Volume 1 Chapter 3 Part1 (2/2)

After that, everyone including Ma.s.san did about thirty shots. There were voices of admiration for Ma.s.san’s shooting. At the end, Tomi-sensei spoke.

“I said I wanted you all to do yakazu, but it is by far better to shoot thirty carefully than to do fifty crudely. Even when you are in good condition and hit ninety-nine of one hundred shots, it is likely that that one missed shot could occur in an important scene. I want you all to treat every single shot with great care and draw with the mental att.i.tude of 'shoot every arrow as if it were your last.’” (5)

“Yes sir, thank you very much.”

Everyone was exhausted after throwing themselves into practice, but they all felt satisfied.

On the way home, while fiddling with his gla.s.ses frames, Seiya spoke.

“Ma.s.san was really amazing. But when I looked him up, I couldn’t find any record of him winning a tournament or something anywhere. Even if he simply has a principle of not doing compet.i.tions, I don’t know why someone with that level of skill would be hiding.”

It appeared that he was filled with the desire to investigate. After Minato actually knew Ma.s.san’s name, he did not feel like trying to research him online at all.

Because he had only been thinking about one thing—that he could draw a bow if he was in Yata no Mori.

Even though they had just parted from each other when practice ended not long ago, Nanao was going to Kaito’s house.

Nanao and Kaito were cousins.

Their mothers, who were sisters, had a custom of gathering at Kaito’s house once a month for dinner, along with their third sister. The fathers did not partic.i.p.ate in this gathering. When they put two folding tables in the living room and arranged on them their own prized home cooking that they had brought with them as well as nine plates, it became a proper home party. However, as four out of the six children were girls, when either Nanao or Kaito was absent, it would be the other boy thrown into a group of girls, so getting a head start on each other—in other words, escaping—was forbidden between the two of them.

After dinner, Nanao and Kaito stood side-by-side in the kitchen. It was a rule of this family that the women prepared the food and the men tidied up. The two of them were used to it, and they chose roles such as Kaito being the one to wash and Nanao being to one to wipe, and then quickly cleaning the dirty dishes. After finis.h.i.+ng their jobs, Kaito opened up the fridge and looked inside. Nanao wondered if he still wanted to eat more.

They went upstairs to Kaito’s room.

Far from caring nothing about the girls who surrounded him, Nanao got more energetic and high-spirited when he was able to show off without sparing any of his own charm, but for Kaito, who was the youngest of three with two older sisters, it only seemed like a punishment. Furthermore, it was Nanao’s existence that spurred him on.

From a young age, Nanao had been a free-wheeling, pompous prince. With his good looks and charms he was the most popular with girls, but his trouble with them arose around the time of kindergarten. Due to frequent occurrences of girls fighting for Nanao amongst themselves and others aiming their anger at him due to the girls they liked being obsessed about him, the three mothers thought up a secret plan called the “Kaito Barricade.”

Kaito, who from a young age had a fierce look and an unapproachable aura, was perfect for intimidating anyone who went near Nanao. He was asked by the three mothers to “look out for Nanao so he won’t get into any mischief,” and in elementary school that was a given, but even when they went to different middle schools they still enrolled in extracurriculars and cram school as a set. Because they were in the same school again for high school, Kaito was still unable to end his role.

Nanao hijacked Kaito’s bed as though he was completely familiar with his room and took out his phone. Currently he was hooked on a garden-type strategy game. The frog alarm clock placed at the head of the bed was a replacement Nanao compensated him for, after he was scolded by his mother for accidentally breaking the old one in elementary school when he was jumping on the bed and playing. The frog shape happened to be the cheapest one.

At the feet of Kaito who was sitting at his desk was his cat Lucy, frolicking around. He usually absorbed himself into a game on his phone, but today his behavior was different.

He turned his chair to his bed, and teared open a bag in his hand.

“Nanao, lift your left arm up.”

“Huh—, but I’m playing a game right now.”

“Didn’t your left arm get hit by the bowstring? So won’t it turn purple? Here, a wet compress. My parents have a habit of putting them in the fridge, so it’s really cold.”

“Oh, I saw it when we were was.h.i.+ng the dishes. I failed a bit when I was drawing, since it’s been a while since I’ve done it.”

“You have whiter skin than me, so it’ll stand out. The girls will get scared if they see it, so heal it quickly.”

“…Yeah, that’s right.”

After Kaito finished applying the compress, he got out his phone and roughly leaned back against his chair.

“That guy is really irritating, ain’t he?”

“You mean Minato? Since he joined there won’t be any reason to drop any regulars, so we can do individuals and team compet.i.tions.”

“I don’t wanna do team compet.i.tions with half-hearted feelings. Didn’t it seem like he’d been practicing secretly? And I can’t understand the fact that he knows Ma.s.san. Since when they knew each other?”

“Aren’t you Ma.s.san’s favorite among his acquaintances? Minato’s a genuine bow geek, so I think he’ll unexpectedly be on the same wavelength as you, Kacchan.”

“We’re definitely not the same! And anyways, I don’t like that guy. There’s nothing decent about guys with nice faces, including you.”

“Heh heh.”

Nanao responded indifferently.

Kaito rarely talked this badly about other people, so that was probably how interested he was. It was just like Kaito to get fired up when it came to things relating to the bow.

“Oh, I ran out of time even though I had one more left.”

“Kacchan, you’re really bad at endgames.”

“Shut up. I got what I needed so it’s fine.”

“If you finished that, make me a cup of black tea. I’m thirsty since there was so much food with strong flavors.”

“Can’t be helped, then.”

Kaito put his phone down on his bed and went downstairs. When he was gone, Lucy disappeared as well, and Nanao put his phone away.

Kaito was quite a nice person. He couldn’t ignore it when he saw someone weak, and he even went along with Nanao’s selfishness. There were those who looked nice on the surface, but Kaito was probably someone who looked bad on the outside. Because he was always judged by appearance, so he came to act exactly that way, and so perhaps he became established in that role before he knew it. Nanao thought he was the disadvantaged type. That applied to himself as well.

Does Kaito not know?

That Nanao didn’t join the kyudo club only because he longed to wear hakama.

——There’s absolutely no reason I can’t do what that weakling manservant Kacchan can, right?

Nanao gently struck his palm on the compress atop his left arm. It was still cold.

He had almost never caught anything like a cold, but if he got a fever like Seiya had at that time, would Kaito be worried? He felt like he would keep on scolding him like, since you push me around everyday, this is your divine punishment. What a pain, he thought, laughing at his delusions. In the first place, if he had to be nursed, a cute girl would be better. When he sensed the signs of Kaito coming upstairs, he took his phone into his hand just as the door opened.

“Okay, here’s the tea.”

“Did you add milk and sugar?”

“I didn’t add those things.”

“Huh, but I felt like drinking something sweet. You aren’t thoughtful at all, Kacchan.”

“If you want that then go add them yourself.”

“Well, I’ll forgive you this time. Hmm, it’s so-so.”

“What a spoiled little prince.”

“By the way, Tomi-sensei told us that since we’re doing strengthening practice during Golden Week, we should leave our schedules open. If we win at prefecturals, I’ll become cooler and cooler.”

“Say whatever you want. Oh, I don’t wanna go out to team compet.i.tions with this lineup.”

“Then you should have gone to a school where kyudo is popular.”

“Isn’t a situation where the weak school defeats the champion-holding school great though? I wonder if somehow we can just do individuals.”

“No way.”

Sorry, but I’m supporting Minato.

I want to go to prefecturals together.

Nanao poked the head of the frog next to him.

The next day, Tomi-sensei unveiled the schedule for the holiday week.

“I was thinking that we should try doing a training camp. We will stay at Yata Shrine and practice at the Yata no Mori Kyudojo for three days and two nights. As Ma.s.san is the chief priest there, I will have everyone help out with tasks around the shrine. After that we will do extrhard special training.”

“Eh!? Really?”

As usual, Ryouhei had a huge reaction, but Minato had the same feelings without showing them on his face.

Ma.s.san took over for Tomi-sensei.

“Close to forty schools will be partic.i.p.ating in the team compet.i.tion at the prefectural tournament, and the top-ranked teams with the highest total hits in the first two rounds will advance to the finals. In other words, five people will shoot four shots in two rounds, competing with a total of forty shots. When I look at the past results, the champions.h.i.+p victories are between thirty to thirty-five hits, so the matter is whether or not we can just barely pa.s.s through with twenty hits.”

“I heard that the champion school is a regular, though.”

“Ah, you’re talking about Kirisaki High School? They seem to be a powerhouse school with multiple kaichuu (4) archers. Let’s aim for 'hawake’ first. Hawake means a fifty percent hitting rate, and if we hit half, then pa.s.sing the preliminaries will be in sight for us.”

“Let’s defeat 'Kirisaki!’”

“Let’s!”

Contrasting Ryouhei and Nanao who cannot help but be excited, Minato and Seiya fell silent. It was reasonable that Ryouhei wouldn’t know since he joined kyudo club in high school, but it was a well-known fact among the kyudo club members who lived in this district that it would not be easy to defeat Kirisaki High School.

Practice was doing yakazu, so they were mostly standing while shooting up, but the first hitote was done in sitting form. Ryouhei knelt (6) at the shooting line and began doing the yatsugae (nocking) movements.

He stood his bow at the center of his body and quickly returned his bowstring to its original position. Arrow nocking was joining together the borderline between the grip of the bow and the yazuridou (7) with the line beneath the arrow, and then from that position one wedged the nock at the place that touched the drawn line approximately at a right angle facing the bowstring. After nocking the first arrow, one drove the feathers of the second arrow in between the fingers of one’s left hand that was facing the target, so that one would be holding the two arrows in parallel. After finis.h.i.+ng yugamae he lifted his bow up, but there was a rattling sound as he did that.

“Oh no, I dropped the arrow.”

“That’s 'hazukobore.’ If you’re not experienced at it, you might drop your nocked arrow. You have to make a proper nakajikake, and lightly hold down the arrow with your right index finger so it won’t fall.”

“Yes, thank you very much!”

When shooting was finished, Seiya and Kaito went to collect the arrows.

After making sure that there was no one raising their bow, they put out a red flag, declared aloud, “I am entering,” and then entered the azuchi. After pulling the arrows out, they returned to the target viewing area and pulled down the red flag. While they were removing the dirt from the arrows with a towel, the next group’s shooting began.

Kaito returned the towels back to their original place after they finished wiping the arrows.

“Seiya, aren’t you making too much of Narumiya? Look, didn’t he only get one hit out of four shots?”

“He still hasn’t sprung back yet, but Minato’s shooting is really beautiful.”

“Your att.i.tude towards him is straight-out different compared to towards the others. Like, you come off like an overprotective dad.”

“Is that so? This is the first time that I am told such a thing. Besides, I don’t remember having a child at the age of zero.”

“Uhh… I don’t even know where to start, but oh well.”

Kaito scratched the back of his head. He hadn’t planned on getting brushed off here and having the talk interrupted.

“Your good point where you kindly take care of everyone–it seems like it’s because you’re following the rules. Like, you’re going at the green light and stopping at the red light because you were taught to do that. However, you’re different towards Narumiya. You’re doing what you really want to do. But I’m not saying that you’re black-hearted. Your good quality is fairness because you have enough brains and ability to take action to properly make use of what you’ve learned. There are a lot of people relying on you. It’s due to you, the club president, getting so engrossed into one person that it misled your guiding principles. I mean, you shouldn’t have forced everyone to go out for team compet.i.tions for this time.”

“…Heh, you’re amazing, Kaito. You’re really good at observing people.”

Seiya grasped his right hand tightly, and the aluminum arrow made a cold rattling sound.

“If you have the time to observe me, then you better practice more. The 'Young Lord’ is at Kirisaki after all.”

“Are you exaggerating stuff again? Somehow, a lot of the things you say sound fishy.”

“Kaito, I just want Minato to draw the bow——. That’s all.”

After saying that, Seiya quickly returned on the arrow-collecting path (yatorimichi).

A certain suspicion arose in Kaito.

Judging by that sudden change in topic, Seiya might not have been saying his true motive.

——What happened with those two besides their defeat at the prefecturals in middle school?

In Kaito’s hand, Seiya’s long-used arrow remained.

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