Rin knows, deep, within his fledgling heart, that his Nii-chan will be the best striker in the world.

You love winning, baby, you want it all—and Rin wants to win with you. You let him feel the brass of youth soccer championship trophies in the palms of his sweaty hands; he grasps the weight of your world with stubby fingers that can’t quite wrap around the bottom yet.

Rin also knows that you are the best big brother in the universe. Mama and Papa talk about him as if he is a rubix cube, an unsettled dog. The other children talk about him as if he is a crooked fence, or a nursery rhyme’s Black Sheep. But you are his best friend—and they don’t mean much anyways.

You know better than him. He doesn’t understand what big boys do.

His breath comes quick under autumn air. The Kamakura ocean scintillates into little crescent-waves under the sun; he has to squint to look at it. The air smells of salt, of perspiration and of wet leaves. Rin doesn’t like the rain, it means he can’t play outside. But the puddles are opals, and the field is nice beneath his junior cleats, so it isn’t all bad.

A soccer ball rests beneath your feet. Pass, shoot, pass, shoot—practicing defines skill. You aren’t quite the best-big-brother when you make him redo it again. Rin doesn’t understand much other than the innate tickles he gets when he gets near a goal, the overwhelming, unquestionable smell which guides his playing; you don’t understand much other than the fundamentals which guide into a fluid, graceful goal. He tuckers out fast; thirty minutes have passed, he feels days of exertion.

“I’m tired,” Rin huffs. His voice is high, unweighted yet by the passage of years and distinctly childish. Distinctly little-brother. Sweat creeps down his temples in snail trails. He repeats, “Nii-chan, I’m tired.”

Drool comes down from the corner of his mouth: Rin loves you, Nii-chan—he doesn’t care.