The train ride to the edge of the city took an hour. As the skyscrapers of the University district faded into low-slung warehouses and overgrown lots, Karen looked increasingly out of place. She was wearing her $300 custom-fit compression gear, carrying a thermal-regulated racket bag that cost more than a used car.
"Where are we going, Mikoto?" she asked, staring at a rusted water tower. "The air smells like wet pavement and old tires."
"We're going to the only place where the 'Kodakawa' name doesn't mean anything," Mikoto said.
They hopped a chain-link fence at the back of a defunct community center. Behind a row of dying willow trees lay a single tennis court. The net was a sagging piece of nylon held together by zip-ties. The surface wasn't professional blue; it was cracked green asphalt with weeds pushing through the service lines.
Karen stopped at the edge of the baseline, her lip curling in a mix of horror and confusion. "You’re joking. I’ll break an ankle on these cracks. This isn't a training facility, it's a hazard."
"It's a mirror," Mikoto countered, dropping his duffel bag. He pulled out two rackets—not the high-end Yone-X ones, but two battered wooden frames he’d pulled from the back of the apartment’s storage. "At the University, you play against a machine. You play against a ranking. Here, you play against the ground. If the ball hits a crack and bounces weird, you don't get to complain to a ref. You just have to be fast enough to catch it."
He tossed her a wooden racket. She caught it with one hand, looking at it like it was a primitive bone tool.
"This is a relic," she muttered. "The sweet spot is the size of a postage stamp."
"Exactly," Mikoto said. He walked to the other side of the sagging net. He felt the familiar cold sweat on his palms, but the open air and the lack of a crowd kept the panic at a dull hum. "If you can hit a winner with a wooden racket on a cracked court, Ren Kurosawa’s psychological games won't mean a thing. Because you'll know how to survive the mess."
"And what are you going to do?" Karen challenged, bouncing a ball. It hit a weed and skittered sideways. She cursed under her breath.
"I'm going to be the person who breaks you," Mikoto said.
For the next four hours, the "Iron Ace" was humiliated.
Mikoto didn't play like a professional. He played like a street fighter. He used the wind, he used the uneven bounces, and he used the "dead" spots on the wooden rackets to drop balls just over the net. Every time Karen tried to use her "Power Serve," the lack of modern graphite technology made the ball fly long or dump into the net.
"Again!" Karen screamed, her face red, her expensive gear covered in dust from a fall.
"Your footwork is lazy," Mikoto called out, his voice cold. "You’re waiting for the ball to come to you because you think you’re 'The Ace.' On this court, you’re just a girl in a park. Move!"
By sunset, Karen was leaning against the rusted fence, gasping for air. Her hands were blistered from the wooden grip, and her pride was in tatters.
"I hate you," she wheezed, looking at Mikoto.
"Good," Mikoto said, walking over and handing her a bottle of lukewarm water. "Hate me. Use that. Because when Ren starts talking about your family, or your 'failed' caregiver, you're going to want to scream. I want you to turn that scream into a cross-court volley."
Karen took a long drink, then looked up at him. The sun was setting behind him, casting a long, dark shadow across the court.
"You didn't have a single panic attack today," she observed quietly.
Mikoto froze. He looked down at his watch. 82 bpm. "I was too busy making sure you didn't trip over a weed."
"No," Karen said, standing up and stepping close to him. She reached out and touched the frame of the wooden racket in his hand. "You were too busy being a coach. You forgot to be a ghost."
She leaned her forehead against his shoulder, her heat and sweat soaking into his shirt. "Same time tomorrow, Mikoto. I'm not leaving this dump until I can beat you with this stupid piece of wood."
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