The Final Tournament ①
“Did you forget anything”
“Nn, it’s fine”
The day of the tournament finally arrived. The breakfast is Japanese style, made up of nattou1 and so forth. Yae looks to be plenty motivated as well huh.
“Well then, I will go later. You mustn’t fall asleep on the train, alright”
“That’s going too far”
says Yae, who purses up her lips, but her expression is soft. It looks like she isn’t nervous huh. Well, it was my misunderstanding as well yesterday though.
And then the volleyball club, Yae and Nishikida-san-san included, has preparations to do at the venue, so they will head to the gymnasium first, Renya and I will head to the gymnasium afterwards. I can go with Yae as well, but the gymnasium is not open after all.
“Alright, I’m off”
“Okay. Take care. Please do your best”
“Nn, I’ll do my best”
◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆
I met up with Renya without any accident after that and arrived at the gymnasium. We managed to get seats as well, so everything is going well huh.
“How much does Kazunari know about the rules for volleyball?”
“I only know the physical education lesson’s basic rules. As expected, I had Yae tell me about her position though”
It seems Yae’s position is the libero. A position specialised in defence that can’t serve nor spike or something. I was told that other than that, she can’t toss, and she frequently substitutes with the players, but I don’t really understand.
“Kazunari too huh. I don’t know it in detail either”
“Isn’t it not much different from physical education lesson? Besides, don’t we in any case just have to raise our voices when our side scores”
I heard that it is the manners to keep quiet during the play. Since cheering that doesn’t abide by the manners is just a nuisance, we have to be careful.
“Oh, our school is next huh. I’m gonna do my best to cheer”
“It is right in the court before our eyes, so we got lucky huh”
The match started as I was having a chat with Renya. Although we don’t even have a decent grasp of the rules, we cheered them on, celebrating when Yae and the others score, and sending words of encouragement when they lose a point. As a result, Yae and the others brilliantly won their first battle!
“It was amazing huh! It was completely different from physical education lesson”
“It really is! Everybody was busily moving around, spiking a whole lot, picking that up; it was ridiculous!”
Both of our vocabularies have gone off somewhere, but that was how amused we were by the match just now. Without looking down on the girls, the battle where spikes are flying around is on a different level from physical education lesson. I guess it’s a given if I have to say though.
“Nevertheless, they won with quite a huge gap huh. Are we quite strong?”
“Looks like it. It looks like those over there have come to scout after all”
In front of where Renya says and points is a group of girls dressed in jersey holding a video camera. Ooh, it looks like they’re really scouting. It is somewhat fresh.
“They actually do scouting in reality huh”
“Us soccer club do it on tournament day as well, you know? I say, but it’s just watching the matches that at the same venue though”
“No, I have no affinity with such things, or rather, I’m not in any sports club, so it’s a surprise. I was sure that it only happens in novels and manga”
It is because I am a person who wants absolutely no affinity with sports. Today is my first time coming to cheer for a tournament after all. Every single thing is fresh.
“In any case, we’re gonna cheer them after this as well”
“Yes. Let’s do our best and cheer them on”
