After putting the tools away and storing the bow and daggers safely in the old gym so Sakura doesn’t find them and hurt herself, Lee goes and takes a shower.

  On the following day, Lee’s alarm clock rings; he turns it off and is about to get out of bed, then remembering his promise to Kenji, he just lays back down and goes to sleep. Around one in the afternoon, Lee is shaken awake by Sue, who went home for lunch.

  “Lee, are you feeling alright?” she asks, panic etched in her voice.

  Lee gets to a seated position in bed and looks at Sue with one eye open. “Morning, mum,” he says, then scratches his head. “Why are you in a panic?”

  “Lee, it’s one in the afternoon; why are you still in bed?” Sue asks, running her hand over Lee’s body to see if he is injured.

  Lee stretches with a yawn. “Because dad wanted me to do more things like a kid of my age,” Lee says, then rubs his face. “So the first one that came to me this morning was remaining in bed.”

  Sue stands up straight and looks at Lee. “So there is nothing wrong with you?” she asks, and Lee just shakes his head.

  Sue chuckles and shakes her head. “Come downstairs; lunch is ready.”

  “Okay, I’m only going to wash my face,” Lee says getting out of bed and heading to the toilet. Then he joins the rest of the family at the table in his pyjamas and barefooted.

  For the rest of the week, Lee acts like a child of his age: sleeping in, playing games, and watching cartoons; the only difference is the teaching of Sakura, Latin, and meditation. But as he is not exploring or hunting in the woods, Kenji and Sue don’t say anything. For more than once, as Lee is playing in the garden at the back of the house, he notices the brown wolf near the edge perimeter of the woods looking at him, and sometimes it is not alone.

  On Saturday, Sue and Kenji take their children to the park for a bike ride; Lee finds some friends from school.

  “Hello, Naxy,” Lee says approaching the group of four kids where his friend is. “How is your summer going?”

  Naxy turns around and fist-bumps Lee. “Hello, Lee; they are great,” he says, then adds, “Tomorrow I’m going out to visit my relatives in another town,” he says crestfallen.

  Lee looks at his friend. “It seems you don’t like it there, do you?” Naxy shakes his head with a shrug. “Why? Is there nothing interesting to do?”

  “There is…” Naxy says, and his shoulders slump. “But my grandmother lives in a place full of houses, and I can’t go out like I do here. There, things are too far from her house.”

  “Where are you going, anyway?” another boy asks, and Lee recognises him from another class.

  Naxy looks at the boy. “I’m going to Niigata, Joujirou.”

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  “Niigata?” Joujirou asks surprised. “But you have loads to look at; there is the flower gardens, and you have a coast of beaches.”

  “I know,” says Naxy, shoulders slumping. “But only my cousin that lives there can take me, but he is still working, and the beach is almost an hour drive in the summer.”

  “Can’t you take your console with you?” Lee asks. “That way you can always play your games.”

  “Yes, I will take it,” Naxy says, then with a smile he adds, “But forget about that now; let’s have a race.”

  The five of them agree and compare the bikes to be sure no one will cheat, then they set the route for the race. After selecting what bike trail they will take, Lee informs his parents.

  “So it’s five of us; we will do five laps. The first one here after five laps wins,” Joujirou suggests, and they all agree. Then after scanning the code into their bikes, a hologram interface of the track map shows up. Joujirou creates the group and decides how many laps it will be; as the rest join the group, five dots show on the map.

  Then they approach the starting line, but Sue approaches the group. “Hold on a second,” she says as they are about to start. “Show me the parental code.” Lee opens the menu and gives her the code for parents to track so they know where the children are on the event that something happens; then on her phone, the track map shows up with the five dots and a list of who is participating and their corresponding dot colour.

  “Ready?” Naxy asks, and as everyone nods, he presses the start button.

  A countdown starts to sound from the five bikes. “Five… Four… Three… Two… One… Go!” At go, the group of five take off down the track. For the first lap, Lee stays fourth, not going too fast as he is memorising the track; on the second lap, he remembers where everything is and by the end he gets to third place.

  On the last lap, Lee is right behind the first place; halfway, he passes and gets some distance. Then as he does the last turn, he finds someone ahead in the middle of the path; as he gets near, the only way he has is by going through the jump. He moves his bike towards the jump; as he gets closer, the other four behind him have a clear view of the person in the middle of the path. Then they see Lee taking the jump and going over the person; while in the air, Lee notices just how high he actually got, so he pulls his bike up by leaning backwards and does a backflip in the air before landing and continuing. The person, noticing that there are four more, jumps out just in time for them to pass.

  Lee gets to the finishing line and a message saying "Winner" shows on his hologram.

  “That was crazy, Lee,” all four say as they get near him. Nexy grabs his helmet camera and sends the recording to his phone. “How did you do that? I have never seen anyone doing it.”

  Sue, noticing the commotion, approaches the group; so does another woman. “What happened?” Sue asks.

  “Look at what Lee did,” Naxy says and plays the recording on his phone. “At first we didn’t know why he used the jump.” Naxy continues just as the image shows Lee approaching the jump. “Then we thought it was to show off, until he does this!” In the image it shows Lee doing the backflip and a person standing under him, then the person is seen looking at the rest of the group and getting out of the way.

  “There you are. Rexan, did you find the guy?” says a male voice.

  The other woman that is by them shakes her head. “You told me that it was fast, but that it had to be an adult.” And Lee takes it that the name of this woman must be Rexan.

  The man approaches. “It was too fast; I only noticed the shadow overhead, then as I looked up the track, he was off at an incredible speed.” As the man approaches, Lee recognises him as the person that was in the middle of the track.

  Rexan shakes her head. “Ben, the guy you saw; it was this child,” she says pointing at Lee.

  Ben looks at Lee. “He is dressed the same way, but no way; no child would be able to do what he did.”

  “Does anyone understand what they are speaking?” asks another boy of the group; the name on the display says his name is Jack, but Lee is not sure if it’s the real name or a nickname.

  Lee looks at the boy then at the man and woman, and realises that they were speaking in English.