Chapter 61 Tutoring/Evil Cultivation "No, that will hurt."...
On the sixth day of the tennis club's training camp, Yukimura and Yanagi Renji's room became a temporary classroom.
Perhaps it was because tutoring required enough space, or perhaps it was because of the bond between Renji Yanagi and Akutō... In any case, Yukimura and Renji Yanagi's room was an ultra-luxurious executive suite.
In the spacious lounge area, sunlight filters through sheer curtains, casting dappled shadows on the carpet.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, there is an endless sea view, with seagulls soaring overhead, and the blue sea and sky blending into one.
Because of her impersonation of a parent, Risa received "special attention" from Sanada and was forced to take on the task of tutoring Kirihara Akaya.
At this moment, the two were nestled in front of the L-shaped leather sofa in the lounge area, with various reference books and summer homework spread out on the marble coffee table.
“So this quadratic function…” Lisa tapped her textbook, “is like a tennis ball’s parabola, the highest point is—”
"The point of contact when smashing the ball!" Kirihara suddenly raised his hand.
“Correct!” Lisa snapped her fingers. “Then the vertex coordinates…”
"Ahhh, I get it!" Kirihara grabbed his pen and scribbled furiously, "x is the run-up distance, y is the hitting height!"
Lisa nodded with satisfaction.
Looking up, I saw Yukimura coming out of his room, holding a glass vase filled with cornflowers.
"Excuse me," he said with a smile as he walked over. "I heard there's a tutoring center here?"
Kirihara sat up straight instantly: "Minister, Minister!"
“I brought some gifts.” Yukimura placed the vase on the windowsill and sat down naturally next to Risa. “By the way… I’d like to hear some stories from another world.”
Lisa's pen slipped and fell onto the carpet.
Kirihara looked left and right: "What other world?"
"It's nothing!" Risa bent down to pick up the pen. "Aka, continue solving the problem."
Yukimura rested his chin on his hand, watching her guilty expression, a smile appearing in his eyes.
Soon after, Kirihara solved the problem and showed the steps to Risa.
Risa carefully checked the solution steps, her eyes immediately shining, every idea was correct.
"You got them all right." She couldn't help but ruffle Xiao Haidai's hair. "Isn't that amazing?"
Kirihara proudly raised his chin: "Of course! I'm Rikkai's ace!" He grabbed his pen and turned to the next page with great enthusiasm, "A few more questions!"
Yukimura sat to the side, resting his chin on his hand, his gaze fixed on Risa. Although her teaching method was strange and bizarre, Akaya could understand it and immediately grasp its essence.
(Could this be... what foreigners call "heretical cultivation" when they talk about taking shortcuts to immortality?)
Risa noticed his gaze and looked up to meet his eyes: "What's wrong?"
“It’s nothing,” Yukimura smiled slightly. “I just think that Matsuno teaches patiently and vividly, and is very suitable to be a teacher.”
His praise was so direct that Risa was taken aback, her ears instantly flushing slightly. She quickly lowered her head, pretending to tidy up her workbook, and said, "W-no, there isn't..."
Kirihara's green eyes darted back and forth between the two of them, sensing that the atmosphere was a bit subtle, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it, so he simply buried his head in his work and continued writing.
The tragic events that Yukimura had anticipated—a "domestic violence scene" and a "breakdown in the sibling relationship"—did not occur until lunchtime.
It seems that his special trip to "mediate" was indeed unnecessary.
but......
His gaze unconsciously fell back onto the girl.
Risa was explaining the knowledge points tested in the questions to Kirihara, and occasionally a stray strand of hair would fall down, which she would naturally tuck behind her ear.
The slight furrowing of her brow as she explained the problem, and the occasional smile that appeared, all carried a gentle charm rarely seen on her usual face.
Seeing this side of her seems...not bad at all.
-
After lunch, Kirihara Akaya continued to explain the problems to Risa.
Liu Lian'er was astonished to hear Xiao Haidai make such a request on her own initiative.
Is this still the same junior who would make all sorts of excuses to skip tutoring whenever he heard the word "tutoring"? In the past, he, Sanada, and Yukimura would take turns trying their best to get Akaya to barely finish the basic review.
"I really want to observe Matsuno-kun's teaching methods," Yanagi Renji murmured.
Unfortunately, the three of them had arranged to have a practice match with Akuta in the afternoon, so they had to cancel it.
After four hours of intense competition, Renji Yanagi stayed behind to discuss data tennis and college planning with Akuto. Sanada and Yukimura returned to the hotel first.
"I've already prepared the lineup for the National Tournament. Go to my room and get it." Yukimura swiped open the door, and the motion-sensor light in the entryway turned on.
The lounge area was unusually quiet. What came into view was this scene:
Little Seaweed lay sprawled on the carpet, her workbook still pressed against her cheek, fast asleep. Risa, on the other hand, lay on the marble coffee table, her loose hair obscuring half her face, a pen loosely held in her hand.
Sanada's brows furrowed immediately: "Too lax!" He then stepped forward to wake Kirihara.
"Shh-"
Yukimura pressed down on Sanada's shoulder, "Let them sleep a little longer."
He tiptoed to the coffee table and carefully took the pen from Risa's hand.
Sanada shook Kirihara awake with a stern face. The latter rubbed his eyes groggily and asked, "Vice-Captain? What question was I on...?"
"Go back to sleep," Sanada commanded curtly, picking up the scattered workbooks.
Kirihara yawned and staggered as he followed Sanada out of the room.
The room fell silent immediately.
Looking at the sleeping girl, Yukimura hesitated for a moment before gently picking her up in his arms.
She was lighter than he had imagined, her warm breath gently brushing against his neck.
After placing the girl on the sofa, Yukimura took a thin blanket, covered her with it, and slowly bent his knees to sit down in front of her.
The girl was fast asleep.
Quiet, soft, unguarded, breathing softly and slowly.
He instinctively reached out, then stopped just before touching her. His fingertips hovered in mid-air, slightly curled, ultimately only managing to lift a single strand of her hair.
His hair, as soft and lustrous as seaweed, was wrapped around his knuckles, like silk.
Outside the window, dusk was falling.
Two breathing sounds mingled in the room, one steady and long, the other gradually becoming disordered.
Yukimura nodded slightly, his breathing gradually becoming lighter.
His thin lips froze a few inches from his hair.
As if waking from a dream, he suddenly sat up straight.
A strand of hair slipped silently from between her fingers and fell back onto the edge of the sofa.
He looked at his hands, his Adam's apple bobbing slightly.
The blush behind her ear quietly spread to her neck, appearing and disappearing among her deep blue hair.
"...Really..."
He raised his hand to press his brow, and his low, hoarse mutterings dissipated into the air.
The boy stood up and walked towards his room.
After a short while, the faint sound of dripping water could be heard, barely audible.
-
Risa slowly opened her eyes, and what she saw was an unfamiliar ceiling.
The afterglow of the setting sun shone through the sheer curtains, bathing the entire room in an orange-red hue.
She propped herself up, and the blanket slipped off her shoulders.
My mind was still a little foggy, and my gaze swept across the room: the luxurious decor, the neatly arranged textbooks and workbooks on the coffee table... My memories gradually returned.
(By the way, it's during the training camp... tutoring Akaya...)
She rubbed her temples, then suddenly froze as she turned her head.
At the corner of the L-shaped sofa, a boy was leaning against the lamp reading a book.
The warm yellow light streamed down his profile, casting a soft shadow on one side of his handsome nose. His slightly drooping eyelashes cast fan-shaped shadows beneath his eyes, and as he turned the pages, his slender fingers appeared and disappeared between the pages, like a carefully designed slow-motion scene.
"This is......"
Risa involuntarily held her breath and murmured to herself.
"Am I dreaming again?"
Those beautiful dreams always begin like this—he sits in the library in the morning light, or on the windowsill under the moonlight, smiling at her.
When she approaches him unsuspectingly, the boy's gentle features suddenly turn sinister. He traps her between his arms and the wall, his soft voice transforming into dangerous whispers. As if possessed by a demon, he coldly torments her, refusing to give up.
The sound of pages turning startled her from her daze.
The boy looked up, his purplish-blue pupils, like translucent amethysts under the light, clearly reflecting her flustered appearance.
His gaze was deep and penetrating, as if it could see through all her hidden secrets and into those dreams that she herself was ashamed to admit, dreams soaked in cold sweat.
"woke up?"
The gentle voice startled her.
Risa slowly propped herself up and crawled toward him on her knees.
If it's a dream...
This time, she wants to be the one who takes the initiative.
Her fingertips hovered just inches away, and she froze when she met his ambiguous smile.
"No, you can't." The boy turned his head away, avoiding her touch. "It will hurt."
(Not a dream?!)
Risa reluctantly withdrew her hand, but her wrist was firmly held. The heat from the boy's palm seeped through her skin, burning her intensely.
"Look."
Yukimura leaned slightly forward and guided her hand to his cheek.
"It's not a dream."
His skin was as smooth as jade, just as it had been when she first touched it.
"It has warmth, right?"
He spoke softly, as if afraid of startling her. When he raised his eyes, his gaze was gentle and tender: "Not a ghost, nor a dream, but a real human being."
“Matsuno-kun is the same. No matter what happened in the past or what will happen in the future, right now, you are right in front of me, I can see you and touch you.”
He tilted his head slightly and rubbed his cheek against her palm. This seemingly coquettish gesture created a wonderful contrast with his usual aloof demeanor.
Risa's fingertips curled up involuntarily, but he gently unfolded them and put them back in place.
As he gazed at her like that, a heat gradually spread along her earlobes, up her neck, and flowed down her palms with her blood.
She frantically tried to pull her hand away, but he held it even tighter.
With no other options, she could only lower her head and let her hair cover her flushed face.
"You...you believe what I said last night?"
"Um."
Yukimura closed the book and placed it on a corner of the sofa.
“Since it’s the truth, Matsuno-kun wouldn’t lie.”
"You actually believed such bizarre and outlandish nonsense?"
"Because only in this way can everything be explained. Only in this way can we explain why you had that expression when you first met me. Only in this way can we explain why you know so much about us. Even... know the details of my medical history."
Outside the window, the last rays of the setting sun sank below the horizon.
The shadows in the room gradually spread, and only the warmth of their clasped hands remained.
“So,” she lifted her eyelashes and asked him with a wry smile, “are you going to report me to the school? Or hand me over to the scientific research institute as an intruder from another world?”
“I have no interest in scientific research.” Yukimura leaned down. “The only person I’ve ever been interested in is Matsuno.”
Risa's pupils contracted, and her heart trembled.
Yukimura stepped back to a safe distance and asked her, "In your previous world, was this really a manga? We... were people in a manga?"
She hesitated for a moment, then nodded.
"Then tell me, in your previous world, I..."
"minister!"
The door was suddenly kicked open, and Kirihara rushed in, panting heavily.
"Something terrible has happened! Vice-Captain Sanada...!"
-----------------------
Author's Note: I've revised the outline. The day after tomorrow will be a chaotic love triangle, and the day after that, the young couple will start their mutual antagonism. Sorry for keeping you all waiting. The female lead is an adult, so she has many concerns, and the romance will develop slowly.
In my next book, I'm definitely going to make sure adults talk about love in detail; I'm so frustrated! [Very unhelpful]
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