JSWGAS Chapter 38

“Kokonoe? We’re here.”

Takeushi pulled the handbrake, unbuckling his seatbelt as he turned to call out to the boy in the back seat who was leaning against the window.

They were outside a temple in Tokyo, visiting the ‘Samurai’ who lived in seclusion there.

Takeushi called out twice more, but the boy in the back seat still didn’t respond. He had no choice but to get out of the car and yank open the rear passenger door—the object supporting his forehead suddenly disappeared, and the boy toppled sideways. He barely managed to steady himself before falling, finally waking up.

“Are you alright?” Takeushi asked helplessly, withdrawing his hand that was about to steady him.

“…I’m fine.”

Kokonoe Taka rubbed his forehead and exhaled a breath of stale air. The clothes on his back were damp with cold sweat. The heat from just waking up from a dream hadn’t yet faded, his heart was racing, and he could almost hear the rapid thumping in his ears.

He climbed out of the car and stretched his stiff limbs, a faint cracking sound coming from his joints. “I keep telling you, Takeushi coach, you really don’t have to drive me all the time.”

Takeushi locked the car and walked over to him. Then, the two of them headed towards the temple gate together. “I can’t just let you come here all alone.” He grinned, twirling the car keys and casually stuffing them into his pocket.

“…You just want to see Echizen, don’t you? If you can get on his good side, you can keep aiming for a higher position in the tennis world.”

Takeushi didn’t deny it. “Well, that’s the scary thing about the adult world, Kokonoe.”

“…Adults, huh.”

His mother had boarded a plane to a distant country on the other side of the ocean a year and a half ago. The Miyagi brothers had kept their word, helping him conceal the secret that he sometimes lost his sense of taste. They even helped him cover it up on the few occasions he almost slipped up.

After seeing his mother off and arriving in Tokyo, Kokonoe Taka didn’t tell his welcoming grandparents about the problem with his body. He sought out coach Takeushi, who had once promised to help, and asked him to take him to the hospital for a comprehensive checkup as his guardian.

The results of the examination showed that everything was normal except for slightly high blood sugar. The doctors couldn’t determine the cause of his taste impairment, and in the end, they suggested he go to the psychiatry department for an examination.

After listening to his description, the psychiatrist speculated that the condition might be caused by his long-term mental stress. Because the taste disorder was occasional and didn’t significantly affect his daily life, they suggested observing it for a period of time first, and paying more attention to the external factors that occurred when the taste disorder occurred.

As soon as this speculation came out, Takeushi pointed incredulously at Kokonoe Taka, who was sitting upright in the chair, and questioned whether this little guy looked like someone with a mental disorder?

His doubts were not without reason. Even when the psychiatrist first saw Kokonoe Taka, he thought he had come to the wrong place: polite, cognitively normal, logically clear, and although slightly anxious, he was within the normal range. All kinds of test forms also had no abnormal values. Moreover, apart from occasionally losing his sense of taste, he usually ate well and slept well. Compared with him, Takeushi, who had a stubble and two dark circles under his eyes, looked more like someone who came for psychological counseling.

The doctor said helplessly that if the physical examination was completely normal and there was no family history of genetic diseases, then the only thing that could cause the taste disorder was psychological factors—unless he had a rare disease that had never been discovered.

In the end, the matter had to be put on hold as the doctor said.

After that, Kokonoe Taka visited Echizen Nanjirō. But when he and Takeushi arrived at the temple where the other party was living in seclusion, the stubble-faced, crew-cut man spread his hands and said apologetically, “Sorry, you’re too late. My big brat has already left Japan.”

“Huh?” Echizen Nanjirō scratched his head and apologized awkwardly.

He had adopted the child of a distant relative a few years ago, and that child was also a tennis genius, about the same age as Kokonoe Taka. But not long ago, he was stripped of his right to raise the child. A week before Kokonoe Taka’s visit, the child had been taken away.

After explaining the reason, Echizen Nanjirō immediately looked regretful and bragged about the child’s skills, and then said that the kid was still far from being as good as him.

Kokonoe Taka listened to his nonsense for ten minutes with a numb face, and finally interrupted with a clenched fist: “Then we won’t bother you, goodbye.”

His tone was very stiff, and so impolite that it would be offensive to those who valued etiquette. But Echizen Nanjirō touched his chin and grinned like a trafficker: “Hey, you’ve already come all this way, is it really okay to go back like this?”

Takeushi, who was next to him, gave a helpless expression that said ‘you’re starting again’. Echizen Nanjirō walked around Kokonoe Taka a few times, “But little guy, you don’t look very strong? Is the undefeatedjuvenile really you? Are you just bluffing?”

Kokonoe Taka: “…”

The crew-cut man stopped, waved his hand with a slightly bored look, and shooed them away like ducks, “Alright, alright, go, go, don’t waste time here, you’re interrupting my bell-ringing.”

Takeushi: …No matter how many times, I’m impressed by Echizen’s excellent provocation skills.

He turned to look at Kokonoe Taka.

The latter’s face was so gloomy that it could drip ink, and he gave a forced smile. “No, why should I leave? That guy is gone, isn’t there still an Echizen here?” His words were full of murderous intent, but Echizen Nanjirō just widened his eyes and jokingly pointed at himself, “You mean me? Hey, I’m not bragging, but you really look too weak.”

Kokonoe Taka’s voice seemed to be squeezed out from between his teeth: “You won’t know until you try, right?”

Takeushi desperately winked at Echizen Nanjirō: Don’t provoke him too much! This kid has a strong desire to win!

Echizen Nanjirō had an infuriatingly tolerant smile on his face: “Hey, since you’re asking so nicely… It’s not like I can’t play a match.”

Kokonoe Taka’s fighting spirit was higher than ever.

Tennis was the toy that accompanied him throughout his childhood, and beneath the past of persistently training in tennis since he was a child, his unparalleled talent became the stepping stone that supported him. Keen observation, calm analysis, and the ability to put them into action—these were the characteristics praised by the outside world.

Echizen Nanjirō, standing on the other side of the simple tennis court, was probably the one who could most clearly perceive his substantial, glaring gaze and boiling fighting spirit.

Echizen Nanjirō gave up the right to serve, and Kokonoe Taka did not refuse. He knew the gap between himself and the man in front of him. The person standing opposite him was the one his father had been obsessed with all his life, the starting point for why he himself had embarked on the path of tennis.

Echizen Nanjirō made a ‘please’ gesture.

Kokonoe Taka lowered his eyes, slightly gripped his racket, and took a deep breath.

Toss the ball.

It felt good.

His eyes were fixed on the tennis ball flying into the air, while his peripheral vision glanced at the position where Echizen Nanjirō was standing. The latter was originally arching his back and yawning, but when Kokonoe Taka glanced at him, he suddenly straightened up and became alert subconsciously—when the racket contacted the ball, all the strength of Kokonoe Taka’s body was poured in through the rotation of his arm! His arm felt slightly numb from the excessive force, and the shadow that was hit slammed into the ground as he was just about to recover!

Dust flew everywhere, and the force did not diminish as it rushed towards Echizen Nanjirō’s eyes! The speed was beyond his expectations, and Echizen Nanjirō only had time to raise his hand hastily and grasp the tennis ball. Even so, the ball spun viciously in his palm for more than a dozen rounds before losing its strength.

“Wow…” He gasped in surprise, feeling the long-lost stinging sensation on his palm.

Echizen Nanjirō stared at the redness on his palm in surprise for a long time, then raised his head again to meet Kokonoe Taka’s face squarely.

He had only heard Nishikiori mention this boy occasionally. The latter regretted that the other party had not become his student. At that time, Echizen Nanjirō was drinking and said indifferently that he didn’t believe that someone hyped up by Kokonoe Hikohito could be that great?

And Nishikiori just handed him another bottle of wine with great meaning—it was a bottle of high-purity vodka—what did Nishikiori say at that time?

Ah, drinking is a mistake.

He thought.

Kokonoe Taka’s eyes were slightly narrowed like those of a raptor, as bright as they could be, and even gave people a dangerous feeling of coldness on their backs. That rare gray eye color was more like the polished blade of a weapon, and the blade was now aimed at him.

Kokonoe Taka tossed the ball again, stretching his chest and abdomen to exert force, and a crisp hitting sound rang out.

–“It’s like wine with a strong aftertaste.”

Nishikiori’s chuckle gradually became clear in his memory. After catching this powerful serve with a standard posture, Echizen Nanjirō finally remembered what Nishikiori had said at the time.

–“There’s no feeling when you first drink it, but after a while, that strong and pungent feeling will hit you, making people feel uncomfortable, but they can’t help but want to keep drinking. The feeling that child gives people is the same…”

–“He’s a very self-aware, very interesting child.”

–“……Moreover, his desire to win may be so strong that it will surprise anyone.”

Echizen Nanjirō’s return ball was angled tricky, and ordinary people might not even be able to capture the ball’s trajectory before seeing it land.

But for Kokonoe Taka, this ball was as obvious as a torch in the dark, the only moving object in a static world.

He lowered his wrist, his calf muscles tensed, and quickly took the perfect first step. Then, the racket cross-cut, adding force upwards at the moment of touching the ball, and the ball was returned to the other side of the court according to his wishes.

Echizen Nanjirō laughed and picked up the tennis ball: “Wow, that’s really interesting… It’s making my alcohol addiction come back.”

The words were incoherent.

Kokonoe Taka thought. But this bit of thought quickly disappeared from his focused gaze like willow catkins in spring.

The second ball lasted a long time, until Kokonoe Taka ended this tug-of-war with a high-ball volley.

Takeushi squatted on the sidelines to keep score, muttering to himself: Kokonoe is actually in the lead… Isn’t Echizen going all out?

The third ball was scored by Echizen Nanjirō with a tricky shot. Takeushi quickly overturned his previous idea: No, Echizen is serious, but he’s not trying as hard as Kokonoe.

Just as he thought, Echizen Nanjirō didn’t need to use his full strength to defeat a child who was much younger than him: after Kokonoe Taka’s intimidating serve at the beginning, he played seriously.

But even so, Echizen Nanjirō’s level was not something Kokonoe Taka could catch up with in one day. His talent may be even more outstanding than the genius Samurai. But the difference between the two cannot be generalized by the word ‘talent’.

Time, experience, skills…

Then why could Kokonoe Taka play back and forth with Echizen Nanjirō? Instead of being suppressed?

Takeushi quietly watched the court.

Echizen Nanjirō aimed at the sideline again and hit a very difficult line shot. This ball pressed down heavily towards the baseline, and it was fast. Even if he was outside the court and could have a panoramic view, he could only barely capture the trajectory of the ball. Takeushi didn’t think this ball could be picked up.

But the other person didn’t think so.

–Kokonoe Taka almost pounced to pick up the ball! He fell to the ground with a muffled thud, and the exposed elbows and knees were rubbed with blood by the gravel. But his right hand holding the racket was surprisingly steady, and his wrist could only barely use the limited strength to send the tennis ball back. But when he got up, he couldn’t catch up with the tennis ball that Echizen Nanjirō hit to the other half of the court.

Takeushi panicked: “A-are you okay?!”

Kokonoe Taka withdrew his action of taking another step, and his eyes finally left the tennis ball rolling on the ground. “I’m fine.” He said in a hoarse voice, his eyes calm, and nonchalantly wiped the wound on his elbow. He readjusted his posture, signaling Echizen Nanjirō to serve again.

Echizen Nanjirō smiled with distress: “You really surprised me… Are you trying too hard? Boy?”

–Even if he knows he will lose every ball, he will use the last bit of strength to fight for the possibility of victory.

This is why he can keep the score close.

Echizen Nanjirō muttered in a low voice, feeling a rare headache: “This desire to win is a little scary.”

In the end, Echizen Nanjirō won the game. His state got better and better in the second half of the game. In comparison, Kokonoe Taka, who had spent more energy, was finally just walking with his will.

Echizen Nanjirō walked around the court from the other side, looking down at Kokonoe Taka, who was pressing his knees, bending over, lowering his head, and panting heavily. After a brief silence, he suddenly stretched out his hand. “Not bad, kid.” He held the racket in his other hand and tapped his shoulder lightly.

Kokonoe Taka couldn’t restrain his breathing, and his throat felt a burning pain. The sweat from the exercise made half of his body seem like he had just come out of the water.

So strong.

He thought.

He reached out and grabbed the other person’s bigger hand, touched it and separated it, then frowned and walked towards the sidelines.

Echizen Nanjirō shouted dissatisfiedly from behind: “Are you turning your back on me, you brat!”

Although he complained like this, after this game, Echizen Nanjirō often invited Kokonoe Taka to play tennis. In the end, it became an unspoken agreement between the two of them, and he would come once a month. This has been going on for a year and a half.

Takeushi insisted on driving him every time—he was transferred to Tokyo by the club after the New Year due to his excellent performance at work, and later he was continuously promoted due to his frequent contact with Echizen Nanjirō.

Time returned to the present.

Echizen Nanjirō claimed that he was asked by the original temple host to work part-time because he was too perceptive. Regardless of whether this statement was true or false, there were really a lot of tourists in the temple under his care. So Kokonoe Taka usually came in the morning when there were fewer people.

He and Takeushi walked through the shrine where the statue was enshrined and walked up the path lined with lush green plants. “How does it feel to enter junior high school?” Takeushi asked to start a conversation.

“How does it feel…” Kokonoe Taka frowned. A year and a half ago, he transferred to an elementary school in Tokyo. After that, he originally planned to go straight to high school, but due to Kokonoe Zhíyě’s job changes, he finally chose Teiko Junior High School as the school for junior high school. He just entered school a month ago.

He recalled: “…So noisy.”

“Huh?”

Seeing Takeushi’s questioning expression, Kokonoe Taka had to explain, “There are too many people who come to talk to me during recess.”

Actually, this was a better situation. When Kokonoe Taka first started school, he would be accosted on the school road and asked if he wanted to join various strange clubs, or he would be asked about his class and name. This situation lasted for a long time before it got better recently.

At least the people who came to talk and give him things were concentrated during recess…

Although he comforted himself like this, it was really fatal for his ears to spend every recess in the midst of various chattering voices.

He had never encountered such a situation when he was in Miyagi, nor when he transferred to Tokyo to attend sixth grade.

–In fact, this was because Oikawa Tōru had shouldered most of the sweet troubles in Miyagi; in the previous elementary school, it was because he was a transfer student, and many people were eager to try but didn’t have time to do so.

Takeushi twitched the corner of his mouth: “Are you showing off?”

“Why do you think so?”

Takeushi pointed to his face with importance: “Because does someone who has a handsome face and says they don’t know why they are so popular really not know why they are so popular?!”

“…You’re talking too fast.” Kokonoe Taka complained, “I didn’t understand a word.”

“Did you understand?! You clearly understood!” Takeushi said angrily, “The fact that you’re so black-bellied is also annoying!”

He took a few breaths, not because he was angered by Kokonoe Taka. It was because the environment of the temple was not very friendly to people with inflexible legs and feet: “What about the club? Did you choose the tennis club?”

“This… not yet. I haven’t joined a club yet.” Kokonoe Taka helped him push aside a cluster of branches.

“Why?”

“I have to play in competitions after joining the club, it’s too annoying.”

“You actually have this kind of idea? Do you think it’s boring?” Takeushi was surprised. “I thought you wouldn’t think like this anymore after playing with Echizen. You’re clearly very serious and work very hard when you play tennis with him.”

“Echizen is different from others.”

His tone was very calm.

The things that guy left behind still affected him. Kokonoe Taka thought: Whether it’s tennis, or something else.

He didn’t explain the meaning of this sentence to Takeushi and continued: “Also, maybe I’m too arrogant…” His gaze fell on a point in the void. The morning light accompanied the shadows of the leaves, and half of it fell on his gray iris. His eyelashes trembled, and finally completely covered the emotions in them. “There probably aren’t any junior high school students who can beat me now.”

Takeushi muttered: “You’re really arrogant. Don’t always learn annoying things from Echizen.”

Although he said that Kokonoe Taka’s words were arrogant, he didn’t think there was anything wrong with them. In the past year or so, he had watched every game Kokonoe Taka and Echizen Nanjirō played from beginning to end. Echizen Nanjirō certainly showed unfathomable skills. But Takeushi had long known that the awards the other party had won were all earned without any exaggeration.

Compared with this predecessor who had already become a legend in the tennis world, what Kokonoe Taka showed was even more terrifying.

If he was a raptor’s cub at the beginning, but after this period of time, he gradually plumped his wings, sharpened his beak and claws, and challenged Echizen thousands of times.

But he had never won a game against Echizen. Wouldn’t ordinary people be afraid of losing all the time? Wouldn’t they feel lost? Wouldn’t they feel their own insignificance and then feel fear at the gap between the two?

But Kokonoe Taka, apart from feeling worse after losing and spraying venom everywhere, seemed to be unaffected. There was no loss, no fear, no unwillingness, no timidity, only calm. The next time he came to challenge Echizen Nanjirō, he would still be like the beginning, showing them his almost terrifying, persistent desire to win.

It was as if his whole person was driven by victory.

This mentality was actually very terrifying and not good. Takeushi knew this, but he was helpless about Kokonoe’s situation.

Echizen Nanjirō seemed to have discovered this as well, and secretly talked to him about Kokonoe Taka’s past. Takeushi told him everything he knew, hoping that the other party could come up with some way to solve this problem.

After the brief conversation ended, they came to the front yard of the temple in silence, but they couldn’t find the person who should have been waiting for them.

Kokonoe Taka walked into the room skillfully and opened the side door, looking down at the crew-cut man who was snoring on the bedding.

This guy…

Kokonoe Taka gritted his teeth in his heart.

“Mr. Echizen, have you forgotten that coach Takeushi and I will be visiting this morning?”

His voice was very low, he emphasized the honorific, and the last few words turned into a breathy sound, which sounded dangerous. Takeushi glanced into the room: the ground was full of wine bottles and various erotic magazines. Echizen Nanjirō must have spent another happy night.

He sighed, unable to look directly, walked into the courtyard, and solemnly bowed to the enshrined statue, feeling that his whole body and mind were purified by the sunlight.

Echizen Nanjirō, who was woken up by violent means, also felt that he was about to be purified, but it was the physical transcension of a demon: “So annoying… who is it—wah! What are you doing?!”

He had just woken up and was trying hard to save the magazine that Kokonoe Taka had raised high. The latter mercilessly knocked him on the head again with a wine bottle he picked up: “I’m just helping the famous Samurai Nanjirō calm his mind.”

He coldly dodged Echizen Nanjirō and walked towards the well in the courtyard, “Ah, and your stock… You must have used the pocket money Ms. Rinzi sent you to buy wine again, right? I happen to know a few dens, why don’t we take them all over together, so that Ms. Rinzi won’t always worry.”

“Since you know that I’m that Samurai Nanjirō, you should respect me a little bit!? I can at least be considered half your mentor, right—wait! Wait, wait! Don’t throw it away! Don’t throw away my magazine! That’s the latest Komai—this is a well?! A well in a temple! Please spare it! The water will be polluted! Let me bear this sin—”

Kokonoe Taka smiled, his figure against the light, the demon whispered: “It doesn’t matter, my Buddha is merciful, the Buddha will definitely be happy to help you bear this sin.”

“Komai—”

Accompanied by Echizen Nanjirō’s wailing, Kokonoe Taka loosened his hand holding the corner of the magazine, and the erotic magazine followed Newton’s law in Echizen Nanjirō’s desperate gaze, and happily fell into the well—after a slight splash, Kokonoe Taka patted the non-existent dust on his hands and said with a fake smile: “Next is Mr. Echizen’s stock.”

Echizen Nanjirō didn’t bother to recite the Rebirth Mantra for the erotic magazine: “What are you going to do! I warn you not to touch my wine! You definitely don’t know where I hid them—wait, how do you know I hid the wine behind the statue?!”

Kokonoe Taka said a disrespectful incantation, and skillfully took out a few bottles of wine from behind the statue. Hearing this, he smiled kindly: “Because Mr. Echizen, you only hide things in those few places.”

Takeushi closed his eyes, unable to look directly, and prayed piously: “My Buddha is merciful, my Buddha is merciful.”

After another chaotic moment, Echizen Nanjirō seemed to realize that he couldn’t beat the demon and cried out, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, Kokonoe-kun! I know I was wrong! I shouldn’t have drunk alcohol and watched Komai the night before—but that’s the latest write… I’m sorry! Don’t pour it out! Don’t pour the good wine into the well!!”

“You’re too wasteful! That’s all my pocket money for this month—”

Kokonoe Taka said gently: “Drinking is bad for your health, Mr. Echizen, please accept my condolences.”

When Takeushi reopened his eyes, Echizen Nanjirō already had a serene expression of a monk and was kneeling next to the big bell hanging in the courtyard, ringing the bell, while muttering something—“Ah, I seem to see my great-grandmother…”

Takeushi turned his head: “…Did you break him?”

Kokonoe Taka: “How is that possible? Don’t say I’m a terrible person.”

Takeushi: …Aren’t you?

He wisely swallowed these words.

He hesitated for a long time before asking: “Then today’s match…”

Before Kokonoe Taka could answer, “Of course we have to play!!” Echizen Nanjirō, who was kneeling in front of the bell, stood up angrily and stomped his feet twice, “You brat, just wait for me!! If you lose, go and buy me the latest magazines and beer with your own money!”

Kokonoe Taka said to Takeushi: “See, he’s cheered up.”

Takeushi: “…”

Echizen Nanjirō: “Damn it, you annoying brat!!”