I'm Also Something of a Psychologist

"Eh... I don't really have any ideas. Being able to solve someone's troubles wouldn't be a bad thing... But wouldn't Bai end up falling for Karuizawa?"

"Really, he wouldn't?"

"He wouldn't."

A phone call connected from offstage.

A gentle, refined voice came through the phone. It belonged to another guest adviser working for the Service Club.

But she seemed to have entered the conversation rather rashly, and for the moment, she had failed to grasp the heart of the conflict.

Bai Yu was beside himself with anxiety as he called out earnestly, "Shiina, wake up!"

"The one who'll most likely fall for the other person is the girl asking for help, not your brilliant and valiant president!"

"Oh, oh."

The person on the other end of the call fell silent for a moment. When she spoke again, her tone had grown noticeably more heated. "But Karuizawa is really pretty!"

"She dresses well, she's adorable, and her personality is both open and straightforward. I'm not confident that I can..."

Click.

Bai Yu hung up without hesitation. This one was clearly hopeless too.

A tiny bit of sadness welled up inside him. When they had first met, she had been a normal girl capable of understanding human speech. Had he really developed some kind of power to infect others?

For a moment, he recalled the derogatory nickname some black-haired girl had used for him, and Bai Yu unconsciously began examining himself.

"Then I'll leave this matter to you two. Once you've decided on a solution, let me know. I'll do my best to cooperate."

Hirata Yosuke spoke with his usual smile, though the look he gave Bai Yu carried a hint of schadenfreude.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka glanced at Bai Yu, who seemed to be pretending to stay silent in order to avoid the matter, then decisively said, "Just leave it to the president. Karuizawa will be saved."

Hirata Yosuke smiled. Ayanokoji Kiyotaka had also accomplished the remarkable feat of smiling, achieving a groundbreaking breakthrough in facial expression management and successfully shedding his gloomy, poker-faced reputation. The two of them had firmly grasped hold of a bright future.

Only one person still had his head lowered in silence, not uttering a word.

His expression was grave, and his handsome face was filled with anguish, faintly revealing a subtle lack of confidence and self-doubt.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka and Hirata watched the scene before them together, without the slightest bit of sympathy in their hearts.

"By the way, how are you going to solve Kushida's problem?"

Carrying a basket filled with tennis rackets, Ayanokoji Kiyotaka walked with steps slightly heavier than when they had come. Keeping an eye on the road beneath his feet, he naturally asked Bai Yu, who was helping carry the basket from the other side.

"The results will be clear soon enough." Bai Yu looked ahead at the path.

His tone sounded somewhat weathered and deep, as if he were still immersed in the role he had played earlier.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka could not help asking curiously, "Has the president already arranged everything?"

Bai Yu turned his head and flashed a practiced villainous grin. "Everything is under control!"

Then he stumbled over his own feet, and the two nearly put on a voluntary litter-picking performance right there on the school road.

"...President, watch where you're going."

"Ayanokoji?"

"The concrete road..."

After that accidental improvised comedy routine, the two arrived at the field, where Class D students were scattered about.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka looked up from the phone in front of him.

They had spent too long in the equipment storage room, so the PE teacher had come looking for them personally. At least this meant the two of them would not need to go back and carry another load.

As he put away his phone, Hirata Yosuke and the PE teacher, who looked to be in his thirties, were already slowly approaching, each holding one side of an equipment basket.

It looked surprisingly strenuous.

Ayanokoji Kiyotaka guessed that perhaps the number of tennis rackets on each side was uneven. He himself had not found it that difficult... and the president did not look as though he had expended much energy either. At the moment, he was swinging a tennis racket as he fought passionately against the air.

Imaginary training?

Horikita Suzune, sitting alone some distance away, noticed the scene and could not help becoming wary.

With a solemn expression, she occasionally stood to stretch and warm up. Throughout the process, her gaze was somewhat involuntarily drawn to the man battling wits with the air as she studied his racket swings.

After a while.

The PE teacher blew his whistle and gathered everyone together. He briefly demonstrated the key points of tennis technique, explained a few precautions for practicing with partners, then blew the whistle again to dismiss everyone. He himself happily ran off to a corner to play on his phone and slack off.

The crowd quickly dispersed like a receding tide.

Only after the tide rose and fell did one learn who had been swimming naked.

Thus, two lonely people naturally ended up forming a team.

"What an unsurprising coincidence."

"Please don't imitate the way I speak, Bai-kun. It's very rude."

Horikita Suzune held a tennis racket in one hand while tossing a ball against the ground with the other to test its bounce. From time to time, she looked up at the lively boy across from her, who was performing an extremely amateur warm-up routine.

She smiled. "Bai, you don't seem very good at sports. It looks like there's no need for me to join that suspicious club of yours after all."

While moving around in irregular, unstructured motions, Bai Yu looked at her and replied dominantly, "What a pity. You're about to become mine."

"?"

Horikita Suzune's brows rose coldly. "If you're harassing me, I'll record it and report you first. Popping champagne before the match has even begun—could it be that Bai-kun has always relied on spiritual victory to comfort his own incompetence?"

"I wouldn't harass you. Besides, if we have to say it, you were the one who provoked me first."

Bai Yu could not help slipping into recollection. "It was an utterly ordinary afternoon. The sunlight was gentle, the breeze was soft, and I, a person about to enter high school, filled with hope, upright, correct, and kind..."

"Stop!"

Horikita Suzune promptly swung her racket to interrupt his madness. Her voice turned icy as she declared, "Today's match will decide which of us is truly correct. With extra stakes on the line, Bai, have you prepared yourself to lose to me?"

"I'll return those words to you. Horikita, don't start popping champagne halfway through the match."

"My name is Horikita."

Horikita Suzune curled up the corner of her mouth and replied sharply, "Very well. I won't hold anything back when I crush you."

Bai Yu pointed his racket horizontally at her and said cheerfully, "Enough talk—serve! The word 'defeat' does not exist in my dictionary. Even on the tennis court, I remain a mountain you cannot overcome!"

"Besides defeat, there's loss, crushing defeat, setback, rout, disastrous defeat..."

As Horikita Suzune spoke, she tossed the ball into the air. Her seemingly slender legs tensed as her eyes followed it, calculating the tennis ball's hang time in her mind. The next second, she leaped up and smashed it—

Bang!

A muffled boom erupted.

The tennis ball shot over the net like a bolt of lightning. It struck the ground in the service box beside Bai Yu, bounced up, then slammed straight into the wire fence behind him, embedding deeply in its mesh as it lost all momentum.

"Well, Bai, do you understand now?"

Holding her racket in a backhand grip, Horikita Suzune slightly raised the corner of her mouth and looked at Bai Yu, who had lost a point. "This is what failure tastes like. That's why I don't want to waste my time and energy on unnecessary things."

Bai Yu drew his gaze away from the marks left by the tennis ball's friction near his feet. He looked up and nodded in understanding. "I understand deeply. The formation of a personality like yours most likely stems from psychological trauma suffered during childhood, which causes subconscious stress reactions on a mental level. As you grow older, it develops into mistaken judgments about the influence of your surroundings and an inability to view things objectively..."

Horikita Suzune's brow twitched. "What kind of nonsense are you spouting now?"

"Ball!"

Bai Yu called out to Ayanokoji Kiyotaka, who was watching from the side. Turning back toward Horikita Suzune, he revealed an unfathomable smile. "I happen to know a little about human psychology as well."

"Symptoms like Horikita's right now really need treatment."