By the fourth week of school, Yuto had accidentally turned into a campus legend. Not the cool kind. The "Is he even enrolled here?" kind.
Half the class called him the soccer guy. The other half called him the badminton guy from that video. Everyone agreed on one thing though: Yuto Kimura appeared in class about as often as comets.
Naturally, the teachers snapped.
During homeroom one morning, the door slid open and the class rep stepped in with a clipboard clutched to her chest.
Miiko Minami. Responsible. Determined. The kind of girl who could organize an entire festival by herself and then still turn in perfect homework. Even her footsteps sounded disciplined.
She marched straight to Yuto's desk.
"Kimura-kun," she said, voice sharp enough to cut through steel, "your attendance is unacceptable."
Yuto blinked. "I was present yesterday."
"And absent the three days before that."
Koda whispered from behind, "Rip."
Shouta muttered, "Bro's funeral is today."
Miiko ignored them. She slapped her clipboard lightly against Yuto's desk. "Teachers have asked me to supervise you from now on. So please stop skipping."
Yuto stared at her like she had just declared war.
"I don't skip," he said quietly. "I study. Then I come for soccer."
"That still counts as skipping," she replied, matter-of-fact.
Yuto shifted uncomfortably, eyes darting away the moment she leaned closer to check his planner. Talking to girls was already difficult. Talking to one who clearly intended to fix him was… a nightmare.
"Starting today," she continued, "you will attend class. Regularly. I'll check."
Yuto shrank into his seat like a tall, miserable hermit crab. Shouta and Koda were dying of laughter behind him. Miiko managed to look both annoyed and determined, the pure energy of someone who had been handed a problem and refused to fail at solving it.
"Do you understand, Kimura-kun?" she asked.
"…Yes."
"Good. I'll be watching."
Yuto wasn't sure if she meant academically or in a horror-movie sense.
By lunch, Miiko had already reminded him twice about unfinished notes, once about a project due next week, and once more about hydration.
"Do soccer players drink water?" she had asked with genuine concern.
Yuto almost levitated out of sheer embarrassment.
Shouta threw an arm around him. "Man, you have your own handler now!"
Koda grinned. "She's scarier than Masaru-senpai."
Yuto didn't disagree.
Meanwhile, across campus, life in the badminton club continued with the usual intensity. Masaru and Tsukiko were in the middle of a training drill when the announcement came through the PA system:
"Participants for the district-level badminton preliminaries must confirm availability by next Thursday."
Tsukiko's swing paused. Masaru didn't even look up.
Not until his right knee buckled.
It wasn't dramatic. No crash. No scream. He simply completed a landing from a jump smash and the knee didn't catch him right. A sudden sharp jolt shot up his leg. He hissed through his teeth and crouched, hand pressing against the joint.
"Masaru?" Tsukiko's voice sharpened.
"I'm fine," he muttered, testing the knee. It didn't collapse again. It stung, sure, but the pain faded quickly. Muscle strain, maybe. Nothing serious. He'd had far worse.
Still, Tsukiko narrowed her eyes at him. "You stepped wrong."
"It's nothing. I can walk."
He even forced himself into another drill, but Tsukiko's frown said she hadn't bought a single word.
The others glanced over too. Nobody questioned Masaru's toughness, but the timing… right before tournament season… made the air feel heavier.
Masaru shrugged it off and kept going.
Nobody noticed the slight limp on his way back from practice.
Back in class, the comedic disaster known as Yuto Kimura continued its routine.
During chemistry, the teacher asked Yuto to come solve a problem on the board. The moment he stood up, the class buzzed like someone famous had arrived.
Miiko glared at everyone.
"Stop distracting him. He's trying to participate."
Yuto wanted to crawl into a hole.
Then, during the last period, Shouta loudly whispered, "Hey, Yuto, will you do that jump smash thing in P.E. today?"
"No."
The entire back row laughed like he'd told the funniest joke in Japan.
Miiko sighed. "Please ignore them. And please, for the love of our class average, come tomorrow."
Yuto nodded reluctantly.
He was getting dragged out of his loner cocoon against his will.
But strangely… the classroom felt less lonely than it had a month ago.
And somewhere else, in a hardwood-floored gym lit by sinking afternoon sun, Masaru Kyo rolled his right knee and winced just slightly.
The pain was small.
The consequences were not going to be.