The colors dance. Bathing the streets in pink, yellow, green. Each sign tugs at Kita's vision, promising one wonder after another. He concentrates on the task at hand. Keeps close to Osamu.

In all this chaos, his friend's an anchor. Height and presence almost as familiar as Kita's own.

"Last Nationals - My First Year - It was so icy people kept fallin'," Kita recalls. "We couldn't go walkin around."