V1C1 Part5

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5. INTERMISSION

Finally came to terms with the fact that the dialects are going to be an on and off thing

Translation Notes

1. A zabuton is a flat floor cushion for kneeling

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Haijima

did not go to the end-of-term ceremony, but his absence wasn’t much of a topic

in class. The ceremony ended without a hitch, and the classroom was filled with

the excited buzz of spring break mood. While thinking, I wish I didn’t bring

it today, as he felt annoyed by his bulky enamel bag, when he was about to

go home…

“Oi, Yuni. Hmm? Haijima’s not here?”

The one who showed his face at the classroom’s door was the

teacher who served as the advisor for the boys’ volleyball team. He didn’t seem

to have any volleyball experience and was a ghost advisor until now, but unluckily—should

that be said?—his work had been increasing lately due to Haijima’s transfer.

“He’s absent today, Haijima.”

“If that’s the case, then you’ll do. Here.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m second-best to Haijima. What’s

this…Ah.”

When his eyes dropped to the printout passed to him, he saw

that it was a timetable for the days the gym was used during spring break.

“There aren’t any other clubs that used the gym so much

during spring break, so I got all the days you wanted easily. What are you

going to do?”

“Ugh…”

For

almost every day during the break, “Boys’ volleyball” was written in one of the

three boxes of morning, noon, and afternoon (and two boxes in succession

depending on the day!) without fail.

It would be a good opportunity for

Haijima to practice intensively, but…we finally have not that much homework, so

I wanna do something more…Doesn’t that guy have anything else he wants to do?

Is it normal for prestigious sports clubs to have such a practice schedule for

long vacations? I see, there’s an unsurpassable gap between them and small

public sports clubs like us.

Despite feeling fed up, he stuffed the printout into his bag

and said, “I’ll give it to Haijima.”

“I’m countin’ on you. But I really wish you’d put yourself

in my shoes. Your advisor has to be with you pretty much be with you everyday.

My long-awaited vacation…”

The

advisor’s awareness was increasing with this.

***

Certainly, he remembered that it was this house when it was

right before him. Warm lanterns lit up the four corners of his memories that

had been closed in by a monochrome snowscape, vivid color returned, sounds

could be heard, and images came alive.

Most of time, Kuroba just waited for “Chika” to come and

play. Chika’s grandfather only brought him along when he came to play shogi

with Kuroba’s grandfather. Even though Chika promised every time before he went

home that “we’ll definitely play tomorrow too,” it was always up to their two

grandfathers when they would be able to play together again, and the two of

them were too young to decide.

Kuroba

had only gone to Chika’s house once. They were supposed to be able to play

together today, but he heard that Chika couldn’t come because he had a fever

and threw a tantrum about going to visit him. He just wanted to play with him, of

course, while using visiting him as an excuse.

He forced Chika, who was laid up with his pale face flushed,

to get up and then compared their cards. His cheeks were gradually swelling up,

so Kuroba cackled about how funny his face looked and Chika got cranky. Chika

had mumps—at that time his grandparents didn’t even notice, and that night, the

Kuroba house got a panicked phone call and Kuroba later developed symptoms of

the mumps he got right from Chika.

His memories were being recalled one after the other, and

the jumble of nostalgia and embarrassment filled his body with an itchy

feeling.

“Ooe…”

He was confused for a moment when he saw a nameplate that

wasn’t Haijima’s surname, but that was natural because this was his maternal

grandparents’ home. He left the front door temporarily and strolled along the

fence. This fence seemed towering in the past, but now he could easily look

into the garden if he rose on his heels a little. On this early afternoon in

the middle of March, the storm door on the porch was wide open, even though at

this time of the day when the temperature was at its highest, it might or might

not reach ten degrees Celsius.

Haijima was lying around on the porch.

“…?”

The

heck is he doing?

He

thought, knitting his brows and staring. His spindly back was facing this side,

and it seemed like he was just rolling around without a pillow or zabuton. (1) He was wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants, and his feet were bare under this

wintry sky. You could see from his getup that he didn’t feel like going to

school from the start, which he felt a bit exasperated by.

“Haijimaaa!”

He called out to him beyond the fence, but got no answer.

“Hey!”

He thought he was being ignored, but he could see headphones

buried between his hair.

“Yes, yes, who is it…oh my, aren’t you the young master of

the head house?”

A petite old lady who emerged from the Japanese-styled room

inside answered instead. It was the old lady who accompanied him on his first

day. “He-hello,” Kuroba said, making a shy smile.

“You can’t come in from over there, so please go around to

the front. Kimichika, won’t you get up if you’re not going to sulk in bed? You really

are only getting taller and taller, and it is getting to be a bother. The

measure on the porch won’t be enough before long.”

“What…”

Pulling off his headphones roughly, Haijima groaned in

annoyance and got up.

“Haijima.”

When

he called his name again, that back stiffened in surprise. He lowered his

headphones to his neck, put on his glasses and turned around to him. There was

an adhesive bandage pasted diagonally above his right eye and on his right

temple. He got cut by the snow when Yorimichi knocked him down.

“…I’ll be right there.”

He didn’t look eager, but he said that and quietly got up.

“What are you saying? I told you to get out of the cold

already.”

“So noisy, geez…”

Maybe

his grandmother’s speech rubbed off on him, but there was a bit of dialect

mixed into his words when he cursed in irritation. Just for a moment, he

connected with the “Chika” Kuroba remembered in the same picture as this house

in his mind.

After he went around to the front and waited before the

gate, Haijima came out, dressed as how he was earlier with just his bare feet

stuffed in sneakers. When he gave him the printout of the practice days he was

entrusted with, he only gave the weak reaction of “Aah…”, and then silence. He

was the kind of guy who would never be unenthusiastic when it came to

volleyball, but today he looked awfully lifeless. It was like at the moment he

grabbed Yorimichi, some big circuit within his body got burned out.

He cleared his throat to shake off this awkward atmosphere

and broke the ice.

“Um,

you know, I’ve decided that I’m not gonna hang out with Yori-chan for a while,

and I’ll make sure things won’t turn out like how you’re worried they will…Er,

I think I’m starting to enjoy volleyball, and I wanna play it a bit more. So,

don’t tell me to quit right now…”

Haijima raised his eyes from the printout. Due to the

bandage, he seemed to have difficulties opening his right eye, making his

expression look even worse than usual. His eyeballs lightly swam back and

forth, like he was searching for the words he lost sight of. Is he lost?

That’s rare.

“…Um, that thing.”

A mumble came from the tip of his pouting lips.

“Anything, after that…”

Haijima, who wasn’t

supposed to have words like “mumbling” or “hemming and hawing” inputted in his

head, was hesitating greatly to say something. From that…? Was he

worrying about whether or not Kuroba knew the rest of Yorimichi’s story? That

Haijima cared about someone’s reaction? Mm, this guy’s acting pretty

weird today.

He purposely sighed hard. He didn’t want to see Haijima so

beaten in and down like this. Well, the usual Haijima was troublesome in his

own way.

“I’m telling you, I didn’t hear anything from Yori-chan, and

I didn’t look you up at all.”

It was half a lie. He did try to look him up. But he

couldn’t say that honestly in front of Haijima. Unlike him, he could even lie

to avoid hurting the person right in front of him.

Haijima’s expression was still sullen. Does he not trust

what I say that much?

“You

know I hang around with Yori-chan, right? Grandpa and all our relatives have

branded him as a big fool and gave up on him, but I know that he has his good

points too. No matter what anyone says, I hang around with him because I like him.

So, what I want to say is that it doesn’t matter to me what those Tokyo guys,

whose faces or names I don’t even know, want to say about you. Why should I

rely on what some guy far away says about you when you’re right in front of

me?”

He was desperate to know what happened in Tokyo, but he just

didn’t have the courage to press the “enter” key. Now that he thought about it,

it wasn’t that he stopped halfway because he wasn’t brave enough; it was

because he wasn’t brave enough that he tried to look him up.

“That’s why, I’ll make up my own judgement about you.”

His ears turned hot as he said something that was kind of

awkward and clumsy. He was so embarrassed that his legs wanted to escape from

that spot, and he bounced on his heels as he said it. His enamel bag swung

behind his back. Did he get through to him? He was someone whose understanding

of Japanese was quite worrying after all. He was curious as to what kind of

face he would make. But he couldn’t look him straight in the eye.

Oh well, if I can see him tomorrow, that probably means

it got through. Spring break is packed with club activities after all.

“So, see you at school tomorrow.”

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