[Editor's note: This chapter has been edited to remove content that breaks our content rules.]
“I need to head back,” Fukuji Mihoko told Kageyama Sora.
“I’ll drive you.”
Given the time, Mihoko did not turn down his offer.
And so the two of them, though not exactly a couple, arrived together at the gates of Kazekoshi Girls’ High School.
When Kageyama Sora’s luxury car stopped along the school drive amid drifting cherry blossoms, Ikeda Kana was crouching beneath the wisteria trellis, counting fallen petals.
Her phone suddenly gave a faint click. Her knuckles had gone white around it, as though she might crush it in her grip.
“Captain!” Kana ran toward her over the scattered blossoms. “I haven’t been able to find you since yesterday’s match ended! You weren’t answering your phone, either! After that guy took you away, you could’ve at least called to let us know you were safe!”
“Something came up,” Mihoko said, lowering her head to straighten her ribbon. “There’s no need to worry.”
Her voice was very soft, but its final notes trembled like a butterfly’s rain-soaked wings.
Kana suddenly caught her wrist.
“Does it have something to do with that man?”
She glanced toward the half-open car window. Inside, Kageyama Sora was lighting a cigarette.
Mihoko abruptly pulled her hand away and stumbled back half a step.
The sight made Kana’s throat tighten. Their captain had always been composed, calm, and gentle. When had she ever been this flustered?
“I need to head back. There are still things I have to take care of.”
Mihoko turned away, her long golden hair brushing across the back of Kana’s hand.
Late that night, moonlight shone through the blinds of the mahjong clubroom, cutting a silver grid across the floor.
Kana stared at the photograph she had secretly taken on her phone: Mihoko getting into Kageyama Sora’s car.
Even she did not know what had possessed her to take it.
She pressed Send, forwarding an address to the number saved under “Kageyama,” along with the photograph.
The message was unsigned, but there was only one girl who could have taken that picture.
Kageyama Sora was rather curious about what she wanted.
Especially since the address she had sent him was an abandoned factory.
He saw no reason to refuse her invitation.
The factory’s iron gates creaked in the wind as Kageyama Sora toyed with the Zippo in his hand.
He was not particularly fond of smoking, but so much had happened lately that he felt he needed a little way to unwind.
He walked into the abandoned factory. Behind him, the graffiti on the wall twisted into sinister faces beneath the moonlight, matching Ikeda Kana’s expression remarkably well.
“Stay away from our captain! She isn’t a toy for rich people like you!”
Kana raised her baseball bat, its metal end scraping across the concrete with a piercing screech.
The petite girl stood before him in her Kazekoshi Girls’ High School uniform, glaring fiercely with a baseball bat in hand, like a cat with its fur standing on end.
Kageyama Sora did not feel offended in the slightest. Instead, he found her rather endearing.
Chapter 76
The overhead light sputtered above Ikeda Kana. Barely tall enough to reach Kageyama Sora’s collarbone, she stood on tiptoe, clutching the baseball bat in front of her as though it were an oversized toy instrument.
The night wind lifted her shoulder-length black hair, revealing her round eyes. Now, however, those eyes were narrowed like an angry wildcat’s. Her pale pink lips formed a tight line, and even the youthful roundness of her cheeks looked sharper with her jaw clenched.
Her pleated school skirt swayed with the restless movement of her feet, a strange contrast to her white-knuckled grip on the bat.
“Stay away from our captain!”
Her voice was clear as a wind chime, but edged with ice.
When Kana lifted the bat, its metal end scraped sparks from the concrete, briefly illuminating her reddened ears. The force of the movement left her momentarily breathless.
Kageyama Sora leaned against the peeling wall, spinning his Zippo through a silver arc between his fingers.
Her flushed face and eyelashes trembling with anger reminded him of the sulky ceramic cats displayed in shop windows.
He accidentally laughed, which only enraged her further.
“Do you know she practices mahjong until three in the morning every day to win back the national championship? Do you know how much she’s sacrificed to reclaim that glory, and for the entire mahjong club? You don’t know anything! A man would only get in her way!”
Until then, Kageyama Sora had treated the confrontation lightly. But after hearing that, he felt he ought to explain himself. He was not as awful as she seemed to think.
He put away the lighter and adopted a more serious manner.
“I think you’ve misunderstood. I respect Fukuji Mihoko very much. I think she’s brilliant when she plays mahjong. I have no intention of toying with her.”
“I saw it myself!” Kana did not want to hear his explanation. She was becoming increasingly agitated.
The atmosphere he had tried to establish vanished completely, and his usual exasperated manner returned.
“Hey, calm down. You’re getting more and more carried away.”
But Kana was already too worked up to listen.
When the baseball bat came sweeping toward him, Kageyama Sora caught her wrist.
“Have you lost your mind? We were talking, and now you’re actually attacking me?”
He could not understand her outburst. He only wanted her to calm down.
After all, Kana was a capable mahjong player, someone he had already come to admire. He did not want things between them to turn out like this.
But she was no longer listening. As she struggled, a craft knife hidden in her sleeve sliced the back of his hand.
Warm drops of blood fell onto her trembling wrist.
The sudden pain ended his restraint. He tightened his grip sharply.
The knife dropped to the floor.
Kageyama Sora held her knife hand firmly in place. He had meant only to frighten her, irritated that she had accused him of treating Mihoko like a rich man’s toy and then injured him.
Kana’s back struck a rusted metal rack. The cold metal dug painfully into her.
Above them, the hanging lamp suddenly swayed, its dim light flickering across Kageyama Sora’s angular profile and deepening the shadows in his eyes.
She struggled, but his grip only tightened.
“Let go!” Kana shouted, glaring up at him.
“I hate having my intentions twisted,” he said, his voice dropping. “I explained myself, and you still wouldn’t believe me. That makes me angry.”
“Do you think I won’t tell the captain?”
He caught her other struggling hand and held both wrists against the metal rack above her head.
“You smooth-talking jerk! I’ll make you regret this!”
Kana tried to wrench herself free.
Chapter 77
“Let go of me!” Kana demanded.
She suddenly remembered what her captain had said: Kageyama Sora was an unusual man. His intelligence and abilities were far beyond those of his peers. Making an enemy of him would be troublesome, but if he regarded you as a friend, as one of his own, he could make you feel very safe.
Now that same man had her pinned down and was frightening her.
Her thoughts spiraled toward the possibility that Mihoko might misunderstand what had happened. After all, she had been the one to invite Kageyama Sora here.
Would the captain, who had always cared for her and treated her so kindly, be disappointed in her? Would she refuse to speak to her ever again?
Kana’s eyes reddened, and she looked on the verge of tears.
Seeing her reaction, Kageyama Sora suddenly realized he had gone too far. He had genuinely frightened her.
He was rather afraid of making girls cry.
“Hey, don’t cry,” he said hastily. “Listen to me…”
But Kana was already caught in the fear that Mihoko would misunderstand her and never speak to her again. Her tears fell, and she could no longer hear what he was saying.
Alarmed, Kageyama Sora released her wrists.
“As long as you don’t make things up, I won’t either. And I won’t hurt you, all right?”