#taichi x mimi

loser

Hey Big Star, you shine too bright

“Hey Big Star” by Kishi Bashi

“Why’d you lose?”

The ringing in his left ear builds, a ribbon of tension coiled around his head like a taut rubber band, ready to snap. Oh, but the vengeance he’ll wreck on Hikari for leaving her behind with him, like she didn’t know exactly what she was doing parking her car a little hike away. No one ever believes him about his sister’s wiley ways, yet here he is, foiled once more, unable even to stew over a series of game-costing blunders in peace and quiet. As if losing five-four on a penalty shootout isn’t punishment enough.

“Wasn’t planning on it." 

They’re waiting for Hikari on the curb a block up from the field, just far enough for him to avoid being recognized or, worse, publicly pitied. Early afternoon light checkers through the plane tree above them, but she’s still wearing her wide brim sunhat low over her brow, a lock of cinnamon hair curled between manicured fingers. Seafoam green, painted with little gold stars. Could point out the mixed up geography, but has accepted by now that her mind doesn’t quite work like anyone else’s he knows. The terror this knowledge inspires. 

“I guess no one plans on losing.” She’s still talking, and he holds his throbbing head in his hands. “But you must go in knowing someone will, right?” Looks over at him with the biggest, roundest, widest eyes. “Did you know pretty early it was going to be you again, and that badly?” 

Yeah, he’s definitely going to get some sweet, sweet revenge on Hikari for this.

“Mimi.” He’s sure he’s saying her name kindly, but the way her chin drops tells him his voice is just a touch too rough, the kind of hoarse he can’t blame on yelling across the pitch for the last ninety plus minutes. “I’m – you know, if you could, like, keep it down a little? For now?”

“Oh.” Sits up, arriving at long last at an epiphany. “Your head hurts?”

“Yeah.” Whimpers it to fish a little more sympathy, hoping it’ll be enough to get her to finally for the love of all that is good and pure in the world stop.talking. 

“Because you lost?”

A vengeance so swift and so exacting. 

“No.” Heaves a sigh a sliver short of mortal despair. “Just the heat.”

“It’s summer.”

“Yuh-huh.”

“Your neighborhood pick-up league plays in the summers only, right?”

“Mm-hm.” 

“So you’d be used to playing in the heat.”

“Mm.”

“Which would be fine on its own, but you’re used to losing, like, all the time now, too, so I’m sure your headache is also abou – ,”

“I don’t always lose!”

Blinks at him with the biggest, roundest, widest eyes. “…No?” The most innocent of inquisitions, a genuine question, like it had truly never occurred to her not that he might actually not be a loser, but that he might actually be bothered being one. 

“No!” He’s standing now in his grass stained kit, right elbow scratched raw and bandaged knee to shin on both legs. Kicks at the concrete curb anyway, earning nothing but a stubbed toe for the impulsive loss of control. Doesn’t stop him from losing more of it, ready to animatedly act out the play by play of football’s top ten worst calls in the history of the sport, all ten of which he’d witnessed this very day, and, no, that is not an exaggeration. “It was one stupid game!”

Her neck craning as she follows his furious pacing up and down the sidewalk. “But – but all the games before? This whole season – ?”

“Fine! One stupid season!” Throws his hands up, like he could fight the sky itself. He knows he’s careened all the way off into grown man tantrum land, but she’s so absent of judgment he’s oddly fine letting her be the only one to see his most childish side at his big age. Kicks the air one last time, lets out all the stress and frustration and seeping realization that he’s bordering past his prime, unable to keep up with his youngest teammates, the faster players, their hushed knowing glances at the picture he made of their own inevitable future. Aged out, no matter how talented. How’d he let that happen? 

“I – ,”

“And the refs were totally paid off!”

Her scandalized mouth drops open, sunglasses slid to the tip of a pert nose. "They were?”

“Yes, they – ,” and stops, because her eyes are now so big and so round and so wide they could just about pop out of her head. He laughs at the thought, this proof of her still so quick to believe him, and in him. The burst of self-pity dissipates, brief as it usually is, all things considered. Hard to feel very sorry for himself when she’s looking at him like he still calls the sun out every morning. The terror this knowledge inspires, grinding his still fresh loss with an entirely new flavor. How many losses does he have, before she starts looking at him differently, too?

“No, of course not.” He stops in front of her, uses just one finger on the metal nose bridge to push her sunglasses back into place. “I just mean, I know I can do better.” 

“Oh! Well, of course, you can! You bounce back,” she beams. “Like me!”

Smiles, an honest one that time, his finger still resting on her nose. “I guess we do have that in common.”

“We do! You and I,” tilts the brim of her hat upwards, “we get back up. That’s why we’ll be okay.”

She’s being kind, including herself in otherwise unlikely company, softened blow. But he knows better.

This is The Speech. He’d heard her give it to everyone else, already. Sora, on portfolio days, or Jou nearly daily, regardless of reason. Koushiro when he’d hit setbacks starting his corporation so young, Yamato writing his graduate thesis. Takeru’s collection of rejection letters from literary journals, or every one of Daisuke’s failed culinary experiments. Miyako and Hikari’s unforgiving journeys through the job market, Ken and Iori in the throes of municipal license exams.

Thing is, those disappointments are all part of their grown up lives, the consequences of adult decisions, inevitable hallmarks of maturity. The sorts of setbacks deserving of patient encouragement and kind-hearted support, the beacon she is. This isn’t like those. This is latent stubbornness, holding on to his youth, to the beautiful game leaving him behind before he could get himself ready for the end. He doesn’t know how else to look at himself.

“I’ll be okay when I win.” A declaration into the void, issuing the challenge to the universe itself. “You’ll see yourself, next time.”

Blinks again, confusion flooding her glass face. Never could keep a thought to herself. “Taichi, if I wanted to see someone win, I’d go to Sora’s games.”

Shoves her backwards with his palm flat to her nose, making her squeal as she tumbles gently onto the grassy patch bordering the sidewalk curb, sunhat spinning off. A gust of wind catches it, and her shriek takes on an audibly squeakier quality, and now he’s scrambling in aching knees, her indignant shouts his only admonishment. Not that he’s really all that sorry, when he finally trots back to where she’s standing, culottes speckled with dirt and sunglasses clutched in one hand, the other fisted to her hip in a posture of severe disappointment in his choices. He tries not to laugh again, mood thoroughly uplifted.

“You really are a sore loser,” she says, grumpy when she snatches for her rescued hat. 

He doesn’t relinquish it, easily dodging her. Swoops around the back of her head with the hat in both hands instead, setting it firmly on top of her hair, pushing the band well low to her ears. “I really am. So watch that mouth.”

“You watch it.”

Like he doesn’t. 

”‘kay,“ and grins, and gives in. Aging out, maybe, but he won’t act it yet. Sneaks in a kiss to her cheek, chaste and friendly, a childish way to say thanks.

Her hand bunching the sweaty collar of his jersey shirt, pulling sharply down. Meets her mouth in an all too disastrous landing, crashed lips and scraped teeth and bumped heads. A very bad kiss, if he’d had to rank it, spectacularly awful, despairingly fitting for the losing streak he’s been stuck in all season. Does nothing to help his tension headache. Does everything else instead. How’d he let that happen?

His turn to be shoved back, stunned flat on his ass on the sidewalk. Looking up at her with his big, round, wide eyes. 

She laughs, holding her hat to her head, windswept. Looking at him like she could help him call the sun out, if he’d ask her. “Get back up, Taichi. You can do better than that.” 

(we all saw the kiss, but only @polite-pandemonium and I yelled about it in the DMs, so this extremely dumb little drabble is for her ❤️)