Tendou set his life's plan in motion when he was still in middle school. The allure of a Parisian lifestyle called to him from the cold halls of a school that didn't want him there, the backs of teammates that despised him, the city that he couldn't belong to. He was twelve, thirteen, dreaming of lights under Notre Dame, the language of love, a city that didn't know him. A fresh start with no bullies, with no eyes. A world he could make his own, where he'd be in control. This dream single handedly convinced him to put one foot in front of the other. Thirteen, fourteen.
Tendou did not - does not - consider the possibility of friends on Japanese soil. His heart has already been sold to France, so when his world starts turning, and there are suddenly lights in Japan, and the Shiratorizawa team begins building him brick by brick out of the person he used to be, he doesn't even know it's happening. The lack of connection he had felt his gone, his social skills repaired, his heart beating. He wins victories, he feels losses, they do it at a team. He loves and he learns and he grows up, because everyone always grows up. He knows how to walk the Japanese streets with his head high. He knows how to make friends with those who matter, he knows how to make his own world turn. And the years click down. Seventeen, eighteen, graduate of Shiratorizawa.
He doesn't need to leave now. Though he had spent his life in longing of Paris, he realizes now that to go, to run, is to walk away from the world he had built. That he could build. Did he need to go, still? Was Paris not an escape? Everything he had ever wanted is in the palms of his hands, here in Japan, so does he go?
Sure, he was shutting his own doors. He was burning bridges. Across the ocean, across a continent, he lays awake in a timezone of all his own creation, cut off from life at Shiratorizawa, the cardiac monitor that had kept him alive. He realizes now that he is the only reason he doesn't have friends at his door. That he is the reason he lost his community. That he is the reason he is alone, he walked out, he left, he got on the plane. He could have stayed, he could have had almost everything he wanted.
And he couldn't be more grateful for it.
Shiratorizawa gave him one last gift - the opportunity to leave by choice, rather than running with his tail between his legs. Paris is no longer his asylum. Paris is a stadium, for him to take by storm. A life he could not have lived if he had not learned to love Japan. He stands under lights before Notre Dame, and watches the planes take off across the night sky, and breathes the air of the life he chose.
Besides, he'll see everyone at Christmas.
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