CH 4.1

Tashiro Gonzaburou, first year.

Now, I’m standing in front of a big wall.

I couldn’t escape from the table tennis club that I joined on a whim. Even though it was only temporarily.

The only condition for leaving the club was to win a match against the captain.

In order to defeat an opponent who I could never catch up to just by practicing during club hours, I needed a special secret strategy. 

――So I had no way of knowing at that time, because I was working hard on my secret training as a back-up plan in addition to my club activities.

Even when I joined the club on a provisional basis, I already knew that I was being eyed as a candidate for the next captainーー

***

Flying against the wind, a “whoosh” was heard a moment before I felt it against my skin. Ahhー!

Shit. I completely missed the right spot to hit.

It was supposed to be a sharp smash after a rally, but it was easily returned and I couldn’t hit it back. I was yet robbed of another point.

I repositioned my racket, aware of the worn old rubber.

“All the best, Tashiro!”

I could hear the faint voices of support from my friends, but I couldn’t spare the energy to turn around now.

On the other side of the ping-pong table stood the current captain of the table tennis club. If I didn’t win this set, there was nothing more I could do, but I honestly couldn’t see any chances of winning.

I didn’t know. I didn’t know that the level of a high school table tennis team was so high.

ーーI couldn’t win against a third year!

My friend, Shirahama, was dealing with a similar first year, so what the hell was up with this unfavorable situation?

There was no point in complaining, so I faced him straight on. But I was completely out of breath. The gap between us was widening and I was on the verge of losing.

If I lose this match, I would be officially admitted to the table tennis club.

I had planned to join the club on a casual, provisional basis and end up either a floating ghost member or a temporary member, but it turned out to be not a good idea.

When I tried to withdraw my provisional membership, a match was set up. I was offered an absurd condition that I would not be allowed to withdraw my provisional membership unless I won the match against a member of the club.

The original culprit of my plight was my friend, Kyoji Shirahama.

“You like table tennis, don’t you? You like ping-pong, don’t you?” The guy who casually invited me to join the club quickly won against another freshman who had just joined too.

And yet, I was up against the school team’s captain. There was no way I could win.

It was the result of my lack of understanding.

I’m sure he loved table tennis and I’m even more certain that he didn’t have the same basic training as the rest of the sports club.

I came here with a completely naïve outlook. In this place, it’s not like that at all.

There were a lot of people in the club and training was an intense and challenging experience, so I felt out of place and was going to leave as soon as possible. Yet, here we are.

But I didn’t want to say, “I want to quit, I’m going home”, in the face of a match. It was for certain that I had walked into a club with people who were earnestly working hard, and I didn’t want to leave the place filled with a vague sense of guilt.

But there’s no way I’m going to beat the captain. The difference in level was so great that my spirit seemed to pale in comparison.

It’s not simply because of mistakes made due to rushed play. It was purely the matter of unmatched skill level between the two players.

I wondered how many more times I could make the sound of shoes squeaking.

Before I could even think about it, I was stripped of a point.

“Game set!” 

ーーThat’s super cool to say.

The voice of a 2nd year student acting as an umpire rang out loud and clear.

I wiped my face with the hem of my rolled-up shirt and looked at the white board with the name of the captain circled on it.

――I lost. Totally defeated. Even though I knew it, it was really a bitter pill to swallow.

I felt like I’d lose my mind with bitter disappointment but Shirahama said, “Well, if you’ll excuse me,” and disappeared in a flash.

It was only the two of us who wanted to withdraw our provisional membership, but the competition was still carried on to test the freshmen’s skills.

As I sighed in frustration, the umpire from earlierーー Hanzawa-senpai, the vice-captain of the club, came over to me and chatted about the club and the procedure for official membership.

“We’re not that strict, but we don’t allow color bleaching because it’s a violation of the disciplinary rules.”

“Ehh…… That’s pretty strict enough.”

“So he says. What should we do now? Captain.”

“If you can defeat me, you are free to leave the dye on.”

“Huh…?”

“You’re an honest guy, Tashiro.”

For some reason, I was praised, but even if I were to officially join the club, I would still be reluctant to do so. There was no other club that I wanted to join, but even though I liked table tennis a lot and it wasn’t a bad idea to enter this club, I couldn’t quite adapt to it. There was a knot somewhere in my heart.

It was hard for me to feel comfortable participating in regular club activities when I didn’t want to join initially, and this kind of made me stay away from the club unintentionally.  

The longer I leave it be, the more difficult it becomes to get there1.

However, the table tennis club had practice three times a week, so if I skipped two days, I would only have one day left: Friday.

Then the captain and vice-captain would come to drag me out from my classroom, and I would have to be forced to participate either way. Such treatment made me seem like a problematic child and this became famous in school as it spread all around. The 2nd and 3rd years would even call me by name occasionally in the hallway. This was not a show!

That’s because when it was time to participate in club activities, I would take it seriously. After all, it’s fun to improve.

One of the reasons why I hadn’t run away was that the other members of the club accepted me without hesitation, even though I had entered the club with such a half-hearted mindset.

Sometimes the freshmen would stop by each other’s place after school and we also became friends with the upperclassmen. I couldn’t help but think that it’s nice to be blessed with friends in a club.

I couldn’t believe that I’m saying this, but it seemed that the so-called “detestable guy” was a position well suited to the captain.

“There’s always bound to be conflict, yet there isn’t. Tashiro is a natural at fitting into any circle. After I graduate, I’ll appoint you, Hanzawa, as the captain, so let’s keep it that way.”

“Yes.”

""

“Maybe we can make that guy captain after you.”

That guy.

That guy’s referring to me, right?!

~

One day in the second semester, I saw the captain and vice-captain smiling at each other and I was utterly speechless.

I should have wanted to call it quits, but I’ve become selfishly important.

It was the first time for me to stay in one place and participate in club activities like this, and I felt even more cornered.

I was a member of the volleyball team in elementary school and the track team in junior high school, but I could do almost anything athletically, so it was natural for me to participate as a substitute in various clubs. All this time, I had joined the club on the assumption that I would go play in other clubs. That’s why I was upset when I heard about the news of becoming a captain.

ーーFor real……?

The captain wasn’t the type to joke around with club matters and Hanzawa-senpai doesn’t forget details even if he appeared to be laughing and letting it slide.

I realized my predicament and went ……….

“……I didn’t hear anything. Okay good.”

Basically, I should not accept the offer to be the captain. The table tennis club retired late, and it was customary for 3rd year students to participate in the club even after there were no more official games, so technically, the captain would retire in December every year.

In other words, the appointment of duty would not occur until December of the 2nd year. There was no reason to worry about it from the second semester of the 1st year. By then, Hanzawa-senpai would have decided that there was someone else more suitable for the position of captain.

The best captains were the ones who were serious about the club, right?

~ 

“Tashiro, are you going to the club today?”

I was startled when a pair of intense eyes caught me straight in the face.

It was the following club activity day since the day I was troubled by the future captain issue. There wasn’t anything bad that could happen but I didn’t feel like attending today.

“Yeah. Miyano, are you going home immediately today?”

Miyano participates enthusiastically in all activities organised by the busy disciplinary committee.

“Yeah. There’s a bookstore I want to drop by. I want to get the bookstore bonus2.”

When Miyano speaks, he often makes eye contact with me. So, when he looked into my eyes with his big ones, I would get nervous at times. I meant that in the sense of being surprised.

Also, he was kind. There was a feeling that he was always thinking about my circumstances.

I didn’t know much about what he was talking about when it came to the things he liked, but perhaps Miyano doesn’t talk about it because he wanted us to understand him. He doesn’t explain it either.

“Oh, that author thing you were talking about the other day? I’ve been asked to do the same.”

Kuresawa might not seem to be listening, but he seemed to understand quite a bit since he interjected comments that he thought were appropriate at key points. He once said, “Miyano and her have the same hobbies, so it’s a great help.”

“Do you want to go with me? It’s not labeled by volume, so it’s hard to tell if it’s a sequel or not.”

“Yes please, that helps.”

As we left the classroom chatting with each other, it didn’t take us long to get to the elevator.

Miyano’s hobby was to read romance manga between men.

Even as a man? Miyano explained to me that there was more to manga than just pictures, but it didn’t make sense to me. Manga, novels and anime were all the same to me.

Kuresawa and Miyano seemed to be having a good time talking, and sometimes I would ask, “What do you mean?”. But I’m not that interested in their topic, so I often lose track of the conversation. Well, that’s okay.

The two didn’t mind that I didn’t understand and I too did not bother about it. It’s not a necessity to fully understand each other in order to be friends.

Anyway, I had achieved my goal of getting home before the captains came to take me away, so I parted ways with them with light steps.

Meanwhile, Shirahama, who had been the source of all this mess, had somehow ended up on the basketball team.

I waved goodbye, but I wasn’t heading straight home.

The destination was a public bath house.

This spacious facility had a recreation room reminiscent of an old-fashioned hot spring resort. It also had a resting area to lie down. This had been my favourite spot to go since high school started.

It’s cheap, bustling, and fun. Most of all, I liked that I could go there after school.

“Tashiro-kun!”

On the way, a voice called out my name from behind.

I stopped and turned around, “Hey, you’re doing it again today, right?”

The older man who asked me with a suspicious smile was Yamada-san. The woman standing calmly beside him was Toyoda-san.

Both of them were just like my grandparents, and they’ve been there for me since the first time I met them.

I was grateful for the chance to meet them, because it was interesting to feel a different sort of kinship with them as compared to my friends who were closer to my age. Besides, I liked the feeling of being taken care of.

“Oh! Of course!”

In my bag, I had a face towel. Soaps were provided, so that was all I needed to prepare.

I keep it in my bag for club activities, but I use it almost half as often as I do when I go to the bathhouse.

――I’m doing the same thing.

But the mood felt different.

In the recreation room on the second floor of the bathhouse, there was a table tennis table. In this bathhouse, matches follow the major game format of 1 game consisting of 3 rounds.

I failed to return the ball that had an unusual rotation. This was my 11th point lost.

I wanted to say, “Are you really using the same racquet as I am?”

With this, it was the end of the 3rd game.

“Yeah, woohoo!”

It was Yamada-san who shouted for joy.

I’ve never been able to beat him in a table tennis match before. I’ve never even been able to get to the match point.

There was a huge overwhelming difference in skills from every aspect; from the pacing of the balls to the power and sharpness of the receive. The difference in our well-honed skills was evident in the points gap.

In addition, the opponent was very good at shaking someone up.

The more competitive a game was in the beginning, the more one would be pulled apart in the middle, and the closer it was to a total mental collapse by the end. After that, it was a complete defeat. They took the game one after another. It’s a psychological war.

Even though I knew it was a tactical move, I got impatient and I couldn’t get myself back on track when they slurped up points after creating the illusion that they were in good condition at the beginning.

“Damn it! I’m not even at the level of Grandpa’s game……!”

Today I was thoroughly beaten up yet again, and all I could do was scream.

“To break a sweat before entering a bath3” was the sense I felt from the opponent.

As I gasped and panted for air, Yamada-san grinned at me with pride.

“I am your grandfather, of course I can do it. In short, this is your grandfather’s level. Doー youー understandー4?” 

He’s completely making a fool of me.

“AH! It’s so frustrating! I want to win!”

I took out the plastic bottle from my bag beside me and chugged down the remaining sports drink.

“Well, well. Let’s focus on working up a sweat.”

At the urging of Toyoda-san, who was playing casually at the next table, I headed downstairs to the bathhouse with a few others who were there.

The stairs were equipped with a handrail, but it seemed a little difficult for the older people to go down since one hand was restricted by their belongings. As I was walking down the stairs beside him, Yamada-san unexpectedly took a stumble.