3rd POV

"And what if I will not take it back?"

"Then you leave me no choice! I'll make you!"

And with that, the crowd goes wild as they cheer. It's been a while since Adam has raced against someone else and the people are sure excited enough to watch it go down.

"Yes! A challenger!"

"Oh, no way? We're about to witness a legend, bro!"

"Tear that poser up, Adam!"

As everyone was yelling things out loud, Langa and (Y/n) were both confused about what will happen. Neither of the two knows who this skater is and what his intentions are.

"If I win this match, you apologize to Miya!" Reki tells Adam. The said black-haired boy seemed shocked at Reki's demand because now he was looking at the redhead with a severe look on his face. "I don't need your pity, slime! I'm not afraid of starting over. It's fine. Rules are rules and I can handle it," he tells him.

Even though Miya said "it's fine," he for sure doesn't think "it's fine." "It's not about pity," Reki says. "It's about being done with jerks like him treating others like total crap." Miya was touched by those words because now he was looking up at the redhead boy with a surprised look.

Adam, on the other hand, doesn't react at all to what Reki had just said, which confuses the boy. "Hey! I know you can hear me! I can see your ears sticking out from that mask!" Reki yells to the pro skater. After a few seconds of silence, Adam finally speaks.

"I wonder," He starts. "If we could see our emotions, what shape would they take for the moods we're in?" Reki tilts his head in confusion, wondering why Adam is, all of a sudden, sounding like a poet. "I imagine mine would be a spring. Picture it. The amount of flowing water would reflect what I'm feeling," the dark-blue-haired skater says as he walks around Langa and (Y/n), hopping onto his skateboard afterward.

Reki was getting annoyed with Adam speaking such nonsense. "I'm not here for a poetry reading. I wa--" Reki was cut off short once Adam raised his hand in a fist in front of the redhead, silencing him from talking any longer.

"If we were to look right now, my spring would be a desert. Because that's the level of interest I have in humoring mediocrity. However..." Adam says as he then skates backward, going towards (Y/n) and Langa. Once the nine-year-old saw the creep skater skating in their direction, her grip on Langa's arm tightened as she tensed up while watching Adam skate around the two. "You two. Your talent. It drips from both of you. I've become a river. You've created a deluge of intrigue. Oh..." Adam stops right in front of the two, almost as if he was staring into their soul. "A flow of information has burst open my dam, so I've chosen my prize. I want to skate with the two of you next. How's that sound?"

(Y/n) seemed to have trouble understanding what Adam had said, but after learning a few Japanese words, the only thing that she understood the most was the second to last sentence. She was shocked that a pro skater like him wanted to skate against her, including her friend. Racing Adam may sound like a bad idea, but to the girl, this was another chance for her to get better. Or who knows, maybe doing this will bring her closer to finding her dad.

So with that, she looks up at Adam with a determined look as Langa speaks out loud. "I can't wait," Langa says as (Y/n) nods.

"What?! Langa! (Y/n)!" Reki yells, trying not to believe that his two friends just accepted a death wish.

"Excellent. We've got a deal," Adam says as he looks back at Reki, the smirk on his face never disappearing.

Oblivious to everyone around, (Y/n) was starting to think that maybe this wasn't a good idea after all... But it's too late to turn back now.

Timeskip

The next day, the trio of friends are out at a ramen shop eating... well, ramen. They decided to meet up after the two teenagers were done with school so that they would just have to pick up (Y/n) from the skatepark along the way.

As they were eating, they were conversing about that Adam skater they saw last night. It was more like Reki and Langa were the ones talking while (Y/n) was using her phone to translate their conversation. As she does, she tries to memorize new words that she has not known before.

"So, Adam. What kind of skater is he?" Langa asks.

"He started 'S.' Rumor is he's still undefeated," Reki explains. "Fascinating," Langa mumbles. "Wow," (Y/n) then says as she reads the words translated on her phone. The two of them had stars shimmering around them, looking pretty amazed about this new info they learned about Adam.

Reki could only look at the two in a dumbfounded way. "That wasn't supposed to be a good thing." Reading what Reki had just said on her phone, she let out a sigh.

"Nothing about that skater is good. Man, he reminds me of this one anime character I saw on TV once," (Y/n) says, catching Langa's interest as he looks at the girl with a curious look. Reki, knowing that he won't understand what the two are saying in English, just let them chat for a bit."Which character?" The sky-blue-haired boy questions. "Agh, I don't remember his name. But he did look like a clown and is very good at card tricks," the girl explains as she closes her eyes and thinks back about the character.

Letting out a hum, Langa looks back down at his ramen bowl. "What else you got?" Langa then asks Reki. "That's actually all I have on him, but you could probably ask the founders for more," the redhead explains, which makes Langa wonder who the founders were that Reki just spoke about.

"Who are they?" He asks.

"Cherry, Joe..." (Y/n)'s ears perk up at the familiar skater names Reki had just said. "...Man, I bet they'd love to go off about that guy--"

"Don't listen to him."

Hearing an unfamiliar voice joining in on the conversation catches the trio's attention. Sitting to Reki's right was a tall, muscular man with forest-green hair eating ramen. Reki was the first to recognize who that man was while Langa and (Y/n) were confused about who he was.

"Joe?!" Reki questions out loud. Hearing the redhead say that name made the other two friends realize who this man was. Well, for (Y/n) it did, but Langa was still a little confused.

Kojiro slurps up the noodles from his bowl before he speaks. "I was skating with Adam before 'S.' There's more to him than his performances." As the other three kids were observing this guy, Langa leans over to Reki and mumbled, "Who's that?"

"Joe, one of the founding members! He's known as the six-pack skater! Also the fastest and strongest if you're looking at raw power," Reki explains as Kojiro finishes the rest of his ramen.

Then, out of nowhere, Kojiro wraps his arm around Reki's neck, almost holding him in a choke-hold, and lifts him off the ground. "Come on, you know I'm more than just power!" Kojiro says as Reki struggles in his grasp. "I get it, let go!" the redhead gasps out.

To anyone else, this may look like two old friends playing around. But to any nine-year-old who doesn't speak Japanese, this looks like Reki is being under attack by a famous skater. With worry written all over her face and tears almost forming in her eyes, she tugs on Langa's arm to get his attention.

"Langa, is Reki dying?!" she asks as her eyes don't leave her poor friend who is getting strangled. Langa looks down at her in a reassuring way. "No, he's fine. This is just their way of saying hello," he tells her, which causes her to let out a sigh of relief.

Kojiro took note of the girl speaking in the English language and that made him wonder why she did. Usually, when people in Japan spoke in English it's because they are not from there and are from an English-speaking country. Putting two and two together made him also notice that she didn't look like she was from Japan either.

Langa looked back up at Kojiro as he had a question stuck in his head. "So, back to Adam. What kind of skater is he?" Kojiro snaps out of his thoughts as his attention goes to the snowboarder. Finally letting go of Reki, who was coughing after all of that choking, he sits back down on his chair.

"Well, his nickname says a lot. He is 'the Matador of Love,'" Kojiro starts to explain. "Love?" Langa questions, which causes Kojiro to nod his head. "It has to do with his view on skating. He calls it a ritual of love."

"Yeah, what's up with that? Feels like a stretch," Reki says as he massages his neck. While doing that, (Y/n) hugged his arm, making sure that the redhead is okay. Even though she knows the two were playing around, she was still worried for him.

"His entire game's a stretch. I don't get him now. It's lame." After hearing what Kojiro said, the two teens stare at him with wonder and curiosity. "That said, he's a dangerous skater, make no mistake. Everyone who beefs against Adam winds up severely injured. A lot of them never recover and have to quit skating."

The last thing the green-haired man had said seemed to have struck Reki's heart. It brought back memories of when he had a friend a long time ago. The redhead looks down in sadness as he remembers the incident that happened to his friend. But hearing Kojiro's voice snapped him out of his thoughts.

"Don't want to be the boogeyman, but just keep it in mind," He says as he takes out money from his pocket and places it on the table, standing up when doing so as he looks at the trio with a smile. "Later!" He says with a wink and then walks out as he then calls back to the employee of the restaurant. "Thanks, it was great! Oh, and I'm paying for those three!"

"Come again soon!" The employee calls out as the three friends look down toward the bill on the table. "Seriously, that's not gonna cover jack," Reki mumbles to himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Later on, throughout the day, Reki, Langa, and (Y/n) have been hanging out, which leads them to now. The three are currently at the skatepark as the sun was going down. (Y/n) is on her phone looking at other Japanese words she can learn while Lang and Reki were talking with each other.

"What are you gonna do? About the beef with Adam?" Langa asks Reki. The redhead only leans back on the bleachers as he answers back with an obvious answer. "I'm gonna race him, obviously," he says.

But oblivious to them, they didn't even notice that a certain boy with a sailor outfit was walking towards them from behind. All the more, the two teens continued to talk.

"So what about Joe's warning?" Langa asks his friend with a dumbfounded look on his face. Reki's eye twitches at the question, which causes him to grab onto the drink he had sitting beside him. "You're breaking up," he says as he gulps his drink, only for him to spit it out once he realized that it isn't the coke he was drinking.

Hearing the boy spit out the substance caught the nine-year-old's attention and she now put all of her attention on the redhead. "What is this crap?" Reki questions as he looks at the drink he was holding. It was a protein drink, but what confused him was that he never had this kind of drink with him. A familiar voice coming from behind the trio then made them realize who switched out his coke.

"Better than chugging a can of corn syrup and caffeine."

"Miya?" Reki questions out loud as he and the rest of the friends look up at the cat boy who was holding Reki's coke can.

"You need to take care of yourself. Start with proper training. I made you an exercise schedule," Miya explains as he takes out his phone from his pocket and shows the screen to Reki. There was a whole list of different exercises, but it looked like a little too much for the redhead's liking.

"Five sets of each?" Langa questions as (Y/n) looks over his shoulder to look at the screen, even though she can't read the Japanese writing. "I'm not training for a world title," Reki states.

"Not an excuse," Miya says as he sits on the bleachers behind the teenagers. Reki looks back at the black-haired boy with a look of boredom.

"Come on. Maybe you're taking this a little too far." "It's a start, but not enough," Miya says, which confuses Reki. "You'll need to do a lot more than that to beat Adam."

The other three friends look at each other in confusion, the boys wondering what the champ skater was talking about while the girl was wondering what the cat boy was even saying as she gave a look that read, "Heh?" But after a few more seconds of thinking, a smirk formed on Reki's face as an idea popped into his head.

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Somewhere at a flower shop, a guy with short orange hair and dark eyes is helping his manager close up the shop for the night. "Thanks for staying, Hiromi. I know it's late," the manager says as she watches the said guy finish putting flower pots away.

"All good. What kind of punk leaves his manager alone at night?" Hiromi says as he looks up at his manager with a smile.

His manager then smiles at him warmly as she speaks again. "Well, it does make me feel safer, thank you," she kindly says, which makes the orange-haired man's heart skip a beat as he blushes after seeing that smile. He then stands up straight, still blushing.

"I'm here for you anytime you need me! I'll go return the car for you!" Hiromi says as he runs out of the flower shop and goes toward the pink car. He gets in the driver's seat with a smile, not even noticing the four kids in the car with him. Miya is sitting in the passenger's seat while the other three are sitting in the back, Langa and Reki on the side seats with (Y/n) sitting in between them as they all had blank looks on their faces.



(Like this, except I just added my OC into it.)

"What the hell?!" Hiromi yells as he turns around, finally realizing that there were kids in his car. Reki leans forward as he clasps his hands together in a pleading way. "Please be the dad for tonight and drive us to Crazy Rock, Shadow!" the redhead tells Hiromi, aka Shadow.

"I'm only 24, ya derp!" Hiromi yells as he then turns away from the teen with a nervous look on his face. "And who's this 'Shadow' guy? You seeing things?"

"You don't look that much different," Miya states as Langa nods to his statement, his blank expression not disappearing from his face when doing so.

"I'm begging you! Miya didn't bring his helmet with him and we don't have an extra one for (Y/n)," Reki briefly explains, but Hiromi didn't seem to care about their excuse. "Like I care!" the orange-haired man yelled with an irk mark on his head.

The flower manager seemed to have noticed something from outside the flower shop and called out to Hiromi. "Everything okay?" she asks him, to which the said guy pokes his head out from the car door and responds with a smile saying, "Yeah! Everything's awesome!"

Upon sitting back in the car, a frown appears back on his face as the kids speak once again. "I'm begging! Please?" Reki says as he clasps his hands together.

"Please, sir?" Langa begs as he also clasps his hands together.

(Y/n), not knowing what was going on, copies the boys' actions and repeats the same word they said. "Please?"

"If you don't, I'll tell that girl over there."

Miya's response did the trick. Now Hiromi, face full of his clown makeup, is driving the kids to Crazy Rock. "Just this once, don't get used to it!" Shadow says as Miya is playing on his Nintendo Switch.

Along the drive, (Y/n) was on her phone most of the time. The boys were talking with Miya about Adam and how he first met him. Miya was also telling them about a signature trick he does to his opponents. The girl would have understood everything, but she was too busy learning more Japanese words on the website she uses. If anything, she'll probably ask Langa about their conversation later.

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Meanwhile, at Sia La Luce, the only two people who are in the Italian restaurant are the two founding members of "S," Joe and Cherry. Kaoru I sitting in front of a table with a drink while Kojiro is standing on the other side of the table. At this hour, the restaurant had closed for the night, leaving the two of them to converse with each other that is "S" related.

"So I met Snow and Phoenix this afternoon," Kojiro starts, which confuses Kaoru a bit at the unfamiliar names his childhood friend had said. "Snow and Phoenix who?" he questions. "That's what they call the kid who beat Shadow and the rookie who beat Miya. I guess because the girl was 'on fire' while skating and the other is a snowboarder," Kojiro explains.

Kaoru thinks before he speaks again. "I bet they're the reason Adam's making a comeback," he says, which causes Kojiro to let out a sigh. "Especially the young one. She's very advanced at skating for someone her age... But she's different," the green-haired man states with his arms crossed over his chest.

The AI skater looks at Kojiro with a confused look plastered on his face. "What do you mean by 'different'?" he asks.

"When I was talking with them, I noticed the difference in tongue she had compared to the ones her friends talk with. She was talking in English, which means that she is most likely from out of state. The poor girl didn't know what I was saying, so it was more of me conversing with her two other friends."

Kaoru looks taken aback by his response. He remembers the last time he met her in person before the "beef" with Shadow, but he doesn't recall ever hearing the nine-year-old speak. The first time he saw her outside his calligraphy shop, she was speaking to those two teenage boys, but their voices were muffled from where he stood behind the window. Nonetheless, it all made sense to him. But there was still something on his mind that he needed to find out.

"Were her parents with her?" the pink-haired pro skater asks, which surprises Kojiro, knowing very much of what he's concerned about.

"So you know about those rumors, too?" Kojiro asks.

"They are not rumors! If someone was ever to see her without any supervision from her parent or guardian, she will be sent back to where she came from." Kaoru doesn't even know why he's sounding so concerned about a little girl he hardly ever knows about.

"She seems to be doing fine so far. Just as long as nobody knows that part about her, then I guess she's legal enough to stay here," Kojiro says and then thinks back to when he watched her skate against the clown skater. "But no matter where she came from, she's an excellent skater, and that caught Adam's attention. It's probably been a while since he's felt inspired by anyone."

After taking a sip of his drink, Kaoru places down his glass as he looks up at the six-pack skater. "All the more reason to challenge him to a match," he says as his eyes stare intensely at Kojiro's, to which he does the same thing as he says, "I will, too."

"Copycat!" Kaoru yells as he stands up with a glare, not liking the fact that Kojiro is going to do the same thing he is.

"I'm no copying!" Kojiro defends himself as he leans closer to Kaoru and glares back at the pink-haired skater.

"Then go to the back of the line!"

"You're cute. But I'm not budging! You'll have to fight me for my spot!"

At this point, both the two's foreheads were touching each other with irk marks appearing on the side of their head as the aura around them grew dark. "I have no problem with that. I've got our challenge right here!" Kaoru yells as he stands back and holds up a sheet of paper that says "Calligraphy" on it. Although this may seem easy to Kaoru, this sure enough wasn't a fair challenge for Kojiro.

"You can't use your side hustle that I know nothing about to pose a challenge!" Kojiro yells as he slams his fists against the table. Kaoru only turns away as his glare does not disappear from his face. "The one accepting the challenge gets to choose its nature. That's how it works," he says as if it was obvious.

"And no robot lover is gonna tell me what to do! This is like school day trips all over again!"

"That was in outdoor school, you dopey gorilla!"

(Y/n)'s POV:

The guys and I made it to Crazy Rock and Miya had shown off demonstrating a rail slide to us, like the one he did during his race with Langa. I believe that Reki thought it would be an easy move to pull off, but after a few tries, he would always fall, either in a bush or on the ground. But no matter what, he's still trying.

At this current moment, Miya, Langa, and I are standing by the turn as we watch Reki try to do the trick on his skateboard while Shadow is probably in the car sleeping. Right as Reki is getting closer to the corner, I notice how he positions himself right as he does an ollie and lands on the inner bump of the track. He didn't have the time to catch his balance and that causes him to fall hard to the ground.

As I wince at the sudden impact he made, Reki sits up and yells something in Japanese, probably cussing at his failed attempt. Miya starts talking to Reki, probably giving him instructions on how to do the trick. Reki says something as he then looks around for something.

"...... .. board? .... ...?" Reki asks in Japanese. The only word I was able to understand was the word "board." Wondering myself, I look around to see if I could find it, but I couldn't. "... .. ... ... .." Langa then says as he starts to skate downhill on the track.

Me wanting to help, I decided to follow him. Once I caught up with him, I think back to the time we were in the car and the others were talking with Miya about who-knows-what. I've been meaning to ask Langa about that, so I guess now is a good time to ask.

"Hey, Langa?" I ask, to which he looked at me with a "hmm," as a sign to show that he was listening. "What were you guys talking about in the car earlier before we got here?"

Looking in front of him while we skate, Langa seemed to think back on that time for a second before he looked back at me and responded. "We were talking about when Miya first met Adam," he starts saying, which caught my attention. "Miya explained to us that he would show up every so often when he would practice skating. Ever since then, he got into 'S,' which kind of explains why Adam wants to skate against you and me."

My eyes go wide for a moment before he continues to explain more. "He also told us about a move that Adam likes to pull against his opponent when he skates. He calls it the Love Hug. Miya's never seen it, but Adam does it by skating uphill."

"Whoa. Is that even possible?" I ask with an amazed look expressed on my face. Langa looks down at his board as he shifts his position a bit.

"I don't know. Maybe..."

Langa seemed to trail away in his own thoughts. I could see in his eyes that he wanted to so much try it out and see it for himself. With one swift move, I watch as Langa leans his board to the left and changes his direction so that he was now going uphill. But once he did, he immediately loses balance and falls back, landing on the ground with a thud.

So scared for his safety, I stop my board, pick it up, and then run back to him with a worried look on my face.

"Langa! Are you okay?" I ask him as I knelt beside him. He lets out a groan, which kind of eases my worries because at least I know that he's alive. "Yeah," Langa replies as he sits up.

As he does, I hear the sound of Reki's voice yelling in our direction. "Hey! You okay?" I was able to understand what was being said in Japanese. Langa and I look in the direction we heard the voice and see Reki running in our direction with Miya following after on his skateboard. Once he stops in front of us, he asks something to Langa, to which Miya responds in a bored tone in his voice.

He was probably guessing that Langa tried to do Adam's trick, to which, he isn't wrong. I block out the others' voices as I think to myself about Adam's trick. If he could actually do that, then that means I'll have to see how it works so that it won't throw me off guard and I'm prepared for what's going to happen during a race.

That is... if I do race him.

3rd POV

Later on that night, the skateboarders went to a nearby fast-food restaurant. While Reki, Langa, and Shadow are ordering their food, Miya and (Y/n) are sitting at an empty table. They're both looking down at their phones, each one doing something completely different.

As (Y/n) is learning some new Japanese vocabulary, Miya is getting a tad worried about the whole Adam situation.

'The success rate is 20 percent. That's not enough to defeat Adam,' Miya thinks to himself. Right as he does, the others come back with the food. Reki looked down at what was in front of Miya with a confused look on his face.

"Where's your food? What's that stuff?" the redhead asks as he gestures towards the little protein packets that are sitting by Miya's drink. "They help me balance my nutrition. It's what responsible athletes do," Miya replies as Reki sits beside him.

Langa then sits beside (Y/n) with a tray full of hamburgers. Seeing the sight made the girl's eyes sparkle. The snowboarder volunteered to share his food with the nine-year-old since he was getting a lot. After handing the girl a burger, they both started chowing down, Langa with a blank expression on his face and (Y/n) with a close-eyed smile on her face.

"You know, real food has nutrition, too," Reki says as he gets one of his hamburgers and stuffs it into Miya's mouth. "Here!"

"What's wrong with you?! Are you trying to make me get fat?!" Miya lashes out as he places his hand on Reki's face to get him to stay back. "Watch the brain! Ouch!" Reki yells as he was able to get Miya's clawed hand removed from his face. "We're in a restaurant! At least order from the menu!"

When he said that, Shadow takes a bite of his hamburger and smirks as he looks down at the black-haired boy from his seat. "Heh. I've never known a shrimp to eat like a man, so you're off the hook."

Miya then leans forward as he stands up for himself. "I'm not a shrimp! I'm still growing and you're just a fat old guy!"

"I'm not fat! These curves are all muscle! You think you're gonna grow without feeding your body?"

"No human body should ingest five hamburgers!"

As the two were arguing, (Y/n) looks at the two with a blank expression, feeling kind of okay that she doesn't understand what they are saying because whatever they were fighting about is probably something that she shouldn't be worrying about. (The picture on top of the chapter is what she looks like when eating.)

From the corner of her eye, she sees a waitress place a tray of chicken strips and fries, which causes her eyes to sparkle at the sight. "Here's your super poutine! Thanks for waiting!"