V1C4 Part1

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1. LINE JUDGEHeeeeeey guys I’m back

Translation Notes

1. Tora no Yu is the name of a public bath

2. A lariat is a wrestling move where a wrestler runs towards their opponent and “

strikes them by extending their arm straight out and moving it forward against their neck or chest area.

“

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“If that’s how it’s going to be, Yuni,” Nagato Ryo said

quite simply after he stuffed all his belongings from the locker in the room

into his enamel bag.

It had been less than three months since he joined the team

in April, so he didn’t have much stuff. The inside of the empty locker was also

clean. They didn’t have a lot of members, and they weren’t tyrannized just

because they were first-years, so they were given their own individual lockers

as soon as they joined the team. They were a small team where everyone had to

work together, regardless of rank, or there wouldn’t be enough people to

prepare for practice. It was very hard on the team to have people quit.

The

volleyball shoes that were transferred from his locker to his bag—they went to

a sports shop together to buy them when they entered high school because the ones

from middle school had gotten smaller. He wondered what kind of fate would

befall those shoes that they had bought together at the store entrance after

they examined them seriously but still excitedly, after he brought them home.

He wondered if they would be put away somewhere.

“Ryo, are you really…”

Even while standing by the doorway to clear his path, Kuroba

said in a way as though he was still unwilling to give up, Is there any way

I can talk you out of this? He and Nagato had been together since

elementary school and middle school. Since they entered the same high school

and joined the same club, he freely thought that there wasn’t really any doubt

that they would hanging out together again for the next three years.

“If Haijima’s joining, I quit.”

His chest throbbed when he flatly said that. Even though he

wasn’t the one being rejected, when he thought about Haijima, his chest ached.

Nagato gave a little exasperated sigh.

“I want to have fun in club. I just don’t want to make bad

memories with a guy who ruins the mood. What’s so weird about that? Do you have

to put so much effort into club activities?”

“No…”

Kuroba shook his head, his face slightly looking down. The

purpose for joining a club was different for everyone. There were those who

were ready and willing to spend their entire high school careers aiming for

nationals, and there were those who just wanted to enjoy their hobbies and

interests with their friends.

Nagato shouldered his bag and walked past him. He turned his

body towards him at the door.

“Yuni,

you’re still doing it, aren’t you?”

He said, as though it was the final confirmation. He felt

like he was telling him that they could still go together.

Until that point, he had been mumbling his words, but when

he was asked that, Kuroba raised his head and answered without hesitation.

“I’m doing it.”

Last summer, the prefectural tournament of their third year

of middle school. Though they advanced to the semifinals, Kuroba ran away from

the competition. He ended his middle school volleyball career with the regret

of doing something that couldn’t be undone and the indigestion that grew

larger and larger within him afterwards. He didn’t want to feel those things a

second time.

But most importantly, he finally brought Haijima back to the

volleyball team.

His middle school teammate, Haijima Kimichika, was a

volleyball fanatic who loved volleyball. It was already at a level where it

went too far. He was always serious towards volleyball, and what’s worse, his

ability was so high that he often left the others behind and went on a rampage.

He had the irredeemable flaw of not being able to read the mood of the team.

The way he spoke was also awful.

He certainly was a guy who was unusually good at making

other people angry. Even Kuroba had been irritated by him many times.

…But even so.

He

joined the volleyball team in high school as well, had a good relationship with

his senpais, and though the serious practice of high school was tougher than he

expected, he had never thought that it was so painful that he wanted to quit.

Every time he jumped off the gym floor with a squeak of his shoes, every time

he hit a ball someone set to him, the feelings he had a year ago buzzed in the

back of his body—while he chewed upon the joy of volleyball Haijima taught him,

every day during club activities.

There was one thing he always thought.

“I

want to play volleyball with Haijima.”

Around seven o’clock in the morning, the sky was already

bright as though painted in ultramarine blue, and thick columns of clouds were

gradually rising. On both sides of the one-lane farm road that continued

straight ahead were rural landscapes as far as the eye could see. The rice

plants that were still green were growing quickly. The slightly hazy and

blue-green mountaintops surrounded the perimeter at 360 degrees.

Blue and green and white. Monshiro’s summer, distinctly

color keyed by these three colors, was arriving.

On the

paved road in the middle of the rice paddies, a light pickup truck was driving

fast with enka music coming out of it at a loud volume. His relative yelled

cheerfully, adding embellishment to the song while he gripped the shaky

steering wheel. It’s not a residential area, so it won’t bother the

neighbors, but the Kuroba family acts way too freely in town… the

son and heir to the Kuroba family sitting in the passenger’s seat, Kuroba Yuni,

was feeling quite fed up. For the Kurobas, the entire town was like their own

yard. Most of the mountains in Monshiro were privately owned by the Kurobas, so

that wasn’t necessarily wrong.

“Uncle, can you turn down the volume a little bit…”

“Aah? You said something, Bon?”

His yelling voice returned from the driver’s seat, still

with the strange intonations of enka.

“…Nothing.”

Exhausted, he leaned against the side door, his temple

reaching the upper frame of the window. At that moment, they passed a bicycle

that was travelling below the window and left it behind.

“Ah!”

He immediately tried to poke his head out of the window, but

scraped his forehead against the window frame and groaned, “Oww…”

“Mm?” his relative stepped on the brakes. “Is there someone

there?”

“Ah, yeah. A guy on my team…”

After he said that, he realized that there was also a

delicate distance with “guy on my team.” He could say “team member” again, which

was progress, but he didn’t feel like he could say “friend.” They were still

more distant from each other than middle school—than kindergarten if they went

back farther in time.

As his

relative backed the truck up, Kuroba opened the door and jumped down onto the

road. He stumbled a step forward and then ran.

Haijima, who had been pedalling his bike with his head down,

looked up and stopped his bike by putting one foot on the ground. He was

dressed lightly in a T-shirt and knee-length track pants, but heavily equipped

with his baggage of box-shaped enamel bag and drum-shaped sports bag that were

slung over his shoulders.

His relative stopped the truck.

“Oi, get in, get in. I’ll send you all the way to school.”

His relative tried to lift the bike that Haijima was riding

on, and Haijima hopped his bike on one foot, looking annoyed. “You’re the kid

at Ooe-san’s house, right? I’ll bring your bike home later. You’re gonna stay

there for five days. If you leave it at the station, it’ll get stolen. I’ve heard

things have been getting a bit dangerous around here lately.” His relative

chatted as he carried the bike onto the back of the truck with an astonishing

amount of power, even though he was past sixty. “It’s four stays over five

days,” Kuroba corrected, but his relative basically didn’t listen to people.

“There’s no way for this town to be dangerous. Everyone knows each other…”

Haijima grumbled in a low voice.

“Well, get in. I said I’ll give you a ride while I deliver

provisions to the training camp.”

Not

being completely one-sided like his relative, Kuroba shyly stretched out his

hand for the sports bag Haijima was carrying. He was relieved that Haijima

didn’t push away as he obediently lowered his head and pulled the strap of his

bag from around his neck.

“’Provisions’? You mean, all of that?”

While fixing his glasses, Haijima looked at the back of the

truck with his eyes half-closed.

There were about ten bales of rice stacked in a pyramid on

the tray. A huge mound of round cabbages that still had dirt on them. Tightly

lined up buckets overflowing with potatoes, onions, and tomatoes…

“Do they think we have a hundred members or something?”

“I told them we didn’t need it. But they said it was

Grandpa’s order…”

With the cargo of one bike and one human added on board, the

truck started driving down the farm road again. This time, he and Haijima rode

in the back of the truck, so they didn’t have to listen to his relative’s

singing up close. The sound of the car radio in the driver’s seat and the rough

voice of his relative were blown back by the wind.

Haijima sat with his back to the mountain of cabbages,

hugging his knees, and Kuroba sat cross-legged with a bucket full of tomatoes

in his arms. Haijima’s bike was precariously balanced in the gap between two

rice bales.

“Ah, it’s hot…”

Haijima held up his

hand to the sunlight beating down on the back of the truck and squinted his

eyes.

It was

now summer vacation, and the summer training camp for the boys’ volleyball team

was starting today. It was taking place at school, so their practice

environment didn’t change, but just the idea of staying there overnight made

him a bit excited.

“Hey, how many pairs of underpants did you bring?”

When he inadvertently asked that, Haijima screwed his face

up, looking very annoyed.

“Is this an elementary school field trip…Don’t get carried

away.”

“Okay, but this is my first training camp. So, how many

underpants?”

“I don’t know. Grandma packed enough for me.”

“What, you didn’t pack for yourself? I think you’re the one

who’s like an elementary schooler.”

The man named Haijima didn’t have the nerves to spare time

for anything else other than volleyball, so in the way of a first-year high

school boy, he cared little about his clothes or looking good. However, looking

at the shirt of his uniform and his T-shirts, he was always made to wear proper

and pure white ones. It was probably the concern of his maternal grandmother

who he lived with.

“This is my dominion, but…” With a haughty looking

expression for some reason, Haijima pulled the enamel bag he usually carried

around for club activities to his side. “I don’t know anything about that,” he

said, indicating with his chin the duffel bag that thrown on top of the ragged

pile of cabbage behind him. While he let someone else prepare his underpants,

he was certainly very careful about his volleyball gear, to the point where he

didn’t want anyone to touch them.

“You’re a guy who has

clear judgement about your own ins and outs…”

Even while shrugging his shoulders and sighing, but he found

himself reflecting on their conversation.

Their

last tournament of their third year of middle school was held exactly one year

ago, in July of last year. Because Kuroba evaded his responsibilities, Monshiro

Middle School was lacking an attacker and were eliminated from the semifinals,

and then Haijima got injured, so they ended up withdrawing from the third-place

playoffs. Ever since that tournament, Kuroba and his other teammates had

severed ties with Haijima. After a year of not talking to each other, he

thought that they were finally able to communicate rather decently now. Even if

for now, he was still no more than “guy from my team.”

“Hey, didn’t my mom go talk to your grandma? Can’t we make

some kind of parents’ association or something…? It’ll make donations and gifts

more convenient, Apparently she talked with Nagato’s mom at first, but Nagato

quit, so she said she’ll go talk to Chika’s grandma…”

He began speaking in a good mood, but when he noticed

Haijima’s expression becoming increasingly grim, he stopped talking. “Parents’

association…” Haijima spat out those words in a chilling voice. Kuroba

faltered, wondering what set him off as his neutral mood was suddenly dropped

into low gear.

“Haven’t you learned yet that club activities aren’t a good

place for parents to butt in and meddle?”

“Well…sure, but it wasn’t my idea, it was Nagato’s mom’s.”

“Well, now that Nagato quit, there’s no need for this

conversation then.”

Haijima

turned to the side in a huff and sank his back into the mountain of cabbages.

Even Kuroba felt annoyed at that attitude.

“Don’t talk like that. Whose fault do you think it is…”

“It’s mine, right? If he didn’t like me joining so much that

he quit, then he wasn’t serious from the start.”

It’s no good. It’s not worth talking. Nothing

changed…This guy’s lack of consideration. For Haijima, the people who

played volleyball seriously and everyone else were clearly divided into those

he cared about and those he didn’t. It was the same as the things he took good

care of in his club activities bag and everything else he didn’t care about.

He didn’t believe Nagato’s quitting was Haijima’s fault, but

he honestly wanted him to share a little bit of the bad aftertaste he himself

felt.

However, when he tried to say something and inhaled, he

couldn’t think of any words that would make Haijima understand. Ah, geez,

sometimes I don’t know why I brought Haijima back, even to the point where I

ended up cutting ties with Nagato.

Shit, he cursed, and took a tomato from a bucket and

threw it at the side of Haijima’s face. He stopped it with his left hand,

looking startled.

“You—”

“Eat it, it’s tasty.”

He

also took out a somewhat large tomato and took a big bite out of it. The sweet

juices trickled down his chin, and he wiped it off with the back of his hand.

“I picked them in my relative’s field. I’m sure our senpais

would love them.”

It had actually become a traumatic experience for him, when

he had gotten nervous and lost his bearings with the huge cheering squad of all

his relatives appearing at that middle school game. He really wished they would

cut it out with that sort of thing. At any rate, in this case, they overdid it

with the scale of the “little favor”. But, putting that aside.

“I think you’re doing this with good intentions. Even if you

don’t want a PTA, you should accept these. And then they’ll be satisfied too.”

Although he often felt embarrassed or irritated by them, he

didn’t hate or detest his grandfather or relatives or his parents. If someone talked bad about them, he didn’t

feel good about that.

Holding the tomato in his hand, Haijima looked at him in

silence for a while. The dazzling summer sunrays reflected off his pale face,

and he couldn’t see his expression behind his glasses. He then clicked his

tongue and turned his face from him again.

“…That’s something a well-bred guy would say.”

He said bitterly, throwing his gaze towards the scenery

streaming past them. In the end, the tomato just rolled around in his hand, and

he never ate it. Even though it had been a year and a half since he moved to

town from Tokyo, he seemed to persist in not becoming a member of the town. It

felt somewhat lonely. I

might still be dragging the image of “Chika” from kindergarten around, he

suddenly thought. He knew that “Chika” went to Tokyo and got lost and would never come back. The only clue to finding “Chika” was volleyball, and it wasn’t

like he was only playing volleyball for that reason, but it was probably a big

part of it.

A light horn sounded from the driver’s seat.

They passed another bike near the shoulder of the road.

Haijima, looking behind him, noticed something and muttered, “Ah.” Kuroba also

took notice of a jet-black umbrella that completely disregarded the weather and

was somewhat meandering along under the blinding summer sky. “Ah,” he said, and

half-rose.

“Kanno-senpaaaai!”

When he called out to him from the back of the truck, a pale

freckled face, even whiter than Haijima’s, peeked out from beneath the

umbrella. He was holding his umbrella, so he was riding with one hand.

It was Kanno Akito, who, in his long jersey pants and

long-sleeved hoodie, he looked just like a boxer who was in the middle of

losing weight. On top of that, he was wearing his hood entirely over his head

and his hands were tucked into his sleeves (by the way, all of it was

apparently of UV cut). He was their senpai on the volleyball team and came from

the same middle school, Monshiro Middle, as Kuroba and Haijima. He looked like

a lanky and tall scarecrow wearing clothes and carrying an umbrella. He hated

to say it about themselves, but it was unavoidable that the volleyball team’s

boys were often described as pasty.

Recognizing

the two’s faces, Kanno’s mouth moved to form a “’’Sup” and he bobbed his head

slightly in greeting. Kuroba turned around to the driver’s seat and raised his

voice to not be overpowered by the loud enka music.

“Uncle,

stop! There’s one more passenger!”

***

“Great, as soon as camp is over, it’ll be time for the

Autumn Tournament. We’ll finish up the team during these five days. Some of you

might have come here thinking you’re going to play around at night, but be

prepared to be worked so hard that you won’t have the energy for that.” The

captain, Oda, gave them a pep talk. “Yes!” the first- and second-years shouted,

somewhat out of sync. The vice-captain, Aoki, was standing half a step behind

Oda. Oda nodded in satisfaction at the team members’ response and turned

diagonally behind him.

“Anything from Sensei…”

He was about to say, and then his face stiffened.

The old teacher who was the advisor for the boys’ volleyball

team was leaning his frail body back in his folding chair, snoring comfortably.

Slivers of light shone over the handrail of the second floor gallery, creating

a stripped spot of sun in the gym, and the advisor’s face, his wrinkled mouth

half open, looked like a fish being cooked on a grill.

“…Someone.

A first-year. Move him to the shade before he becomes a dried fish.”

Oda ordered with a grimace. “Ah, yes!” When Kuroba tried to

run, Haijima jumped at the same time, and there was an atmosphere that

restrained them both for an instant as they wondered which of them was going.

“…The two of you do it.” Oda sighed.

Heave ho. They lifted the chair on both sides at

Kuroba’s call. They carried the chair to a corner of the gym with their

advisor, who showed no signs of waking up even when he was in midair. Kuroba

was about three centimeters taller, so it was slightly tilted towards Haijima’s

side. When Kuroba lowered the position of his hand, Haijima raised his arm high

as though indignant.

He’s still the same guy who hates to lose.

Now, if “first-years” was called, then it would be himself

and Haijima who would move. After the provisional club enrollment period in

April was over, three first-years, including Kuroba and Nagato, officially

joined the club. Of course Haijima didn’t join the team at that time. It was

after the ballgame tournament in June when Haijima finally agreed to join after

Oda’s persistent persuasion. However, Nagato and the other first-year quit at

the same time as Haijima joined. Apparently Nagato asked him to quit, but he

hadn’t bothered to catch that person to find out the truth.

Since the ban on first-years quitting or leaving clubs was

lifted at the end of June, three months since enrollment, it seemed that every

club had members who left one after the other after the ballgame tournament

either way.

“It

was us third-year’ decision to take Haijima, even knowing Nagato’s opinion.

There’s nothing a freshman needs to feel responsible for. There’s nowhere you

can complain.” Aoki must have sensed Kuroba’s worries, because he reassured him

with that.

For the current boys’ volleyball team members, there were

two first-years: Kuroba and Haijima. Four second-years—Kanno, Uchimura and

Hokao who were there from the start, and Okuma, who transferred over from the

rugby team. For the third-years, there were still the same two people—the

imbalanced captain duo of the 163 centimeter Oda and the 193 centimeter Aoki.

There were fluctuations within the grades, but if you added the three years up,

there were eight people, the same number as before the ballgame tournament.

The finals of the ballgame tournament, where they were

betting on getting either Haijima or Okuma, ended in the victory of Team F led

by Oda, so the right to obtain Okuma (well, it hadn’t existed in the first

place) had disappeared, but Okuma himself came knocking on the volleyball

team’s door. The rugby team had an image of being a tightly unified group, and

there must have been a good reason for him to change clubs at this stage of his

second year. Perhaps something about volleyball appealed to him.

“It’s as Oda said about practice. I’ll talk about the rest.”

While Kuroba and Haijima carried chairs over, Aoki took over

the talk and continued the meeting.

“Well,

it’s the same camp as last year, so the second-years already know, right? There

are no baths, so you can either use the school showers or go down to the Tora

no Yu. (1) No bikes allowed when you’re going to the Tora no Yu. Either

way, you’d be drenched with sweat on the way back. For laundry, you can use the

coin laundry at the Tora no Yu. We don’t have a specific person on duty,

but it’s cheaper to use it all at once, so ask each other. Don’t let it pile up

since it’ll stink. After dinner and the meeting, we’ll have a study session

until lights out. The only time I’ll look at your homework is during camp, so make

good use of it. Lights out strictly at eleven. If there’s anyone awake, I’ll

assume you have too much energy and have you do twenty dashes on the slope. Now

finally, for the meals, which you guys are probably wondering about the most…breakfast

and lunch are sold in the cafeteria, but we’re making dinner ourselves. I’ll

post the rotation chart in the kitchen, so keep an eye out for it. Anyways, we’re

having yakiniku tonight.”

A small cheer went up. Aoki held

up his hand and said, “However, starting tomorrow we’ll only be having curry.

Kuroba’s parents have contributed tons of meat and vegetables, so everyone

thank him.”

His name suddenly brought up,

Kuroba, who was about to put down the chairs and return to the meeting circle,

shrank back.

“Yo, land-owning rich kid!”

Okuma clapped his hands and teased, and the other team members also applauded.

“N-no, it’s not my parents, it’s my relatives. They can’t possibly eat all

these vegetables and they think there’s about a hundred people on the team…”

Before he knew it, he ended up copying the lines Haijima said this morning.

Although he said something self-important to Haijima, when he was praised before

everyone, he was embarrassed about acting like a rich country bumpkin giving

everyone a lavish feast.

“What are you saying, Kuroba?

It’s the kindness of your guardians. We’re grateful for it.”

“Well, if you throw it all into

curry, then it wouldn’t be too hard to consume.”

Oda

and Aoki backed him up in their own ways. The third-years are so mature,

he thought.

“Hey, Kuroba!” The spike he hit with all his strength became

a home run and hit the opposite wall, earning him a warning from the setter, Uchimura.

“You gotta hit them with each and every one of your nerves. There’s no point in

practicing. Oda-senpai says it’s during practice when you should think. On the

contrary, you think too much during matches…”

“Oh, okay. Got it.”

He pouted as he answered, but his gaze was pulled in another

direction. Oda had just beckoned Haijima over and started talking to him.

“So, Haijima, how’s our attackers?”

“They’re not bad at all. I’ll match up with everyone during

the training camp. Since the right side hitters seem useful, I’d like to

increase the combos involving them and the centers. Like A and D double quicks

or a C quick and a right broad jump or a tandem attack with the center and the

right side…”

Haijima began to easily enumerate tactical terms that Kuroba

couldn’t imagine very well just by listening.

“Oh, oh, wait a minute. Oi, Kanno, the white board. And,

Okuma!”

Oda

hurriedly called the two second-years over. Kanno ran over with a

sketchbook-sized whiteboard under his armpit. “Me too? Alright.” Okuma did a

lariat (2) to Kuroba’s neck for no reason and passed him. “Gueh…” It was quite

irritating that this senpai always seemed to not be satisfied unless he did one

unnecessary thing.

“And, Kuroba!”

“Ah, yes!”

He responded while rubbing his throat.

“I said center and right. Let the guys on the left do

receiving practice.”

Haijima said without even looking at him. Kuroba, who was

about to run, froze. Even the other team members were startled at the way he

spoke, like he was cutting him off.

Haijima was the only one who didn’t notice the tensing

atmosphere, and he put the whiteboard on the floor and knelt down, beginning to

let his mind unfold on a two-dimensional court. Haijima’s position, setter, was

also called the playmaker, and it was the team’s brain, the backbone of all the

attacks from its own side. In Haijima’s mind, he probably stockpiled an infinite

number of tactics that could be combined as long as he had the right pieces to

make them happen. Dragging in the centers Aoki and Okuma and the right-side

hitter Kanno, Haijima’s talk became excited, and even the captain Oda was left

out.

Oda approached them, scratching his head.

“Let me join you guys.”

The

remaining four people began receiving practice.

“He was like that since middle school, right?”

Oda said, while underhand receiving the ball Uchimura hit to

him.

“Yes…like that.”

“He must have something special in his head. Like,

apparently shogi masters are able to visualize the movements of all the pieces

of the board dozens of moves ahead in their minds. I don’t know anything about

shogi though.”

“I know a little about it. My grandpa’s hobby is shogi.”

He unintentionally mentioned his grandpa and felt

embarrassed again that he might get thought of as a grandpa’s boy, but Oda

didn’t make fun of him like Okuma.

“For him, instead of shogi pieces, it’s the ball on the

court and the opposing team’s players…he can picture the movements of

everything on the court in an instant. He’s really the embodiment of a

volleyball brain…but well, everything off the court slips out of his head right

away.”

“He’s extreme. Inside and outside.”

“It’s up to the team to make the best use of him or hold him

back. It feels like if he was such a good all-rounder, he could be the top

player anywhere, but it’s actually the opposite. There might not be a lot of

teams that can accept him. If he goes somewhere bad, he’ll be pretty easily

destroyed, so it’ll be too dangerous.”

“Haa…”

Feeling

dejected, Kuroba’s shoulders slumped. Haijima had failed because of that in middle

school. Probably at his Tokyo middle school too… There was an incident that

forced him to transfer from his powerhouse private school to this countryside.

Would he just repeat the same thing in high school? What was he brought back to

this court for?

“We’ll make use of him.”

Oda’s voice suddenly became stronger. After he received the

ball with his knees bent, he turned his eyes towards the circle with Haijima in

the center. Haijima had his backside towards them now and his forehead almost

touching the floor, absorbed in moving the pieces on the whiteboard.

“I started thinking, ‘Isn’t it my responsibility to protect

that talent and send it off to university?’”

“Senpai…”

Something hot spread in his chest. Our captain is so

cool…he thought proudly. He knew that the other clubs made fun of the fact that

boys’ volleyball’s captain was tiny. But he didn’t care what other people said.

Oda had the ability to make them want to take this person to the national stage

before he graduated. That was why for the members of this team, there was no

question that Oda was their captain.

That

kind of existence didn’t exist when he was in middle school, where there were

only vague, indistinct horizontal ties. They’ve never decided on a leader, and

Haijima only served as team captain at the time of the tournament because of

the difference in experience levels. Their middle school team was completely

reliant on Haijima alone. Haijima was the only one who seriously wanted to win

the prefectural tournament, and everyone else, including himself, still felt

like they were participating to make memories.

I’m sure that with this team, this time for sure we’ll be

able to say, “Let’s fight together” with everyone.

Now, if I could just get stronger individually…

I’ll

work even harder at practice. So that I’ll be an attacker who Haijima will

firmly place his trust in for any situation.

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