Chapter 23

For some reason, the president assigned me to specifically receive students from Hyotei Academy. I have reason to suspect that Tomokazu Katakura said something unnecessary that made the seniors mistakenly believe that I was quite familiar with those "superior people".

The person I was closest to, who is also my best friend, Nan Nan, is Katakura's cousin. She wasn't on the list of invited student representatives this time; she went to Baltimore for an exchange program after summer. Knowing that she was determined to study medicine, Yuushi Oshitari's sister, who was at Johns Hopkins University, immediately helped her inquire about many study abroad programs without hesitation.

As for the people on the list, it wouldn't be accurate to say I don't know them. There are only a few names, and Atobe and Oshitari are two of them. I even wrote the invitation myself, so it would be a bit of a stretch to say I don't know them.

But dealing with Atobe Keigo is really not my area of ​​expertise. In this respect, I am a bit like Sanada. He also seems to have trouble figuring out Atobe's temperament. I heard from Niou that there were signs of this when they were training in the youth team.

Actually, I really wanted to hand the matter over to Yagyu, but he was called upon by the teacher to receive several school board members. So I weighed the difficulty of the two tasks and decided that communicating with the young masters and ladies might be easier.

I sent Tezuka a message, telling him everything I was about to face, without paying attention to the time difference. A long time passed, until I had forgotten that I had told him all this, before I received his reply on Line.

He said, "Don't worry too much. Atobe is easier to get along with than you think; he's a very nice person."

Compared to Sanada, who would look troubled whenever Atobe was mentioned, Tezuka's evaluation was surprisingly honest. It seemed that their years of competitive friendship couldn't be summed up with a simple "childhood memory." However, Tezuka, who wasn't very good at using social media, would always type very complete, long sentences and express some confusion about the emoticons I sent him, as if he were a middle-aged or elderly person born in the Showa era.

Tezuka recently registered several social media accounts, from Line to Instagram and Twitter, and even Facebook, as if he had stepped into the real 21st century overnight.

Although it was set up at the request of my agent for the sponsoring brand, from my personal point of view, at least it's now much easier to contact a friend who is in a foreign country. The communication cost of a transoceanic call is not a small amount.

Later, I asked Tezuka about Atobe, and he realized that I might not be interested in the Kaihara Festival, but just curious and wanting to get to the bottom of things. How could someone as self-disciplined as him tolerate gossiping about others in private? He then changed the subject.

"Sanae, I still want to go to university first. The competition is scheduled until next March. If everything goes smoothly, we can wait until October when school starts."

He would always address me by my name at the beginning of every conversation.

"Is it because your transition to a professional career wasn't going well?"

I just asked whatever came to mind.

"It hasn't been going very well. The tour results haven't been ideal, the ITF rankings have stagnated, and last week at the US Open junior tournament, we ran into Echizen. We didn't get a chance to play against him, but he made it to the final and got a wildcard for the senior division."

He didn't continue, so I stopped there, just as Liu Sheng pushed a cart full of pre-packaged souvenirs into the office.

"I've divided the stuff into two carts," Liu Sheng said, leaning the cart against the wall. "The rest is in the preparation room on the first floor. You can just go and get it tomorrow morning."

"Oh...okay," I was still searching for the latest rankings and didn't immediately respond to what Yagyu said. "Thank you so much for your help."

"You're so engrossed in watching," he said, taking out a handkerchief to wipe the dust from his hands. "Has the chairman given out new instructions again?"

"He's not that cruel," I shook my head. "I'm checking Ryoma Echizen's ranking."

"Third in the ITF Junior World Championships," Yagyu pulled out a chair and sat down, then looked at me. "He should be the only one under fifteen in the top fifty."

I looked up, frowned slightly, and let out a soft "Huh?" to express my bewilderment at how I knew so much.

"Tezuka is eighth. If Echizen weren't American, having two Japanese people in the top ten would be a record." As he said this, his glasses flashed.

"Have you been possessed by Liu Lian'er?" I frowned even more deeply.

"The school approved too much funding, so Yukimura subscribed to three copies of 'Tennis Weekly'," Yagyu said casually. "One copy for each of the first, second, and third teams in the activity room. Just now, there was the front-page commentary of the latest issue."

"Listen to what you're saying," as a member of the judo club, I can't stand such talk. "Only your tennis club has sponsorships, while the rest of the clubs deserve to be stingy."

He shrugged, meaning something like, "I have too much money, what can I do?"

I snorted and got up to walk to the whiteboard covered with labels. I checked off today's tasks one by one. At the same time, Liu Sheng handed me a table listing tomorrow's cleanup work. I glanced at it from top to bottom and took a deep breath.

"This is the last one, Minister." He waved the A4 paper with the same content in his hand.

"Stop, don't call me that, it'll shorten your lifespan." I raised my hand to stop them.

"Aye, Captain." He smiled and then changed his address.

What difference does it make? I pressed my temples, turned around and pasted the form on the whiteboard, leaving a note next to it explaining the tasks I'd assigned to the two first-graders. I glanced at the clock on the wall: "The class committee meeting is about to begin..."

"I'll remind them, don't worry." Before I could finish speaking, Liu Sheng had already taken over my words, and he even handed me the stack of documents piled on his desk.

I sometimes wondered if he was some kind of robot butler, and so, amidst this orderly busyness, the second year of high school's Haiyuan Festival officially began.

Visitors started arriving gradually after 10 a.m., and I didn't remove the wrongly printed display board until almost 9 a.m. I called on the younger members of the department to hurry up and reorganize it. My phone vibrated a few times; it was a call from the president.

"Half an hour early... What? Hyotei's car has arrived at the university campus?"

I felt a throbbing pain in my temples, and I suddenly had the illusion of tinnitus. After hanging up the phone, I did some breathing exercises on the spot, which was seen by Liu Sheng, who was not far away. He knew that I often became overly excited under pressure, and problems such as headaches, tinnitus, and dizziness would follow one after another with the tedious work. So he taught me to stop and breathe slowly at times like this.

Even long afterward, when I encounter a bottleneck in my investigations, I still do this.

Anxiety is a major enemy, just as personal feelings are a major taboo. An uncalm mind will lose the ability to think objectively, and emotions will become the dominant force. Moreover, I am more likely to fall into this predicament because I already dislike reception work.

However, I never noticed that Yagyu, who was watching me at the time, was actually smiling with his head down.

I quickly changed into a T-shirt with the theme of this year's Haihara Festival printed on it. When I went downstairs, I realized that the one I had taken seemed to be too big. I probably grabbed the wrong one in the activity room. But I could see the bus with the Hyotei school emblem in the distance. So I tied the corner of the shirt up and ran out.

Of course, I had no idea that less than fifteen minutes after I left the activity room, Sanada opened the door and came in to change into his T-shirt. He picked up the last one in the box, hesitated for a moment, and held it up to himself. He glanced at the "OS" label on the bag containing the clothes and slowly put it back. As he bent down, he noticed that his name tag had fallen under the table at some point, leaving only an empty resealable bag.

In the end, Sanada borrowed Yagyu's clothes and barely managed to make it to the service center for his first shift.

Perhaps I had placed too many preconceived notions about Atobe beforehand. When he actually appeared in front of me, I found him to be a nice person, easy to talk to, and easy to communicate with. Although I could still hear the implication in some of his words that he was "accepting me because you are Tezuka's childhood friend."

Please, if you two have a crush on each other, don't drag me into it.

Yuushi Oshitari, who is usually quite talkative, was unusually quiet today. He remained unmoved as we passed several special booths. I was thinking that the film club's program, "Showa Love Songs," would be of great interest to him.

When I was in the third year of middle school, Nan Nan invited me to participate in a charity concert at Imperial University Hospital. That's when I met Ren Zu. Compared to my amateur flute skills, his violin, like Nan Nan's harp, was at a level that could only be reached through years of practice.

"Do you and Tezuka-kun keep in touch often?" Oshitari suddenly asked me.

With a puzzled "Ah," I replied, "He chatted with me for a while after his competition yesterday, but... why are you asking this?"

I was almost about to blurt out, "What does this have to do with you?"

"I'm sorry, I offended you," Shinobu nodded apologetically, then paused before whispering, "Minami hasn't replied to me for two days."

As Atobe said this, he turned his head away with a helpless expression. I also subconsciously observed Shinobu's condition. Even through his non-prescription glasses, I could see the bloodshot eyes and his abnormal blinking frequency. It was obvious that he was sleep-deprived.

Considering the objective fact that Nan Nan is far away in the West Fifth District, and his untimely question just now, there is only one truth.

—Renji, who finally managed to break through that barrier, is currently experiencing the heartache of a long-distance relationship across borders.

Wait a minute, so why did he ask Tezuka and me if we were in contact? He seems to have misunderstood something. Thinking about it carefully, what Atobe meant between the lines might not just be what I understood, but more like... Stop, this is all a misunderstanding.

I can't figure out what went wrong. It's as if I've become a role in Tezuka's social circle that I didn't plan out. Even though I know it has nothing to do with Tezuka, I still feel a long-lost sense of unease.

For me, if a relationship reaches a state of equilibrium, my wish is for it to remain so forever; that's what makes me most comfortable. Regarding Tezuka, I've said before that I wasn't clear-headed enough to need to sort out this balanced relationship, which is no different from my fear of future choices, because I can't rationally deduce any conclusions.

After escorting everyone from Hyotei to the auditorium, my daytime task was complete. I headed to the service desk for my second shift, but Yagyu, who was supposed to take over from Sanada, hadn't arrived yet; he was almost ten minutes late.

"Did Yagyu tell you when he's coming?" I asked Sanada.

"He said he'd be there in twenty minutes," Sanada explained.

I said "oh" and yawned, and the two of us sat quietly side by side.

I saw Yagyu helping a girl towards the infirmary; she was probably the head of the brass band, I remembered. They were standing very close together. Although the senior looked like she had injured her ankle, she was leaning almost all her weight on Yagyu. I should have rushed over to help, but at that moment I was rooted to the spot, completely still, following them into the teaching building except for my eyes.

After a while, Yagyu came to take over. Sanada returned the clothes he was wearing to him. I glanced at his back as he went to the activity room, and I felt a tightness in my chest. Ever since Oshitari asked about Tezuka, I've felt this tightness.

"Sanae." Sanada brought my attention back to the present. He handed me a sealed bag with my initials on it. "You should be wearing my clothes."

"No wonder it's so big." I looked down at the abnormally large top and laughed several times. I grabbed the collar and pulled it off, my hair getting all messed up.

He had reached out to take the clothes, but somehow he touched my hair twice, looked down at me, and panicked.

"Watch your image, don't let your guard down!" Sanada stood up straight and said in a low voice.

"Then thank you for reminding me, Genichiro." I was both amused and exasperated; why was he still so awkward?

But at that moment, I suddenly felt that the congested area didn't seem so uncomfortable anymore.