Bab 19: Saika Totsuka
The start of a new month came with new gym activities. At my school, three
gym classes were merged into one, so you had a total of sixty boys who were
subsequently split into two units. Until recently, we'd been doing volleyball
and track. This month, it was tennis and soccer.
Neither Zaimokuza nor I were really team players. We were more like
solo superstars who focused on individual technique. And so, judging that
we'd actually be a hindrance in a soccer scenario, we both chose tennis.
I was the man who threw away his soccer career due to that old leg injury
after all. Not that I'd ever actually played soccer. But apparently, a lot of
people wanted to play tennis this year, so following a fierce rock-paper-
scissors tournament, I remained alive on the tennis side while Zaimokuza
lost, getting consigned to the soccer side.
"Heh, Hachiman. 'Tis tragic I will have not the opportunity to unveil my magic strike. With whom am I supposed to practice passing with if you're not
around?!" His sentence had started firm and resolute, but by the end of it, his
expression was tearful and pleading. It was quite moving. And I was likely to
have the same problem.
Then tennis practice started. After some half-assed warm-ups, the gym
teacher, Atsugi, gave us a lecture on the basics. "Okay then, try doing some
rallies. Split into groups of two, one person on either side of the net," he
ordered, and everyone paired up, moving to either end of the court.
How can you guys react so quickly, finding partners without even looking
around? Are you masters of the no-look pass or what?
My loner radar pinged, detecting a public shaming on the horizon. Fear
not. I keep a secret plan in my back pocket precisely for situations such as
this. "Um, I'm not really feeling well, so can I just hit a ball against the wall?
I think I'd just be a bother to the others," I announced, and without waiting
for Atsugi's reply, I swiftly proceeded to rebound a tennis ball with the wall
as my partner. Once I got started, Atsugi had missed his opportunity to reply,
so he didn't say anything.
Absolutely perfect.
The synergistic objection combo of I don't feel well plus I'd be a bother is
so effective because of the implication that you really want to participate in
the given activity. After many long years as a loner, I'd finally mastered the
ultimate technique for dealing with pairing off in gym class. I'll teach it to
Zaimokuza, too, eventually. He'll weep tears of joy.
I passed the time serving the ball, chasing it, and returning it deftly in an
almost mechanical fashion. Meanwhile, I could hear the cheers of raucous
boys celebrating fancy rallies.
"Hya! Whoa! Nice, huh? Pretty sweet, huh?"
"That was so sweet! There's no way he's gonna get it! You've got this
one in the bag!" they exclaimed, looking like they were having fun as they
practiced volleying.
I turned in their direction, thinking, Shut up and die, to find Hayama
among them.
Hayama's group was less a pair and more of a quartet. There was the
blond guy he often hung out with in class, but who were the other two? I
didn't recognize them, so they were probably from Class C or Class I. Either
way, they were exuding a cool-kid aura. It was the most boisterous spot in the court.
The blond who'd failed to return Hayama's smash suddenly yelled
"Whoa!" and everyone around glanced his way to see what was going on.
"Oh man! That hit just now, Hayama! That was so hard-core! Did it spin? It
just spun, right?"
"Nah, I just hit a slice by accident. Sorry, I messed up," Hayama
apologized, one hand raised.
The blond completely overreacted, drowning out Hayama's apology. "No
way! A slice?! That's, like, a miracle ball! That's seriously crazy. You're
hard-core, Hayama."
"Oh, you think?" Hayama matched his friend's energetic attitude and
smiled cheerfully.
Then the two who'd been practicing beside them chimed in. "You're
pretty good at tennis, Hayama. Teach me how to do that slice you just did."
The sycophant approaching Hayama had brown hair and a quiet expression.
He was probably in the same class. I didn't know his name and, given that,
figured he was no one important.
In a flash, Hayama's group had become a sextet. It was the largest party
ever to grace this class. You know, the word sextet sounds rather like sexroid.
Yes, yes, it's dirty, very dirty.
Anyway, that was how the tennis lessons became the Kingdom of
Hayama. It began to feel like if thou art not in Hayama's group, thou shalt
not participate in PE. Naturally, everyone who wasn't in Hayama's little
circle got all quiet. This is censorship. Bring back free speech.
You'd rightly assume that Hayama's group was rowdy, but it wasn't
Hayama himself actively starting conversations. It was the people around him
who were noisy. Actually, it was the self-appointed cabinet minister of their
contingent, the blond one, who was loud.
"Sliiiice!"
See? He was loud.
The shot the blond had just made wasn't a slice at all. It went wide past
Hayama into a corner of the court, flying to a dark, dank place where the sun
did not shine. In other words, right at me.
"Oh! Sorry! Pardon, for real. Um…uh…Hi? Hikitani? Hikitani, can you picked up the ball from where it was rolling around and threw it back to him.
"Thanks!" A brilliant smile on his face, Hayama waved at me.
I returned his greeting with a slight bow. Why was I bowing here? I'd
apparently instinctively judged Hayama to be my social superior. Even I had
to admit that was beta of me. I was feeling so inferior, I even wondered if
there were other, better betas out there than me. My feelings growing
ncreasingly gloomy, I smacked them against the wall.
With youth, there comes walls.
Speaking of walls, why is the slang term for a girl with small breasts
nurikabe? I wonder. According to one theory, nurikabe are actually
magically transformed tanuki—you know, the wild Japanese raccoon dog—
and the barrier spirit is actually the tanuki's balls stretched out wide. What
kind of wall is that? Certainly a surprisingly soft one! And doesn't that means
that, paradoxically, that small-breasted girls being belittled as nurikabe are
actually really soft? QED, proof complete. Stupid.
At any rate, that wasn't the kind of thing Hayama could figure out. That
miraculous hypothesis was only made possible by my extraordinary
sensibilities.
***
Lunch time.
I was eating lunch in my usual spot, outside the first floor of the special-
use building, right by the nurse's office, diagonally from the rear of the
school. It was situated in such a way that I could look over at the tennis court.
I munched away at a sausage roll, a tuna rice ball, and a Neopolitan bun. I
was at ease.
A rhythmic thumping like a hand drum seduced me into drowsiness.
Apparently, during lunch hour, a girl from the girls' tennis club practiced on
the court. She always faced the wall, served, and then gallantly chased after
the ball before returning it. I watched her running around while scarfing
down every last bite of my meal.
Lunch hour would likely be over soon. I slurped lemon tea from a juice
box as the wind whooshed by. Its direction had changed.
It depended on the weather, but because the school was right by the sea,
the direction of the wind generally shifted around noon. In the morning, a sea
breeze blew off the water, but then it would change to blow back the other
way, as if returning from whence it came. Feeling that breeze on my skin as I
sat alone wasn't a bad way to spend lunch.
"Huh? Oh, it's you, Hikki." The air current carried a familiar voice to my
ears. When I turned to look, Yuigahama was standing there, holding down
her skirt against the blustery wind. "Why're you in a place like this?"
"I always eat my lunch here."
"Oh, really? Why? Wouldn't you rather eat in the classroom?" she asked,
the look on her face telling me that she was sincerely baffled.
I replied with silence. If I could do that, I wouldn't be eating here, duh.
Get a clue, seriously. Let's change the subject. "Anyway, why are you here?"
"Oh, that's right! Actually, Yukinon beat me at rock-paper-scissors, so
this is, like, my punishment?"
"Talking to me is your punishment?" Hey, that's really mean. Maybe I'll
just go off and die.
"N-no, no! The loser just has to go buy juice!" Yuigahama got all
flustered, flailing her hands around in denial.
Oh, that was good to hear. I'd almost gone and killed myself there. I
sighed in relief, and Yuigahama plunked herself down daintily beside me.
"Yukinon didn't want to at first, though. She was like, 'I can obtain my
own sustenance myself. Why should fulfilling a mild desire for conquest
bring me pleasure?'" For some reason, she imitated Yukinoshita's voice as
she said it. It was stunningly accurate.
"Well, that sounds like her."
"Yeah, but when I said, 'You don't think you can win?' she accepted."
"That sounds like her." Yukinoshita tried to act cool, but she really was a
sore loser when it came to competitions. I mean, she'd taken on Ms.
Hiratsuka's challenge the other day, too.
"So, like, the minute Yukinon won, she silently did this tiny fist pump. It
was actually really cute." Yuigahama sighed in satisfaction. "I kinda feel like
this is the first time I've had fun getting punished for losing a game."
"You've done that stuff before?" I asked, and Yuigahama nodded.
"Just a bit."
The moment she said it, I suddenly remembered. Oh yeah, there was always that dumb-looking group in the corner of the classroom around the
end of lunch making a fuss after a game of rock-paper-scissors…
"Hmph. Fun times with your in-crowd, I guess."
"Why d'you have to act like that? You're so mean. So you hate that
stuff?"
"Of course I hate stuff like in-crowds and in-jokes. Oh, I like in-fighting,
though. Because I'm never part of the 'in.'"
"That's a sad reason, and you're a terrible person."
Leave me alone.
Yuigahama smiled, holding her hair back as the wind blew past her. The
expression on her face was different from the one she'd had when she was
with Miura and her friends in the classroom.
Oh, I saw why.
I couldn't be entirely certain, but I thought her makeup wasn't as heavy as
before. She'd changed it to a more natural look. Or maybe she'd changed it at
some other point before. But I never go staring at girls' faces, so I don't
really know. I suppose this was proof that she'd changed. It was a pretty
small change, though. With nearly no makeup on, her eyes relaxed when she
smiled, making her seem younger and more guileless.
"But you've got your own in-crowd, Hikki. You always look like you're
having fun when you're chatting with Yukinon at the club. Man, sometimes I
feel like I can't join in." Yuigahama pulled her legs in and hugged them as
she spoke, burying her face in her knees as her eyes darted toward me
questioningly. "I'd like to talk more and stuff… N-not in a weird way,
though! I-I mean with Yukinon, too! You get that, right?!"
"Relax. I'm not going to get the wrong idea about you."
"What's that supposed to mean?!" Yuigahama jerked her head up, huffing
mad.
When I saw her get ready for a punch, I thrust out a hand, trying to get her
to calm down before I spoke. "Well, Yukinoshita is different. She's a force
majeure."
"She's what?"
"Hmm? Oh, force majeure means 'powers or circumstances that cannot be
resisted with human ability.' Sorry for using such difficult words."
"That's not what I meant! I understand what the words mean! And don't
treat me like I'm stupid! I did pass the entrance exams to get into this school, you know!" Yuigahama chopped me in the throat with her hand. It was a
clean hit on my Adam's apple, and I choked.
A faraway look clouded her eyes. "Hey, speaking of the entrance exams,
do you remember the day of the entrance ceremony?" she asked me earnestly.
"Huh? Khoff khak khak… What? Oh, I was in a traffic accident that day."
"An accident…"
"Yeah. On the first day of school, I was biking there when some idiot let
go of their dog's leash. The dog was about to get hit by a car, so I protected
the dog with my own body. I was so gallant and heroic and super-cool."
I guess I was dramatizing it a bit, but as nobody else knew about the
incident anyway, nobody would care. More importantly, since nobody knew
about it, nobody else was gonna bring it up, so I had to make myself look
good.
On hearing that, though, Yuigahama's face twitched, and she stiffened.
"S-some idiot…? Y-you don't…remember who, Hikki?"
"Well, I wasn't really in a frame of mind to be thinking about that. I was
in a lot of pain. Whoever it was didn't leave much of an impression on me,
anyway, so it was probably somebody pretty bland."
"Bland…? I-it's true I wasn't wearing any makeup that day… My hair wasn't dyed, either, and I
was wearing some pajamas or something I just threw on, but… Oh, but the pattern on my pj's was
teddy bears, so maybe it was a little dumb-looking…"
Yuigahama's voice was so quiet I couldn't hear what she was saying at
all. She barely opened her mouth as she chewed on her words, face downcast.
Did she have a stomachache or what?
"What's wrong?"
"N-nothing… Anyway! You don't remember that girl, right?!"
"Like I told you, I don't remember… Huh? Did I say it was a girl?"
"Huh?! Uh…you did, you did! You totally said it! Actually, you said
nothing but girls!"
"How creepy do you think I am?" I retorted, and Yuigahama tittered as if
hiding something as she turned to look at the tennis court, a smile still on her
face. Her movement drew me to face that direction as well.
The tennis club girl who'd just been practicing by herself was coming
back, wiping off her sweat as she walked.
"Hey! Sai-chaaaan!" Yuigahama called out, waving. Apparently, it was
someone she knew. When the girl noticed Yuigahama, she ran to us at a trot.
"Hey. Practicing?"
"Yeah. Our team is really bad, so I have to spend my lunches practicing,
too… I asked if I could please use the court at lunch, and I finally got the
okay. What are you and Hikigaya doing here, Yuigahama?"
"Aw, nothing much." Yuigahama said, turning to me like Right?
No, I was eating my lunch, and you were in the middle of running an
errand, weren't you? What kind of birdbrain are you? Don't forget stuff so
fast.
The girl, whose name was apparently Sai-chan, giggled, as if to say, Oh,
really?
"You're practicing at lunch even though we're doing tennis in class, huh,
Sai-chan? That's got to be rough!"
"Oh, no. I'm doing it because I like it. Oh, and Hikigaya, you're good at
tennis, aren't you?"
The conversation unexpectedly turned toward me, and I naturally fell
silent. What? This is news to me. And actually, who are you? How do you
know my name? A number of questions sprang to mind, but before I could
say anything, Yuigahama made a drawn-out ooooooh noise, like she was
impressed.
"Really?"
"Yeah, his form is really good."
"Aw, you're making me blush! Ha-ha-ha! So who is she?" I was considerate
enough to say that last part very quietly so that only Yuigahama could hear.
But Yuigahama was all about smashing apart that consideration.
Status Power Mingguan
-- Peringkat
Power 
-- Power
stone