Chapter 9
Physical Education and a Photoshoot
I remembered that at around the end of April of my second year of high school, we played soccer for physical education at some point. Today was that day. When the physical education teacher had explained what was happening in cla.s.s today, the people that were part of athletic clubs were super excited.
However, I was pretty sad. I do like the sport itself, but I myself am bad at it. Besides, if I remember correctly, today was that day…
I had ended up missing an easy shot, which resulted in a large amount of laughter from everyone around me. It was super embarra.s.sing and a day with bitter memories. Needless to say, Fujimoto never stopped teasing me about it, and the girls who saw it in the cla.s.s ended up a.s.sociating me with being bad at athletics.
Thinking about how that might happen again, I can’t seem to bring out any energy. At the start, the teacher told us to group up in pairs and do some light pa.s.sing practice. Since I’m so unmotivated, maybe I should take the excuse of feeling sick and skip.
As I tried to take out my secret knife and fake stomach pain, I was caught by Fujimoto who grabbed my jersey.
“Hey yo, hey yo, Sanada, you’re looking down. It’s probably because you don’t have anyone to partner up with, right?”
I was somewhat irritated by the rap that MC Fujimoto had attempted to create.
“Shut up, you’re probably the same, right?”
“That’s right. That’s exactly right, but we’re close. Friends. Coming from the same place, eating from the same bowl, that’s why we’ll go together.” [1]
Why is it a rap? Translating this into normal j.a.panese, it probably means that he’s asking to pair up with Sanadsama. That’s probably how it can be taken. I had no choice though, I ended up going with Fujimoto.
During the soccer match, I should just stick around the edges, and try not to get involved in anything so no one will pa.s.s to me. That way, I won’t be able to miss an easy shot. Probably.
Ah, Sensei! The girls who were running around raised their voice in excitement.
“Today, I have some time. So I’ll be observing. Everyone, good
luck.”
Looking at the teacher coming over, the boys also made a commotion. The teacher who came was Hiiragi-chan. She looked in my direction and once our eyes met, she waved her hand.
“Good luck!”
Ugh.
Her eyes had so much expectation. They were sparkling. This makes it hard to skip out during the match… Since she was still far away, no one knew who she was cheering on besides me and her. As such, the motivation of all the guys ended up rising.
“I guess I’ll have to be a little more serious…”
Fujimoto ended up saying that with conviction. The other boys were also the same.
“Hiiragi-chan sensei is cute today as well.”
“I usually only use about 1/30 of my full power… but I guess today will be good.”
“Well, as for me, I usually only use about one percent. Today, I’ll show you my true power.”
If I don’t skip out, I’ll end up showing my worst parts to Hiiragi-chan. However… no matter how I think about it, she definitely came to observe me during physical education.
“Hiiragi-chan sensei, she seems to be preparing something…?’
The boys stopped their pa.s.sing practice and stared at Hiiragi-chan. Also caught by it, I start looking for her as well.
“Umm… this is the power and… Ah, it’s on ♡.”
She was holding on to a small camera. Didn’t you come just to observe!? You’re like a mother going to their child’s sports festival…
Looking at the screen and in this direction, Hiiragi-chan waved her hands cutely. Sensei, cameras are no good, the girls will start crowding around,
“Nope. This is for when you guys graduate, so you can leave some nostalgic memories behind, right? Isn’t that moving?”
Ah. Was there usually a athletic part of the graduation alb.u.m? So it was just my imagination that she came to see me…
However.
Why is the lens always facing towards me!?
“This camera should be pretty light and easy to use.”
Camera!? Are you a professional!? [1]
“Hmm? I can’t seem to record… Sanadkun? The details about this camera, do you know them?”
There’s no way I would be familiar with cameras or cameras. Because I was called over by the G.o.ddess, I headed over to where Hiiragi-chan was.
“I came ♡.”
She spoke to me secretly so that the people
people around us couldn’t hear.
“What are you doing? You prepared all this?”
“I wanted to find out what the second year A and B cla.s.ses were doing during physical education so I prepared all of this ♪.”
“You completely intend to make this into a photoshoot…”
“I thought to take a few pictures of some of your cool points, Seiji-kun.”
“I’ll tell you this now, but I’m not that good at soccer, you know? I’m sorry to disappoint you.”
“The cool points that Seiji-kun has, it’s fine if I’m the one to decide them.”
Whether she wanted to cheer me up, or whether she truly thought that, I didn’t really know for sure. However, I’ll do my best. Learning to operate the camera wasn’t very hard, so after teaching Hiiragi-chan, I returned to Fujimoto.
“Sanada. Somehow, don’t you seem close to Hiiragi-chan?”
Giku.
“Ever since you got your cellphone confiscated, it’s been like this, hasn’t it?”
Giku.
“I-is that so? Well, when I have something that I don’t understand about world history, I go and ask her about it. Maybe it’s because of that, that it’s easier for her to ask me to do things?”
“Aah, I see.”
Now that I think about it, teachers that are well liked and teachers that have interesting cla.s.ses, it’s natural for them to have more students taking their cla.s.ses. During this time, the teams were divided evenly. The people currently in the soccer club, formerly in the soccer club, and people with soccer experience were equally distributed.
By the way, Fujimoto was on the other team.
“I’m going to make a head start, it seems I have to beat you here after all.”
You are going to… you already are. You’re already overlapping the start line.
“Well, I’m fine if you beat me out here, but then next time, I’ll just be observing for physical education. If it becomes like this, you won’t have anyone to partner up with.”
“Sorry. What I said earlier was a lie.”
We’re friends right, he said with a refreshing smile. Fujimoto, who had originally said he would crush me returned to his original position and the match started. I decided to stick to my original plan and kept up around the mob. It’s just, Hiiragi-chan’s camera was chasing me around.
“Let’s go, let’s
go, let’s go ♪.”
She was cheering me on. Probably because she didn’t say the name of who it was intended for, Fujimoto, and the other guys who mistakenly thought it was them, all played soccer with a serious face. I also wanted to show off a little bit, but this would be completely opposite of trying to avoid the incident from last time.
Since my team started to push forward, I followed the mob forward and moved to a spot that seemed like a ball would come. When I did, I ball ended up rolling towards me. The spin on it was clearly unnatural. Only I could do it now!
The moment when I decided to kick it, the previous incident came back like déjà vu in the form of a flashback. Ah. This is, that incident happened in the moment right after this. At that time, I heard the excited voice of Hiiragi-chan.
“Just use your left hand!”
“““That’s basketball!!”””
Everyone on the ground made a retort. Of course, I also made one in my heart. Maybe because I was caught up in Hiiragi-chan’s air-headedness, but when I kicked, my foot happened to catch onto the ball. Thanks to her, I ended up kicking the ball with quite a lot of strength, and it went into the goal.
“Waaaa! Amazing! Sanadkun, it went in! The goal!”
Hiiragi-chan who was caught up in the excitement made a small jump.
“The shot went into the ring!”
“As we were saying, that’s basketball!”
The girls who were running on the track seemed to have also seen it, and the feeling that I got from their “Uwaah…” was clearly different from the last time. Thank you, thank you. Hahaha…
As I was dazing out, Fujimoto had at some point stopped the ball at his feet. He was staring at me with the eyes of a psychopathic murderer.
“Sanada… I’ll bury you in the darkness, and I’ll also die…! Driiiiivvveeeeee shoooooooot!!”
Fujimoto shot the ball, which ended up flying straight into my face. By the time I noticed, I was looking up at the sky. There, the psycho, Fujimoto, had his face staring down at me.
“We’re close. From now on, let’s stay together with the mob, yeah? How about it, Sanada…?”
That became my lastbecame my last memory of this cla.s.s. It seems I had lost consciousness. When I came to, Hiiragi-chan was staring at me at a close distance.
“Ah, you woke up.”
“Is this the infirmary?”
I was on top of a bed.
Hiiragi-chan’s face looked upside down. She was giving me a lap pillow. After getting a direct hit from the ball, I seemed to have been taken to the infirmary. Currently, it was around the time when the next cla.s.s would start.
“Seiji-kun, you were cool ♪.”
“No, that was… just a coincidence.”
“It’s fine, even if it’s a coincidence. It’s enough.”
She patted my head and messed with my hair. She was already smiling. Hiiragi-chan looked so happy.
“If I had to say it, it was thanks to you, Hiiragi-chan.”
“Eh? Me? My cheering was great!”
“Maybe.”
Most likely, if Hiiragi-chan didn’t come, it would have repeated the same incident as last time. Last time, she wasn’t there, and of course, we also weren’t dating.
“I was also proud, you know? I told all the other girls that you were super cool, Seiji-kun.”
“Isn’t that just because you’re my girlfriend?”
“That’s not true! It’s like that in my eyes, so it’s fine like that.”
She held my cheeks with both her hands so that I couldn’t turn away.
“Wait a minute, stop. This is the infirm—nmu!?”
“Nn…♡ The curtains are closed so it’s fine. Besides, there’s no one here right now.”
This time, it doesn’t seem like she will let go easily, as she and I had another long kiss. I had ended up noticing the sound of footsteps outside, so I ended up hitting Hiiragi-chan’s shoulder.
“The school nurse is coming back.”
“Eh? Ah, this might be bad.”
Somehow, Hiiragi-chan managed to hide under the bed and we were both able to escape trouble.
TL Note:
Fujimoto is rapping here but it doesn’t exactly translate well to EnglishI don’t really know how to express this, but there are two different ways that they are saying camera. The first is カメラ, which is the normal way and refers to the normal everyday portable camera that one might use as a tourist. While the second is キャメラ, which I believe is supposed to be the type of camera that is more specialized and used more in movie shooting and stuff like that.