JSWGAS Chapter 103

Chapter 103.

103.

Saijo Shu.

The volleyball club senior was approachable and unpretentious. He guided many freshmen during their club orientation, earning the reputation of being ‘gentle and humorous.’ He was measured, reliable, and mature. Seeking his help always yielded a response. His occasional mischievousness was open and honest, almost deliberately displayed as a minor weakness for others to tease.

——But what else?

These many evaluations did not include the side of him he was currently showing.

When Saijo spoke again, he had completely concealed the surprise of being caught by his junior.

“Just getting some air.”

The red light flickered rhythmically. Kokonoe could imagine the hand that usually towered over the net now holding a cigarette. Perhaps this practiced ease concealed a story, a story that certainly wouldn’t be easy. The plot might involve a hint of scandal, coupled with the powerlessness of gradually maturing, all combining to form the silent senior smoking alone in the night.

But Kokonoe didn’t want to delve into the reasons behind it.

“—Getting some air? With nicotine’s black fumes?” he said, his tone flat and cold, “Tomorrow is the match against Shiratorizawa.”

Tobacco has always been a well-known taboo in sports. The damage to the cardiopulmonary function is insignificant for ordinary people. But for athletes, it impairs their physical performance, hindering their performance and health.

As soon as he said this, Kokonoe felt a gaze on him. Saijo looked up at him, across the blurry darkness and several meters between them, at the junior who remained on the school path without approaching. Kokonoe hadn’t finished his words, omitting the more targeted and harsh remarks. Even so, the first half of his sentence already carried a faint scent of gunpowder. Any intelligent person would understand his meaning, and putting out the cigarette and sincerely apologizing might be the best course of action. After all, he shouldn’t have been there in the first place.

“Give me a break,” he said, his voice weary, “I’m just a little tired—”

“If you want someone to talk to, I’m available.” Kokonoe caught Saijo’s tired face through the burned-out ash, after a short pause, “—Put out the cigarette.”

Perhaps it was the lack of polite language and the undeniable imperative in his tone that made Saijo stop insisting. He obediently extinguished the cigarette, then subconsciously waved his hand to disperse the pungent smell. He waved a few times before freezing as if realizing something, finally dropping his hand nonchalantly.

He stood up and walked towards Kokonoe Taka, his figure exposed to the slightly brighter light. By the time he reached his junior, everything seemed to have returned to normal.

“What do you want to talk about?” he asked with a smile, teasing, “Although I’ve been a mentor to many, you, Kokonoe, don’t seem like someone who needs that kind of extra service.”

“Shouldn’t it be what you want to talk about?”

“…” The smile vanished.

After confirming that Saijo was following him, Kokonoe Taka continued walking forward, seemingly unconcerned whether Saijo would keep up or sneak away. The latter’s footsteps were slightly heavy, staring blankly at the tall figure in front of him for a moment before reluctantly following.

But to really confide in a junior who was two years younger than him—this realization made him uncomfortable, so until they completely abandoned the section of road faintly filled with the smell of smoke, the two remained silent.

Kokonoe Taka sighed, “Do you smoke often?”

“…No, occasionally. It’s a way to relieve stress, I guess?”

After some rambling small talk.

Saijo stared at the back of his head, as if staring at a garbage disposal, “It might bore you if I say it…” After a deliberately prolonged silence, “Actually, I don’t like volleyball as much as everyone else does.”

This fact, which he had repeatedly confirmed, had once weighed heavily on his heart. The more harmonious the team’s atmosphere, the more enthusiastically his teammates pursued the ball flying in the air, the more Saijo Shu would constantly re-understand this fact. People always like to do what they are good at and seek a sense of accomplishment from it. For these people, the pursuit itself is a kind of pleasure. Even the things this process brings them can outweigh the absolute victory or defeat—

“Oikawa does, Iwaizumi does, Furuage does, Miyano does… Arao does too.” He said, omitting a name that should have been said, and smiled. Although no one saw this smile, “You do too, Kokonoe.”

The topic returned to himself, Kokonoe Taka turned his head to look at him, “Why do you think so?”

Speaking of this, his enthusiasm inevitably surged, “You can see a lot from the usual practice. Although at first I thought you were just habitually serious because you used to practice other sports… But later I stopped thinking that way.”

Saijo’s brother, who could be said to be a kindred spirit to the junior he saw, had once said when studying a script.

—The emotions a person has towards something can determine how much they care about it.

—Like intense and direct emotions?

—Yes.

Saijo unexpectedly remembered this dialogue. Kokonoe’s style in official matches was clearly a typical example: the strong desire to attack during serves, the time control to wear down opponents’ fighting spirit, the silent pressure during blocks, the decisive tactical changes, and the risky tactical choices… And the more he fought, the braver he became, even to the point of a terrifyingly intense expectation—for himself and for his opponents.

This was completely different from his usual training performance.

How could he describe what he had once seen?

Sweat dripped along his prominent brow bone, across his cheeks, and finally into his collar; his lips were slightly chapped, his breathing heavy, and bandages wrapped around his wrists and ankles.

Even if he finally won the game, receiving a moment of brilliance on the podium, it was something born from disarray and mud. Covered in dust, but unable to hide the unblinking eyes staring straight ahead—pure, bright, and quiet.

—In that dialogue, his brother… Saijo Takato’s words, which he had almost forgotten, also included one more sentence.

“Strong emotions can corroborate a part,” the graceful and experienced actor said, “But in the long run, those are just byproducts of emotions. What can really be confirmed are actually very inconspicuous… Those everyday fragments revealed in the details, some of which are even so messy that they seem unseemly.”

“…Like you?”

“Like me,” Saijo Takato said, “Pure pursuit… and a touch of madness to hold on tightly.”

Saijo Takato was different from him. He had entered the entertainment industry at the age of eight and had twenty years of acting experience to date. His love for acting was no different from their love for volleyball, and Saijo Shu could find those similarities in his teammates.

It’s just that those things have nothing to do with him—this sentence is not suitable to tell to his junior. His slightly pale eyes lifted, his voice floating in the air until it could no longer be traced, “…That’s just how it is. Volleyball for me… is just because I’m a little good at it, and my friends are playing it, so I chose it…”

Until Kokonoe’s voice grabbed that last little tail.

“—Saijo,” without honorifics, a low voice overlapping with another voice in his memory, “Is that really the case?”

—Shu, are you happy playing volleyball?

—…It’s okay, it’s better than you studying scripts.

His footsteps suddenly stopped, the soles of his shoes scraping harshly on the gravel ground… That noise was like a sudden chaotic dialogue in the vast cheering sound, the referee’s sharp whistle suddenly blowing, the coach’s hurried shouts, the sudden stop of his heartbeat, and the setter collapsing on the sidelines with a painful expression.

“Kokonoe,” Saijo Shu looked at the person who had stopped because of his stop, “You haven’t been injured in sports, have you?”

Without waiting for an answer, he continued on his own, “Neither have I.”

“—But I would rather it was me who was injured.”

What kind of person is Saijo-senpai?

The ‘lies’ that deliberately directed the topic to the junior disappeared completely, and the night became even thicker, pressing down heavily. Kokonoe Taka’s shoulders were topped with a thin layer of starlight, each point illuminating Saijo’s expression more clearly.

It was a kind of pain that had once appeared in himself, slowly superimposed and accumulated on Saijo. It was just that Kokonoe Taka believed that he had already walked out of the past—he had indeed left those things in that grand farewell. Even if the price was that a part of himself was also left behind.

This sense of deja vu made him freeze on the spot, Saijo seemed unaware, his tone erratic.

“Last year, our last game was also against Shiratorizawa. The third set, the score was tied 1:1, the small score was 22:24, Shiratorizawa had the right to attack, we were behind. If we couldn’t defend the last ball, we would lose the game.” He said blankly, as if he were talking about something that had nothing to do with him. But his shoulders began to tremble rapidly, “I’m a middle blocker—I like to use my blocks to put pressure on the opposing spikers… Blocking is the first line of defense in a counterattack, I told you.”

“I did the same in that game—block them, don’t let it end here. That’s all I could think about…”

—So, he insisted on maintaining his original response method.

“Shiratorizawa isn’t a bunch of brainless guys,” he said, “I was too arrogant, thinking I could block anything. The back-and-forth continued for several rounds until I blocked again, and Muramachi’s spike—it was a block touch.”

“Minami, I don’t know if you’ve heard of him, he was our setter last year.” Saijo showed a twisted smile, as if he was crying, “That guy was clearly a setter, but he desperately wanted to save that ball. He crashed into the referee’s table, fracturing his left wrist. That ball ultimately failed to score. It was all over.”

“Arao thought it was because he didn’t do a good job covering, he couldn’t hit back the ball Minami saved… That’s not how it was. I had already realized something was wrong when Muramachi spiked. If I had pulled back my hand, that ball would definitely have been out of bounds.”

“But I didn’t do that,” he said, “He was injured because of me.”

It was like executing himself.

He finally looked at the junior who had witnessed his disarray after drawing his conclusion, crashing headfirst into a pair of grey eyes. Starlight drifting from somewhere illuminated the light-colored pupils, Saijo didn’t know what he was thinking, he couldn’t see through Kokonoe’s thoughts, he could only see half of his pitiful reflection.

“He should be here too,” he looked at his shadow, almost as if possessed, “Minami, he should be here.”

He saw that in those eyes, the shadow echoed him.

—Instead of me.

And in the blink of Kokonoe’s eyelashes, his shadow quickly disappeared again. Saijo, who was spying on his own shadow, was captured by the real owner of the eyes. His breathing stagnated, and even though Kokonoe hadn’t done anything, he inexplicably felt his throat being squeezed tightly by sharp claws.

“That’s just your own idea.” The straightforward tone, the slow speed deliberately paused a space as if freezing time, “The one standing here now is you, right?”

When the words left his lips, Kokonoe Taka was momentarily dazed. He didn’t even know if he was saying this to Saijo or to himself. People are a collection composed of every fragment of the past. He stared at Saijo, but from that striking mint green uniform, he saw the setter smiling at him on the horizontal axis extending backward in time.

The words reached his lips but ultimately changed to another, “…Don’t do things that you’ll regret.”

He said, his eyelashes casting deep shadows, but still unable to conceal the vivid light-colored pupils, like a mirror, reflecting Saijo on one side and himself on the other.

Saijo didn’t look at him, just like Kokonoe hadn’t looked at his setter back then, whether intentionally or unintentionally.

—He didn’t answer.