At the Finish Line [Haiji Kiyose] - Run With the Wind

thirty-seven - day 1

"Prince," Haiji sits down, lips pursed. "I'm sorry I forced you into this."

Prince looks at him, Haiji's expression that of sincere honesty and guilt.

"You know, it seemed like that to begin with. But now," He looks around at the other runners. "Not so much. Yes, you guilted me into it, but your intentions were good. Now I'm just lucky enough to pass the sash onto the next runner."

Surprised by his words, Haiji smiles. "Thank you, Prince. Really, thank you."

"You can't thank me until we finish the race. Which, speaking of--"

An official holding a clipboard walks into the centre of the room, calling out the order of runners, including Kansei. "Please begin to prepare yourselves to make your way over to the starting line. 25 minutes remaining."

Haiji looks at Prince, his eyes bright. "Ready?"

Prince sends him a curt nod.

-

As the race has begun, Chiyo sits in the back of the van with an official, struggling to keep her eyes open. She keeps nodding off, in and out of sleep only to wake herself up either by her head falling back or not wanting to miss the race.

"Chiyo, you shouldn't worry about staying awake," Tazaki says from the passenger seat.

She rubs her eyes. "Why's that?"

"As Prince says, he's not expected to be the stand out runner, he's simply passing the sash on to continue the race."

Chiyo nods, covering her mouth as she yawns and looking down at her lap to see her phone ringing.

"Hello?" She croaks.

She hears a laugh on the other end of the phone.

"And I thought I was tired," Yuki says. "Have you slept at all yet? I'm guessing you managed to sit in the van?"

"Yeah, I'm with Tazaki-sensei..." She shifts in her seat. "I slept a little but it's difficult for me to sleep even when I feel exhausted."

Yuki sighs. "I know. It'll be fine though. Can you see Prince?"

"Since the start is quite slow and there's no real gap between runners, we're basically in a queue of vans," Chiyo explains, rubbing under her eye. "There might be a change soon though. How's everything?"

"I'm grabbing some vitamin orange juice drinks from a vending machine," Yuki tells her. "Our train will be here in a minute so I thought I'd call. He's checking up on Musa now."

Chiyo huffs. "He shouldn't worry about anyone else at this point."

"That's what I told him," Yuki exhales. "Anyway, I'll leave you to it. Speak later."

The two hang up and Chiyo places her phone in her lap, turning to the official sat next to her.

"Sorry, can I ask how many km's we're at now?"

"17km. The average is 3 minutes and 7 seconds per km." He tells her.

She thanks him, her tired brain not even being able to calculate the rough average of the top runners and compare it to Prince's performance.

From the passenger seat, Tazaki's phone starts ringing and he answers.

"Hello? Yes, he's doing fine. Nothing much is happening, despite being at almost 20km, but he's running well. Yes, she's alright, she's in and out of sleep, aren't you, Chiyo?"

She looks up from her lap. "Is that Haiji? Where is he now?"

"He's at the next checkpoint, ready for Prince to arrive," Tazaki tells her, returning his attention to the phone call. "Yes... Yes, I can let him know."