Takenori Akagi and Kiminobu Kogure stared at the entrance, dumbfounded.
Ayako was so surprised that she nearly dropped the clipboard in her hands.
Even Kaede Rukawa, who had been concentrating on shooting, stopped and glanced over.
Kawamoto Kazuki, who had been practicing in the corner, also raised his head.
His calm gaze turned toward the unassuming, plump old man at the entrance.
Only Sakuragi failed to notice the reactions of the people behind him.
The plump old man ignored Sakuragi and slowly ambled into the gym.
An inscrutable glint flashed behind his thick lenses.
"Hey, old man, I already told you, this is the basketball gym. You can't go in. Keep this up, and don't blame me for getting rough!"
As he spoke, Sakuragi kept trying to push the plump old man outside.
He was still muttering to himself.
"And what's wrong with playing basketball with red hair?"
"Even an amateur old man like you is asking that kind of question!"
His gaze unconsciously swept over Coach Anzai's round belly, which resembled the Maitreya Buddha's.
A bold idea instantly occupied his single-celled brain.
It all happened in a flash.
Sakuragi actually reached out with his powerful hands, slapped them straight onto Coach Anzai's soft belly, and gave it several vigorous rubs!
Squish...
It was surprisingly springy.
"You've got some nerve talking about me!"
Sakuragi shouted as he rubbed.
"Just look at that beer belly of yours! You're almost up there with a sumo wrestler!"
He wasn't finished yet!
Under everyone's horrified gazes, Sakuragi moved his hands upward.
He grabbed the plump, sagging flesh beneath the old man's chin and began stretching it back and forth like modeling clay!
"Oh-ho! And this double chin!"
Sakuragi was having the time of his life, completely oblivious to the air around him dropping to freezing point.
"Pretty stretchy! Hahaha!"
Time seemed to freeze throughout the gym.
Takenori Akagi's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, and his mouth opened wide enough to fit a basketball.
Kiminobu Kogure's hand trembled, and he forgot to push his glasses back up even as they slid to the tip of his nose.
The tactics board in Ayako's hands clattered to the floor, but she didn't even notice.
Hanamichi Sakuragi was completely immersed in his sense of accomplishment at having disciplined a suspicious person.
He smugly let go, straightened his back, and jabbed a thumb at his own chest.
Striking what he considered his most dashing pose, he announced to the plump old man, whom all that kneading had left slightly dazed:
"You want to know who I am?"
"Hmph! Want to know this genius's name?"
"Then let me tell you! Hahaha!"
"I'm Hanamichi Sakuragi, the basketball team's future ace!"
"The designated next captain of the Shohoku Basketball Team!"
Before he finished speaking, a massive shadow had already fallen over him.
Along with it came a low growl barely containing towering fury.
A fist the size of a cooking pot whistled through the air and slammed into Sakuragi's red head!
Bam!
"Aaargh!"
Sakuragi screamed and instantly crouched down in pain.
He clutched the freshly raised lump on his head with both hands, nearly bursting into tears.
"I... I'm terribly sorry, Coach Anzai!"
Takenori Akagi trembled all over, his enormous body bent at a ninety-degree angle, his voice full of fear and self-reproach.
"I failed to keep him in line! This idiot... I-I'll punish him severely! Please don't be angry!"
Yet the anticipated thunderous fury never descended.
Coach Anzai merely adjusted the glasses Sakuragi had knocked askew.
Rather than anger, his plump face bore the faintest hint of a smile.
He waved a fleshy hand and spoke in his slow, gentle tone:
"Never mind, never mind, Akagi. He didn't know any better... Hohoho."
The gentle laughter echoed through the deathly silent gym, yet it put Akagi under more pressure than any reprimand could have.
"Damn you... Gorilla..."
Sakuragi crouched on the floor, grimacing in pain.
But the word "coach" finally reached his ears a beat late.
He jerked his head up and looked at the terrified Akagi.
Then he looked at the retreating figure of the plump old man, who was slowly walking toward a courtside chair.
Sakuragi's face was filled with enormous question marks and shock.
"C-Coach?"
Sakuragi repeated the word blankly and tugged at the sleeve of Ayako, who stood beside him, still shaken.
Lowering his voice, he asked incredulously, "Miss Ayako... that fat, fat old man... is our basketball team's coach?"
Only then did Ayako recover from her petrified state and bend down to retrieve her tactics board.
Still shaken, she patted her chest and rolled her eyes at Sakuragi in exasperation. "Who else would he be? You nearly caused a disaster! That's Coach Mitsuyoshi Anzai! He doesn't come often, but he's the heart and soul of our basketball club!"
She paused, her tone turning reverent. "Don't judge him by how he looks now... I heard that when he was young, he was a national basketball player who represented Japan in world-class competitions!"
"W-What?!"
Sakuragi's eyes nearly fell out. "A n-national player?! Representing Japan?! That... that fat old man?!"
The enormous contrast completely crashed his brain.
Looking at Sakuragi's dumbfounded expression, Ayako sighed and continued filling him in. "That's not all. You'd never imagine it from how he looks now, but apparently, just five or six years ago, when Coach Anzai was coaching at a university, he was famous for his harsh training and extremely high standards. Every player trembled at the mere mention of him..."
She leaned closer to Sakuragi, lowered her voice, and said each word distinctly. "That's why he had a really frightening nickname back then: the White. Haired. Devil!"
"The White... White-Haired Devil?"
Sakuragi unconsciously repeated the menacing name.
In an instant, images began forming in his mind of their own accord.
The image of the kindly, plump old man before him began to twist and change!
His graying hair turned an icy silver.
His round face lengthened, becoming sharply angular.
His kindly expression was replaced by a gaze as keen as a hawk's, burning with the flames of hell.
His enormous figure cast a shadow on the wall like a demon crawling out of the abyss.
He seemed to hold a bloodstained leather whip, roaring terrifyingly at the trembling players!
"Aaah!"
The scene Sakuragi had imagined frightened him into a violent shudder.
Every hair on his body stood on end, and he shook his head desperately, as though trying to fling the terrifying images out of his mind.
"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"
"An illusion! It's all an illusion!"
He swore to completely forget the scene he had just imagined.
It was too terrifying!
Amused by his exaggerated reaction, Ayako chuckled and lightly tapped him with the scoreboard. "All right! Look how scared you are! That's all in the past."
"Coach Anzai hasn't been like that for ages. Now everyone affectionately calls him the White-Haired Buddha."
"The White-Haired Buddha?"
Sakuragi stared blankly toward the sidelines.
By then, Coach Anzai had settled comfortably into his chair, his hands folded over his round belly. His glasses reflected a warm light, and he wore a compassionate, peaceful smile like the Maitreya Buddha as he cheerfully watched the players train.
He really didn't look anything remotely like a devil.