2
Some people around him, one or two, some meters away, flipping pages, writing sentences, thinking ideas. Biting of lip, scratching of head, brows furrowing.
They were so much like him. All quiet, concentrated in their study. Too much like him.
He wanted to sigh, but there was this massive text in front of his glasses, preventing him even from resting. It was work, and he couldn't bear leaving work undone. Especially since this work was Chinese homework supposed to be finished one week ago.
It was all his fault after all. He had spent too much time thinking of his secret training.
Now it was time to work.
He adjusted his grip on the pencil and lowered his head towards the thick lines under his nose. Just like the others hard-workers around him, he began to scribble deep sentences on a piece of paper, stopping from time to time to test their coherence, before going further in the deciphering of what now seemed to be an old manuscript from the Ancient China.
There was this tiny neurone-breaking bit of the text remaining when someone entered the School library, closing the door with a firm push but which sounded to his sleepy hearing like a rifle. Usually he wouldn't have bothered to look whoever it was, but the closing of the door had awakened something in his memory. So he looked.
He was looking in his direction. So he nodded.
He wasn't an habitué of libraries. Usually he would work at home. This time had been an emergency case. Still, it was funny to find him there. Even funnier was his chit-chatting with the School library manager.
Should he write it down in his notebook?
As he pondered on this, he reached the pages on Fudoumine Team.
Hum. These were information he needed to verify.
Tezuka was already walking to the exit.
He stood up to catch him outside, the squeaking of his chair waking the people around him out of their reasoning sleep.
"Tezuka..."
The other only looked at him, somehow expectantly.
"How is the friendly match you've been working on doing?"
Tezuka's glasses shone with annoyance.
"There is nothing like that." he stated.
"I've heard about it."
No reaction.
"...from reliable sources." he insisted.
Tezuka for a moment seemed to be searching for his eyes.
Useless. Anyway, he was nothing like bluffing right now.
"I'm going to be late." the other boy said, leaving.
He watched him leave with his usual steady self-assured pace, smiling his devilish smile.
Information have just been proved right.
-
Sun shining hard, crushing the players with its heavy heat. Wind gone to hide under the branches, leaving them to choke. Ground scarred with small wrinkles, avidly drinking the players' sweat.
He could almost feel his body dripping with water boiled out of him. He wondered if he should remove his track suit. He didn't want to expose his weighs to everyone's look. He didn't want them to know about him working on body reinforcement. Especially since to them his Tennis was all about data.
And well, he wasn't ready to give them data about himself either. Nobody should ever hear about his training methods.
He sponged his forehead with an already damp towel.
His teammates didn't seem to have any problem with heat. Kaidoh had changed from his jersey to a sleeveless shirt, and along with his wearing no socks it almost looked like he had no sense of modesty. Kawamura and Momoshiro were more reasonable: they had only pulled their short sleeves up to their shoulders, exposing their arms to the sun.
He had never been fond of sun.
As he finally decided to kept his clothes on, shouts of surprise and excitement reached his ears.
Echizen had struck again. It seemed that he never failed to entertain people watching him.
He wanted to take a look at him. But he had someone else in mind.
"Ganbatte nee, Eiji."
"Hai-hai. I won't lose today."
That was what he heard as he reached the court.
He took both notebook and pencil of his pocket, ready to capture the upcoming data.
It was a chance Eiji was first to serve. Now he had the whole game to observe Fuji's reactions.
The latter was bending his knees slightly lower than usual. Inui instantly assumed his first foot to move would be the right one.
Eiji struck a straight shot to his opponent's right angle. The brown-haired boy could only intercept it between legs.
He watched as the ball went up, curving a little.
Eiji moved back to hit a crossed shot. Fuji shifted his right leg, as if preparing a jump.
The ball was fast. There was 87% chances it would not work.
He observed as Eiji made a fast serve and move closer to the net for a volley, which he thought was a risky move. Surprisingly, Fuji had also moved to the net. It wasn't like him to play like that at all. Still, the prodigy had managed to surprise his opponent and get the point.
It seemed that he too was starting to play mind games. But Eiji wasn't the type to get manipulated easily: he was as unpredictable as the direction of the wind.
He wrote some of his reflexions down.
It was once again Eiji's turn to serve. The latter hit the ball without much power, for it seriously lacked speed. No doubt he had made it on purpose. Fuji sent it back without effort, but it came back almost instantly to his side of the court.
Inui raised an eyebrow, appraisingly.
Eiji was hitting slow balls to preserve his stamina and to give himself the time to reach the ball wherever Fuji would send it. It wasn't particularly brilliant, but it was strategically perfect for his acrobatic play, especially since at the same time, he was sucking his opponent's energy.
He watched as the ball once again pierced its way to the opposite side of the net. Fuji was unexpectedly holding his racket with two hands. Could it be that he planned on smashing such a slow ball?
The ball went to hit Eiji's unprotected territory.
He replayed the action in his head once again.
Fuji had used all the top of his body to hit the ball, so it would gain some immediate speed. It was amazing how quick the prodigy was at understanding his opponent's strategy and working against. Still, the way he hit the ball was certainly pushing a lot of strenght out of his muscles. If he didn't watch out, things could turn bad for him.
Now Inui was scribbling madly in his book.
Eiji was still sending slow balls, which was useless against Fuji now. His movements were slower than before and he seemed to be struggling with returning the balls: running around must have tired his all along. In this kind of situation, his acrobatic play didn't really help a bit.
Inui adjusted his glasses as the match point was finally announced, and watched as Fuji flipped his racket in an almost horizontal position.
It could only mean one thing.
He smiled inwardly.
"Myaah...I lost again." The acrobatic player mumbled.
"You played better today."
"I'm still unable to beat you." he said, making a face.
The other player only smiled.
He closed his notebook.
To use his ultimate technique to conclude the game and crush his opponent, that was definitely Fuji's trademark.
-
Hands firmly gripping his racket, arm streched over his head, feet solidly fixed on the ground, eyes focused, he was ready to strike. Minutes passed. He didn't move. His gaze hadn't flinched a bit.
He kept observing in front of him. That wall in front of him. These marks in fronts of him, done by repeating the same move that wouldn't succeed.
His brain was getting all worked up.
This was a little illogical. He had calculated every single parameter for this move: the right angle, the speed of the ball, the position of the racket, the position of his body. It should work.
He took his notebook and flipped throught it until a very specific page. He read it over and over, as if wanting to print the diagram he had drawn on his brain.
He stood up once again, holding his racket and served towards the wall. The ball bounced on it and sprang towards his face with a slashing sound, he took a step to the left and raised his arm, knocking the furious object off his way. Rebellious, it didn't follow the accorded pattern and went flying behind him.
It failed again.
He must have miscalculated something at some point. Maybe he needed to work on the swing again. Maybe he needed to think it over again.
He sat down and opened his reassuring green book. Taking a pen, he made a large cross on the previous diagram. There, this was the first step. Then, invading the piece of paper with several numeral operations, pouring a lot of dark ink on the immaculate page, he started to plan a new strategy to win over the evil mistake that had corrupted his results.
Several times did he adjusted the glasses on his nose, several times did he scratched his chin and frowned.
That was it. The angle of his swing wasn't precise enough. He had been working on a global estimation and now that he thought of it, it was pretty evident since the weighs on his shoulders didn't allow him to raise his arm at the correct angle.
He knew better than to mix two things knowing they would mess with each other. The parts of a training were like computer programs. They could get along with each other and make the global system work effectively. But at some point they would conflict and ruin everything.
He knew he had to work on his muscles, but he also had to work on his technique.
Now, he felt his shoulders were lighter and though he found it somehow unpleasant, he was glad he would be able to perform his secret technique at last.
He stood up, picking up a ball to serve. The ball bounced again and flew to coil itself in his hand.
It had gotten dark already.
He would be late for dinner.
-
The shrilling yet softened by the distance sound finally reached his ears. He packed his book and pencil case in his bag while some of his classmates had already reached the door. He picked his jacket up, along with his school and sport bags, then exited the room.
Straddling among the flood of students leaving their classrooms, he moved towards the stairs. Three floors to go down before he would reach the Tennis courts area, and then the locker room. There he would change before the others' arrival. Kaidoh was always the second one to come, followed closely by Fuji. Tezuka on his part was always on the court a while before everyone. How he did it? That was something he couldn't figure out. Even though he didn't know anything about the other boy's school schedule, he was still pretty sure Tezuka was attending classes like any third year. Did he have a special autorisation from Ryuzaki-sensei? It wasn't impossible.
He adjusted his glasses on his nose just to see Oishi waving a hand in his direction.
He waited for him to catch up.
"I'm glad to see you here. There is no practise today because they will be renovating the courts until tomorrow morning. I already told Eiji and since Fuji already knew it I suppose Kawamura know about it too. Right now I have some stuffs to do, so if you see anybody from the team please let him know."
He nodded slowly, thoughtful.
"Thank you very much, see you tomorrow!"
He nodded again, absentmindedly.
He turned back, walking to the stairscase, his pace steady, though his long legs made it look like he was in a hurry. As he exited the building, there were still some students around, probably first years because they all seemed quite small to him. Suddenly, out of this mass of average thirteen years-old Japanese people, a tall figure stood, holding a sportbag carelessly thrown on its back, looking like it was about to fall because of the extra weight it was carrying.
He stalked towards whoever that was.
"Kaidoh." he said.
The person turned to him.
"Huh, Inui-sempai?"
"If you are going to the courts, don't bother. Practise has been cancelled for today, they are doing some renovations."
"I know, Momoshiro told me."
He watched as the boy's face began to melt in a somehow annoyed expression. He wondered how uttering someone's name could make a person angry. He wondered even more how someone could let himself get affected by petty and unsignificant things thrown at him. Like that "Mamushi" surname. Kaidoh's reactivity to anything that had to do with Momoshiro was something he still hadn't managed to understand.
"Inui-sempai, is there something else?"
He pushed his glasses up on his nose.
"Are you wearing the wrist-weights I gave you?"
"Yes, everytime, like you told me."
His eyebrows lowered a little.
"From now, everytime you will be working on your techniques, remove them. Which means whether you are practising the Boomerang Snake swing in the water or with your racket you must not have them on..."
"But, sempai..."
"...It might put a lot of strain on your muscles and result into very painful aches. Do you still feel them as much as before?"
"Not that much."
"Well, we'll add some more then. Don't forget to do some stretching after every training session."
"Yes, sempai."
"That's all I had to tell you."
The boy gave a brief nod before leaving.
He opened his bag, looking for a pen and his notebook in which he scribbled something he only knew.
"Are you two going to train together?" a voice softly said, next to him.
He silently considered the smiling face behind his glasses.
"No, I was giving him some tips for his training."
"Hn. See you tomorrow."
He stood there, in a isolated corner of the court, holding his ressourceful book, reflecting on the way to improve his own training.
