The golden child

Eight years ago …

“Okay, that's all of your stuff here now,” said Hikari as she set down the final box on the floor close to him.

“Are you sure?” He ran his hands over his basketball, its bumps like white noise against his fingertips.

“Yeah.” She hesitated. “Want me to put that away for you?”

He stifled his immediate irate response. “It's okay. This one's innocent.”

She cleared her throat softly as if she believed he wouldn't hear her.

“So what do you think of it then?” she asked. “The place, I mean. It's not exactly a new building but it's got some of the most disability friendly apartments in the area.”

“It feels nice,” he said after a short but heavy pause. The word disability still made him twitch, especially when he didn't expect it in a conversation. “You're going to have to tell me if it actually is though.”

“They have a door code here so you won't have to worry about any with key issues at least, right?” Her tone had grown both louder and brighter over the last few years, as if to make up for the expressions he could no longer see.

Sometimes she didn't sound like the person he knew.

“Yeah. Hopefully no one will sneak up behind me and see my password when I get back home,” he murmured, laughing over the shake in his voice. “I should probably get my ears checked too, just in case.”

She sat on the floor next to him and he tensed up as she patted the middle of his back.

“Don't worry,” she said. “I'll let you borrow my eyes as often as I can.”

He huffed at her with a grin. “What if I don't give them back?”

“Then I'll steal your feet so you can't go anywhere.”

“Fine by me.”

~

Four months ago …

“Yota's got an appointment in the evening,” said Hikari. “But I'll have to go before then. D'you think you could take him there for me?”

Yota paused outside the living room. Clearly she hadn't heard him shuffling down the corridor of the family home which seemed longer than he remembered. His mental map of the house wasn't as clear as the one he had made of his new place.

“Of course,” said Mrs Oshiro. “Your dad will be back the day after and he'll need to rest so I don't think we'll be able to make it, I'm afraid.”

“That's okay,” she replied flippantly. “Once I go international, you won't be able to make it to most of my matches anyway. So I'd better get used to it now, right?”

“I'm sorry, Kari.”

“Don't be. It's okay, really. How did dad's meeting go?”

The rest of the conversation trailed off into a tinnitus-like ringing. Hikari wasn't going to be with him during such an important appointment? The doctor was going to discuss potential surgical options for the damaged nerves in his eyes, as well as any related pros and cons. She always knew what to say to them and which questions to ask to ensure that they would only do things that were in his best interests.

What if Mrs Oshiro didn't know how to do that?

Yota gulped, rubbed his face with both hands, and smiled when he entered the living room a minute later. Even though they both had a perfectly functional pair of eyes, neither of them noticed the worry that straddled his back and dragged down his eyebrows.

But perhaps it was better that way.

~

Three months ago …

“Okay, I'm off,” said Hikari, giving him a brief slap on the shoulder. “D'you think you'll be okay getting back to the car?”

Although she had asked her mum to park in a spot further away from the coach for his sake, she hadn't realised the rest of the coach station was just as overstimulating. Aside from the one that would take her away from them to the airsoft tournament site, other coaches rumbled past them continuously along with equally endless waves of conversation that battered him on all sides.

He nodded, unable to trust himself to speak as petrol fumes and mixed food smells pushed him closer to a version of himself he could never forgive.

“Let me know what the doctor says as soon as you can, okay?” she said. “I'll check my voicemails whenever I get the chance.”

“Mhm.”

“What's wrong?” She chuckled, tapping his nose. “Are you getting nervous for me? When did you get so cute, huh?”

“Why would I worry about the greatest upcoming global airsoft champion in the world?” He tried to smile away the words that could suffocate them both.

“True.” She laughed again. The petrol fumes infiltrated his blood stream and suddenly her laughter was a blazing matchstick. “See you later then.”

The wheels of her suitcase scraped across the ground. He was supposed to listen to the sound fade away. Maybe even hold up a hand to send her off with the confidence that had already taken her so far in life, and the graciousness she deserved after all she had done for everyone else, himself included. He had had no intention of saying anything to her besides goodbye.

“I wish I could say the same to you,” he muttered.

The scraping slowed, then stopped. He held his breath and hoped she had simply forgotten something in the car.

“What do you mean, Yota?” Her tone was calm. Neutral.

She didn't have time to hang around here with him and they were both fully aware of that.

“Nothing,” he mumbled.

“That's not what I heard,” she spoke slowly, giving him the chance to make an excuse, apologise, and maybe even defend himself.

“It was a joke.” Several pairs of eyes opened in the void of his skull. He cringed as they all focused on him.

“Then why aren't you laughing?” Her suitcase wheels scratched their way along the ground back to him when he didn't answer. “Why did you say that?”

“I don't know.” He tried to focus on the concrete beneath his shoes, but her sharp confusion cut through the overwhelming sensations of the coach station and coiled around his throat like a offended eel.

“I told you not to make jokes like that,” she said. “Not at your own expense.”

“And I told you my appointment was today but you're still leaving,” he snapped. “So I guess it's fine if we don't listen to each other sometimes, right?”

“Your appointment?” she repeated. He tugged at the neckline of his T-shirt but it still dug into the front of his neck like a noose. “But I –”

“Yes, I know you asked your mum to take me instead,” he said with a harsh chuckle. “It's not like we can have the golden child of the Oshiro family run late for her big match just because their stray's eyes don't work any more.”

She didn't respond straight away, still unable to break the character she had carefully built around herself as a child. He jumped as her hand closed around his left shoulder.

“What the hell are you talking about, Yota?” Her tone was gentler than her choice of words. “How long have you been thinking stuff like this, huh?”

“It doesn't matter,” he replied, managing to grab her forearm without fumbling like an idiot. Her touch lingered like the echo of a burn mark after he pulled her hand off him. “Not more than your match. You should go.”

“If you wanted me to go, you should've told me something this important earlier,” she said, catching his wrist before he could pull back. “How am I supposed to do anything now I know you feel that way?”

“I don't know.” He shrugged but her trembling hand sent an unpleasant shiver right the way through him. “You're the amazing one who can do anything you put your mind to, not me.”

“Yota –”

“Just go,” he said, pulling his arm free and turning away. He knew he had only been able to do so because she let him. “One of us should live up to our potential and make it big, shouldn't we? It's the least your parents deserve after all the crap I put them through.”

“You didn't –”

He silenced her indignation with a wave and smiled on the off chance that Mrs Oshiro could see them from the car.

“Good luck, Hikari,” he said, his mouth dry around the words. “Not that a winner like you has ever needed it.”

He didn't recognise himself.

“Yota!” Neither, apparently, could she.

It was the first time she had raised her voice at him in anger. The first time he had wanted to leave her side voluntarily. She didn't follow him back to the car and Mrs Oshiro didn't question him about anything as he slid into the passenger side seat.

The warmth of Hikari's presence lingered in its leather cushioning. The chill of his own words remained in his body all the way home.

~

It rained the next day despite the end of spring heat that had kept everyone else in high spirits for the last few months. Yota sat on the end of his bed with his phone in both hands. Hikari hadn't made contact with him yesterday. Neither had Mrs Oshiro, which probably meant the two of them hadn't spoken about the argument he had had with her.

The appointment hadn't gone as well as he hoped and he wanted to talk to his best friend about how risky the operation to restore his eyesight would be. He wanted to call her as if nothing had happened between them. He wanted to apologise for all of the ungrateful things he had said to her the day before.

Expressing himself so fully should have made him feel lighter. Instead, the ugliness of his behaviour filled his veins with hundreds of coins that would never amount to much. His phone vibrated and his fingers tightened around it for a moment before he answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Yota.” Mrs Oshiro's voice was faint, half air and half water.

“Is everything okay?” he asked instantly, his heart thumping.

“No.” Her composure shattered against his simple question in seconds. “It's Hikari.”

His lungs stopped moving. “What happened to her?”

“There was an accident,” she began but bouts of high pitched ringing disrupted the rest of her explanation.

He heard the words bullet, faulty equipment, eye, and brain.

And then he didn't hear anything at all.