Try Your Hardest | Ushijima Wakatoshi

Year 3: Part 8

Only a week had passed by since the Valentine's Day incident. Ushijima had found it nearly unbearable to be in the same room as Sato Kenzo. Looking at his stupid, smug face infuriated him beyond belief, but he promised he wouldn't do anything that would make Uta upset.

She was right when she said she won the fight. Though Uta's black eye was bad, she was able to cover it up just fine with makeup, but Kenzo could not hide a broken nose. Even after a week, the bruising was obvious.

Ushijima spent a lot of time staring at the back of that man's head, imagining throwing something heavy enough to concuss him. This, however, resulted in a poor result on a test and quiz. He was worried that if this continued, graduating may be difficult.

In the midst of his worries, the principal of Shiratorizawa barged in. Quite the rate occurrence for him to personally visit a classroom. "Sato Kenzo, come with me. Bring all your belongings."

Sato did as he was told. The classroom broke out into whispers about what it could possibly be, Wakatoshi was curious about it as well since the principal did not look very pleased. Uta had not mentioned whether or not she was going to tell anyone about the incident, but he also was hesitant to ask her if she planned to do anything about it. It was up to her after all.

For the past week, Uta did not step into Ushiwaka's classroom in fear of an altercation with Kenzo, but that day, she waltzed right in during lunch as if she was aware of the fact he was not present.

Uta placed her hands on his desk and leaned forward with a mischievous look on her face, one that the ace was not familiar with. "Wanna watch something?" she asked.

Wakatoshi raised an eyebrow but followed her anyway. It was quite a long walk from the classroom to a window that overlooked the courtyard at the entrance of Shiratorizawa. Nothing was happening at the moment, but there was someone recognizable looking at the two from below—the men's swim captain.

He turned to Uta and the both of them nodded at each other as if they knew something was about to take place. Iriye took a deep breath, placed her hands on the window seal, and began to speak.

"When I first went to Shiratorizawa Junior High, Chojiro-san was one of the first people I met. I caught Sato Kenzo bullying him and nearly drowning him in the school pool. He admitted that it was a reoccurring event, but hesitated to tell administration because his family has great influence. You see, the Sato family produces key biomedical devices for medical research, their business is extremely important."

Soon, Akari Shiho from the girl's swim and another girl Ushijima did not know took their place next to Chojiro, the captain, with proud looks on their faces.

"Akari-san and Ruka-san are also victims of his foul behavior, but like Chojiro-san, could not say anything because they feared the repercussion of going against his family. There are likely many more victims, but these are the only ones that I know of. This time, he did not remember his place. Iriye Labs has been the Sato family's greatest benefactor in their company and we own the majority of their shares."

"So, what does that mean?" Ushijima questioned, a bit confused with where this was all going.

"For years, Chojiro-san has gathered evidence that Sato has used drugs to enhance his performance for swimming. Pair that with the my testimony and the other girl's and we have ourselves a very, very, good chance to take him down. He will lose his swimming career, he will not be able to graduate, and his family will abandon him. They will not go against me in fear that their company will plunder if I decide to pull the shares. The best they will do now is get a lawyer who will make a decent plea deal which will likely still end with him in jail. Nothing short of humiliation for him."