The beginning

We left my grandparent's house in Shiralin at 10 in the morning, and we arrived at our new house in Tokyo at 1 in the night. My mom said the ride was going to be long but I didn't expect it to be this long, it was almost 15 hours. My Mom drove the car inside the garage, once the car was parked I slowly got out and went through the only door in the garage, it leads to the inside of the house. I went through the door and walked through darkroom until I hit something, I couldn't see what I hit, I used my hands to feel what I hit and when I realized it was a couch I jumped on it and fell asleep in a few seconds.

The next morning I woke up to the sound of my mom talking on the phone, "Sorry, I won't be able to attend the meeting today, I am staying home with Ash, he was really sad about leaving his grandparents, so I think I will just keep him company today, and show him around town, I will just try to keep his mind off his grandparents."

"Who was that?" I asked through my yawn as I slowly opened my eyes.

She turned around and looked at me, "You're finally awake," mom said.

"Who was that?" I repeated the question, more clearly this time.

"That was the principle of your new school," She said.

"Why do you have a meeting with the principal?" I asked

"Haven't I told you already?" she asked.

"No," I responded.

"Oh, you must have been asleep when I told you last night, I am the vice principal at your school," she responded.

"What? Why-"

"Enough with all these questions here eat your food," mom said as she brought breakfast for me. The food looked delicious, a bowl of rice that was hot, bacon that was beautifully cooked, and still sizzling.

"Wow, you know how to cook," I said when I saw the food. I have never seen her cook, so I didn't expect her to be able to cook.

"After you eat look around the house, it's a pretty big house," mom said.

After finishing my breakfast I did what my mother told me. I looked around the house, on the first floor was the kitchen and living room which were combined together to make a large room. The hallway that leads from the entrance to the living contained a bathroom on the right and a room for the washing machine as well on the right. A bit further along the right just before the door to the living room, there were stairs that lead to the second floor, on the second floor were three different rooms and another bathroom. My room and my mom's room was up there as well as an office room where my mom probably did her work. I went downstairs to the living room and through a glass door which leads to the backyard. The backyard wasn't too big but it wasn't small either. The backyard was half the size of a baseball diamond. After I looked at every part of the house my mom took me on public transport to show me around the area. She showed me most of the different routes that lead to the school, as well as some small shops and restaurants that I might be interested in. This was all amazing but it would have been much better if grandma, grandpa, Ray, Archie, and Perez were here with me, I thought to myself.

After Saturday where I spent the day sleeping and exploring the house and the rest of the area from school to my house, the weekend went by quickly and before I knew it, it was the first day of school.

Monday, 8:45 am

I am sitting in my class, so far I knew that this school was huge. There was a large indoor gym, which had a large basketball court and two small ones it also had two volleyball courts. Outside there was a large playground and three tennis courts right next to the playground. There was also a large field that contained two football fields and finally, there was a baseball field, my favorite part of the school. Unlike the school in Shiralin, this school was a large building that contained students from kindergarten to 12 grade. In this school, I was placed in second grade, which was surprising at first but then I realized that I had been held back in my old school, since I missed many classes, homework assignments, and I constantly ran away from school. After school, one of my teachers helped me get to the baseball field where I played baseball with students from third to fifth grade. The students in my class, second grade, were really bad compared to the people I played with in Shiralin. Compared to Ray the 5th graders here could just barely pitch harder than him. When we got to hitting practice, the fielders moved really close because they thought that I wasn't able to hit the ball far, so when the ball came I hit it over the heads of the outfielders and all they could do was stare as the ball flew over them. The coach a fifth-grade teacher looked really surprised when he saw how far I could hit the ball. After practice one of my fellow second graders came up to me and told me that I was going to be on the baseball team, he also told me that I am one of the top 5 hitters on the team which made me really happy.

*3 years later*

Today is the last practice before my final baseball tournament of elementary school starts. I knew we were going to win, just like we have been winning for the past three years, two out of the three years I have been named player of the tournament, which was amazing for me.

This was the last pitch of today's practice, Shirin was batting, he was the second strongest hitter on the team. Two strikes, zero balls, I pitched the ball to Shirin, he hit it straight back at me, to my right. I quickly reacted and used my right hand and tried to catch it. I didn't have a glove on my right hand, but I unconsciously reacted to the ball which seemed like it was moving faster than a bullet, I reached for the ball, it hit my index finger and deflected to third base where Sho caught it comfortably. Everyone went over to Sho to celebrate his catch, while I sat there on the ground holding my right hand. I was in pain, I was in unexplainable pain, but I didn't cry or scream, I sat there with my right hand in my left, trying to twist and turn my finger and it hurt like hell. Coach noticed, he rushed over to me, and soon after everyone followed, "I think my finger is broken, Coach," I said calmly.

"Don't worry, it's not broken it's probably just twisted or something, let the nurses check it out," he responded.

Shirin came with me to the nurse's office.

"Do you really think it's broken?" he asked.

"Yeah, it hurts like hell," I responded.

"Sorry," he said with a sad wavering voice.

"Don't worry it's baseball these things happen," I responded cheerfully, which kind of cheered him up.

"Well, it's your fault anyway for trying to catch the ball barehanded," he said.

"It was just a natural reaction, I couldn't do anything about it," I said.

We got to the Nurse's office, they looked at my finger, stretching, twisting, and turning it, then they asked me a few questions about what happened. After about 15 minutes, they told me that I should go to the hospital, and get an x-ray of it, by then Shirin had gone back to practice and probably told the coach that I won't be able to play anymore today.

The next day while my team was at the baseball tournament-winning and having fun, I was stuck in math class with a cast on my hand. For the next few days, since I couldn't play baseball and I didn't want to watch, I watched the football team practice. I walked behind the goal as they played, and then out of nowhere the ball came at me and hit me on my right eye. The football player that hit me came to apologize while the rest of the players surrounded us. They insisted that I take a penalty, against the team that hit me with the ball, so I did. I stepped back about three meters from the ball, I aimed at the top right corner of the goal, I ran in and kicked the ball as hard as I could. The ball flew and missed the goal by about 2 meters.

After 2 weeks the cast came off my hand but I still wasn't allowed to play baseball, so I kept watching the football team play.

Today was a Friday and it was the last day of school before winter break, only seven people came to football practice, the seven guys that came wanted to just play a match, but they had an odd number of players, so the coach invited me to play. I told him I couldn't but he insisted and got me to play, I played in goal.

At the end of practice, the score was 7-1 for my team. I only let in one goal and that was when it was 3 on 1. The football team's coach, Mr.Han was really impressed with my goalkeeping and invited me to play for the football team, I really enjoyed the game I played today so I said yes.

Soon before I knew it, I was in middle school playing football as a goalkeeper, and I loved it until a better goalkeeper replaced me. I was on the bench, which I hated so I left being a goalkeeper and played midfielder. At first, I would just kick the ball in front of me and ran after it, a strategy that worked very well since I was so much faster than everyone else, but soon enough I learned to dribble that ball keeping it close to my feet.

In middle school, I played football for all three years, the first year of middle school I didn't make the A team and our team won, the second year our team was undefeated and the lowest score we won by was 3-0 which was the final, and in the third year we lost, we got to the finals and I assisted in the goal that we scored but soon after the opponent scored and the game went to penalty shootouts. Everyone before me scored comfortably, I was the fourth penalty taker for my team, I kicked the ball as hard as I could and it went through the goalkeeper's hands into the net. After I took my penalty and barely scored, it was our captain's turn, He kicked the ball over the goal and we had lost the final game.

Before I knew it I was in 9th grade, I was in high school,  the first day of school was Wednesday, I got my class schedule met my homeroom teacher and my classmates. It didn't feel as interesting as I was expecting. On Thursday I signed up for the football team with a lot of other people, our first practice was tomorrow on Friday.

*Next Morning*

It was Friday and the day of my first football practice in high school. I breezed through the day like the wind through trees. It was 3:45 in the afternoon, I put on my football uniform and went out on the field to train. The girls' football team already started training on the second football pitch. After a while of waiting for the coach, he came out and we started our first training. It didn't really feel like practice because we played a match for the whole time. After Practice I walked home alone today since my friend, Kageyama, who I usually walk with had a doctor's appointment. As I walked along the sidewalk I saw a shell-shaped crystal that had the colors of the rainbow. I picked it up to admire how beautiful it looked, and then a man wearing a hoodie came from behind and told me it was his, without any hesitation I gave the crystal to him and kept walking my eyes fixed on my phone. I walked into a fence, when I took my eyes off my phone I realized I was on the school grounds, on the football field, along with other classmates of mine, and some of my friends from other schools that I made throughout the football and baseball tournaments.

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