notharry | Set the Stage: Chicago Sports Night

A college basketball game wasn't really the sort of thing Haley usually showed up for. She wasn't, strictly speaking, much of a sports fan. Too much else to worry about. College sports, particularly local ones, were even lower on the scale than your typical one on television-- not that she could watch those, anyway.

But she had to pay the bills, and she was here as a consultant. A hundred bucks for a couple hours watching some kids play and assuring her client that there wasn't actually any magic going on was an easy hundred bucks. So she'd found herself a seat as far from the electronic scoreboard and announcer's booth, reined in her magic as best she could, and even bought a cheap little churro from the kids selling them for fund raisers or whatever it was. All she cared about was it was food, it was hot, and it was tasty enough to distract her from how stupid it was to expect magic in sports.

Except there was magic going on. She'd never actually seen anyone use magic on a basketball court before, or really in any other sport to be honest, but that's definitely what was going on. Nobody else really seemed to notice. "Great, now I gotta talk to the kid," she muttered, and slipped out before halftime-- to the squeal of a speaker trying to die, as she walked past-- to loiter outside the locker room and wait for wonder boy to come out, after the game. She might've looked a little creepy in the college hallway, in her long black coat and port pie hat, but at least she didn't have her staff or blasting rod or anything. That would just have looked weird.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

There's no chance of missed nuance in that blunt statement, nothing that might have passed Reo by that could change its meaning to anything less horrifying. He tries to resist it, but he can't; he knows exactly what she said, he knows she means every word, and he never has been any good at lying to himself.

What he doesn't know is how to respond to any of it, or at least any of the parts she clearly thinks are most important. His mind seizes instead on the part she dismisses, the part that she doesn't understand any better than he understands most of what has happened in the last five minutes.

"Watashi wa watashi no gēmudesu," he blurts out.

. . . no. Wrong language. He takes a breath, flips the language switch in his head, tries again.

"I am my game," he says, quietly this time, because it's true. He wouldn't be here, in America, playing on a scholarship he could have gotten from any number of Japanese universities, if basketball weren't a fundamental cornerstone of who he is. If it hadn't been that way for almost as long as he can remember.

"There's no reason you can't still play once you get your magic under control," Haley shrugs, letting the light on her pendant die down and tucking it back under her shirt. "It's all about discipline. And who knows, you might get better at it-- discipline's not exactly a one-game-fits-all kind of skill. Just we'd try to make sure in the future you'd be playing your game without the bits where you're controlling other people. If you're willing to let me help, that is."

Controlling other people.

He doesn't want to understand that, but it's still sinking in, landing in his stomach and making him feel sick.

He always enjoyed the looks on their faces back home when they found that they couldn't move, especially with the homophobic ones, because they always thought that they were going to be the one who would break through it. And when Hyuuga Junpei - who'd looked up to him as a player right up until he realized Reo was gay, then sneered at him like he was disgusting - when he did break through in that impossible game against Seirin, it spurred Reo to work even longer and harder hours on improving his play, and the next time they faced Seirin, he flung Oblivion at Hyuuga so hard that it didn't just freeze him, it knocked him on his ass.

He remembers suddenly how that had felt, what he had thought was a burst of angry satisfaction so fierce it was physical, and wonders what exactly he did to Hyuuga. What exactly he's done to dozens and dozens of players over the years.

(He wants to deny all of it, but he's always been a smart and observant player, and every little discordant thing he's never quite been able to explain, every protest of impossibility from other players and observers, all the little things he didn't even consciously realize he'd noticed - it's all coming together now in his mind to build a picture he can't even begin to deny.)

He's beginning to look almost as sick as he feels; the offer of help feels like a lifeline.

"Yes," he manages, "yes, of course. Thank you."

Haley waits patiently for all that to go through his head, and most of it to go across his face. Then she offers a little grin, trying to look reassuring and pleased. She is pleased, but reassuring isn't really her best expression, not when it's with somebody actually taller than she is. She's better when she can crouch down to get on a youngster's level. Even if this guy probably is only about half her age. "Good kid," she says, and at least that comes out properly encouraging. "We can start any time-- I'd say now, but you look like you could need a little time to get used to things. Going in trying looking like I just hit you with a freight train probably won't help anything sink in, and won't be any good for concentration, either. You wanna meet tomorrow morning for breakfast somewhere, have a talk and I'll fill you in on what we'll both need to do to get this taken care of?"

It's also an offering for him to pick the place. Somewhere public and familiar, so he wouldn't feel cornered or vulnerable-- if he wanted that kind of reassurance, anyway. Haley might not be the best people person, but she'd been doing this a long time, too.

"Good kid" should feel condescending, maybe, but at the moment it's reassuring. Reo may be legally an adult in America, but not yet in Japan, and he's not used to thinking of himself as one, so it's comforting to know that he has one on his side for this. An experienced one, even, who went out of her way to find him and isn't just going to leave him to deal with the bomb she's dropped on his life.

The suggestion about breakfast also reminds him that he'd promised his captain he wouldn't go anywhere unfamiliar with her. That seems distant and almost irrelevant now, but a promise is a promise.

"Yes, ah - do you know Kelly's Diner, about a block from the college? If we meet early, everyone will be too tired to listen."

Because that does seem relevant - this is all supposed to be a secret, after all, isn't it?

"You'd be surprised," Haley says with a wry chuckle. "Anybody who overhears will probably think we're either nuts, playing some kind of game, or else assume they misheard us. But better safe than sorry, too. See you at, say, eight am?" Obviously she knows where the diner is. She's spent her whole life her, and actually has a lot of friends in the area of the college. She's even eaten there before-- with a small pack of college-aged werewolves, no less.

"Yes," Reo says, "eight AM." That will give them hours before his first class, assuming he even goes; he very much doubts his ability to focus right now.

"Thank you, Ms Dresden." He just barely resists the urge to bow, even though his sense of propriety insists that he owes her such a display of gratitude and respect for so generously offering her time and energy to help him. He has no idea what Americans consider appropriate thanks for such a gesture. A gift of some kind? Paying for her breakfast, at the very least.

(It's easier right now, to focus on the more peripheral details.)

[cont here]

Edited 2015-04-23 14:45 (UTC)

Set the Stage: Chicago Sports Night

Please forgive my Google Translate Japanese. At least I can promise the pronoun is right?

haha, close enough for me XD

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject