V2C1 Part5

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5. SCOUTINGPrevious || Index || Next

It was now Wednesday of the following week. After

school, as the team members gathered in the gym after changing into their

practice clothes without waiting for cleaning time to end, a first-year told

Ochi that Tokura was feeling ill and wanted to take the day off.

“He got

diarrhea? Did he eat something weird?”

“I-I guess

so.”

They

couldn’t afford for him to lose his strength at this critical time. As he was

thinking about texting him later, Saruwatari passed by and said, “Kohei? I saw

him eating a lot of bread when he was cleaning. I thought he was just eating

before practice.”

“What did

you say?”

Saruwatari

flinched when Ochi unconsciously widened his eyes in anger.

“You want

me to go look for him?”

“No…I’ll

go. Can you tell Sensei for me? I’ll leave the rest of the preparations to

you.”

“Oh,

Ochi-senpai. What should we say to Subaru-senpai?”

Just as he

was about to run out after putting on his outdoor shoes, the first-year called

after him. He thought it would be easier to have Mimura go look for him than to

go himself, but he couldn’t use their ace for such an errand.

“Don’t tell

Mimura any more than you have to. Kohei is sick. I have to go out to run an

errand.”

It wasn’t

so much as having an idea, but something he intuitively knew.

Athletic

club members in tracksuits and uniforms shuffled along the path between the

back of the school and the sports ground. Beyond it, he could see the bike

parking area under a sheet iron roof.

Tokura was

pulling out his beloved bike from a cluttered group of bikes parked in what

looked like an oversized garbage dump. “Geh,” he reacted in an obvious way when

he spotted Ochi.

“You look

good for a guy who’s got diarrhea.”

Ochi went

around to the front of his bike and grabbed the basket.

“If you

can’t manage your physical condition before the tournament, then I can’t

entrust the position of Subaru’s diagonal to you. Sensei also said that it was

about time we start using the first-years in the starting lineup.”

He leaned

over the basket and let his voice lower an octave. Tokura’s brows furrowed in a

pitiful expression.

“I-I

thought I’d go see Seiin’s practice…”

He hung his head and confessed the truth.

“The

tournament is next week. If you want to see Seiin in person, you can see them

then.”

In the

qualifiers, which would be held next weekend on September 27 and 28, the

twenty-two competing schools would be divided into two groups of eleven schools

and play in a tournament to sift down to the last two schools. These two

schools would then compete in the representative play-offs in November to

determine the representative school that would be sent to Tokyo.

Fukuho,

who was the number one seed, would not participate in the tournament draw. The

matchup would be up to Seiin’s luck in the lottery, but as luck would have it,

Seiin drew the group where Fukuho was not. In other words, the two schools

would not meet in the qualifiers. Only if the two schools reached the top of

their respective groups without losing a single game, they would finally face

off in November.

“Rather

than caring about other teams that we don’t even know if we’re going to play,

we have other things to do right now. If we get caught in the qualifiers, we’ll

be too miserable to look at.”

“Y-yes,

but…”

Tokura

mumbled, his shoulders slumping. Ochi sighed.

“I’ll go

with him.”

“What?”

Tokura raised his eyes when Ochi said that without much hesitation.

“I

don’t want you to worry about the court next to you at the qualifiers. If you

go see them now and be satisfied, you can focus on what is in front of you,

right?”

—

The train

service wasn’t very frequent, so they had to wait a long time for the train

bound for Nanafu, and it was a twenty-minute walk from Nanafu Station to Seiin

High School. They came there as quickly as they could, but they probably

arrived at the latter half of the volleyball team’s practice time.

Seiin

High School was located on a mountain slope that was exposed to the western

sun. Ochi and Tokura rode their bikes up the slope, passing Seiin students who

were riding down the slope nimbly on their bikes. Although the sun’s rays were

less intense than in midsummer, the heat from the ground rushed up to meet

their faces when they leaned forward.

However,

more than the sunlight and temperature, there was something that both of them

felt painfully in their skins.

“Kuh…Seiin

has a lot of girls…so chatty, they should put their studies first since they’re

students.”

Tokura said

hatefully as they passed by mixed-gender groups and groups made up of girls on

their way to the school building. He was whispering, though.

“They have

a much higher university acceptance rate than our school.”

Ochi, who

was plunging in with his eyes half-closed, was also whispering.

Well, there

were only two things to envy: the male-to-female ratio and the standard test

scores (though that alone was a decisive factor), but in any case, they were

both public schools. The school building was not as impressive as Fukuho’s, and

the uniforms for both boys and girls were simple black blazers, not

particularly stylish. Fukuho had gakurans, but they were currently wearing

their summer uniforms, so the only difference at a glance was the presence or

absence of a tie.

Tokura was

in his uniform, and Ochi was in a T-shirt and sweatpants. The Seiin students

looked curiously at the mismatched pair from another school.

“Excuse

me, do you know where the boys’ volleyball team practices?”

Instead of

the big-boned but shy-out-in-public Tokura, Ochi was the one who grabbed the

nearest Seiin students and asked them. Ochi too used to be quite shy, but his

position, which required him to negotiate within the school and to interact

with the volleyball teams from other schools, forced him to improve a great deal.

This surprisingly might be his most universally useful development after

becoming a manager.

“We have a

boy’s volleyball team?”

“I think we

probably do, don’t we?”

The two

Seiin students looked at each other and had an incredibly uncertain exchange.

“They’ll

probably be in the gym or outside court…Go around to the left of that entrance

there, then go through the woods and you’ll see the clubroom building, go to

the right and you’ll see the gym, go left and keep going up the slope next to

the first and second sports grounds if you want to go to the outside court.”

They

indicated the directions with their fingers.

“Well, it

isn’t like this is a middle school gym class, so they must be on the outside

court, right?”

Tokura

whispered into his ear.

“Well,

let’s go there and see. I’ll go check out the gym, and you go to the outside

court.”

He

split up with Tokura from there, deciding to text each other when one of them

found the practice location.

—

In the gym,

two clubs were practicing on either side of a partition net hung up in the middle.

The girls’ volleyball team was in the front half of the gym, and the badminton

team could be seen in the back half where the stage was located. Since they

were practicing with the badminton team, the windows were all closed. It seemed

to be the case for all schools that the gym became a sauna when that happened.

The air seemed to be distorted by the steam rising from the bodies of the team

members. He could feel sweat beading on his forehead just from standing on the

doorway.

In the

middle of all this, he asked a team member in a long-sleeved and long-pants

tracksuit who was near the doorway where the boys’ volleyball team practiced.

“The boys’

team is outside today. Oh, but I think they’ll be coming back in a little.

After the badminton team ends practice at six, they’ll let them use the other

side.”

The member

answered, looking at the clock on the wall. Behind the metal barrier, the clock

hands indicated 5:40.

“Six? That’s

early… You can’t use the gym every day?”

It wasn’t

like he was doing reconnaissance or anything, but he couldn’t help but probe

deeper. The Fukuho volleyball team had access to the gym every day after class

ended from 3:30 until 7:30 (although some days of the week had longer classes),

and in some cases, it was extended.

“Tournaments

are coming up for both the boys’ and girls’ volleyball teams, so we’re allowed

to use the gym until 7:30 after other clubs leave. Normally, we have to be out

by six.”

“The Spring

High preliminaries, huh. It’s on the twenty-seventh.”

Ochi

immediately said, and the boy tilted his head with an expression that said, Who

are you? Ochi was also wondering who this boy was just now. He was a boy

who looked just over 180 with long limbs and a lanky body that were the clear

marks of a volleyball player, but it was the girls’ volleyball team who was

practicing in front of him.

“Um, are

you the manager for the girls’ volleyball team?”

He

continued with the rude questions, but this male member didn’t seem offended,

and he answered with a smile that seemed gentle in character, but showed the

strength at his core.

“No, I’m a

member of the boys’ volleyball team. I can’t show you around right now, but if

you want to go to the outside court, I can show you.”

——That was Kanno, a second-year.

It was only

after Ochi thanked him and left the gym that he matched the face to the name

(he’s a year below me, isn’t he? I didn’t have to use polite speech with him).

The fact

that club activities ended at six here was insane to him. Was that the case for

schools that weren’t particularly focused on club activities? Practicing until

six, and not being able to use the gym…it might be rude to think this, but what

were they doing, worrying about a school that was doing club activities as

their leisure time? He couldn’t help but feel like they were being made fun of,

and it made him gloomy.

A dirt

slope stretched between the bike parking lot and the sports grounds. There were

two sports grounds and an outdoor court above them.

What a hilly school…I

had to climb a lot from the station just to get to the school, and now I have

to go up another hill…

Fukuho was located on a piece of flat land in the

city, so it was quite a surprise for Ochi to see such a difference in elevation

within the school.

What’s

Tokura doing anyways? He should have sent me a text when he finds them

practicing on the outside court.

He was

about to check his phone to see if he received any messages when a voice saying

“Excuse me” came down from the top of the hill.

“Excuse me!

Please stop!”

He looked

up from his phone to see a ball cage approaching him before his eyes.

“Whoa!”

The ball

cage rumbled down the slope, nearly crushing Ochi’s toes as he dodged it. A boy

in sportswear running after it jumped at the edge of the cage and, dragged a

few steps by the weight, slammed on the brakes. A cloud of sand flew up.

“Cough…w-what

was that…?”

It was a

steel mesh ball cage like those used in gym class, with sand-covered

volleyballs piled up high. The boy gripping the cage had the same

volleyball-team height as Kanno from earlier, but his features, which were a

little more mature than that of a middle schooler, indicated that he was

probably a first-year.

Seiin

only had eight members. Of those, only two were first-years. Was this the

setter Haijima, or the left ace Kuroba…?

Without

giving him a chance to talk to him, the first-year hurriedly push the ball cage

up the slope with a “thank you!” and ran as fast as he could.

“What an

energetic guy…” He had only dodged it, so he didn’t think he would get thanked.

This was no

time to stand idly by. From the top of the slope, he heard Tokura yelling.

“That idiot, what is he…!” Ochi started to run after the first-year.

Tokura was

arguing with a big guy and it seemed like they might grab each other at any

moment. The first-year, holding the ball cage, was panicking and saying,

“Okuma-senpai, you can’t!” Okuma was the second-year middle blocker who

everyone exclaimed “Who’s that!?” when they saw him. Even in the video, it

could be seen that he was unusually stout for a high school volleyball player.

“Kohei!

What are you doing!”

He was out

of breath before he knew it, but even so he still ran as fast as he could and

shouted at him. That was when Tokura swung his fist at Okuma.

With a dull

gah, Okuma plunged butt-first into the bushes by the side of the road.

“Wha…”

He couldn’t

believe what had happened in front of his eyes.

“Senpai!”

The first year rushed to help Okuma up after shoving the ball cage into the

bushes. Ochi returned to himself and intervened by holding back Tokura, who was

standing there with a reddened face.

“Kohei!!”

Half-screaming, his voice cracked. “You!!”

“O-Ochi-senpai…t-this

guy said Fukuho must not be such a big deal since we were sneaking around and

scouting them…”

Tokura

himself was dumbfounded, but he pointed at Okuma and exposed his anger once

again.

Okuma, who

had been pulled out of the bush, stood and said “Owww…” as he pressed his

cheek. “Fukuho sure has no manners, sneaking into someone else’s territory. I

didn’t say you weren’t a big deal. I just said that Fukuho must have fallen to

the bottom of the heap if they’re sneaking in here to spy on us.” Matching the

impression of his outward appearance, he spoke rudely and arrogantly. “Stop, what

are you doing by stirring them up!” the first-year frantically pulled on Okuma’s

back.

He wanted

to grind his teeth at Tokura’s rashness. However, one didn’t have to be Tokura

to feel offended by that way of speaking. It wasn’t something those who carried

Fukuho’s pride on their backs could overlook.

While

holding back Tokura, he turned to Okuma.

“You’re the

one with no manners here.”

“Aah? Who

the hell are you?”

“Ochi,

third-year. I’m Fukuho’s manager.”

“Manager?

For boys’ volleyball? Is it fun for a guy to be the manager of the boys’

volleyball team?”

He could

clearly feel his own eyebrows twitch. “You’re going too far!” His hand that was

holding back the enraged Tokura from behind was trembling. Right when he

unconsciously clenched his fist on Tokura’s shirt…

“Okay,

let’s just leave it at that.”

A calm

voice cut in.

A new

figure had appeared further up the hill. A tall and lanky shadow stood there as

though a tree had suddenly sprouted in the middle of the road, backlit by the

orange setting sun shining through the gaps between the bushes.

“…Aoki?”

Recognizing

Seiin’s vice-captain, Ochi called his name.

He was a

member of the Seiin volleyball team who he had known somewhat because they were

in the same grade. He was the tallest on the Seiin team at 193cm. Since he was

on top of a hill, he looked so excessively tall that he could poke the sky.

“Well look

who it is. So it was you, Ochi.”

Aoki also

recognized Ochi. He was tall, but unlike Okuma, he didn’t have an overbearing

air about him. Ochi had the impression of him as a rational and gentle person.

Aoki was

pointing his cell phone camera at them. He checked the screen and was fiddling

with something.

“This rude

guy from your school is laying his hands on our guy, so I was just able to get

it on camera.”

“What…you

recorded it!? Why would you…!?”

“It’ll

make a great piece of evidence that a member of Fukuho came to another school

and started a fight there.”

Just when

he thought he had finally met a member of the team with whom he could talk

calmly, the person who appeared wasn’t a mediator to settle the matter. Behind

him, Tokura gasped and began to shake.

Rational and

gentle impression? Who was!?

“Ah…that’s

low! It was your member who stirred things up!”

“The number

one school in the prefecture doesn’t need to be offended by a little bit of

foul language from a weak school like us.” Okuma jumped on the opportunity Aoki

gave him and got fired up. Ochi ground his teeth and glared at him.

“You guys

don’t seem to know your manners. Where would this kind of talk…”

He lost the

rest of his words when someone entered the edge of his vision.

He turned

his head so quickly that he swore he could hear a creak, and saw a bike parked

a little lower down the hill. Not only had he seen it before, it was an

extremely familiar bike that he had ridden to and from school countless times

over the past three years. In the front basket was an enamel bag with “Fukuho

Tech” printed on it in hard typeface.

“Suba…ru…why…”

Mimura,

who had taken one foot off the pedals to support the bike, was breathing hard.

He must have left practice, as he was wearing a sweaty T-shirt. He paused in

his shallow, repetitive breathing to take a deep breath in, then exhaled with

his whole upper body and plopped down over the handlebars with his arms resting

on his bag.

“Ow…I died

on that slope back there.”

It was

unthinkable that he could have ridden his bike all the way here from Fukuho

before he went up the hill and so on. He couldn’t have possibly caught up if he

had to wait for the next train, but it should have taken an hour if he rode as

hard as he could.

“…What’s

going on, with you here…”

Muttering

that, Mimura’s fingers twitched on the bag. He raised his head slightly from

his arms and looked farther upwards, past Ochi and Tokura who were rooted to

the spot.

He could

see the rest of the team, three or four members in all, coming down from the

top of the hill. The short boy at the front of the group stopped in his tracks when

he noticed Ochi, the other four people, and Mimura on his bike.

The

first-year, who had simply been flustered and unable to interject, suddenly

shouted, “You’ve got it all wrong! It isn’t me this time!”

—

It seemed

that the Seiin team members were about to clean up the outdoor court and

intermittently withdraw into the gym. They all moved together for the time

being to a flat area at the bottom of the hill. The circumstances were

explained to the two captains, with arguments from both schools.

Seiin’s

captain, Oda, was a wing spiker of only 163cm. The height difference between

Oda and Mimura, who played the same position but was taller at 189cm, was so

great that it was almost comical when they faced each other.

At that

point, Ochi didn’t think that something fatal was happening to Fukuho. There

was no question that Seiin’s rudeness was the spark that lit the fuse. What’s

more, taking a video and threatening us…is that something a high schooler would

come up with? Even if Seiin submitted the video to a suitable place such as

their school or Koutairen, Seiin’s unscrupulous technique would be more

problematic.

However,

Mimura said…

“Sorry.”

He then

bent his tall body and bowed his head to Oda, which was both surprising and

hard to accept.

“Can’t you

keep this between us? I can’t let anything scandalous happen to us. I deeply

apologize for any careless actions done by our members. Can’t you do that for

me, for the sake of my honor?”

“Subaru,

stop…”

Ochi whispered

and pulled on Mimura’s arm.

Fukuho was

the king of the prefecture. He wasn’t saying that out of arrogance, but

objectively speaking, they had contributed more to high school volleyball in

the prefecture than any other school, and even the credibility of the people

involved were different. It was Seiin who insulted them at the beginning of the

encounter without the least bit respect.

There

was no way the captain of Fukuho was going to bow down to a bunch of guys who

just happened to stand out this year and didn’t know manners. It felt pathetic.

It was like an unconditional surrender.

“The people

involved in this are me and Kohei. If anyone’s going to apologize, it should be

us.”

“Be quiet.

It doesn’t matter if you bow your heads or not. It’s something I have to do.”

Without

wavering in his posture, Mimura spoke crisply and clearly. His heavy and

powerful voice, which was usually light, pierced through his body and

reverberated down his spine.

“Please,

Oda. It would be a shame for us if we were suspended for such a trivial matter.

If Fukuho’s history is cut short like this with us, we won’t be able to face

our senpais.”

He didn’t

even put his head on the ground, but for Ochi it was as good as getting down on

his knees. He was horrified as he finally realized the gravity of what they had

done. They were in a situation where they had no choice but to depend on the

mercy of Seiin’s captain.

The only

one standing on the precipice was Fukuho. Even if Seiin’s modus operandi was

called into question, they could just say it was a one-time thing.

The

magnitude of what they would lose was as different as heaven and earth.

“Um…I’m

really sorry for everything!” Tokura jumped out from next to him and collapsed

onto his knees in front of Oda. “I’m the only one to blame! If this will be

solved by me quitting the team, then…”

“H-Hold

on a minute. I didn’t mean to talk so big. Please stand up. This is making me

look bad.”

Oda stepped

back disconcertedly from Tokura, who looked like he was about to start rubbing

his forehead against his shoes. He took Tokura’s arm and stood him up as he

turned towards Mimura.

“Mimura, I

don’t care about it either. It’ll only be a loss for us if it becomes a

problem. We said some stupid stuff too, so we’re sorry. ——Okuma!”

With a

stern voice, Oda called out to Okuma.

“It’s not

worth it if I’m the only one who’s punched.”

Okuma complained.

“Both of

you are bad! First Kuroba, now you, I’m sick of this!”

A

threatening angry voice exploded from his small frame. Okuma flinched from

Oda’s scolding, who was twice as big as he looked if you crossed him.

“I’m so

sorry, Fukuho-san—.”

Okuma

apologized sulkily.

“Aoki,” Oda

then turned to the vice-captain of the same year as him, and Aoki shrugged his

shoulders casually. “Enough with the bad jokes. Delete it right now.”

Joke? Is

he talking about that threat? Even if that’s the case…it’s in too bad taste.

Aoki

sighed and turned his phone screen towards them. At the end of several

thumbnails in a row was a video showing Tokura and Okuma. The fact that

evidence really had been obtained sent a chill down his back. Aoki deleted the

video so that those present could see it clearly.

In the end,

no one except Oda seemed apologetic. Ochi’s indignation didn’t abate, but when

he thought of Mimura’s position, he stifled any further protests.

Mimura

finally raised his head. The fact that his gaze had once again settled in a

spot higher than Oda proved that Fukuho was out of the dilemma.

Oda, too,

had subsided in his anger towards his own team members, and a smile appeared on

his masculine face.

“I heard

you came all the way out here to watch us practice. It’s an honor to be marked

by Fukuho.”

It was as

if they had returned to their original goal after going through all that

unnecessary trouble. Still, although he and Okuma were saying the same things,

it didn’t sound sarcastic coming from Oda’s mouth.

“It’ll only

be for an hour from now, but you can watch if you want.”

“No, we

don’t need to watch you practice.”

Oda closed

his mouth in surprise at Mimura’s flat response. Ochi and Tokura looked at

Mimura, both wanting to say something. It was natural to feel that they might

as well watch since they came all this way.

It was

hard to believe that Mimura had prostrated himself with such a serious face

just a few minutes ago, but now he was back to his usual Mimura self.

“I’m gonna

throw some cold water on everything today, grab these guys by the scruff of

their necks and go back. In exchange, how about a practice match?”

He said. In

a sense, he was in a good mood when he made the offer right after this

situation.

That

determination was who Mimura was. Finally able to see the true Mimura, Ochi

felt quite relieved.

The lack of

information about Seiin made them seem needlessly creepy. On the other hand,

Fukuho, who had always won regular matches, might as well as be stark naked.

Fukuho’s videos were lying around the prefecture like rocks along the side of

the road.

He thought

that there was no reason for Oda, who seemed to be a chivalrous and manly man

as well as respected by his teammates, not to make a quick decision. However,

surprisingly, Oda avoided making a snap judgement and turned around, asking,

“What do you guys think? They’re the one who asked us, and I want to practice

with a higher-skilled team, but…” He was asking the opinion of a certain member

of the team who hadn’t spoken a word until then.

That was——Haijima.

For some

reason, he knew it was him right away, even though he could only recognize it

from a distance in the video.

Unlike Mimura, he didn’t have a sharp and distinct

face. He had a slender face with narrow eyes, a face that didn’t stand out at

all. He was tall and skinny as fitting a volleyball player and wore thin-framed

glasses, which he didn’t have in the video. At first glance, he didn’t seem

like a sports person, and if he hadn’t been here in a practice uniform, one

might not have thought he was part of a sports team.

And yet,

his appearance suddenly drew his attention. It was as though there was only a

thin air of tension where he was, and although it was completely different from

Mimura, there was something that changed the air around him into an atmosphere

of his own color.

Aah, so

this guy is also “special”——

“There’s

another genius right now in Fukui.”

One of the

Best Six of Tokyo middle schools, as Hata put it, turned his narrow eyes on

Mimura as though he was appraising Fukui’s absolute ace. The first words he

uttered were in standard Japanese without a local accent.

“It’s

fine, isn’t it? You don’t have to be so reluctant. It looks like they’re

awfully interested in us.”

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