But I would not reject who I am or who I was. I would never believe that solitude was a sin or was somehow wrong.
So I would fight in order to protect my own personal sense of justice.
I began to walk out into the court alone.
“……………………………… it.”
I heard a soft, soft, extremely soft sigh that was whisked away by the buzz of the crowd.
“Huh?”
“I said, I'll do it!”
Yuigahama groaned softly while her face turned completely red.
“Yuigahama? Idiot. Are you an idiot? Just cut it out.”
“How am I an idiot?!”
“Why are you gonna do it? Are you an idiot? Or is it that you have a crush on me?”
“H… Huh? W-what are you saying? You idiot? YOU IDIIIIOOOOOTT!!”
Yuigahama went red in the face and called me an idiot over and over, looking incredibly angry. She snatched the racquet away from me and started swinging it around.
“S-S-S-Sorry! I’m sorry!”
(“S-s-s-sorry! I’m sorry!”)
I apologized immediately while somehow dodging her swings. Hearing the whoosh as the racquet passed really close to my ear was seriously scary… But even as I apologized, I gave her a questioning look, and Yuigahama shyly looked away.
“…Well, umm, how should I put it…? I’m also in the service club, so… it’s not strange for me to do stuff like this… It’s where I belong.”
“Wait, calm down a sec… Be more aware of what’s happening here. This isn’t the only place you belong, right? Hey, look: the girls in your usual group are glaring at you.”
“Eh, seriously?”
Yuigahama stiffened and looked over towards Hayama’s group. I could almost hear her neck creak as she slowly turned her head. I was tempted to tell her to use some WD-40 or something.[2]
The group of girls around Hayama, with Miura at their head, were looking at us. It was natural for them to do that, considering what Yuigahama had announced so loudly.
There was hostility resting in Miura's humungous eyes, eyes that were painted black with mascara and eyeliner. Her drill-like rolls of blonde hair waved from side to side unhappily. Was she Madame Butterfly or something…?[3]
“Yui, you know, if you join that side, then you’re going against us. Right?”
Miura acted like a queen, crossing her arms and tap-tapping her foot on the ground. It was the “angry queen” pose. Yuigahama felt the pressure of that pose and slowly looked down at the ground. She gripped the hem of her skirt. She might have been nervous--her hands were trembling.
The overly-curious audience began to whisper amongst themselves. It was nothing short of a public execution.
But Yuigahama lifted her head, and firmly looked straight ahead.
“…That’s… not what I want. But, club… Club is also really important to me! So I’m gonna do this.”
“Hmmm… I see. Try not to embarrass yourself then.”
Miura responded curtly, but I saw her start to smile. That smile burned with the fires of hell.
“Change then. I’m gonna borrow clothes from the girl’s tennis team, so you come too.”
Miura jerked her head toward the tennis club rooms near the courts. She was probably trying to be nice, but to me it sounded like she was saying, “I’m gonna strangle you behind the club rooms.” And as Yuigahama left with her, her expression stiff, everyone around us sent her off with looks of compassion.
Well, uhh… It was nice knowing you…
“Hey, Hikitani-kun.”
As I prayed for Yuigahama, Hayama spoke up to me. He must have pretty good communication skills to be talking to me… Even though he got my name wrong.
“What?”
“I don’t really know the rules for tennis here, and doubles also seems really hard. So do you mind if we just make up some simple rules?”
“Well, this is beginner’s tennis after all… Let’s just hit a few balls around and keep track of points. How’s that? It’ll be kind of like volleyball.”
“Ah, that’s easy to understand… Sounds good.”
Hayama gave me a bright smile. I responded with an unpleasant smile.
At that point, the two girls came back.
Yuigahama was red in the face and was trying her utmost to adjust her skirt. She was also wearing a uniform polo shirt.
“This tennis uniform is a bit… Isn’t the skirt really short?”
“But you’re always wearing stuff that short…”
“Wha…?! What does that mean?! A-are you always looking at me! So gross! Gross! You’re seriously gross!”
Yuigahama glared at me fiercely, raisng her racquet above her head.
“It’s fine! I don’t look at all! I don’t notice you at all! Don’t worry! Also, don’t hit me!”
“For some reason… that's also annoying…”
Yuigahama muttered that and slowly lowered her racquet.
Zaimokuza saw and opening and interrupted with a cough.
“Hm… Hachiman. What about strategy?”
“Well, the best strategy would be to aim for the girl, right?”
A girl as dumb as that would be destroyed in an instant, right? So she was definitely the hole in their defense.
It would be much more efficient to hit to her than to have a one-on-one rally with Hayama… But once she heard the plan, Yuigahama objected in a panicked voice.
“Huh? Hikki, don’t you know? Yumiko was on the tennis team in middle school. She was picked for the prefectural team, you know?”
Once I heard that, I took a glance at Madame Butterfly (aka Yumiko). Her posture did look pretty proper, and her body’s movements also seemed very light… Zaimokuza saw that and spoke up haltingly.
“Hm, so I guess vertical rolls are no joke.”[4]
“Actually, you call that hairstyle a ‘loose light weave’…”
Whatever.
7-3
The match began, and sparks flew as each point proceeded in an ebb and flow of attack and defense.
When we first began, the crowd would roar and send us high-pitched shrikes, but as the match continued they would hold their breath and chase the ball with their eyes, letting out sighs of relief and shouts of joy when points ended. It was really like a pro match you would watch on television.
(When we first began, the crowd roared and shrieked, but as the match continued, they held their breath and chased the ball with their eyes, letting out sighs of relief and shouts of joy with each point scored. It was a lot like a televised pro match.)
With each long rally, with each returned point, I could feel an intense anxiety whittling away at my nerves.
In the end, that equilibrium was ruined by that vertical roll girl's serve.
Ping! I heard her racquet connect. Immediately after that, the ball flew down the court like a bullet and zoomed behind me.
What the hell was that just now…? Is it just me, or did her ball also do a vertical roll?
In other words, Madame Butterfly was a really high-level player.
“She’s insanely good…”
I couldn’t stop myself from muttering that.
“I told you.”
Yuigahama sounded strangely proud. Wasn’t she supposed to be on my side?
“You know, you haven’t gotten a hit in for a while now…”
“Ah, umm, actually… I don’t play tennis much.”
Yuigahama gave me a nervous chuckle.
“…You… You don’t play tennis but you’re here?”
“Ngh… I-I guess that was my bad!”
It’s the other way around, you idiot… You’re way too good a person. You don’t play tennis, and yet you’re here, playing in front of a crowd for Totsuka’s sake… That’s not something that’s easy to do. It would've been insanely cool if you were also good at tennis, but life didn’t work out that way.
I was putting up a good fight with the pinpoint serve and laser-accurate retur
n that I had tempered through all of my wall-hitting training, but as we approached the second half, the score difference grew larger and larger.
It was mostly because our opponents were focused on Yuigahama.
They might have been surprised at how well I was holding up and changed their target… Or they might have just been ignoring my existence.
“You go defend up front, Yuigahama. I’ll handle things in back.”
“Okay.”
We confirmed our basic plan of action and took our appropriate positions.
Hayama’s fast, heavy serve came flying at us. It hit the furthest corner of the court with pinpoint accuracy and tried to fly away from us. I leapt to the side and desperately tried to catch it. I held out my racquet as far as I could and just barely got to the ball. Then, using all my strength, I hit it back.
My return landed in my opponent’s court, but Madame Butterfly seemed prepared for it. As she launched it towards the opposite side of the court, I didn’t even wait to see where that ball was headed. I just dashed towards the other side of the court, where I thought she was going to hit it.
My reckless legs were still listening to what my brain was saying. I overtook the ball, and when it bounced back up, I slammed it away, aiming for the corner of the court.
However, Hayama seemed to have seen through my plan--he was waiting for my shot. He changed things up, trying a drop shot aimed right between me and Yuigahama.
I had lost my balance, so there was no way I was getting to that ball. I sent Yuigahama a pleading look, and she ran to the ball and hit it back… But it took all her strength to hit the ball, so the return ball flew high into the air, falling right where Madame Butterfly was standing.
And that ball was hammered, full-power, right back at us. Madame Butterfly had a sadistic smile on her face as the ball grazed Yuigahama’s cheek and flew off into an empty corner of the court.
“You okay?”
I didn’t go to collect the ball--I just called out to Yuigahama, who had flopped down on her behind.
“…that was super scary…”
When she heard the teary-eyed Yuigahama mutter that, Madame Butterfly seemed worried for a second.
“Yumiko, you’re terrible.”
“Wha-?! No, no! This is normal in a match! I’m not that terrible!”
“Ahh, so you’re just a huge sadist, then.”
Hayama and Madame Butterfly joked around and then smiled. The audience also seemed to follow them and smiled along.
“…Hikki, let’s win this match.”
Yuigahama stood up and picked up her racquet. “O-Ouch!” I heard her let out a small squeal.
“Hey, are you okay?”
“Sorry… I think I might’ve pulled a muscle or something.”
Yuigahama gave me a shy laugh. And then her eyes filled with tears.
“If we lose… then it’s going to cause trouble for Saichan… Ah, not good, at this rate things are not going to be good… If this fails, then I don’t think just an apology is going to fix things… Ugh!”
Yuigahama bit her lip in frustration.
“Well, we’ll figure a way out of this. Worst case, we dress Zaimokuza up in women’s clothing.”
“That’ll get found out in a minute!”
“True… Well then, here’s an idea… You just stay somewhere in the court. I’ll handle the rest.”
“…How?”
“There is a forbidden technique in tennis that has been around since time immemorial. The name of that technique is: ‘My racquet has become a rocket!’”
“That’s just a foul!”
“…well, worst case scenario, I’ll just get serious. If I get serious enough, then I become a master of begging for mercy and licking the soles of their feet.”
“That is way too serious in completely the wrong way…”
Yuigahama seemed astounded and let out a sigh, then she smiled. Her eyes were red with tears, maybe because her pulled muscle hurt or because she had laughed herself to tears. She turned those red eyes towards me.
“Ah, Hikki is just an idiot… His personality is bad, and he’s even bad when it comes to giving up. You didn’t give up back then either… You dashed out like a complete idiot and called out in that desperate, gross voice… I remember it all.”
“What in the world are you talking ab-”
“I think I might be just really fed up with it all…”
Yuigahama interrupted my words and spoke in an exasperated voice.
She left off with that, then turned her back to me and walked away. “Out of the way, out of the way!” she shouted as she parted the confused audience.
“…Just what was that girl talking about…?”
Left alone in the center of the court, I watched Yuigahama’s retreating back as she disappeared. Then I heard an irritating laugh echo through the area.
“What’s wrong? Fighting with your friend? Got left behind?”
“Don’t be ridiculous… I’ve never fought with anyone in my life. It’s not like I’m close enough to anyone to actually ‘fight’ with them.”
“Ehh…”
Hayama and Madame Butterfly seemed repulsed by what I said.
Hm? They were supposed to laugh there…
I see, self-deprecating humor like that only works if you're close to the other person…
Zaimokuza was the only one who was trying to hold in a laugh. I clicked my tongue and turned around, only to see Zaimokuza feign ignorance by pretending to talk to someone while he was slipping into the crowd.
…that bastard just ran away, didn’t he…? Well, in a situation like this, I would definitely also feign ignorance and run away. Totsuka was also looking at me with a sad expression on his face.
Ugh, well… Time to beg for mercy, then? I’d show them how I can be when I get serious.
To suck up to someone, you throw away your pride and suck up to them with all your might… I was proud of how well I can do that.
I was probably the only person there who felt such an unbelievable urge to get out of the stifling atmosphere… Then I heard the audience begin to buzz.
And then the wall of people smoothly began to part.
“What in the world is causing all this terrible noise?”
It was Yukinoshita--she was wearing her gym uniform and a skirt and looked quite displeased. She had a first-aid kit in one hand.
“Ah, where did you go off to…? And why are you wearing that?”
“I don’t quite know… Yuigahama-san just showed up and asked me to put this on.”
Yukinoshita said that and turned around, at which point Yuigahama appeared beside her. It seemed that they had swapped clothes, and she was wearing Yukinoshita’s uniform. Where did they change? Did they do it outside?! Hmmmm…
“Losing after all this would be pretty annoying, so Yukinon is going to play for us.”
“Why do I have to do that…?”
“Well, after all, Yukinon is the most dependable friend in the world!”
Yukinoshita jumped a bit at Yuigahama’s response.
“F… riend?”
“Yup, friend.”
Yuigahama didn’t wait a second before answering. Wait a minute, that was just a bit…
“Do you really ask your friends to do annoying things like this? I get the feeling you’re just using her…”
“Eh? I can only ask friends for stuff like this. Why would you ever ask someone you don’t care about to do something important for you?”
She answered me as if that was the most natural thing in the world to say.
Ohh, so that’s how it was…
In the past, I’ve been suckered into taking up someone else’s cleaning duty because they asked me “Aren’t we friends?” so I really didn’t have any experience with Yuigahama's view on this. I see, so I really was friends with those people… As if.
Yukinoshita was probably thinking along almost exactly the same lines as me. She put a finger on her lips and t
hought about something.
Her suspicions were completely appropriate; I also wasn’t the type to trust people easily.
But this Yuigahama Yui was a special case. After all, she was a moron.
Yahari Ore no Seishun Rabu Kome wa Machigatteiru - Volume 01 Page 20