Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Ren
Happy birthday to you…
In the middle of the shared hotel room, the first team sat around Ren as they celebrated his birthday. They all gave a round of applause as he blew out the twelve candles that were on his cake.
"Thank you so much, guys." Ren addressed them all with genuine gratitude.
"What do you mean? Of course we have to celebrate our captain's last birthday here with the team," one of the fifth-years said.
"Hey, man," Ishida Yuto, one of Ren's closest friends, said as he put his hand around Ren's shoulder. "Thanks to you, we won our first game today without too much trouble."
"Yeah!" Several others agreed.
"For real, though, I'm so glad we won," Yuto continued, "I would've cried if we had to go back to school tomorrow."
At his comment, sighs of relief spread through the team. Some of them even shuddered at the thought, silently agreeing with him.
"It's way too cold in Nagano, anyway," another one of Ren's classmates said.
"Right? I'd rather be here in Tokyo."
As the cake was soon distributed to everyone, the conversations started splitting up. At the opposite end of the circle from Ren and his friends, Ryo was also enjoying the cake.
That pastry shop that I stumbled on turned out really well. Who would've thought that a French couple would move to Tokyo to open their own shop?
"Hey, Ryo," a voice whispered next to him. "When did you find time to buy the cake?"
Ryo barely looked up from his plate before answering honestly. "When everyone went to the baths after coming back. I saw the place while walking around yesterday and went back today to buy something for the occasion."
The cakes he had seen on display were undeniably mouth-watering. From some of the best Tarte Tatin he had ever seen to intricate and creamy Mille-feuille or rich chocolate cake, that shop had it all. It took a lot of willpower on Ryo's part not to barge in and try one of the pastries himself.
Even now, their allure was fresh in Ryo's mind, and he reluctantly changed the subject.
"By the way," Ryo said, lifting his head, "thanks for going out to buy some plates and spoons, Kazuki."
"It was no trouble for me," Kazuki responded coolly. "But Ryo, didn't Coach forbid us from going out alone?"
Yeah, he did, but…
"I had him make an exception for us today," Ryo said, slightly dodging the question.
"Okay!" Kazuki said without a hint of suspicion in his voice.
Ryo looked down pensively at the half-finished dessert on his plate. This had been one of the team's traditions for the past three years.
After making it to Nationals in his first year, Ryo had also gotten a cake for Ren. His birthday coincided with the beginning of each tournament, so each time, they were able to celebrate with the team.
In a way, Ryo felt a bit bad because each year, his parents weren't able to celebrate with them on Ren's birthday. They always made it up with them after they got back, but deep down, Ryo felt as if his parents carried a hint of sorrow, knowing they weren't able to make precious memories with their sons during those moments.
As for the team's performance over the past few years, there was still much left to be desired. In Ryo's first year, Ryusei had lost in the very first round to a team from Osaka, the eventual runner-up in the finals. Seiwa Elementary, as the team was called, was a private grade school with a pretty intense football program, consistently making it to the end of its regional tournament. As such, they were no stranger to the national tournament.
Ryusei played at 100% that day, creating many opportunities, keeping possession, and minimizing turnovers. However, even if they played at their full potential, if their opponents surpassed them and played at 120%, then Ryusei were simply outclassed, and there was nothing they could do.
Ryusei had no glaring flaws, but they still ended the game having conceded three goals, with a final score of 1–3. The night after the game, Ryo asked The System why it hadn't given him any quests for the national tournament. Surprisingly enough, The System had been helpful and told him that it wasn't expecting the impossible from him.
It was already good enough that they had won the regional tournament, but expecting any better from them was too unrealistic, and The System, supposedly, wasn't one to assign quests it knew Ryo would fail.
The rest of the year following that had been surprisingly eventful. Practice continued as usual even when it snowed, and friendly games with other teams in the prefecture during the off-season replaced the scheduled, seasonal games.
That spring, Ryo entered his second year, and Ren his fifth. The sixth-years on the team, including their captain, Inoue Tomoya, graduated, and younger players took their place.
Kazuki performed rather well at the tryouts, and as a result, earned a place on the second team. He had been so excited that, for a whole week following the results, Ryo felt like his ears were going to fall off by the end of each day.
Another interesting development was that Assistant Coach Takigawa had chosen Ren as the next captain. It had definitely been a surprise since, according to the senior members, a sixth-year student would be chosen as captain, but Ren was overjoyed nevertheless.
Ryo didn't even try to ask why Coach Matsumoto didn't announce the captain himself, even though he was standing right there as it happened. In the end, Ryo just chalked it up to the coach's uncharacteristic laziness.
The first team played well with Ren as their captain, first making it to Regionals and almost losing in the second game of the tournament to Suwa Cono FC, but managing to come out on top and eventually win the finals.
Nationals once again followed quickly after. They performed slightly better than the previous year, likely because they had a more favorable bracket. As a result, they won their first two games before once again succumbing to Seiwa Elementary's prowess in the round of eight.
When they went back to school, Kazuki showed up to Ryo's class and started bawling his eyes out to the point that Ryo's homeroom teacher was genuinely worried when she walked in.
But starting his third year, many things changed for Ryo and the team. First, this was Ren's last season with Ryusei. After that, he would likely play with a middle school team or a youth football club, and Ryo would no longer be on the same team as his brother.
The second thing was that some of the team's core players, like Taiga and Ken, had graduated. Their absence meant that the coordination on the left side had to be completely reworked. This meant the team often saw positional changes over the course of the season, and it affected their overall performance. Although they still finished at the top of their group, their play wasn't as seamless as it had been the previous two years.
However, one piece of good news is that Kazuki impressed the second team's coaches so much in his second year that he started joining the first team's practices after the season ended. In the following tryouts, he made the first team as a third-year player, which was a rather impressive feat. Kazuki wasn't always a starter at the beginning, but whenever he came onto the pitch, he gave it his all and made his presence known as a defender, eventually securing himself a spot in the starting line-up.
By the end of the regular season, the team's overall skill and cohesion had vastly improved, which allowed them to take home the trophy in the regional tournament for the third season in a row.
This meant that they would be advancing to Nationals once again, but this time, they were headed to Tokyo to play in one of the biggest venues Japan had to offer.
After arriving at their hotel in the heart of Tokyo on Friday night aboard a chartered bus that had taken them from Nagano, the players were assigned their rooms and quickly fell asleep. Their first game wasn't until Sunday, so Saturday was a day for practice and acclimation to the new environment.
Ryusei made their way to the venue that would host their national tournament—a cluster of various football fields and stadiums known as Camp Atsu.
Over the course of the past decade, because of the surge in popularity of football, more stadiums were built in Japan's major cities to keep up with the demand.
More clubs started playing better and needed better home stadiums, so they were often relocated to newly built ones, or their previous venues were renovated. One such project involved building a new mega-stadium, called the Tokyo Coliseum, and its satellites that made up Camp Atsu. The goal was for the Tokyo Coliseum—and Camp Atsu as a whole—to rival some of the biggest stadiums in the West, serving as the locale for various national-level tournaments, international cups, club finals, or concerts whenever games weren't being played.
However, Ryusei weren't playing in the Tokyo Coliseum. That honor actually belonged to the teams competing in the U-18 National Tournament.
Instead, for the U-12 tournament, a smaller stadium also in Camp Atsu was chosen. And that Sunday, Ryusei beat their opponents 2–0, allowing them to advance to the next round.
That night, the team had gathered to celebrate Ren's twelfth birthday. They were allowed to indulge just a little bit because their next game wasn't until that Wednesday.
During that time, they could focus on refining their game and, especially, studying the matches of their upcoming opponents: Kyoto City FC, or rather, their U-12 team.
So when the players eventually dispersed, and Ryo was back in his shared room, he quickly fell asleep in anticipation of the days to come.