Chapter Thirty

Sudo asserted himself on one side of the court as soon as Kotoko arrived. He was ready.

"Matsumoto!" He called with the cry of a demon, and she swept over to his side, all set for the match to begin.

"Listen," I said to Kotoko as we trooped on over to the other side of the court, "Don't let an entire week of your effort go to waste. Just keep your eyes open and be fast." She appeared to be anticipating bad things to come.

"Right, okay." She said.

"You're not alone out there. I'm going to be there, so don't be scared." I said. Kotoko breathed a sigh of relief, giving me a thankful look. I turned away to keep these trying, intrusive thoughts at bay. Anytime I tried to be nice, it backfired on me because I didn't want to feel this way. But being nice seemed to provoke my mind into thinking this way.

All set up on the court, everyone stopped their practicing to watch the match.

"I hope you're ready for this!" Sudo said and made the first serve. It was automatically aimed at Kotoko. Only now, she didn't cower and run. She lunged for it. Her racket hit the ball right on, but it flew up into the air sloppily.

We've gone over this… I thought. But she was Kotoko, after all. She wasn't about to do everything perfect.

Sudo took the lead and another serve. I hit it back and Yuuko returned it to Kotoko who hit it again, although it didn't make it over the net. Kotoko scrunched her face up in frustration. We prepared for another serve from the other side of the court.

Sudo served it toward her again, and again she wasn't able to return it properly. He made the point, each time he received the ball, to ignore me in the entirety of the word. He was severely agitated with Kotoko to the point that the rivalry wasn't with me anymore, but with her.

He spoke to Yuuko in grumbles across the court.

"She's hitting every ball, that beginner!" He said crazily.

"But she can't hit it back. We'll win for sure." Yuuko countered.

"I don't care! This is a matter of my pride!" Sudo said. He got in closer to Yuuko and said something else I couldn't make out.

Yuuko began to ignore me the same way Sudo was. I was practically nonexistent on the court, their predatory eyes trained on Kotoko for ensurance of their win.

Sudo became angrier by the minute that Kotoko could hit his serves, and even angrier when I would intervene if she couldn't get it.

And the angrier he was, the more out of control his serves were. While strong, his aim was off. And then I saw it… it was the perfect serve for her. It was lower than the others and had barely made it over the net. But she seemed unsure of it since it was a little farther away.

"Get it, Kotoko!" I shouted at her.

She leapt for it, her racket hitting the ball dead-center. It soared the distance, past Yuuko as she tried for it, and bounced on the court just before going out of bounds. A perfect return.

But maybe not so perfect.

Kotoko's foot landed on the ground awkwardly. Her ankle twisted to the side. She collapsed under the pain of it.

"Ow!" She cried and held her ankle. I rushed to her aid and took a look at it. The ankle in question had already started to swell.

"That's a stupid way to sprain your ankle." I told her, feeling the ankle for myself. She definitely wouldn't be playing tennis for a little while.

"Ouch, that hurts!" She complained.

"You can't play anymore," I said to Kotoko and laid my racket down, "Sudo, we forfeit."

"You forfeit?" He said, recovering from the shock that Kotoko had returned one of his serves. His face brightened significantly.

I scooped Kotoko up off the ground. She was taken by surprise. She looped her arm around my neck, appearing self-conscious. I walked her to the girls' locker rooms, Sudo cheering up a storm behind us.

"I'm sorry. We lost again because of me." She said in disappointment.

"I wasn't expecting us to win." I said without thinking, hoping I hadn't let anything slip that I shouldn't have… that the only reason we'd been practicing was because I wanted to spend time with her.

She smiled up at me. I was left annoyed by the effect it had. I'd wished it away all last night and all day today, but with a twist in my gut, I knew this feeling wouldn't be going anywhere. Just like her since the day I met her.

I dropped Kotoko off at the door of the locker room.

"I'll walk you home. You don't live far from here, right?" I said. She nodded.

"Right. Thank you, Irie-kun." She dazzled me again. My heart jumped. How was she doing that?

I dressed quickly and met her outside the locker rooms. She took immediate claim to my arm, limping so hard that one would've thought she'd broken her leg. I took her bag for her and strung it over my other shoulder.

"My house is three blocks from here. We're finally moving into it today." She said. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion of this statement.

"What do you mean you're finally moving into it?" She'd been gone for two weeks. If she wasn't living in her new house, then where could she possibly have been living?

"My father and I have been living in a little apartment until the house was ready to be moved into." She said. So, her father had wanted her away from me so badly that they moved out when the house wasn't ready… I'd had no idea he was so serious about it.

I said nothing.

After a block of her extreme limping, she started up conversation again.

"We'll be there soon. We just have to walk another block and then turn and turn again and we're there." She drew it into the air with her finger.

"We should've taken a taxi." I said. With her ankle sprained and her slowing us down so heavily, it would take an hour to get there.

"It's a waste of money." She took a second and then made a smug expression.

"What is it?"

"Back there… you said my name, right? Not my family name, my first name." I closed my eyes in regret. I'd been hoping so greatly she hadn't picked up on it.

"I don't know." I said passively with the idea she might forget about it.

"It's the first time you've done that."

"Like I said, I don't remember. I was concentrated on the game." Kotoko giggled at the ground. She was such a simple person. Just my saying her first name had put her into an elated state.

After months of referring to her as her first name in only my head, I guessed I'd forgotten that I didn't call her by that name. My mistake.

She clung to me through the rest of the walk. After the second turn, she pointed out a house to the right.

"That's the one." She made for it as quickly as her gimp would allow, up the porch stairs and to the door. She rang the doorbell a few times.

I handed her back her bag, "Tell your father I said hello." I said, assuming she could make it into her house on her own.

"Wait!" She grabbed my arm again, "You could come in for a cup of tea! It looks like my father's home and he'd probably like to see you." She insisted as she pulled me back.

I questioned myself over my recently-revealed feelings for the umpteenth time today. This one? This clingy, dumb, clumsy, girl who was too loud for her own good?

Yep.

I sighed.

"Alright, I've got it. Now let go of my arm and stop tugging." I said in a sort of snap.

Kotoko grinned at me as we waited for her father to come to the door. I heard footsteps and the door swung open.

"Dad…" She said, but stopped short. A much older man stood in the doorway. Certainly not her father.

"Is this your grandfather?" I asked her. She shook her head.

"I don't know him." Great. We were at the wrong house, "Who are you?" She said to him.

"You are so rude. I should be asking you who you are." He waggled his finger at us.

"I live in this house." Kotoko said. The man was piqued.

"This is my house. Kids today… some kind of prank…" He grumbled as he shut the door on us.

"No way. I'm so sure this is the house." She limped down the stairs and to the front of the house, looking for something.

"What are you doing now?"

"When my father brought me here, there was a flower pot… aha, there it is!" She brought me to a large, cracked pot with a withered shrub in it.

"So what does this mean?" I said.

"I don't know. But I need to call my father and see what's going on." She pulled out her phone. I also dug mine out from my bag to call a taxi. I didn't have the time to be walking her all around Tokyo on my arm.

"He won't answer." She said. Lines formed on her forehead.

"We're just going to have to go back to my house. A taxi will be here soon." Kotoko sat on the curb.

The taxi came ten minutes later. The drive was full of her moping, and by the time we'd made it to my house, night had set in. We climbed out from the taxi.

"Where did he go?" She said worriedly.

Yuuki came running out of the door as the taxi pulled away from the house.

"My room! My room is… it's…" He found Kotoko and pointed at her, "It's her fault!" He whined.

Excitement and relief coursed through me.

My mother scurried out the front door, her eyes wide with knowing. She was alive for the first time in a couple of weeks. It was good to have to back to being herself, even if being herself meant scheming.

"Welcome home, Naoki, Kotoko-chan. I thought you two would be together."

"We went to my new house, but someone else lives there. I can't reach my father either." Kotoko explained.

"Your father went to the real estate agency." I could see my mother doing her best to try and look sorry, but I could see her true intents. If I didn't know any better, it was likely she had something to do with this.

"Oh no. What happened?"

"There was a mix-up with the lease. Turns out, another man signed it before your father." My mother said. She was guilty, and I was sure of it.

"Does that mean my father and I are homeless again?"

"Oh don't you worry," And there it was, "You can come live with us again!" My mother grinned something vicious, like a child getting its way.

"But…" Kotoko said and looked to me as if waiting for me to object. But, to be honest, I had no refusal. The house was boring without her.

"We are going to be a family eventually after all." My mother said. Part of me wondered if she could read my mind now, if she somehow knew of my revelation.

"Stop talking nonsense." I said.

"Nonsense, you say?" She crossed her arms and leaned in mischievously, "I know you two kissed."

I stared at her. It was one amazing thing after the next today. Absolutely amazing. All I wanted to know was who my mother had heard this from, and only one person came to mind.

I glared down at Kotoko. She could never keep quiet about anything. She picked up on this and shook her head at the assumption.

"It wasn't me! I didn't tell her!" She proclaimed her innocence. If not Kotoko, then who? She had to have something to do with it, because I hadn't told a soul.

"That's not true. It has to be a lie, right?" Yuuki said in an outrage. I had no argument to offer, simply done with today.

"I would have never guessed," My mother said, "It's not nice to trick your mother, you know." She gushed.

"But, how did you find out?" Kotoko said.

"That's for me and my information-givers to know alone." She laughed an evil laugh.

Yuuki ran inside and I left those two on the front step to secretly plot against me. In my bedroom, I found Yuuki's bed squished into the corner again.

I realized I didn't have a problem with it, other than the idea of my mother knowing things she shouldn't have. Things were back to normal in this house.