"A friendly match against another school?" Yuki was confused when he received the information from his senpai. "Why though?"
"Well, it is a tradition for a lot of schools to invite another for a friendly match a week or two after the term began, to test the capability of their new team after the senior members graduated and to let the freshmen adapt to the intensity of high school volleyball." The captain of the team explained. "As for who will be our opponent, Akira-sensei hasn't said anything yet, so just wait until later."
It was Tuesday, two days after the last training session Yuki joined that he had received another invitation from the team again. By now, all of the volleyball team's players had already recognized him as one of them, making it hard for Yuki to reject the invitation. Just like this time, when Noriyuki and Yoshi, the captain and vice-captain of the team suddenly visited him in his class when they were in a break.
"Does Agostini-san know about this?"
"Well, I don't know about Riku, since he hadn't said anything about the news in the group. But since he is Akira-sensei's nephew, I am sure he would be the first one who got the information." Yoshi shrugged. "We are here just to inform you since… Well… You know…" The vice-captain looked around uncomfortably.
"Since I don't have access to the group until now, right?" Yuki finished his senpai's explanation knowingly.
Noriyuki and Yoshi winced, silently apologizing to him. However, Yuki didn't blame his senpai for any offense they thought they did. It was clear by now that everyone in the team knew Yuki lived in such a poor orphanage that it was impossible to get access to such a luxurious thing like a phone, a laptop, or even the internet in his place. Hell, they didn't even have access to television, for God's sake!
That was why Yuki was so eager to do his part-time job.
While Sacchi – Megumi's grandmother and his employee offered to lend him some money first to get a phone so he could communicate with the others, Yuki refused that, knowing he had already received so much kindness from the old lady. He still felt guilty whenever he remembered how much wage he earned for working at her place. He didn't want to owe her more than necessary.
"Anyway, where is Riku?" Yoshi asked, trying to differ the topic. "You both are classmates, right?"
"Well, yeah… But right now, he is…"
Yuki smiled wryly, then his eyes turned to the last row next to the windows. Curious, both Noriyuki and Yoshi followed his gaze, just to scowl immediately at the sight they didn't want to see at all.
There, they all could see Riku was surrounded by four girls, talking and laughing while the girls were giggling around, looking at him in awe as if Riku was the best thing coming to their lives since they were born. Hell, there was even a cute homemade bento on his desk! Right now, the blonde boy was living the life any boy could ever dream of.
The smile on Riku's face though, was infuriating to watch. Noriyuki just sent a bored gaze at the Italian boy while Yoshi wanted to knock him down.
"It has been like this since day one," Yuki explained wryly. "Well, he is bound to be popular, of course, with his origin and his blonde hair. But I don't expect he would attract a lot of air-headed girls into his arms."
"Let's just hope this won't affect his performance on the court." Yoshi scowled, his face darkened.
"Anyway, we have to go first," Noriyuki said after glancing at the clock on the wall. "The break is almost over and we need to buy something first from the cafeteria. So, bye, Yuki! See you later!"
"Yeah, see you later."
Yuki nodded at his senpai for the last time before staring at them walked away until they disappeared from his sight. Then, he sighed tiredly before going back to his seat, just to see Ayaka Kato, Megumi's little sister sitting behind his seat, busy scribbling something on her book.
Driven by curiosity, Yuki took a glance at what kind of work she did right now, and he felt a tremendous headache the moment he saw so many numbers, calculations, and unfamiliar mathematical formulas written in her book. Then, he stared at the book on the other side of her desk and noticed the question she was working on came from there. He winced one more time the moment he read it, the headache was getting more severe.
On the evening of an autumnal equinox day, Tomoaki noticed that Mars was exactly along the north-south meridian in his sky at the exact moment when the sun was setting. In other words, the Sun and Mars subtended an angle of exactly 90◦ as measured from the Earth. If the orbital radius of Mars is 1.52 au, what will be the approximate rise time of Mars on the next autumnal equinox day?
The only familiar words he knew there were Sun, Mars, and Earth. Other than that, everything was blank inside his head. However, it gave him an idea of what subject she was working on right now.
"Still working on your astronomy problem?" He suddenly asked, making the girl jump from her seat.
"K-Kobayashi-san!" The girl greeted, her face beet red. "What are you doing here?" Even though she was still stuttered a bit, Yuki was glad that the girl started to open up a bit in his presence.
"Well, in case you forget, Kato-san, I am sitting right in front of you." Yuki teased with no heat in his tone, making the girl blush more. "And I asked you before, are you still working on your astronomy problem?"
This was something Yuki found out during his time working in Sacchi's house. Kato would often also be there to read any books related to astronomy. From a book of a famous author like Carl Sagan to the one who gave him a headache like a book about the black hole, he had seen the girl reading it all enthusiastically. That was when he noticed the quiet girl was far geekier about things related to space compared to any people that Yuki had ever met.
That was also the door that allowed him to have a decent conversation with the girl, as even though he wasn't as knowledgeable about it compared to Kato, at least he knew enough to follow her thoughts.
"Yeah, I am still working on this problem." Kato bit her lips, a thick vein popped on her temple showing how frustrated she was right now. "I had already expected the question from the National Olympiad would be hard, but not this hard. And to make it worse, this is just the first question, the easiest one out of all of this!"
Yuki just shook his head, amused hearing the quiet girl ranted like this. And yeah, Kato wasn't just a geek who knew a lot of trivial cool information from the encyclopedia. She was serious about diving down the path to be a real astronomer, a real scientist. And to do so, she had already set her sights on the International Olympiad of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the biggest stage for students all over the world to compete in that subject.
Honestly, Yuki admired her so much for this. Unlike him, Kato had a clear idea of what she wanted to do and was willing to work hard on it. While Yuki didn't know a lot about that kind of Olympiad, he knew what Kato learned right now was something beyond her grade, and the fact that she took the initiative to learn it by herself showed how much she loved that subject.
"Well, here." Yuki suddenly offered the girl a carton of orange juice. "Don't let your work make you forget to stay hydrated. Megumi-senpai would hang my head if she knew I let it happen." He mumbled the last part, knowing his over-protective senpai would do something terrible if anything happened to her sister under his watch.
The girl blushed, received the drink before mumbling, "Thank you."
It was just a small interaction that happened almost daily between those two, nothing romantic or suspicious in it. However, unknown to Kato and Yuki, a pair of brown eyes caught it accidentally, looking at those two with complicated eyes.
'Should I tell him about her past?'
-0-
"Okay, everyone! Settle down! Let's gather first!" Akira shouted, asking for his players' attention.
It was after school was over when all the volleyball players gathered in the gym. Unlike the usual though, instead of doing a warmup and preparing for the next training, they sat down quickly, waiting in anticipation for Akira's announcement.
"Well, as you all know, I have been trying to find an opponent for us to have a friendly game, and I am happy to say that one particular strong school accepted our invitation!"
Right after the last words left from Akira's mouth, chatters of curiosity and excitement could be heard around them.
"Damn! Finally!"
"Who will be our next opponent?"
"Akira-sensei said it is a strong school. Could it be Mihama?"
"Idiot! They are not a strong team! They just got lucky last year!"
"Yeah! It should be Mutsuhiga, right?"
"No! It should be…"
Although there were a lot of names thrown around, Yuki was clueless here. For one, he wasn't a native of Tokyo and didn't know a lot about good schools in this city, and two, he was a complete rookie in the volleyball world. Fortunately, Riku also had the same reaction, his expression was blank as if something clogged his brain.
Seeing the two rookies who were uncomfortable and looked out of place, Akira coughed, decided to take pity on them.
"Okay, everyone! Keep your opinion to yourself for now and let me announce it first!" He raised his voice, silencing all the whispers around there. Akira smiled, satisfied with their reaction. Then, he continued, "Well… Our opponent for the next game is…" He paused, letting his voice hang in the air as all his players held their breath in anticipation.
"Matsuyama Kita High!"
The squeaky floor of the gym was suddenly still, the only sound being the heavy breathing of the volleyball players as they stared at their coach in stunned silence. The players' eyes were wide with disbelief, their faces frozen in a mixture of shock and concern as if they were trying to process the enormity of the challenge that lay ahead.
As the silence lingered, the two newest additions to the team, Yuki and Riku, exchanged a puzzled glance, their faces etched with confusion.
"Are they a good team?" The Italian boy asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Why are you asking that to me? I am as illiterate as you right now." Yuki hissed with the same low volume.
However, due to the silence around, almost everyone could hear their conversation, and all the eyes suddenly turned to them, their faces were a mixture of amusement and exasperation.
"Well…" Noriyuki pondered for a moment, thinking how to say it. "Matsuyama Kita High is a private school in North Tokyo specializing in sports, always recruiting the best players possible to win the championship. They reached the final of all the national tournaments in the last five years, and even though they always lost their most crucial game, it didn't dismiss their achievement as probably the second-best team in the country in regards to volleyball."
Yuki was stunned, now realizing the gravity of the situation.
"So, they are the best team in this prefecture right now?"
The depressed chuckles suddenly could be heard again as Kaede said, "If only it is that easy…"
"You heard that they have been the runner-up of the national tournament for the last five years, right?" Yori took over the explanation. Seeing Yuki and Riku nod, he continued, "Well, they were always defeated by one team in the final, and that was Konan High, the best volleyball school in Japan. Unfortunately, they are also in the same prefecture as us here, so if we wanted to go to the national, we have to at least beat one of them at some point."
Now, not only Yuki, but Riku also had the same bewildered expression. They didn't expect the level of volleyball in Tokyo to be this high.
"What about us? How good are we compared to them?" Yuki couldn't help but ask.
"Us?" Kaede laughed hollowly when he heard that question. "We are just an ant compared to giants like them! Our best achievement up to now was just the fourth place in the Tokyo Preliminaries, and it happened 4 years ago! Last year, we even lost in the second round of the tournament, our worst performance in the last 10 years, for God's sake!"
Yuki twitched his mouth, now was bewildered by how low the level of his team was.
As the team's murmurs and whispers died down, Riku suddenly let out a loud, infectious laugh. "Hey, guys, come on!" He exclaimed, his eyes sparkling with excitement. "Think about it! We're going to get to play against the second-best team in the country! That's like, the ultimate challenge, right!"
All of the players there turned to him, surprised by his sudden enthusiasm. However, Riku ignored the stare directed at him and continued, "We've got nothing to lose, but everything to gain. We can learn so much from playing against the best. Moreover, it is just a friendly game, right? Why do you all look so gloomy right now?!"
As Riku's infectious laughter spread throughout the team, one by one, his teammates began to share their own optimism. Yuki who sat next to him sighed before saying sarcastically, "Well, Agostini-san has a point here. A dumb one, but still a point nonetheless."
"Hey, what do you mean by that, Four-eyes!" Riku cried, eliciting laughter from all the players.
Riku's laughter sparked a chain reaction of positivity, and soon the entire team was buzzing with energy and excitement. Okumura, the over-enthusiastic libero chimed in next. "Hey, he is right! And who knows? We might just surprise everyone and come out on top!" The team erupted into a chorus of agreement as they started to envision themselves emerging victorious from the upcoming game.
As the team's energy continued to soar, Akira couldn't help but feel a sense of admiration for his two freshmen, Yuki and Riku. He had always known that they had potential as a leader, but he had never seen them bring such a spark of enthusiasm to the team. As he watched them interact with their teammates, he was impressed by the way they had taken charge of the situation, injecting their teammates with a sense of confidence and optimism.
'Those two are natural leaders,' he thought to himself. 'They're exactly what this team needs to turn things around. Maybe, with them here, things will be different this year.'