(S26) - PT 4 - It could be a bowling alley!

[Jiggly_333]

It’s late. A normal Thursday night for Fukushuu. The team technically doesn’t allow her in this late, but she prefers to do these things with no one else around. The silence is only broken periodically by the sound of the splat of snow against the window as the wind picks up. When she got in here, it was about 10PM on December 24th. It’s now about 2 hours later. Mai looks out across the now dimly-lit room. Empty. She gets up from the machine she was working with, wipes it down, puts her weights away, and walks out into the hallway towards the locker room.

At her locker, Mai discovers a package. Whether or not Mai is a mystical being or just some girl from an island in the south of Japan, she had never experienced Christmas before. And even in multiple years she’s already spent in America, she hasn’t built any relationship with anyone enough to receive a present. Everyone was pushed far away. But here was a present. There was a label with her name, not in English but in kanji. No indication of who it’s from. She opens it to find a small stuffed wolf. A cute little toy.

In all her time in the DSFL and the NSFL, Fukushuu has held the same expression of blank disdain for those around her. No one has seen her appear any different. And with the room empty, that would remain the same. But in that locker room, lit only by an emergency light near the doorway, Mai smiled as she cried, clutching that stuffed wolf to her chest.