PLEASE HEAD OVER TO THE "Falter" REMAKE INSTEAD.
Just another reminder for all readers — you can check out various things related to the story at my homepage, including a post for those who have trouble remembering the names of various characters from Saki.
Hisa twirled her pencil.
She resisted the urge to gaze out the window. What was the point of going to the trouble of getting a seat by the window if she couldn't do precisely that, though? But it was a bad idea in physics class; the teacher had a habit of calling on people who looked like they weren't paying attention, instead of calling in order down the rows. Fujisawa-sensei wasn't really a bad sort, Hisa thought idly, but that move did not exactly make him popular with the students. The fact that he always talked at length in monotone did not help things either; it usually took him fifteen minutes to say what a normal person could cover in two.
Hisa feigned concentration by gazing into her paperback textbook. Well, it was only their luck that their class had a double period of physics right after lunch on Mondays. It was easier to stomach his monotony in 50-minute increments than a double dose of what had been infamously dubbed as "Fujisawa Hell". Listening to him talk while on a full stomach was an especially deadly combination. She heard on TV that eating meals rich with peppers helped reduce drowsiness after eating, but the suggestion wasn't as well-received with her classmates as she'd expected. Hisa flipped another page absently as she heard the rustle of turning pages in the class. Maybe they could all eat their lunch early. Mako did it often enough, she grinned inwardly. Eating lunch between third and fourth period might be the best, she thought. But it was only a ten-minute break — maybe eating a bit between every period, then? Hisa frowned slightly at the thought. Too complicated, even if eating several small meals instead of a large one at once was highly touted.
Hisa paused briefly to listen before starting to doodle in the margin of her page. He was still talking about the same thing. It was unanimous amongst the science third-years that he was by far the most ineffective at teaching and thus, the most disliked. Everyone already had a lot on their plates and they didn't need another source of stress. The more disgruntled students only gave him perfunctory, sloppy bows before and after class. The ones who had to sit in the front had it worse, though, and were the most susceptible to being called on. It was hard to fake attentiveness from that distance.
She cracked a small grin. Thank goodness the class rep turned vice president, Morikawa-kun, was around — he was a complete pushover. When their class did the seating arrangement back in April, she had been unlucky enough to draw a front row seat. She perked right up, though, when she saw he drew a window seat. It was mildly amusing to see the expression on his face as soon as she made her way toward him. Morikawa-kun had recently developed the ability to sense whenever she had another 'favour' to ask of him, which was hardly surprising, as she'd been manipulating and convincing him into doing various things ever since first-year.
Also, it was a smart move on her part to have nominated him for vice-president on the student congress council this year; it made delegating various jobs to him just that much easier. Hisa congratulated herself on her foresight. Morikawa-kun was a dependable, reliable sort of guy who carried out his tasks well.
And perhaps she'd even done him a favour by trading seats with him, she thought cheekily. He was the studious and serious type, lapping up everything the teachers said and making detailed notes from lectures. That wasn't her style at all. She preferred to listen mostly and only jot notes down as needed instead of hanging onto every little word. Besides, they covered all the necessary material in cram school. There was hardly any need for her to stress over her regular physics class with a teacher like Fujisawa-sensei.
"— class will be your first term final exam. I don't want to dwell too much on this as we have limited class time, but let me emphasise that it will cover —"
He'd only been dwelling on it and emphasising what the test would cover for the last two classes. It wasn't that hard to remember. The test simply covered everything learnt so far in the term, excluding the chapter on electromagnetism that they were currently working on. Or, to be more precise, it was what they would be working on if he'd stop repeating something they'd all heard at least four times already.
"— up to, but not including, electromagnetism. You will be allowed to use a formulae sheet, but the values of fundamental constants and physical data such as the gravitational constant and the mass of —"
Hisa sighed inwardly and finally risked a glance out the window. Two P.E. classes were playing softball out on the field. She focussed on the girls' class. It looked like they were playing a game, but it was hard to make out who was winning. It was fairly easy to see a few were doing better than others though, she noted with amusement, as the current batter struck out swinging. She couldn't see the softball, of course, but judging from the others' reactions, that seemed to be the case.
Hisa followed the next girl walking up to bat with her eyes. The girl paused in front of the umpire for a moment, perhaps trading a few words. She faced the pitcher and swung her bat experimentally, settling into a comfortable stance. Hisa watched her swing and imagined the thwack when the girl made contact with the ball.
Hisa raised her elbow and propped it on her desk. Absently leaning into her hand, she watched the girl dash toward first base. She tried to imagine herself joining a sports club or voluntarily playing active, competitive sports outside of P.E. classes. While she wasn't exactly unathletic, somehow it just didn't appeal to her. It was just mahjong all the way for her and it had been the case for as long as she could remember.
But her love of mahjong wasn't something everyone could understand. Somehow it made more sense for Mako to like mahjong because she was raised by her grandfather and practically lived in the mahjong parlour ever since she was a kid. She herself did not have such a compelling, logical reason. Least of all, it wasn't something even her mother could understand. Though, certainly, her feelings toward mahjong weren't the only thing her mother had trouble with understanding. Rather than an inability to understand, Hisa mused, maybe it was a refusal to understand. Not that it mattered at the moment. The overall strained relationship with her mother aside, there were still plenty of people outside club members with whom she could share the happiness of qualifying for the nationals. Of those people, one was going to stay over tomorrow night, and the other would be visiting after the joint training camp she was hosting.
"Takei."
Ah, crap.
"Come up here and do a review question on the board."
Hisa mussed her hair and walked up sheepishly. There were a few good-natured sniggers around, which she took all in stride. Let's see, let's see... Hisa thought for a moment. It was obviously a kinematics question, but she hedged for a moment as she integrated the explicit and implicit known values before deciding on which equations to use. Her ahoge sprung up when she determined the best way of solving all the sub-questions. She wrote down the various calculations swiftly but carefully — lest she make a mistake that would set him off on another lecture about carelessness — and made her way back after the teacher thanked her for the answer. Hisa sat down in her seat and smoothed her hair. And made sure she looked like she was concentrating for the rest of the class.
Hisa tucked her brown schoolbag under her arm. She'd gone to the first-year classrooms after clean-up duties to let Nodoka and the others know she wouldn't be around for the day. Although the first-years' exams were all over, she still had the physics one to worry about, in addition to some unfinished homework for cram school. She ended up bumping into Yuuki first, who had somehow already managed to get her hands on tacos that soon after school. Hisa left after relaying the information to Yuuki.
She made her way down the stairs from the school courtyard. Mako mentioned earlier that she'd be leaving early to help out at the cafe, which meant the four first-years would be the only ones around for the day. Suga-kun was quite useful as a stand-in fourth player at such times, Hisa thought pleasantly. She turned the corner and started walking back home. It would be a good opportunity for them to relax and unwind from the qualifiers by playing one another informally. Yuuki would probably end up abusing Suga-kun even more without her or Mako around.
That reminded her. Hisa wondered when she should break it to Suga-kun that he was the only one who wasn't going to the training camp. There was the issue of him being the only guy, of course, but she had trouble reserving four rooms at the school temp boarding house as it were. Five would've been out of the question. If they hadn't secured a spot at the nationals, reserving even four would have been near impossible even with her skills. Understandably, all the clubs at Kiyosumi wanted to reserve a room or two for their members at the resort-like getaway for summer vacation.
So far, Tsuruga and Ryuumonbuchi already accepted — with a butler personally delivering the letter, in Ryuumonbuchi's case — but Kazekoshi had yet to reply. If Kazekoshi didn't accept, they would have an extra room and Suga-kun would technically be able to participate, but she did not welcome that prospect for a variety of reasons. Suga-kun was an amateur compared to the rest and would benefit little from the experience, Yuuki was always more excitable with him around, and she genuinely looked forward to meeting Kazekoshi's Captain again. From her kindness toward Yuuki in the first round of the team tournament to her level-headedness mixed with an odd moment of fluster at times, Hisa found her rather intriguing.
Hisa tucked her hair behind her ear and took another left. It would definitely be nice to interact with her again. Hisa hoped for Kazekoshi's reply soon, whether acceptance or rejection of the invitation. There were still many things to plan for, and she had yet to write the list of things for Suga-kun to buy. What's more, she had to come up with a way of keeping a constant supply of tacos and pork cutlet bowls for several days. Hisa chuckled a little. It was very kind of Fujita to have accepted the invitation, but it was quite easy to win her over after mentioning 'hot springs' and 'free pork cutlet bowls'. They could afford to splurge a little on food now that she could slot the mahjong club for a spot on the list when the issue of school club budgets came up.
Hisa opened the fence gate to her home and walked in. Closing the gate behind her, she strolled up to the front door, unlocking it and tugging her school tie loose as she went in the house. She glanced down and saw her aunt's shoes were missing. Hisa paused, trying to remember. Her aunt mentioned something about attending a PTA meeting at Acchan's nursery, but she couldn't remember the date. She would ask later, she thought, as she did a one-arm stretch.
Kicking off her shoes, she went up the stairs, taking care not to slip. Hisa stifled a yawn and rolled her shoulders stiffly. Maybe she ought to take a nap or watch some TV before studying. No point in trying when she wasn't going to be into it, even if she was unlikely to get anything done the next night until after Acchan's bedtime.
That evening, after a brief nap, some more procrastination, a bit of studying, and a simple dinner with her aunt, Hisa found herself confronting the homework from cram school. It was hard to dredge up the motivation for it when the work wasn't due until the day after tomorrow. But Acchan was quite a little bundle of energy when need be; on second thought, Hisa doubted she'd have the energy to do much even after the little tyke went to sleep. Hisa grinned at the thought. She'd taken the old set of mahjong tiles from the club and brought them home with her to play with Acchan. They had immense fun shouting out 'pon', 'kan', and 'chii', albeit largely at random. Acchan couldn't recognise sequences yet, but they would 'pon' triplets of honour tiles or mix the tiles noisily on the dining table, much to the girl's delight.
Hisa's cousin was rather sceptical at first when she found out about it, questioning the merits of exposing her young daughter to a gambler's or salaryman's pursuit. Hisa had then logically pointed out the fact she herself was neither gambler nor salaryman despite playing, and that gambling with mahjong was illegal anyway. She finished it off by mentioning the educational values of learning mahjong — which was something she came up with on the spot, even though it was true. With the trouble averted, she was free to show Acchan how to reveal a row of thirteen tiles all at once, despite the increased difficulty without a convenient ledge to line the tiles up with. It was extremely enjoyable watching Acchan attempt the same with a row of five, where the row would crumple up in her hands or where the middle one would refuse to fall over with the rest.
With those thoughts in mind, Hisa completed a large fraction of her homework in record time, even after factoring in two 'five-minute' breaks that extended a good deal longer than what they would suggest. She stood up with another yawning stretch and grabbed a change of clothes and headed for a relaxing bath.
Hisa was soaking in the tub when she heard her cell phone go off. It would be impossible to get to her cell in time, but nevertheless, it spurred her to get out of the tub. Although it was unlikely to be an urgent call, it was hard to relax with her cell ringing. She patted herself dry and squeezed the water from her hair before putting her pyjamas on. Hisa bent forward, flipping her hair over her head, and wrapped it up with a hair towel. Tucking in the ends of the towel, she wiped the nape of her neck one more time before walking out of the bathroom, buttoning the last two buttons on her top.
She flipped her cell open. It was a missed call from Mako. She closed the message, and noticed the time — it was already past midnight. She turned on her TV and flipped to the right channel, glad it hadn't started yet. Radiant! School Club Girls! wasn't exactly the most exciting or interesting programme this side of Japan, but Nodoka was being interviewed and featured this time around. She speed dialled Mako's cell phone number and Mako picked up within the second ring.
"Oh, buchou!"
"Hey, what's up?"
"You remember Nodoka's on TV?"
"Mm hm."
"I was gonna remind you. Are you watching it now?"
"Of course. I wouldn't miss it for anything," she grinned. Hisa sat down on her bed unceremoniously.
"I'm still cleaning up so I can't watch yet," Mako lamented. "I asked gramps to record it."
"That's good. Nodoka looks great on camera; you wouldn't want to miss it," Hisa said cheerfully.
Mako chuckled for a moment. "Oi, did you hear Yuuki's got make-ups on Friday?"
"Eh? She does?" Yuuki hadn't mentioned anything when she saw the girl after school.
"If she doesn't pass, she'll have to take extra classes and she won't be able to go to the training camp..."
"Well, I don't think we have to worry too much. Nodoka and Saki will probably do something about it." She toyed with a loose end from her hair towel, and faintly heard Mako's grandfather call for her. "Well, catch you later then."
"Yeah. Night."
Hisa flipped her phone shut and flopped onto her bed. She turned on her side and watched the remainder of the TV segment. The programme was unlikely to continue with Nodoka's interview after the commercial break, but she left the TV on just in case. Hisa lifted her phone up and stared at her mahjong tile strap for a moment. She fingered the surface of the tile a bit. It was probably too late to call, she decided. Flipping her phone open, she settled on sending a short text message before closing her phone again and sitting up.
"Guess I'll have to do something about Yuuki, too," she murmured.
Hisa crawled to the other side of her bed and reached for her schoolbag. Turning her cell phone off, she slipped the phone into a compartment and stood up, letting her hair down in the process. Time to dry her hair then hit the sack.