Then come on, boy," the old man challenged, a cold amusement back in his voice.
The match restarted. Wakashi came in violently, charging hard, his massive frame focused entirely on the ball.
The old man easily evaded him, but something was different. The pressure Wakashi exerted felt calculated now, like a trap being set. The old man felt a momentary confusion, but he didn't waver. With the ball still dancing at his feet, he saw Wakashi commit fully, widening his stance in a clumsy effort to snatch the ball. The old man chuckled lightly; he was determined to put Wakashi back in his place with a decisive nutmeg.
As the old man prepared for the small, quick kick to send the ball between Wakashi's legs, a sudden bad feeling shot through him. He realized with a jolt that Wakashi's seemingly clumsy widening of his legs was done on purpose.
It was the lure.
The old man executed the small kick, sending the ball through the gap, but Wakashi, defying his own brute momentum, somehow balanced himself and quickly closed his legs, blocking the path of the ball. He had anticipated the move and was ready to trap it.
The old man's reaction was otherworldly. In that fraction of a second, realizing his attack was countered, he used the slightest deflection off Wakashi's boot and, with a super-reaction touch, tapped the ball sharply to the right. It zipped around Wakashi's body like a cannon shot, a desperate, final, brilliant move that prevented the steal.
The old man stopped a few paces away, the ball resting peacefully at his foot once more. He looked back at Wakashi, his chest heaving slightly, and began to laugh—a loud, genuine laugh of surprise and delight.
"That was a good plan! Ohoo, my boy, you finally started to think and use your brain!"
Wakashi stood rooted, frustrated beyond words. He was close, agonizingly close, but still defeated. That was the last chance he could get. He knew the old man had been genuinely surprised, but that surprise would never happen again. There was no way that old man would let his guard down after seeing Wakashi's calculated cunning. He had earned respect, but he had failed the test. The path he had forced open was now slammed shut.
The rest of the game was a painful, drawn-out execution. Wakashi, having revealed his intellectual trap, now faced an extra vigilant opponent. Every desperate lunge, every calculated feint, was anticipated and nullified with effortless precision. Once Wakashi attempted a trick, the old man immediately sealed off that pathway, ensuring it couldn't be used a second time. Wakashi lost, and he lost painfully, not through lack of effort, but through a colossal deficit in skill and cunning.
Finally, the old man stopped the game, the ball coming to rest at his feet like a loyal pet. He looked at Wakashi, who was slumped over, utterly defeated yet burning with unspent fury.
"Boy,"
the old man said, his voice calm, no longer mocking.
"Football is not just physically. More than that, it can play with the brain also."
He tapped his temple.
"You showed me you can use yours. That is enough for today."
With that final piece of advice, the old man turned and began to walk away, his form quickly shrinking in the dusk. Wakashi watched him go, feeling the bitter sting of failure and the weight of the profound lesson.
Just as the old man reached the edge of the beach, his voice cut through the twilight, powerful and clear.
"We will see next week!"
Wakashi lifted his head, a spark reigniting in his eyes. The challenge was renewed. His apprenticeship was not over. He had failed the test, but he had earned a re-test.
The days that followed moved with a quiet, grinding rhythm.
Wakashi returned to morning practice with the first-years without complaint.
No drama, no protest. He simply showed up — earlier than anyone, later than everyone.
The other first-years had stopped laughing at him somewhere around the third day.
Not because he'd become good. But because the sheer stubbornness of him was hard to mock after a while.
Coach Haradahad noticed.
"Wakashi,"
he called one afternoon, gesturing Wakashi away from the first-year group.
"You'll join the first string for the tactical block today. Don't touch the ball unless I tell you. Watch. Learn positions."
Wakashi blinked.
"Yes, sir."
He stood on the sideline of the first-string drill like a boulder someone had forgotten to move — oversized, out of place, intensely focused.
The players glanced at him sideways.
A few smirked. He didn't care. He was counting their steps, watching how they shifted weight before a pass, noticing the small things the old man on the beach had made him see.
Football is not just physically. More than that, it can play with the brain also.
The words had been living rent-free in his skull all week.
The heading practice was its own kind of humiliation.
Coach Inoue had singled it out after reviewing Wakashi's build.
"You have the neck, you have the frame. Use them,"
he'd said flatly, as if Wakashi had simply been forgetting to use an obvious weapon.
What followed was forty minutes of Wakashi getting crossed balls fired at his skull at various angles, mistiming nearly all of them, redirecting several into the dirt, and sending one embarrassingly backwards.
The first-years watched from the corner of the pitch.
One of the smaller ones — Tanaka, a quick boy with a mouth he couldn't control — cupped his hands.
"Maybe try using your face, senpai!"
Laughter rippled.
Wakashi said nothing. He just turned back to the server and pointed.
Again.
By the end of the session, he was connecting — not cleanly, not powerfully, but connecting. The ball was going forward. That was enough for today.
It was Domoto he asked.
Domoto Ryuu, the first string's right back. Quiet, methodical, the kind of defender who never looked panicked because he'd already thought three seconds ahead.
After practice, while the others were heading to the changing room, Wakashi caught him re-lacing his boot on the bench.
"Domoto-san."
Domoto looked up, unsurprised. Players like Domoto were rarely surprised.
"Teach me the basics. Defending."
Domoto studied him for a long moment.
"You're a forward."
"I know."
"Coach didn't ask you to learn defense."
"I know."
Another pause. Domoto finished lacing his boot and stood.
He was a full head shorter than Wakashi, lean, with the calm eyes of someone who'd been underestimated his whole life and had learned to let it work for him.
"Jockeying first,"
Domoto said simply, turning toward the empty half of the pitch.
"Everything comes from jockeying. You don't chase the ball. You herd the player. Come."
Wakashi followed.
They stayed forty minutes past everyone else. Domoto was a patient, precise teacher — not warm exactly, but fair.
He corrected without mocking. He demonstrated without showing off. Wakashi made mistakes, reset, made them again, reset again.
"Why do you want this?" Domoto asked once, during a water break.
Wakashi thought about the old man on the beach, the nutmeg, the humiliation in front of the other boys that first day. He thought about his father. The debt. The move. The whole ugly pile of it.
"So nobody can make me feel stupid with the ball again," he said.
Domoto looked at him steadily. Then he nodded once, as if that was the only acceptable answer.
"Again,"
he said.
The week passed like that. Quietly. Painfully. Productively.
No single breakthrough moment. No sudden transformation. Just Wakashi, grinding against his own limitations every single day — headers at practice, tactical watching during first-string sessions, defensive footwork with Domoto after the whistle blew.
He ate more. Slept heavily.
Woke with sore muscles and went back anyway.
On Friday evening, walking home along the coastal road, the sea glittering darkly on his left, he realized something small but significant: he was no longer thinking about revenge when he practiced.
He was thinking about football.
He wasn't sure when the shift had happened.
Maybe it didn't matter.
The old man had said next week.
Tomorrow was Saturday.
Wakashi looked at the sea and felt the familiar fire, but underneath it now — something steadier. Something that hadn't been there before.
He rolled his shoulders and kept walking.
One more day.