Chapter Sixteen

Fuji

After a day of watching Eiji do back flips while hitting the ball, I followed the others back to the campsite. After Tezumi's match, I had wandered around observing random games and considering the one she'd just lost. I understood that healthy competition was good, but going so hard on an opponent who had only recently mastered backhand? That had been totally unnecessary. Tezumi had been furious on finding out that she was constantly running in the opposite direction of the ball.

And speaking of Tezumi...I craned my neck, but couldn't see a thing besides the heads of the crowd, not being the tallest person around.

"Oishi," I caught hold of the exhausted captain. "Have you seen Tezumi?"

"I...erm...I'm not sure. You should ask her captain..."

"She said she was going to get her towel from her tent," injected Ishizaki who had overheard. "But then she didn't come back for a while.

He looked so smug knowing where Tezumi was while I didn't. I took his words to heart while pretending not to hear. Come to think of it, I haven't seen her since this morning. But he had said that she'd gone back to camp. She'd probably still be there, though it was very unlike her to skip a whole day of practice.

After what seemed like hours, we reached the campsite and I made a beeline for Tezumi's tent, which was regretfully as far away as it could get from mine. But I never had the time to reach her resting place, because someone got to me first.

"Fuji!" A girl called Takahashi who was normally around Tezumi in practice trotted to my side. "Have you seen Tezumi?" we asked together.

"She's not with you?"

"She's not in the tent?"

We looked at each other. "Captain!" we yelled. But Yoshizawa, captain of the girls' tennis club, hadn't news of Tezumi either.

I began to worry. Chiko chose this moment to come and ask if I knew where Saki was.

"I don't know," I answered, not really paying attention. Then it occurred to me that if Saki and Tezumi were missing together, it mightn't be such a bad thing. The vice-captain would surely take care of the younger member.

But the pearly grey sky slowly turned into a deep charcoal black and still there came neither sight nor sound of either girl. I hand Takahashi finally agreed to report them to Oishi. His reaction, anyone can guess.

"What?! Why didn't you tell me sooner? Oh no, a storm's coming! They might be lost—or hurt—oh no! We need to organize search parties..."

Armed with flashlights and first aid supplies, we all fanned out into the dense woods. The island wasn't very big, but at night with the threat of heavy rain...

"Fuji!" Takahashi hung on to me. "You know Tezumi best. Where do you think she could've gone?" A pang of regret coursed through me as I cursed myself for not finding out her favorite haunts.

"You don't know?" She said in frustrated disappointment. "Ishizaki said she had come back here...we should check the path leading to the courts first. There may be clues..."

Assertive as I had never seen her before, Takahashi led the way along the mountain road. My eyes raked every rock, every tree, every patch of grass, though I barely knew what I was looking for. A shock of white under a clump of bushes caught my eyes. Bending down, I pulled out a once white racket, now splattered with dirt.

Takahashi gasped. "That's Tezumi's!"

Dropping onto my hands and knees, I scrutinized the area under the dim light. Tezumi would never leave her racket lying around. Something must have happened to her. There was a bare spot of dirt next to the bush, clumps of grass uprooted nearby, as if someone's shoe had ripped the vegetation away forcefully. I felt the grass. It had only just begun to wilt.

"Ta—Takahashi..." I said, shaken. "I think...Tezumi may have..." Peering down the slope, my heart caught in my throat as I saw the steep incline and the sharp drop at the end. I scrambled up. "There must be a way down."

Crashing through the undergrowth, we forced out way down the slope once we could find an area that was slightly less steep. Tezumi...please be ok.

I fought to control my panic, the relentless waves of fear that struck me again and again. Would I see her again? Would I ever be get the chance to make up for being so cold to her the night before, leaving her to sit alone with only Takahashi and Ishizaki for company?

Could I have prevented this? I should have gone with her; I would have gone with her this morning when she left, if I hadn't been so intent on putting on a show with Saki that I'd never seen her leave.

Why had Saki played along anyway?

After a while of breaking free from branches that tore at our clothes and tripping over roots, we finally reached a spot almost directly underneath the place we had discovered Tezumi's racket. If she had indeed fallen, she would most likely be around.

All was quiet, save for the gushing sound of a fast flowing river. From afar I squinted up the slope. It ended in a small cliff which ensured a ten feet drop into a mass of rushing water for anyone tumbling down it.

A chill went up my spine. The river might have serve as a cushion for her fall, and so was desirable...providing Tezumi could swim. She'd never mentioned anything on the subject to me.

"Come on, this way." I ambled towards the river as fast as my injured leg would allow. Stumbling up to a tree, I roughly shoved the leaves away, revealing a small clearing.

The moonlight shone on a sandy bank, with a solitary tree leaning over the water. I scanned the area through the darkness.

My eyes flew open and my heart went cold.