JSWGAS Chapter 22

Chapter 22

Chapter 22.

Wednesday, 3 PM, Kokonoe Zhíyě drove Kokonoe Taka to the detention center.

Kokonoe Zhíyě kept his lips tightly pursed the whole way, appearing worried.

Kokonoe Taka gave up the idea of saying something witty to stop him from frowning. He propped his head up, his arm resting on the wide-open car window, gazing into the distance.

“Pain is unavoidable, but suffering is a choice.”

This was a sentence written on the title page of the book placed by Kageyama in his bedside. That book was not literature or philosophy but a dry and solid book about basic volleyball skills.

Kageyama’s health wasn’t very good, and he spent most of his time in bed resting. Whenever this happened, Kageyama Tobio would hold the book and run to Kokonoe Taka’s hospital bed, looking at him expectantly, reaching out to hand him “Volleyball Basics.”

He was one year younger than Kokonoe Taka, in the third grade of elementary school, and didn’t recognize many characters. In the past, Kageyama had read the contents of this book to him. When his grandfather was resting, he would consciously come to Kokonoe Taka’s bedside, who looked bored.

If Kokonoe Taka refused, he wouldn’t pester him but would silently sit back in his place, staring blankly at the pictures in the book. Over time, even he couldn’t bear to see Kageyama Tobio looking so dejected, and he waved his hand, saying, “Come on, little Kageyama, Brother Kokonoe will teach you to read.”

Kageyama Tobio would immediately perk up.

Kokonoe Taka had read this “Volleyball Basics” countless times during his stay in Room 303, and the sentence on the title page had also caught his eye.

Logically speaking, he had always had a respectful but distant and inexplicable attitude towards this type of text. Reading to the child was partly because the child was cute and fun, and partly because he wanted to understand the sport that Oikawa and Iwaizumi liked.

But in the end, what impressed him most was this sentence casually written on the title page.

Iwaizumi Hajime was worried about whether he would feel pain.

Zhíyě was worried about whether he was forcing himself.

And Kokonoe Taka, in the dead of night, always asked himself over and over again in his mind: if he hadn’t listened to the detective’s advice that night, hadn’t sought help, hadn’t rushed back to that house, how would the incident have unfolded?

Perhaps his mother would have passed away, and his father would have been transformed into a murderer caught in the act.

The car slowly stopped. Kokonoe Taka rolled up the window, jumped out of the car, and waited for his grandfather to park the car in the parking space. He casually glanced around, seeing the willow branches planted on both sides of the road swaying in the wind, drifting like broken stems and floating duckweed. In the open space bathed in sunlight, a lazy cat squinted its eyes, contentedly licking the fur on its paws.

A peaceful, warm, and ordinary afternoon.

Is this my choice? Is this the pain I must bear?

Freedom and pain are not contradictory. Even if I have to force myself, I must face it. It’s that simple.

After passing through several doors and submitting the meeting request, Kokonoe Hikohito, who was temporarily detained, was facing Kokonoe Taka face-to-face through a glass window in less than ten minutes.

Kokonoe Hikohito refused to meet with his father, Kokonoe Zhíyě, so only the two of them were in the meeting room now.

Kokonoe Hikohito looked to be in relatively good spirits. The gauze on his face hadn’t been removed yet. He was neatly dressed, with a complicated expression. Kokonoe Taka didn’t want to start speaking, and Kokonoe Hikohito seemed to want to maintain the silence until the end—

So why did you want to see me?

Kokonoe Taka’s fingers, placed on his lap, involuntarily began to tap. He couldn’t understand Kokonoe Hikohito, couldn’t understand him in any way.

His love and hate for his father had long been exhausted in the anger and roars of that night, and the thought of ‘Why do you have the nerve to appear in front of me’ would flash through his mind. His life had been messed up by him, leaving only exhaustion, and he wanted this person to disappear from his life forever.

He stared at Kokonoe Hikohito, thinking maliciously.

Kokonoe Hikohito also stared at him, looking at him as if he was seeing this son seriously for the first time. After ten minutes, he finally opened his mouth to speak, “Aren’t you going to say hello?” His voice was calm, seemingly unaffected, as if he still held the absolute position representing his father.

“Ah, hello, attempted murderer. How’s the food inside?”

Kokonoe Taka retorted calmly. Compared to Kokonoe Hikohito’s unchanged tone, his voice was somewhat hoarse. The marks left by the strangulation around his neck were still a lingering reminder on his body.

“I didn’t realize you were so eloquent before.”

“People don’t pay attention to things they don’t care about.”

Kokonoe Hikohito’s eyes showed amazement, a mocking and provocative amazement, “Is this the real you?” He looked him up and down with curiosity.

Kokonoe Taka didn’t answer.

The man wasn’t discouraged, “Don’t you want to ask why I wanted to see you?”

“No need, I’m good at filtering out useless information as garbage.”

“…”

He stared deeply at the blood relative across the glass.

“No matter what you think of me,” Kokonoe Hikohito said, “I-never-really-intended-to-kill-Chenzi.”

Kokonoe Hikohito could always easily provoke Kokonoe Taka’s nerves. His hand, hidden in the shadows, suddenly clenched tightly, his nails digging into the newly healed scar.

Kokonoe Hikohito seemed to have confirmed something, revealing a hateful smile.

“So you still care?” He laughed twice.

Kokonoe Taka stared at him darkly: “You’re really trash, scum, a degenerate.”

Kokonoe Hikohito had the same malice on his face: “I am.” He admitted, obviously too lazy to pretend to be a good father, “I’m still your father, even if you don’t want to admit it.”

When it came to poking at sore spots, Kokonoe Taka was not to be outdone: “It’s so sad to have a useless father. A coward who ran away from the competition, a loser who only knows how to be jealous. It’s so funny, if you were seen by the imaginary enemy in your dreams, how would he despise you?”

Kokonoe Taka saw the true face of this selfish person for the first time, and Kokonoe Hikohito also saw this aggressive side of him for the first time.

Kokonoe Taka suddenly smiled, saying intimately, “Do your ribs hurt? Dad? Do you like the gift I gave you?”

Kokonoe Hikohito felt a chill all over his body. After receiving his gaze, he subconsciously covered his side, where two ribs had almost been fractured, and it was now faintly painful.

His expression also darkened.

“I’ll sign the divorce agreement. The condition is that all charges against me are dropped. The lawyer should have told you, right? Continuing the stalemate won’t do anyone any good.”

“Divorce, compensation, apology. I want you to never appear in front of me and Mom again.”

Kokonoe Hikohito didn’t agree right away, but looked at him with an unsettling, complex look of regret and malice, “Do you hate me that much?”

“Ha, does prison really turn a person’s brain into a pile of garbage?”

“…Okay.” He understood that he wouldn’t get any advantage in a war of words, and finally relented.

Kokonoe Taka was unwilling to breathe the same air as him in the same room and was about to get up and leave immediately. Just before he closed the door, Kokonoe Hikohito suddenly said: “Back then, I really should have named you Manto.”

Kokonoe Taka’s response was clean and crisp.

“Idiot.”

The door was locked, Kokonoe Taka walked out of the meeting room, and whispered to his grandfather who was waiting at the door: “He agreed to sign the divorce agreement, he won’t continue to pester us, and he will never appear in front of me and Mom again.”

A strong smell of smoke suddenly appeared on Kokonoe Zhíyě’s body in a short time, making one want to cough when getting close. He patted his grandson’s shoulder, silently and generously giving support: “Good.”

“Everything will be alright.”

After the person concerned agreed, the divorce matters and the attribution of custody were proceeding in an orderly manner. Kokonoe Hikohito had accumulated rich personal assets over the years, generously gave compensation, signed the divorce agreement, and decisively gave up Kokonoe Taka’s custody.

Not long after all the procedures were completed quickly, the lawyer called, saying that Kokonoe Hikohito had already gone abroad with his mistress, Takano Koto. It was said that he had accepted a coaching position at a private club in the United States, and it seemed that he had been prepared for this for a long time.

No wonder this person wanted to resolve this matter peacefully. Kokonoe Taka sneered in his heart.

He began to pack up Kokonoe Hikohito’s belongings one afternoon. Clothes, photos, daily necessities… Soon several cardboard boxes were placed in the living room. Kokonoe Zhíyě went out to visit old friends who had settled in Miyagi, also choosing this time to avoid his grandfather being reminded of the past by seeing these things.

Besides these, Kokonoe Hikohito left the most competition videos, sports books, and sports equipment.

Kokonoe Taka sat on the floor of the study, with stacks of books next to him that were half his height. These were all things related to Kokonoe Hikohito—from the time he started playing tennis in high school, photos of every match were properly collected in albums, as well as certificates and clippings of awards, the timeline continuing until Kokonoe Taka was born, and now they were all being abandoned.

He carefully took out the photos of his mother when she was young, carefully placed them on the desk, and threw the others into the corner of the bookcase, out of sight, out of mind.

Then there were the things that Kokonoe Hikohito had given him.

Rackets, shoes, knee pads, wrist guards… Large and small, they filled a corner of his room. Some had been used until damaged, and some were still unopened.

Kokonoe Taka knew very well: he should throw them away. Abandon all the things he had left behind all these years, erase him from his life. Otherwise, he would still be imprisoned by his father’s old shadows, and how could he be free?

But his outstretched hand was slow and stiff, his eyes focused and serious.

He remembered every racket that he had broken, every pair of running shoes that had come unglued, every knee pad he had worn in every match, every drop of sweat he had shed during training, every cheer and praise from the audience and the coach…

Tennis had occupied too much time in his life, so much so that even after submitting his application to withdraw from the club, deliberately walking around the tennis court would still bring on a rising tide of frustration and longing.

The ‘every time’ born in those long years had become an addictive drug. Even if reason was calling out in disgust, the body’s craving couldn’t stop itching.

Kokonoe Taka originally thought that it was just a normal physiological phenomenon when the newly healed wound on his palm was growing flesh. Now, looking at the things he had neatly arranged on the floor—from the children’s tennis racket he first received at the age of three, to the clean tennis shoes, every item added to his wavering.

Those things were almost thrown into the trash, but in the end, the owner silently put them back in place.

He collapsed on the bed in despair, the momentary weightlessness when falling into the bed soothing his tense nerves.

“…Habit is such a terrible thing.”