He wasn’t the best at comforting people. In fact, he wasn’t even really average at it, but he had to do something to get Naruko to calm down, he was already beginning to make a scene with his distressed yelling and over the top reactions to minor details. He knew yelling and screaming were futile, as were fighting and wishing to be back, those wouldn’t work or get them to the Inter-High any faster. No, all they could do here was keep training and suck up the fact they were bikeless and stuck in this hell of a city. Who knows, maybe they’d even begin working toward getting those bikes sooner or later, right? They couldn’t go without them forever after all. Sure it was complacent and reeked of lack of effort but what could they do somewhere so new and different from where they were from.
For the first time in what seemed like a long while, Imaizumi didn’t know. He didn’t know what to do about this city. He was too new, too uninformed, too out of place to devise anything automatically. This wasn’t just being out of your element, in those situations you adapt. No, this was akin to being told you had to run the Inter-High while everyone else biked. There was nothing you could do with the rules and it took everything you had to keep up, much less figuring out why it was happening.
“He might not be able to hear us, but that doesn’t mean we’re not supporting him. Also, not the entire team is here, so at least it’s not like the entire team abandoned him. We didn’t even abandon him, we never asked to be here. So all we can do is hope he can do it.”
-— 「☆」 —- For the first time in what felt like forever, his rival’s words weren’t encouraging, they weren’t able to lift his spirits, or caused him to take another deep breath and try his hardest. In fact, the only thing they did was make him more anxious than he already was. Finally, the grasp he had on his teammates jersey loosened, until his hands slid off of his body, hanging at the sides of his own body. Staring down at the ground, he remained silent, which was very unlike him, dwelling in the heavy silence that filled the atmosphere around them. They stood in the middle of a great city with tons of noisy residents in all shapes and colours, yet all the sprinter could register was his conversation partner and how silent he was.
He couldn’t believe that the other didn’t had a solution for this - no, rather, it would have been more unpredictable for him to know a way out of this hell they were stuck in. While being unable to hide his disappointment and frustration, the redhead noticed for the first time since they had met how easy it was for the other to influence him and how much his words meant to him. One sentence was able to completely take the wind out of his sails, if he didn’t clung to it, stubbornly and desperately as always, too proud to admit defeat. Naruko Shoukichi wouldn’t lose - not to this city, and not to this stupid hotshot.
Finally, a grin spread across his lips, his head raising again as he laughed at the other, loudly and enthusiastically as always. “Kakaka!”, he chuckled, crossing his arms in front of his chest while glaring up at the other, his head tilted into a confident smirk. “What’s with that lukewarm answer? Did ye get so scared in the big city that ye crapped your pants or somethin’? Don’t worry, I’ll find a way outta here and take ye with me.”
“Then ye can tell everyone how the great hero Naruko saved ye, hotshot!”