Ping Pong: partial
..ahahah. ahahah. someone kill me.
for erin-sama. because I can.
What Kong wants the most, other than winning, is someone to tell him that it's okay for him to lose. That's what he finds in Japan, between Smile, who doesn't, and Peco, who does.
(smile or lose, Kong means.)
Smile does lose and does smile, Kong realizes, but what really counts is that Smile thinks it's okay to lose and (of course, but not really) okay to smile when you lose. It's not love of ping-pong or Peco or reconfirmation of self that Kong ends up finding in Japan, although he finds that too. It's Smile Kong really wants: the chopper who plays to lose, a pair of glasses to reflect the sky, the audacity to not care.
Kong needs someone to tell him that ping-pong is not life. He needs, he needs. Smile has; consequentially, Peco does too.
Kong still remembers when he first got dropped from the Chinese national team. He was a skinny little Hong Kong kid in sunglasses and Shanghainese-corrupted Mandarin wandering into a barbershop that doubled as a tattoo parlor. He had magazine cutouts in his hands that he dropped on the counter, pointing to his neck, the backs of his legs. Not his arms, because you can see those above the ping-pong table. 'Ni dong ma?' he had asked, and then told them in Cantonese, 'Nobody gives a damn here.'
His coach had given him hell when he finally got back. 'What are your parents going to say?' he had asked over and over again. 'How were you sure it was safe? Who's going to take care of you? How am I going to explain to your parents?' Already the bandages over the designs had to be removed and there were encrusted body fluids everywhere. Kong was careful. Everything ached. He wore his sunglasses into the shower that night, watched the water stream past his eyes without getting his face wet.
The next morning he was up at dawn practicing his smashes and his coach came down to tell him he was an idiot and his tattoos were going to get infected if he didn't take proper care of them. The sweat stung under the designs. Kong had reached down to scratch them by instinct. His coach slapped his hand away. 'You good-for-nothing!' his coach had shouted. 'It's over if you ruin your body. Getting dropped off the team was bad enough, now you make yourself a hoodlum. Do you hate ping-pong? Do you hate yourself?'
Kong that morning had thrown his paddle against the ground, where it split along the edge, the pip side parting from the rubber. After that they sent him to Japan, where Peco tells him, "You taught me how to fly," and signs with his hands: you. me. up.
During the match between Peco and Dragon, Kong turns to his coach and says, "I'm glad I came here. I'm glad I came and didn't go to Germany or anywhere else." Kong watches Peco off of his feet, flying; watches the small white ball like a skipping stone back and forth; watches Peco mouth words and a melody to himself, something only he can hear.
His coach says, "Good."
In between that match and the final match between Peco and Smile, Kong takes a short nap against the banisters of the upper deck. Through broken imagery, he dreams he can see far past the ping pong tables, can see past the audience to the staircase, where he imagines Smile sitting under a faux spotlight, hunched over like an old man, a rubix cube in his hands as colorful as the tattoos on Kong's skin. Then even past that, to the beach and the concrete, where Kong can see himself watching Smile walking backwards through the sand, eyeing the birds. In Cantonese, Kong says, 'You taught me everything. Even how to lose.'
In Japanese, Kong says haltingly, 'You taught me how to fly.'
Smile says nothing.
A/N: oh forgive me for butchering the series. I promise never to do it again.
for erin-sama. because I can.
What Kong wants the most, other than winning, is someone to tell him that it's okay for him to lose. That's what he finds in Japan, between Smile, who doesn't, and Peco, who does.
(smile or lose, Kong means.)
Smile does lose and does smile, Kong realizes, but what really counts is that Smile thinks it's okay to lose and (of course, but not really) okay to smile when you lose. It's not love of ping-pong or Peco or reconfirmation of self that Kong ends up finding in Japan, although he finds that too. It's Smile Kong really wants: the chopper who plays to lose, a pair of glasses to reflect the sky, the audacity to not care.
Kong needs someone to tell him that ping-pong is not life. He needs, he needs. Smile has; consequentially, Peco does too.
Kong still remembers when he first got dropped from the Chinese national team. He was a skinny little Hong Kong kid in sunglasses and Shanghainese-corrupted Mandarin wandering into a barbershop that doubled as a tattoo parlor. He had magazine cutouts in his hands that he dropped on the counter, pointing to his neck, the backs of his legs. Not his arms, because you can see those above the ping-pong table. 'Ni dong ma?' he had asked, and then told them in Cantonese, 'Nobody gives a damn here.'
His coach had given him hell when he finally got back. 'What are your parents going to say?' he had asked over and over again. 'How were you sure it was safe? Who's going to take care of you? How am I going to explain to your parents?' Already the bandages over the designs had to be removed and there were encrusted body fluids everywhere. Kong was careful. Everything ached. He wore his sunglasses into the shower that night, watched the water stream past his eyes without getting his face wet.
The next morning he was up at dawn practicing his smashes and his coach came down to tell him he was an idiot and his tattoos were going to get infected if he didn't take proper care of them. The sweat stung under the designs. Kong had reached down to scratch them by instinct. His coach slapped his hand away. 'You good-for-nothing!' his coach had shouted. 'It's over if you ruin your body. Getting dropped off the team was bad enough, now you make yourself a hoodlum. Do you hate ping-pong? Do you hate yourself?'
Kong that morning had thrown his paddle against the ground, where it split along the edge, the pip side parting from the rubber. After that they sent him to Japan, where Peco tells him, "You taught me how to fly," and signs with his hands: you. me. up.
During the match between Peco and Dragon, Kong turns to his coach and says, "I'm glad I came here. I'm glad I came and didn't go to Germany or anywhere else." Kong watches Peco off of his feet, flying; watches the small white ball like a skipping stone back and forth; watches Peco mouth words and a melody to himself, something only he can hear.
His coach says, "Good."
In between that match and the final match between Peco and Smile, Kong takes a short nap against the banisters of the upper deck. Through broken imagery, he dreams he can see far past the ping pong tables, can see past the audience to the staircase, where he imagines Smile sitting under a faux spotlight, hunched over like an old man, a rubix cube in his hands as colorful as the tattoos on Kong's skin. Then even past that, to the beach and the concrete, where Kong can see himself watching Smile walking backwards through the sand, eyeing the birds. In Cantonese, Kong says, 'You taught me everything. Even how to lose.'
In Japanese, Kong says haltingly, 'You taught me how to fly.'
Smile says nothing.
A/N: oh forgive me for butchering the series. I promise never to do it again.