Secrets, Socials, and Seigaku

Chapter 14

“So you know what he’s going to do?” Tezuka asked, surprising me at how close he had gotten to me. He was now standing right behind me with his arms folded across his chest and wore a stoic expression on his face. Even though he looked serious you could clearly see that he was curious about what was going to happen. I smiled a bit at this. I had never seen Tezuka express another emotion  other than seriousness. I motioned for him to sit next to me. He slowly made his way over and sat down. I lowered my voice so only he could hear it.

“You see that.” I said motioning to Echizen out on the court. Echizen had been stretching out his arm every which way it could bend, trying to see if there was something wrong with it. “To us it probably looked like Echizen’s arm had cramped for a second and I guess you could say that’s partially true.” I explained watching Echizen trying to figure out why his arm froze up out on the court.

“What do you mean partially?” he asked seriously this time. I looked at him momentarily before leaning back in my chair and replying. “Calm down. He’ll be fine.” I said, trying to relax his nerves.

I knew he may not look it, but Tezuka did care about his teammates. I tried to explain it to him once again. “You see, by hitting topspin and slice shots to his forehand and backhand numerous times Echizen’s muscles will start to contract. Leaving him in a numb state called ‘spot’.”

“Spot?” he said thinking about what I had just said.

I nodded and continued with my debriefing. “The numb state only lasts for a split second but.” I turned to see Tachibana eavesdropping on our conversation. “It looks like your teammate can actually see it.” I said sickingly sweet.

I heard Inui reading his data behind me. “It’s a hit or miss technique. It hasn’t been perfected by anyone yet.” He said stating the facts.

I looked back at Echizen partially worried. “He’ll definitely figure out a way to beat him.“ Even though it sounded convincing to the people around me  I was having a hard time believing it myself. 

As the game went on Shinji kept pushing Echizen back with his ‘spot’ technique. Until finally it looked like Echizen got sick of losing points and tried to come up with a solution. He spun around trying to hit the ball forcibly with power. But half way through the spin he let go of his racket due to ‘spot’. Everyone thinking that we would lose was brought out of their thoughts at what happened next.

When Echizen let go of his grip his racket had been thrown at the pole holding up the nets. Unfortunately, his racket broke into two pieces. But what shocked everyone was that when his racket broke half of the racket bounced off the pole and had hit his face. Screams and gasps had broken out around the Courts. I was stunned I didn’t move an inch. I could only stare at the sight before me.

Crimson. Blood was the first thing I saw. There was blood on the courts along with Echizen’s hat on the ground.  Lying next to his hat was Echizen on his hands and knees with one hand covering his left eye. I stood up. “Ryoma!” I called. I only ever used his first name when it came down to something serious.

“Ryoma!” someone else had shouted out. I looked up to see Sakuno, the freshman from before, running over to Ryoma on the courts. 

“Don’t come on to the court!” He shouted seriously.

I smiled sadly at the display. Sakuno looked absoultley torn. I breifly remembered when I had been in Sakuno's position.

“T! T! Are you okay? Your knee is bleeding!” I said worryingly.

Teito had fallen during his game and had cut his knee. Right now he was on the floor blowing on the scrape trying to ease up the sting. I was about Sakuno’s age at the time. Teito looked over at me angrily. “Don’t come on the court during the game! I’m not done yet!” he said. “You can come out onto the court when you want to congratulate me for winning!” he shouted.