Clack!
Miyagi kicked a pebble away in irritation.
He stopped walking, shoved both hands deep into his baggy pockets, and let his shoulders slump.
The usual rebellious swagger of Shohoku's fearless speedster—the guy who dared to go toe-to-toe with centers—was nowhere to be seen.
"What's wrong, Captain Speedster?" Ayako asked, stopping beside him. Her folding fan ceased its gentle swaying.
As the team's manager, she understood this boy far too well.
Ever since they'd started watching the videotape, Miyagi's emotions had been wound so tightly that he seemed on the verge of snapping.
Miyagi lowered his head, staring intently at his basketball shoes.
The night breeze did nothing to ease the dryness in his voice.
"Phew…"
He let out a long breath, finally dropping his act.
"Ayako, tell me… why are all my opponents so damn good?"
Behind the artificial rock formation, Sakuragi froze.
In his eyes, Miyagi would always be the fearless little Ryota who dared to challenge centers without hesitation.
But right now, his voice was filled with confusion and fear.
Ayako said nothing. She simply watched him quietly.
"When we played Shoyo, there was Fujima Kenji."
"That guy's incredible. He can see right through my tricks with a single glance."
Miyagi rubbed his face vigorously, his voice tinged with frustration.
"Then there was Maki from Kainan… That guy's a damn charging bison!"
"One hit from him, and it feels like every bone in my body is going to fall apart."
"I ran myself into the ground, but he was like an iron wall. No matter what I did, I just couldn't get past him."
"In the end, Makino Juro always had to clean up my mess."
Ayako's brows knitted together slightly, but she continued listening without interrupting.
"And now…"
Miyagi swallowed, his voice tightening.
"Now it's Sannoh's captain, Fukatsu Kazunari."
At the mention of that name, even Sakuragi felt the air grow colder behind the rocks.
Fukatsu—the point guard who operated like a precision-engineered machine and could keep even Maki completely under control.
"And that's not all…"
"Every single one of those bastards is at least ten centimeters taller than me!"
Miyagi clenched his teeth, his eyes filled with unwillingness to accept reality.
Height. The cruelest physical law in the world of basketball.
Right now, it weighed down on the shoulders of this 168-centimeter-tall boy like a mountain.
"Damn it…"
He muttered a curse, his back finally bending under the weight of his frustration.
Behind the bushes, Sakuragi fell silent.
He had always teased Miyagi about his height.
Only now did he begin to understand how much pressure Miyagi endured every time he drove toward the basket, surrounded by monsters standing over two meters tall.
The night breeze carried moisture from the artificial lake, making the early-summer heat cling to their skin like sticky paste.
Miyagi Ryota's head hung so low it looked as though it might sink into his chest. His eyes remained fixed on the tips of his shoes.
Those sneakers felt as heavy as if someone had filled them with concrete.
Every time he pictured Fukatsu Kazunari's lifeless expression—that flawless monster who seemed to operate with the precision of a machine—his confidence crumbled.
The speed he had always prided himself on suddenly felt like a joke.
168 centimeters.
That number felt like a curse tightening around his throat, making it difficult to breathe.
Ayako said nothing, standing with her arms folded as she watched him.
There wasn't a trace of pity in her beautiful eyes. Instead, they glinted with the frustration of someone watching a person with potential throw it all away.
Suddenly, her hand moved.
The fan came down.
SMACK!
The sharp crack echoed through the quiet garden like a firecracker going off.
Her folding fan struck Miyagi squarely on his curly head with pinpoint accuracy.
"OW, WHAT THE HELL?!"
"Ayako, are you trying to murder your future husband—wait, no! Why'd you hit me?!"
Miyagi clutched his head and hopped on the spot, his face contorting in pain.
"What the hell are you moping around for?!"
"Miyagi Ryota!"
Ayako planted her hands on her hips and pointed the fan straight at his nose, her eyebrows raised in anger.
"So what if they're taller than you? So what if they're an iron wall?!"
"Is this really the same fearless speedster who dared to fight Mitsui and never backed down from anyone?"
Miyagi froze, his hand trembling slightly against his head.
Ayako took a deep breath. Her tone softened a little, but every word still struck him like a nail being driven home.
"Miyagi, have you forgotten?"
"Back when we played Shoyo in the prefectural tournament, what did you tell me when you were facing Fujima Kenji?"
Fujima Kenji.
The name poured over Miyagi like a bucket of ice water, instantly jolting him awake.
That's right…
Back then, Fujima had been one of Kanagawa's biggest stars, a basketball player he could only look up to.
But had he been afraid of him?
No.
The floodgates of memory opened, and the scene came rushing back.
During the prefectural tournament, Miyagi had stared straight into Ayako's eyes and boasted so loudly that the whole world might as well have heard him.
"As long as I take him down, I'll be the number-one point guard!"
Thump. Thump.
His heart began pounding again, and the blood in his veins grew hot.
"Yeah…"
Miyagi slowly lowered his hand. His previously hunched back gradually straightened.
The confusion in his eyes faded, replaced by the ferocious determination of a stray dog ready to fight for its territory.
"As long as I take Fukatsu down… I'll be the number-one point guard in the entire country!"
Watching the little flame reignite in his eyes, Ayako finally smiled.
She was just about to seize the moment and offer him a few gentle words of encouragement.
And right at that critical moment, when the atmosphere had turned intimate and romantic sparks were practically about to fill the air.
"WAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"
A bizarre, demonic laugh exploded through the night.
The next instant, a gigantic red figure burst out from behind the artificial rock formation with the force of a tiger leaping down a mountain!
"GWAH!"
Sakuragi Hanamichi's arm, thicker than an ordinary man's thigh, suddenly hooked around Miyagi's neck from behind.
The sheer momentum nearly sent Miyagi, who had only just regained his confidence, straight into the afterlife.
"Little Ryota! Caught you red-handed!"
Sakuragi grinned from ear to ear, looking like a baboon that had just stolen a banana.
With his other hand, he mercilessly attacked Miyagi's carefully styled hair.
"HAHAHA! No wonder you've been acting so weird! You still haven't managed to win her over!"
"You scared the hell out of this genius! I thought you'd betrayed the League of Lonely Singles and gotten yourself a girlfriend behind our backs!"
The tragic determination, heartfelt emotion, and burning fighting spirit they'd just painstakingly built up.
Under Sakuragi's combined physical and psychological assault, it all shattered into dust.
Miyagi's face turned the color of liver.
Half from being strangled, half from sheer rage.
"SAKURAGI?!"
"You absolute idiot! What the hell are you doing here?!"
Ayako was startled too, nearly dropping her folding fan.
"Hanamichi? Weren't you supposed to be back in your room sleeping?"
Miyagi desperately pried Sakuragi's iron arm away from his neck. Then he turned around and hissed through gritted teeth.
"You bastard… Why did you have to show up and ruin everything at this exact moment?!"
"My self-sacrifice strategy was working! Ayako was just about to feel sorry for me! I was one step away!"
"Self-sacrifice strategy?"
"Ohhh!"
Sakuragi froze for a moment before suddenly understanding.
"So that's what you're doing! You're pretending to be pitiful to trick Ayako into feeling sorry for you!"
"How despicable! As the righteous, single genius, I absolutely refuse to tolerate anyone trying to get a girlfriend before me!"
Sakuragi pointed at Miyagi and burst into a goose-like cackle.
"Who the hell is in your stupid League of Lonely Singles?! Get lost!"
The two immediately dissolved into a wrestling match.
The suffocating pregame tension that had weighed on them only moments earlier was completely obliterated by this utterly pointless schoolboy brawl.
…
A few minutes later.
The three of them made their way toward the hotel entrance along a cobblestone path, still bickering and tripping one another.
The summer night in Hiroshima was unbearably muggy, while distant neon lights painted the city in a riot of colors.
"That's enough! We have a game tomorrow, remember?"
Ayako smacked each of them once with her folding fan, finally putting an end to the antics of the two overgrown children.
Just as they were about to leave the landscaped garden and reach the small plaza in front of the hotel.
All three stopped dead in their tracks.
Under the dim yellow streetlights ahead, three long shadows stretched across the ground.
Moths, apparently unaware of their own mortality, kept slamming into the lightbulbs with a series of soft tap-tap-taps.
The three figures stood there without saying a word.
The atmosphere was so heavy that it felt like they were attending a memorial service.
"Wait… Aren't those Gorilla and the others?"
END OF CHAPTER
The King Of Slacking Off - MrBehringer's Secret
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