Chapter 8: Eye contact on the court
The sunlight overhead almost crushed the leaves, and there was not a breath of wind on the court, like a huge steamer.
"That person is so mean. He actually came out to interfere when Taocheng was full of fighting spirit."
"Chiba, calm down, this is a competition..."
"Is this Saint Rudolph's tactic? How abominable!"
If Kazama hadn't stopped her, Gen Chiba, who was standing at the edge of the court, might have rushed in directly. The boy holding the broom walked to the edge of the court under the unfriendly gazes of the crowd, "What a shame, damn it."
"As a non-court coach, you can't offer any advice to your teammates. You can only watch St. Rudolph win. That must be a tough feeling, right?"
Yuan stood with her hands on her hips, staring at the people in the field, as if she wanted to stare a hole through them. It seemed that if he said anything bad about her, she would rush up and fight with him like a hen protecting her calves.
"What suggestions?" Gan said, unfazed, adjusting his glasses calmly. "I'm sorry, our team members don't need this at all."
Guan Yue's sea-blue curls tangled around her fingers, and she smiled provocatively, "Then wait and see."
As he turned and passed by, his eyes fell on the notebook held by Kazama on the sidelines. "Kazama April... I've never heard of that name before." He turned back to look at Gan, "You actually let a layman who knows nothing about tennis be the off-court recorder. If you really don't have anyone available, I can introduce a few to you."
Gen Chiba rolled up his sleeves and said, "What the hell are you talking about, you rude guy?"
I was laughed at again!
Feng Jian's fingers clenched the notebook tightly, and the sharp edges of the cover made his palms hurt. It was not until he heard the three little ones muttering "seniors are so fierce" that he realized he was ruffling their hair into a messy bird's nest, just like his mood that was disturbed by Guan Yue just now.
"It seems that Kazama is also very angry." Fuji looked at Tezuka who was standing beside him.
Tezuka continued to stare at the game on the field and responded in a neutral tone, seemingly not noticing the movement around him.
Fuji turned his head to look at the girl with puffed cheeks and smiled without saying anything.
The first doubles match ended quickly when Momoshiro's smashes were too devastating for his opponent to continue the match.
"I heard that the next to appear are the golden duo of Seigaku. They have the level to enter the national competition."
"Hey, that's amazing, very interesting."
“…”
The heat wave rolled in from the stadium, but the number of people watching the game on the sidelines did not decrease at all.
——
"Will you really not get heatstroke playing in this weather?" Feng Jian, who was dragged along to buy cold drinks, heard the mumbling along the way. "It's only May and it's already this hot. If it's July, I won't even be able to leave the house."
"Boss, I want a strawberry flavored cone, April, what flavor do you want, April..."
The cold touch penetrated her skin, and Fengjian shuddered. When she came to her senses, she saw Chiba, who had just withdrawn his hand. He handed her a mango ice cream cone and frowned helplessly. "You look so serious, it's a bit scary... Lately, you're almost becoming a data freak like Senior Inui."
Fukazaki passed by, his eyes still not leaving his notebook, "Is it really okay for Oishi-senpai and Eiji-senpai to play doubles?"
"Don't worry," she nudged Kazama with her elbow, her chin nodding at the words "Golden Partner" written on the notebook. "You've memorized so many details about their cooperation, but you still don't have a clue?"
"The one we should be most worried about is St. Rudolph's third singles."
"The third singles match is with Fuji Yuta, Fuji..." Feng Jian paused in turning the pages, "He is Fuji-senpai's senior..."
"Yeah, that guy gets mad whenever someone mentions 'Fuji-nii' (Brother Fuji)—a typical tsundere. You can tell by the way he plays basketball."
On the way back to the court, Kazama also learned a lot of information about Fuji Yuta from Chiba.
She looked up, and before the light blue sky in front of her was the chestnut-colored hair that jumped into her sight, she saw another shorter figure standing beside him. "Then Fuji-senpai must be feeling very complicated."
"Of course. One is my teammate who I've always fought alongside, and the other is my younger brother. It wouldn't be easy for either of them."
However, when they arrived at the stadium, they saw the score on the scoreboard.
6:7
"No way, the golden pair actually lost..." Yuan muttered to himself,
"This match should have ended before the tie-break."
Just as Senior Inui said, Oishi and Kikumaru's second doubles match ultimately lost 6-7.
"It was like a sudden power outage. We lost seven points in an instant."
"The left-hander's game is on."
Cheers swept in with a heat wave.
Fengjian raised his head and looked at the two figures standing on the court, then subconsciously looked to the left. Fuji's fingers hanging at his side curled up slightly. Fengjian suddenly remembered that when he saw him practicing before, he held the racket in the same way. He seemed relaxed, but his knuckles were faintly white.
When Tezuka's gaze swept over, Kazama was staring at Fuji's tense profile, with the tip of her pen hovering above the title "Fuji's Emotions". The sudden eye contact made her hand tremble, and the pencil poked a small hole in the paper.
So Tezuka-senpai has been paying attention to the sidelines?
Both of them were stunned for a moment. Tezuka was the first to come back to his senses. He nodded slightly at her and looked away.
"Hey, April, why are your ears so red?"
Feng Jian unconsciously touched his earlobe, and his voice softened, "Really? Maybe it's because the weather is too hot."
The game on the field is nearing its end. Yuta Fuji's "Clear Sky Smash" is indeed powerful, but the opponent he meets is no less powerful.
Echizen will continue to grow in the competition.
After the left-hander's game ended, the next game was surprising.
Fuji-senpai suddenly lost power, just like in the match with Kikumaru and Oishi-senpai, and lost five points in one go.
"No way, Senior Fuji actually lost so many games at once..."
"But no one seems to be worried that Fuji-senpai will lose..."
She looked around. Tezuka, his chestnut-colored hair tucked behind his ears, stood on the sidelines with his arms crossed. Inui-senpai was staring at a blank notebook. When Kikumaru came over, he snapped it shut and adjusted his glasses. "After all, even for me, a data analyst at Seigaku, Fuji's data is blank."
The following game overturned everyone's cognition. In the last ball of the deciding game of St. Rudolph, Senior Fuji made a comeback and completely defeated the data that Guanyuechu regarded as a criterion with a score of 7-5.
"It's rare to see Fuji-senpai so serious." Kazama watched the game, his record book blank. Fuji-senpai rarely opened his icy blue, sharp eyes, like the surface of a frozen lake in winter, with waves rolling beneath.
"Fuji-senpai looks very angry." Gen approached Kazama with a popsicle in his mouth.
“It’s because of the game just now.”
Just now, when Echizen was playing against Fuji Yuta, she heard Senior Inoue from Tennis Monthly say that the "clear sky smash" has great side effects on the arms.
"Fuji is a guy who cares a lot about his family. The people of St. Rudolph have hit a hard wall." Kikumaru put his hands behind his head and hummed a song.
"Fuji-senpai's tennis, like him, is gentle yet powerful. Perhaps the edge is the anger he feels when he senses his loved ones being hurt."
"After all, data can be wrong, but human emotions cannot."
When Kazama came out of the bathroom, dusk swallowed up the last touch of orange on the court, and the crowd dispersed like birds returning to their nests in the sky.
There were still ten minutes before the agreed time to go eat hamburgers together. Feng Jian quickened his pace and ran towards the door. When he caught a glimpse of a pale figure on the top of the stairs not far away, his steps paused.
"Tezuka, I heard that you have the ability to enter the national competition. It's a pity that I didn't see you play today." The boy with short brown-gray hair put his hands in his pockets and raised his chin high.
"It's Sasaki from Kakigi Junior High School." Fuji was slightly stunned.
"I will play in the next game."
As he spoke, Tezuka stepped past him, but was grabbed by the other's elbow. He said with ill intent, "I heard that your elbow hasn't recovered since junior high. Let me test it today."
Fuji suddenly opened his eyes and Tezuka looked at him coldly, without even a frown on his face behind the oval lenses.
"Have you said enough?" His tone was as calm as the waves, catching the other party off guard. "Impossible, your hand injury hasn't healed yet..."
The sharp and high voice was interrupted by a crisp "pop" sound before it fell.
Sasaki looked at his opened right hand in astonishment, his gaze moving down along Tezuka's stunned expression and finally landing on the shorter black-haired girl.
She spread her arms like an eagle protecting its calf, staring at him expressionlessly with her pure black pupils:
"What do you want to do to our Seigaku's president?"
…
The afterglow of the setting sun sprinkled on the bluestone road, like a handful of crushed gold.
"Why haven't they come out yet? I'm starving." Kikumaru squatted on the side of the road, pulling out grass roots from the cracks in the rocks.
Until Momoshiro's exclamation was heard, "President Tezuka, Senior Fuji and the others are here!"
"Well, I knew April would be with the seniors." Yuan said with a smile.
"Sorry for keeping you waiting." Tezuka nodded to everyone.
"Yeah, we can finally go to dinner. Those who are late will be treated." Kikumaru's excited voice was blown away by the evening breeze mixed with the smell of grass.
"Eiji, don't go too far."
"I know... Speaking of which, why were you guys so slow just now?"
Fuji tilted his head and smiled, "Maybe I encountered something interesting."
“Eh——why did you say probably?”
The other party smiled but said nothing.
"Reading while walking will damage your eyes," Fengjian was hanging on his teammate, staring at the notebook in a daze, his thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a chuckle coming from beside him.
She turned around and saw Fuji Shusuke walking beside her with his hands behind his back, his brown hair covering his crescent-shaped eyebrows. He leaned in closer and lowered his voice: "Kazama was very brave just now."
Feng Jian was stunned for a moment, and immediately realized that the other party was talking about what happened on the court just now. He scratched his head a little embarrassedly, "Fuji-senpai, will you think I did something unnecessary? I think my reaction at that time was too strong."
The other person might be a friend of Minister Tezuka, but she slapped his hand away.
"No," he raised his head, his gaze fixed on the front, and suddenly smiled, "Maybe he'll be very happy."
Fengjian followed the line of sight and saw the boy's chestnut-colored hair sticking to his ears, coated with a layer of gentle gold by the twilight. He said nothing, but just listened quietly to his teammates' jokes, and a faint curve appeared at the corners of his tense lips.
Just like the smiley face she drew in the record book.
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