Chapter 9
Incredibly, even the old-fashioned Genichiro Sanada has a LINE account, while Kunimitsu Tezuka only knows how to send emails, even though Sanada's profile picture is a stone engraved with their family crest, and his account name is "Immovable Mountain".
The person with the Twitter username "Energy Management" is actually mocking others; these are Niou's own words.
Yes, that's right. So what? Go ahead and laugh at him if you dare. What's wrong with you?
When I received Tezuka's message that day, I was checking my final exam rankings in front of the class bulletin board. Unsurprisingly, I had maintained my previous ranking, and I was quite satisfied that "Sanada Genichiro" was still written under my name. However, I lost the bet I made with Yagyu before the exam that I would score 20 points higher than him. On the morning of the first day of the Japanese exam, I suddenly had a stomachache; my period came unexpectedly. I rushed to finish the exam half an hour early so I could quickly go to the infirmary to get a painkiller and take a nap. As a result, I overslept and almost missed the afternoon math exam.
Anyway, the result is that I'll have to use all my allowance next month to take Yagyu to see the Phantom tour at the beginning of the year. [1]
"Young Master Yagyu," I said, putting my arm around his shoulder, "I heard you have a black card."
"You actually believe what Niou said?" Yagyu didn't look down at me, but just stared at the rankings. "You're overthinking it. I'm not Atobe."
"It's really heartless of them to extort money from someone like me, the daughter of a ramen shop owner." I blinked.
"You promised." Liu Sheng suddenly met my gaze.
I instinctively let go and took a step back, and for a moment I couldn't think of what to say.
His face was expressionless, especially since his glasses reflected light and covered half of his eyes. As I was about to turn away, he lowered his head and smiled, then said, "But I do have a supplementary card."
"Quota?" I stopped and turned around to ask.
"I told you you'd hit me." Yagyu Hiroshi wisely retreated to a safe distance first.
"Okay, okay, I got it," I smiled and straightened his tie. Seeing his face turn red from the tightness, I felt a little better about the disparity between us. "I'm such a gentle person, how could I hit you?"
My phone vibrated twice in my pocket, and I finally let go of it. Yagyu, finally able to catch his breath, loosened his uniform tie, took a few deep breaths, and seeing my focused expression as I replied to emails, casually asked, "Tezuka-kun?"
"Yes, he asked me for my flight number for the day after tomorrow. He'll probably still be at the stadium then. He told me to come by myself." I saved the address and map he sent me, and then glanced at the time. "I'll go to the judo hall and then go straight home. See you next semester."
Before I could say goodbye, I ran off and disappeared at the end of the corridor. He touched the loose tie around his neck, turned to the window and retied it. He tied the Windsor knot with practiced ease, never seeming like someone who couldn't tie a tie.
It took me a long time to realize that he had always known how to do it, but inexplicably played the role of someone who didn't know how in front of me. Before giving a speech at the opening ceremony of the first year of junior high school, I reached out to help Liu Sheng, who was struggling with his tie, tie it. At that time, we only knew that we were in the same class and that we knew each other by the names written on our left breast name tags.
But I'm not exactly a busybody. This is just a bad habit of mine. If you don't believe me, you can ask Renwang how many times I've forcibly straightened his collar since we met. Once he even said that every time we make eye contact, he subconsciously wants to look in the mirror, otherwise he'll be targeted by my obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
To be honest, I've disliked his braids for a long time.
When I was packing my luggage that night, I thought my grandma had gone to bed early. I was just about to ask my mom if she had seen where my toiletries bag was when I turned around and saw my grandma standing outside with a glass jar of salted plums, half-opened.
"Grandma, what's wrong?" I put down the bag of clothes and stood up to help her.
"Are we going to find Hikaru soon?" She suddenly mentioned Tezuka's nickname, and it was rare for her to be so lucid.
"Yes, Grandpa Guoyi can't take long-haul flights, so I'm going to check on him for him." I took the glass bottle from her arms.
Actually, I was originally supposed to accompany my mentor to Munich, but my stubborn mentor insisted that I was going abroad for Christmas and wanted him to come with me. Unfortunately, his blood pressure was not very stable during his medical check-up, so he couldn't travel far recently. In the end, I was left alone.
"Xiao Guang has always loved eating the plums that Grandma makes," Grandma said, wrapping the jar in several layers of plastic wrap and putting it in my suitcase. "These green plums were picked this summer, and they're best eaten now."
There was no time to consider whether the dried plums could pass through customs. If they couldn't, we'd just send them from the airport. I nodded a few times and continued listening to my grandmother talk.
My grandmother was in a bad state for the first two years after my grandfather passed away. My master would come to see her every now and then, and he would usually bring Tezuka with him. Actually, Grandpa Sanada also came, but he was probably a bit more stubborn. Many times he would leave after bringing something and saying only a few words.
Tezuka Kunimitsu in elementary school was not much different from now, and even less talkative. He was always a well-behaved child loved by his elders. He would say that whatever his grandmother gave him to eat was delicious, and he would say thank you for whatever his grandmother praised him. He would quietly accompany his grandmother to watch those old movies, while I was mostly asleep at that time.
Sorry, the only black and white films I can watch without falling asleep are those by Hitchcock or David Lynch.
"Don't you get bored watching the same few shows all the time?" I yawned as I rolled over on the tatami mat, resting my chin on my hand as I looked at him. "I know Gregory's next line all too well."
"It must be a pretty important date to run off without eating." He sat up straight and turned around. "I will go along with you wherever you are going." [2]
I paused for a moment, then suddenly burst out laughing: "I was just exaggerating, I didn't mean for you to actually say it."
Just then, Grandma brought some snacks from the kitchen, interrupting our conversation. Tezuka pressed play on the remote, and Gregory on TV said the same thing.
As I forked a piece of tea cake into my mouth, I accidentally caught a glimpse of Tezuka smiling.
He still occasionally does things that are appropriate for his age.
Or perhaps I'm just lucky; I often see Tezuka Kunimitsu when he doesn't look like Tezuka Kunimitsu at all.
The plane landed around 5 p.m. local time. The weather wasn't great; it looked like it was going to snow. The young mother sitting next to me had a baby crying a lot the whole way. Plus, we had a language barrier. I could say a few words of basic German, but with such complex conversations, I doubted she could understand me either, let alone me.
Pushing my suitcase out, the dried plums that my grandmother had been longing for had successfully traveled across the ocean with me. After a sleepless night and jet lag, my temples felt like they were being pricked with needles, and I kept yawning, feeling so sleepy that I might collapse at any moment.
"Sanae, be careful."
Someone caught me just as everything went black.
"Guoguang?" I squinted for a while before I could see him clearly. "Weren't you training?"
"The coach gave us three days off, so there's no training on Christmas Eve," Tezuka said, walking to my left and taking my suitcase. "It's gotten colder today, a bit chilly outside."
"It's okay, I'm wearing a lot of layers." I zipped my coat all the way up, patted my stomach with both hands, and the bulky puffer jacket looked a bit comical.
"Yes, I can tell." He nodded.
If I had to interpret it, I think he's making fun of me right now.
After not seeing him for more than half a year, Tezuka looked a bit stronger than in springtime. He had become wider and his height had increased by at least three centimeters. He used his right hand when carrying the suitcase. He had told me before that he had started practicing using his non-dominant hand to hold the racket after his surgery, and it seemed to be working quite well.
Tezuka, who was already used to my obsessive observation, didn't care at all that I was watching him. He bent down and greeted the driver through the car window, then carried his luggage into the taxi.
The wind hadn't picked up yet, and fluffy white snowflakes were fluttering about. I brushed the snowflakes off my bangs and rubbed my hands together to warm them. It seemed I had underestimated Munich's winter; my cheeks flushed as soon as they touched the cold. I looked up at the gray sky, the clouds hanging low, and exhaled a puff of white breath, saying, "Kuoguang, it's snowing."
Tezuka closed the trunk, wrapped the scarf around my neck, and replied, "The weather forecast says there will be a heavy snowfall tonight."
I buried my half-frozen face in the cashmere scarf that still had some body warmth, and it took me a while to warm up.
As the car drove towards the city, I warmed up a bit, so I unzipped my jacket, leaned close to the window to wipe away the fog, and looked outside.
I know almost nothing about this half of the earth, except that I went to London on a school trip two years ago. I sneaked out of the hotel at night to go to Paddington Station, but unfortunately I was caught by Yagyu and Niou on the platform. Or you could say I caught them. We checked our destinations and found that they were also going to transfer in Exeter to Torquay, just like me. They wanted to at least see where the legendary Orient Express stopped. [3]
However, I won't go into details about how the three of us were later punished and confined to the hotel.
I vaguely remember that my master had a small two-story detached house on the outskirts of Munich. It was a bit remote, but it was nestled against the mountains, and the nearest lake was within walking distance. Three generations of my master and his family used to vacation there. Tezuka's current coach is a retired tennis player he met while hiking there. I was originally going to stay there this time too; Aunt Ayana even had someone come and clean it beforehand. Unfortunately, I was the only one who came.
The taxi turned and stopped in front of the high-rise apartment building. I was stunned for a moment. Tezuka handed me the fare and said, "The snow is too heavy. It's not safe to go now."
"Is this where you live now?" I opened the car door. "I thought you were still living in the dormitory."
"I moved here after signing the contract last month," he said, pulling his suitcase and swiping his card to open the door. "I'm a professional gamer now."
"Yeah, Tezuka." I was taken aback when he said that. He doesn't usually say who he is so directly and frankly, especially since there was a hint of pleasant pride in his tone.
"But Grandpa doesn't know yet." He pressed the elevator button.
I wanted to laugh, but I felt I shouldn't laugh right now. My aunt recorded every single one of his matches, and my master actually watches them all the time, probably to the point that he'd turn them on whenever he thought of his grandson. So how could he not know about it?
"Kuoguang." I leaned against the handrail in the elevator and raised an eyebrow at him.
He turned around and tilted his head slightly in confusion.
"You should be happy when you should be happy," I said.
"I'm so glad you could come here," he said as the elevator doors opened with a ding.
Watching his back as he unlocked the door, I took a deep breath and rubbed my temples. Was he deliberately avoiding the main point? Tezuka Kunimitsu, would you do this too? It's been half a year since I last saw you. Who did you learn bad habits from?
Tezuka noticed my slightly awkward expression but didn't try to explain. He simply placed the suitcase against the living room wall, turned on the light, and I glanced at the empty living room and kitchen. I took off the scarf around my neck and tossed it to him: "You have to be happy, or you'll be spending the holiday alone."
He casually hung the scarf by the door, shook his head slowly and helplessly. Although he turned around quickly, I still saw it.
My friend, you still smile when you're happy, right?
Note:
1. Refers to the musical "The Phantom of the Opera".
2. The movie is "Roman Holiday," and this is a line spoken by Joe, the reporter played by Gregory.
3. On the 100th anniversary of Agatha Christie's birth, Joan Hickson and David Sutherland dressed as Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, respectively, and traveled to Torquay on the Orient Express to meet her. Furthermore, Agatha Christie's birthplace is also in Torquay.
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