Kona Soma can't throw a ball without hitting someone, can't run without tripping over her own feet, and somehow managed to crack a fluorescent light fixture during volleyball practice—on only her tenth day of high school. In a family of athletes, she's always been the odd one out, the girl whose P.E. grade tells the whole story.
So when her effortlessly talented best friend Chihiro invites her to join the badminton club, Kona's first instinct is to laugh it off. But the second gymnasium holds m
The Sound of Wings - A Journey to Nationals - The Poem of the Scale - The Court Splits into Sixteen, and I Still Can't Move
The wind had shifted overnight.
The morning air was a little damp, and her fingertips, resting on the handlebars, felt cold. The residential streets of Mikage City were unusually quiet for the school commute, and Kona coasted down the gentle slope without pedaling.
The only thing still in her head was yesterday.
"Use your brain."
Amemiya's voice was still there, even in the morning. It lingered with the exact texture of the moment he'd said it. It hadn't been a denial. But it wasn't praise either. It was the kind of voice that had simply found something and spoken it aloud. It had wormed its way into her head, and she only realized upon waking that she'd been replaying it right up until the moment she fell asleep.
(Today, the real theory instruction begins.)
That was what Chihiro's message had said. Three "so excited!" emojis trailed at the end, and Kona had read it over a few times before replying. She wrote only, "Yeah." It wasn't a lie. She didn't know if she was excited, but she definitely wanted to go. That hadn't changed this morning either.
She climbed the hill into the school district, and the Hakucho High building came into view. The morning sun reflected off the windows, a little blinding.
---
When she entered the second gymnasium, Amemiya was standing in front of the whiteboard.
Without a word, he was drawing a diagram of the court. Four vertical divisions, four horizontal. Sixteen squares in total, quietly multiplying across the whiteboard. Kona watched and found herself pulling out her notebook. Beside her, Chihiro opened hers with a look that said, "This feels like the night before an exam." It really did feel like a classroom before a test, Kona thought, but she didn't say it.
Amemiya finished the lines and turned around.
"This is court division theory."
The explanation was astonishingly concise.
Divide the court into sixteen zones — four columns, four rows. From the opponent's current position and movement speed, instantly determine the zone where a return would be hardest for them right now. That's all, Amemiya said. He didn't mention that "that's all" contained an enormous amount.
Kona carefully copied the grid into her notebook. She matched Amemiya's pace, filling in numbers and arrows. There was a sensation of things falling into place in her head. A sensation of clicking into understanding.
(I get it. This, I get.)
She really did. The method of dividing into sixteen zones, the probability calculations from the opponent's position — she understood the structure of the theory completely. Kona wrote ahead, anticipating what came next, and just before Amemiya moved to the following explanation, she tested him: "Does this mean this?" Amemiya turned toward her for a split second and said, "That's right."
That "that's right" felt a little too short.
Maybe there was something else behind it, she thought, as she picked up a shuttle and stepped onto the court.
The trouble started there.
---
The gymnasium floor was cold against the soles of her feet. The shuttle flew toward her from across the net. In her head, the sixteen squares spread out. The opponent's body was angled left. High probability the shot would come right. By zone calculation, that was four or five. The timing to step forward was now—
The shuttle landed thirty centimeters to her side.
She stood rooted, watching it fall.
"Kona, are you having another out-of-body experience?"
Chihiro's call shook the air. Kona snapped back. At the edge of the court, Chihiro was smiling faintly. Not accusing — just stating a fact.
"I'm not."
"You were."
"I don't think I was."
The second shuttle came. This time she tried to judge faster. Zone three. She tried to move her feet. But her legs were half a step slower than she intended. The shuttle grazed the edge of her racket and flew off at a strange angle.
Third shuttle. She stood rooted again and watched it go by.
Kona stood there and took one deep breath.
(I know. I know, and my body still won't move.)
The sixteen-zone system was working in her head. She could read the opponent's movement. But between judgment and motion, there was a thick wall. Understanding something and being able to do it were not the same. Today, for the first time, she understood that in her bones.
Amemiya watched from a short distance away. After confirming that Kona had frozen three times in a row, he said just one thing.
"The brain and the feet are different creatures."
Not comfort. An explanation. He wasn't exasperated either. He was simply stating a fact. And that, paradoxically, slid right into her. A strange feeling lingered — like something laughable that she couldn't laugh at. She understood the theory. Her body still wouldn't move. How deep that gap was had just become painfully clear.
Amemiya walked off toward the storage room. He was going to get something. Favoring his right leg, just slightly.
---
Practice continued.
Chihiro's footwork grew more precise by the day. Anyone could see it. Her axis didn't waver. Her timing on the step-in was becoming exactly what Amemiya had described. She already had the core strength from her track days, and on top of that, her body listened to instinct. For Kona, that "instinct" part was the farthest thing away.
"So I just need to map the sixteen zones onto sixteen points on my body, right?"
Chihiro said it with full confidence.
Amemiya paused for three seconds.
He looked at the court diagram on the whiteboard, looked at Chihiro, and looked at the diagram again.
"That makes sixty-four points on your body."
"Oh, true."
Chihiro nodded with the face of someone who'd made a discovery. Kona muttered beside her.
"What exactly are you agreeing with?"
"I mean, with sixty-four points, the precision would go up, right?"
"It wouldn't."
"It wouldn't."
The two of them shot Chihiro down simultaneously. Chihiro, looking not at all wounded, said "Ohh, okay" and went to pick up shuttles. Kona smiled wryly and glanced toward Amemiya. He had already turned in another direction.
It was right after that.
Chihiro stepped onto the court and received a shuttle. Her body moved — still operating on that perfectly off-base interpretation from before — and yet produced footwork that was close to correct.
Amemiya said one thing.
"The result, at least, is right."
Chihiro grinned happily. A smile without a trace of guile. Not "I did it" and not "of course" — just simple joy.
Kona watched.
She understood precisely, and her body wouldn't move. Chihiro understood completely wrong, and somehow her body moved anyway. It wasn't a question of who was better or worse — she knew that in her head. But she couldn't stop something complicated from settling in the depths of her chest.
In the latter half of practice, Kona wrote small in the margin of her notebook. "Chihiro learned three new things today. I'm still at zero." Looking at the words, her pen stopped.
Amemiya glanced at her hand.
He said nothing.
He just looked, and moved on to the next instruction. Kona still couldn't read what that choice — not to speak — meant.
---
Practice ended, and while Chihiro went to change, Kona took on cleaning up the storage room.
Someone had to do it, and she'd volunteered out of what was basically habit. She returned cardboard boxes to the shelves and stacked the scattered shuttle cases. The storage room was dim, with a temperature distinct from the evening air outside. The smell of old flooring mixed with dust.
When she reached toward the back of a shelf, her fingertips touched something hard.
She pulled it out. A college notebook.
Only a date was written on the cover. No name. The year was quite old — around the time she was born, give or take.
She opened it without thinking.
From the first page, intricate court diagrams spread across the paper.
The court was divided into fine sections. Shot pattern analysis. A correlation table between the opponent's body orientation and shot direction. Meticulous handwriting filled every page. Detailed annotations crammed into the margins. Numbers and arrows and short sentences layered over each other, each page like a map.
As Kona turned the pages, she gradually couldn't stop.
(This is—)
The same structure as the theory Amemiya had taught today. Dividing the court, calculating probabilities from the opponent's position. Methods of gaze manipulation. Tempo control. The phrasing was slightly different, but the skeleton of the thinking was exactly the same.
Inside Kona, something began to take shape.
A conviction — "Could it be" — slowly started to gain outline. In the back of her mind, something clicked into place. She knew this sensation. The moment when scattered pieces connect while you're reading something. That sensation.
She opened the last page.
There was writing with far less pressure than the rest.
"If my knee holds out, I could still play."
Just one line. Nothing else.
Kona read it three times.
The storage room was quiet. From outside, evening sounds drifted in from far away. Someone's bicycle. The wind shaking the trees. All of it felt very distant.
The way Amemiya had walked earlier came back to her. The habit of stepping just slightly shallower with his right foot. Walking to the edge of the court, walking to the storage room — the same asymmetry every time. She'd noticed it all along, but until now she'd vaguely thought, "Maybe that's just how he is." But now, after seeing those words, the same asymmetry came back with an entirely different weight.
"If my knee holds out, I could still play."
The handwriting of someone who'd had something carved away, she thought. Someone who'd placed what remained after the carving onto the page. That was the kind of writing it was.
"Kona!"
Chihiro's voice came from outside.
Kona closed the notebook. She returned it carefully to the back of the shelf. The same angle, the same spot.
As she put it back, she repeated those words once more in her head. Then she headed for the storage room exit.
---
When she stepped into the hallway, she saw Amemiya's back, heading toward the gymnasium exit.
Outside the gymnasium, where the lights had been turned off, he disappeared into the evening light. His back grew distant. The step of his right foot, just slightly shallower. She'd seen it so many times until just now, but it looked completely different.
The feeling of "I saw something I shouldn't have" and the feeling of "Now I know" raced through her at the same time.
Something nameless was lodged deep in her chest. Not sharp, but it wouldn't come out. Not quite pain either. But something had definitely entered.
She'd been told that seeing was a weapon. Yesterday, Amemiya had said that to her. Your eyes see everything on the court, he'd said. But what she'd learned today was that seeing too much sometimes comes with pain. In a form like this.
Amemiya locked up and turned without looking back. He disappeared into the light outside the gymnasium. As his back grew smaller, Kona couldn't move.
What had those words carved away from him? How much time, how many nights, what feelings had he lived through? She tried to imagine it and couldn't. For the first time, she felt the distance of that impossibility.
---
"What are you spacing out for?"
Chihiro nudged her shoulder from the side.
"He locked up for us. Let's go."
"Yeah."
Along the Mikage River embankment — a ten-minute walk from Hakucho High — the two of them walked side by side, pushing their bicycles. Dusk was beginning, and light scattered across the river's surface. A mix of orange and gold moved slowly over the water. Chihiro kept talking, reviewing the day's practice. "That sixty-four-point thing, I still think it's pretty good," and "But I guess sixteen is enough after all" — a light, easy stream.
Walking beside her, Kona asked suddenly.
"Chihiro, what do you think of him? The coach."
Chihiro thought for a moment.
"Scary, but I trust him. And also, kind of... sad."
"Sa
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