Monday
1:00pm
“No,
you have to improve the control of the speed on your jumps, you’re over
twisting Ami, your feet are saying triple-triple, your body is saying quadruple.
This jump will not work if your waist and your feet aren’t communicating,
think girl, think!”
“Ouch.”
As the girl slipped and fell hardly on her backside. Her legs sprawled
from underneath her, and her palms flat out to protect her head from hitting
the ice as well.
“Again.
Now concentrate on what you are doing.”
Again
the same performance was repeated. Although this time, the girl was slightly
more successful and managed to stay on her feet for a tiny moment longer
than before, before befalling the same fate as previously. Straight on
her backside.
“I can’t
Sensei Narai, I can’t do it.” Ami stood in the middle of the rink, she
couldn’t believe that after all the practice, she couldn’t complete her
triple-triple. She wasn’t concentrating on her jumps, her routine, or anything
for that matter, not only skating.
At first, Sensei Narai had shaken the problem off as nerves, and Sensei Haruna (her teacher from Juben High) had taken it as pre-competition nerves as well when she found that her best student drifted off. Now, Sensei Narai was taking the problem seriously, her star pupil wasn’t going to make it into the top 10, let alone the top 3 if she couldn’t control the speed of her jumps.
The truth
was, Ami was worried. Not about the competition, but about Asuka. These
days, he had become increasingly sullen and paranoid. He acted oddly, almost
recklessly, like someone who was about to die and didn’t care about his
life. He seemed to no longer care about his competition,
his Sensei walked out of his training sessions throwing his arms up in
the air, not knowing what his star pupil was up to. Many a times he had
said care-freely, ‘what’s the point when you might die before the competition?’
She
didn’t want him to think that way. She didn’t want him to be sulking. She
didn’t want him to be pessimistic. She didn’t want him to think of death.
No one
else knew about what Asuka had told her. She didn’t want Rei poking things
at him or sticking pieces of spirit-repels on him, nor did she want anyone
to try and separate him from her because of the possibility that he was
evil. She had even ran a computer check on him while he was sleeping in
the hospital, there was no sign of any Dark power from the Negaverse on
him at all.
In two
days, the 10th of April, the Negaverse entrance and the earth would revolve
to its closest, which also meant that youmas were going to most likely
appear. Unfortunately, it was also the day of the competition. So far,
there had been no movement from the Negaverse of them getting ready to
attack, Rei had got no readings, and nothing could be detected from her
computer. Perhaps they weren’t going to take the opportunity. But it would
be crazy to think so optimistically, because it was on that day that the
youmas could enter into earth dispensing the least amount of energy, which
also meant that if they entered the humanoid space, they would be the strongest
without the need of recovery time.
She
couldn’t rule out the plausibility that she, as Sailor Mercury, would have
to be in action on that night, but she could only hope.
“Ami
what is wrong? Why aren’t you concentrating on what you are doing?”
“I’m
sorry Sensei, its just… I can’t. I’m sorry to have wasted so much of your
hopes, your time.” Ami began convulsing in a fit tears on the side of the
rink, she felt so scared that Asuka might leave her, she felt angry at
whoever it was that was doing this to her. “I don’t think I can do this,
I’ll never be able to skate, I’m sorry.”
Sensei
Narai softened at the sight of Ami being reduced to tears. She wanted to
help Ami, but she didn’t know what was happening, but she knew that it
had something to do with Asuka. The problem that Asuka was having with
his concentration as well. “Take a good night’s rest tonight, and we’ll
start fresh tomorrow afternoon at 5:00pm. Don’t think about your problems,
tonight when you sleep, think of something happy, and when you skate tomorrow,
show hope not despair, show happiness not tears.” She was about to say
show love, but she knew what Ami’s reaction to that would be and refrained
from adding it.
Ami
hesitantly left the rink and took her shoes off. Just as she was about
to leave the rink she turned and forced a smile, “I’ll try my best.”
The
Sensei shook her head as she saw Ami’s slim silhouette from the light when
the door opened, her form walking out slowly, her head drooped from sadness.
She only hope that she knew what was happening, to both Ami and Asuka.
She cared from them both, as a unity and two entities.
Monday
8:00pm
The
ringing phone disturbed Ami from trying to study, although it had been
an unsuccessful attempt anyway. She hesitated before answering the phone,
she wasn’t sure if she wanted to answer it. It was one of the times when
she regretted keeping the classic platinum gold, ivory dial phone in place
of those modern ones which had caller ID. She wasn’t in the mood for Usagi
or Minako’s bubbly nature. The possibility that it might be Rei or Makoto
didn’t cheer her up tremendously either, they never called unless it was
an emergency.
She
decided that she had to pick up the phone, it could be important. It might
be her mother telling her that she would be late tonight, or, she hoped,
that it might be a cheerful Asuka on the other end of the line.
She
was rewarded for picking up the phone when a familiar ‘hello’ came from
the other side. She noted that his voice was different from that of the
past few weeks, there was no longer that sad note to it, it was somehow
more… natural and happy.
“Hi
Asuka.”
“Um…
am I disturbing you by any chance?”
Ami
couldn’t help but add a tinge of a smile to her answer, Asuka had always
been one for ambiguous questions. “no, did you hope to?”
“Depends
on what it is that you are doing, I might want to. Hey listen, you remember
the Swan Lake thing I promised you?”
“Uhuh.”
“I got
tickets for the matinee tomorrow, at 10:00am. Can you come?”
“I’ve
got training at 4:00pm.”
“You’ve
got plenty of time, and after watching it, you’ll probably feel more like
skating anyway. So can you?”
“Yeah,
I’ll see you then ok?”
“See
ya!”
As she
put down the phone, she jumped up from the couch and twirled around on
her toes. She felt like she could dance all night, like she could fly.
Her heart leapt out of her throat, she knew she could fly. This must have
been what Sensei Narai meant when she said ‘sleep with something
happy on your mind and think of something happy when you skate’,
this was what hope meant.