something for him, that’s not the sort of relationship Rin and I have.”
That’s right. Rin and I are rivals. That’s why it’s best we’re not on the same team.
That’s what I always thought.
Then on a winter day in 6th grade, Rin suddenly said to me
“I found someone I want to swim with.”
For a moment I didn’t know how to respond so I just silently stared at him in shock.
Someone he wants to swim with. Someone he wants to do a relay with.
That was Nanase Haruka.
Rin had found a companion. Not a rival, but a companion he could swim with. A companion who wasn’t me.

To chase after that companion, Rin transferred to Iwatobi elementary for the last few months of our elementary years. He said it was because before he went to Australia, he wanted to swim in a relay with them.
So the promise between us to “do whatever the other asked” was still on hold, Rin graduated elementary school and went to Australia. When I went to see him off at the bus terminal, all I said was “see ya” and saw him off with the same smile as always.

After Rin left, I started frantically swimming on my own.
Rin was working hard on his own in Australia. So I was desperately working towards my dream too.
The letters from Rin stopped coming after the summer of the first year of middle school but I believed in him. Rin would surely break through the wall.
I graduated from middle school and entered a prestigious swimming school in Tokyo. There I started to train even more.
I swim for myself. I am the one responsible for it. In order to make my dream come true.
And then someday my dream would come true, and when I stood on the world stage, Rin would be there with me.
I imagined myself standing on the starting blocks of the world stage.
When I turned, Rin was standing beside me, smiling with a grin the same as back then.
I smiled back.
“Hey, Rin. So you finally made it here.”
Take Your Marks!
Then we’d dive. To the world.
I had that sort of fantasy–––

I continued my intense training every day.
It was around that time that there was no longer anyone who could beat me.
It was just a little farther to my dream. Just a little farther.
I remember feeling a weirdness in my shoulder at that time. At first I thought it was just my imagination, so I ignored it and just kept swimming. I’d just ice it and endure it. I couldn’t throw in the towel now. In order to become stronger and faster, I still had to train a lot more. In order to stand on the same world stage as Rin…
Then I approached the summer of my first year of high school. My shoulder finally let out a scream. Saying it wasn’t going to move anymore.
Of course it would break. I’d kept up with that ridiculous training.
I underwent medical treatment and rehabilitation but my shoulder injury wouldn’t get better at all. I’d rehabilitate, get injured and rehabilitate. It kept repeating every day. Because of my condition, there were competitions that I couldn’t compete in.
It was at that time that Gou contacted me. Saying that Rin had returned.
But I didn’t want to see him.
Because he’s the one I don’t want to see me come to a stop like this.
Not being able to swim like I wanted my classmates and underclassmen started surpassing me one after another. I watched them swim alone from the poolside. I couldn’t contain my irritation.
My impatience grew every day. It was miserable. It was unsightly.
But there was nothing to be done. My fate was cursed.
And then I finally realized. That my dream was no longer able to come true…

I decided to quit swimming.

But I thought before I quit that I wanted to see Rin swimming just one more time.
I wanted to see the swimming figure of Rin, who had the same dream as me, just one last time.
That’s why I came by myself this night, to this city, the city where Rin was swimming in the regional tournaments.

It seems while I had been thinking that I’d gotten farther from the business district again.
When I noticed I was walking down a highway without even any houses. Every once in awhile a car would pass me by.
When I looked up, I could see some windmills spinning off in the distance.
I’m sure the hotel couldn’t be in this direction. I inevitably turned back the direction I had come from.
On the way, I passed by a high schooler wearing glasses, so I asked him the way to the hotel but,
“No, I’m not from around here, so I don’t really know……”
He just said apologetically. I kept wandering around the city at night until finally I found a road with a lot of pedestrian traffic near the station. I asked a few people who looked like locals along the way until I finally managed to stumble my way back to the hotel.

I got on the elevator and got off on the floor that my room was on.
I looked around and at the end of the hallway behind a glass door, there were some vending machines.
There were alcohol and tea, sports drinks, and coffee cans all lined up, and there among them, I found the cola.
The reason I had decided to drink it for the first time in a while was probably because I had been thinking about Rin.
I put in a coin and pushed the cola button.
The clang of the can falling echoed weirdly through the quiet hotel hallway at night.
At the same time that the can was dispensed, the light for the sold out sign illuminated.
It seems that this was the last cola.
With the can in hand, I went to return to my room when I came to a stop again.
“Which way is it……?”
Standing in the middle of the hallway I looked to my left and right. The hallway continued in both directions. There were several doors lined up on either side. I pulled out the key with my room number on it and compared it to the number plates on the wall and determined which way I should head. Just as I was about to start walking down the dark hallway, I heard the bing of the elevator arriving behind me.
I saw someone get off the elevator.
At this distance, I couldn’t see their face in the dark hallway clearly -but- I knew right away. I hadn’t seen him since the day I’d seen him off at the bus terminal heading toward the airport the day he left for Australia. But even still. There was no mistaking it.
It’s Rin…
Samezuka Academy is staying in the same hotel. Fate is playing tricks on me.
No, it’s not that big of a deal. There aren’t that many hotels in this city that all the high schoolers traveling here could stay in. There was a high likelihood I’d choose the same hotel.
Rin who has grown up into a high schooler is standing not far from me. I was overcome with a feeling of nostalgia.
But Rin didn’t notice me and continued down the call to the vending machine corner.
He probably wants to buy a cola.
But sorry. I bought the last one.
“Hey, Rin. If you want a cola, I have one. I was the last one. Shall we compete over it?”
If I called out to him like that, I wonder how happy he’d be. But I can’t do that now. The reason I came all the way to this city wasn’t so I could meet Rin and talk to him. It was so I could see Rin swimming with my own eyes. If we were to meet, then Rin would probably say he’d missed me. And then he’d ask
“How are you?” “What are you doing now?” “Do you think you’ll get to the national tournament?”
If that happened, then I’d just have to lie to all of those questions. I don’t want Rin to see the me that has now come to a stop. I’m sure Rin doesn’t want to see me like that.
Rin exited out of the vending machine corner.
Then he started to slowly walk this way.
The hallway was as dark as always, so I couldn’t see Rin’s expression.
I pulled my cap down over my eyes and looked down.
Rin won’t look over here. He won’t notice me.
We just passed each other in the dark hallway.
I turned around in the dark hallway and watched Rin’s back silently
The promise from that time…
Those words came back to me.
Is it alright for me to ask for anything I want with that promise now?
Hey, Rin. I…
I swallowed that request down, kept it only in my heart, and returned to my own room.
I won’t say the request out loud.
Until the day I can actually ask for it.