She was still caught up in the light wavering on the water's surface. On the way home yesterday, watching the orange dissolve into the mirror of Kagami River, 相馬湖菜 had stopped for a while. The deep violet of 月嶋葵's eyes seemed to overlap with the twilight river. The foot pressing the pedal felt heavy. That heaviness was still lingering somewhere in her body this morning. The hand gripping the bicycle handlebars was tensed slightly more than usual. Climbing the gentle slope through the educational district, 湖菜 took a deep breath. The air was humid. That faintly green smell of early morning before the rainy season. When she entered the Second Gymnasium, 雨宮慎也 was already there. It was rare. Usually he either came after they all arrived, or waited in a half-asleep state with a paperback on his lap. But this morning, 雨宮 was in the middle of posting something on the blackboard. His black hair with silver streaks, seen from behind. The air in the gymnasium felt slightly different. "You came." He said it without turning around. Several A4 sheets were pinned to the blackboard with magnets. 湖菜 set her racket bag against the wall and approached. The papers showed the district preliminary bracket. The moment she saw it, her eyes stopped. But before she could understand why, the sliding door opened and 笹野千尋 and 葵 came in together. "Sensei, you're early today." 千尋 said it cheerfully from the morning. 葵 laughed shortly with an "mornin'" and lined up next to 湖菜. 雨宮 pulled a folded paper from his pocket. "Everyone's here. This is a document from Principal Fujidou." He read it without expression. "The continuation of badminton club activities is conditional upon achieving a ranking of Prefectural Top 8 or better in the Sagisumi Prefectural High School Badminton Tournament by the end of next fiscal year. If this is not achieved, the club will be disbanded at the end of next fiscal year." The gymnasium went quiet. A fan made a low sound. That was the only thing moving. 湖菜 looked at the blackboard. Her eyes went to the upper right block of the bracket. She already knew without confirming what characters were written there. Suirei Academy. "Wait, hold on a second." 千尋 raised her hand. "Disbanded—this is real, right? Not a joke or anything." "I'm not free enough to read the principal's documents as a joke." "Right!!" While 千尋 was oddly convinced, 湖菜 glanced toward 葵. 葵 was gripping her racket bag with both hands. Tight. The joints of her fingers were starting to turn white. That grip was more tense than yesterday. Her eyes didn't leave the bracket. 雨宮 pulled out the strength assessment for Suirei Academy. "I'll explain about the first-round opponent." He began reading matter-of-factly. Thirty-two members. Annual budget of eight million yen—the amount Suirei Academy, which received strengthening designation within Sagisumi Prefecture, invested specifically in badminton. Nearly a hundred times that of Shiratori High. Six dedicated courts in the "Suirei Arena." Ace Tamaki Misaki's smash maximum speed: two hundred eighty-six kilometers per hour. "Wait a second." 千尋 raised her hand again. "Isn't that faster than Nozomi?" 雨宮 stopped for one second. "Slower than Nozomi." "That's not the point!!" 千尋's retort echoed through the gymnasium. 湖菜 felt her mouth almost relax into a smile. 千尋 was always like that. No matter how heavy the air, she always picked up the shuttlecock. But the silence after the laughter faded was heavier than before. "…It's impossible." The voice was small. 湖菜 noticed immediately. It wasn't 葵's voice. More precisely, it wasn't the voice of 葵 during practice. Not that light, slightly self-deprecating voice she'd been hearing until yesterday. This was a sound coming from somewhere deeper. "I had a club from Suirei's affiliated schools in middle school—" 葵 opened her mouth and stopped mid-sentence. It wasn't that the words wouldn't come. She swallowed them. 湖菜 could tell. 葵's throat moved, just once. 葵 grabbed her racket bag and started walking. "葵." 千尋 called out. But 葵 didn't stop. The sliding door opened and closed. The metal rail creaked. 雨宮 didn't call her back. 湖菜 watched that. The weight of the choice not to call her back. It wasn't just letting her go. It was a waiting gaze. The same quality as the eyes 雨宮 had when watching 葵's shots falter during yesterday's practice. She ran. "Soma." Her name was called. Short and quiet. "Don't chase her tonight." Her feet stopped for a moment. The teacher was saying that. But—something wavered inside 湖菜. That voice of 葵's was still in her ears. The words she'd swallowed had to be somewhere. She ran. --- By the time she reached the school gate, 葵 was already gone. Even though it wasn't evening, there were many people on the street through the educational district. Students pushing bicycles, pedestrians walking, the sound of cars in the distance. But the reddish-purple hair wasn't among them. 湖菜 stopped and looked down the street. She couldn't see her. The habit of dividing the court into sixteen sections kicked in. But this wasn't a court. Even if she laid a grid over the street extending from the gate, no answer came. Seeing something and being able to change it were properly different things. That's what that person had taught her. The disbandment notice. The first match against Suirei Academy. 葵's "It's impossible." They overlapped in her head with no order. The grid felt like it was crumbling. --- That night, 湖菜 sat at her desk in her room for a while without doing anything. She had her notebook open but couldn't write a single line. Her mother's voice came from the hallway, and 湖菜 stood up. "Mom, can I ask you something?" Natsumi appeared in the doorway. Forty-five years old, just back from her part-time job, with a slightly tired face. "What's wrong? That's unusual." 湖菜 hesitated a moment before speaking. "I was thinking... is it okay to keep going when you don't have any special talent?" Natsumi leaned against the door frame. She didn't laugh. "You just found what you like late, that's all." "Huh?" "But once you find something you like, you never let it go. You've been like that since you were small. Once you decide you like something, you just keep touching it." The sound of Natsumi heading back down the hallway. 湖菜 returned to her desk and sat in the chair. "Once you find what you like"—those words slowly spread through the room. Not echoing, exactly. Quietly sinking into the depths of her chest. (I like it.) It felt like she was recognizing it as words for the first time. Not badminton itself—but the time spent standing on that court. Chasing the shuttlecock, losing it, going to pick it up again. That time. Her chest warmed, slowly. Surprised, 湖菜 held onto that feeling for a while. Outside the window was dark, and in the distance she could hear the sound of a game leaking from her younger brother Riku's room. That was all she heard. --- When 湖菜 arrived at the Second Gymnasium the next morning, it was still locked. She opened it with the spare key 雨宮 had given her yesterday. When she pulled the sliding door, the same air came out. The smell of dust and floor material. But this morning, the gymnasium with no one in it felt a whole size larger. She stood in front of the shuttlecock machine against the wall—the used machine 雨宮 had bought with his own money. She'd heard it cost one hundred eighty thousand yen. It had some scratches, and the control panel was sun-faded. She turned it on. She closed her eyes and stood on the court. She remembered the test from the beginning. With your eyes closed, point to where the shuttlecock will land, she'd been told that day. The moment the answer came, 雨宮 had stood up from his chair. For some reason, she wanted to repeat that moment this morning. She didn't fully understand why. She just wanted to come. A shuttlecock flew toward her. She followed the sensation of cutting through the air with her fingertips. She pointed to where it landed. —Correct. Another one. It lands correctly again. Her body gradually started moving. Her feet moved. Still awkward, but definitely moving. She got confident, and in that moment her hand slipped. Her elbow hit the control panel. The numbers changed. It was set to maximum speed. "Ah." The machine whined. Shuttlecocks started flying out with force. Rapid fire. One, two, three. It wouldn't stop. 湖菜 tried to touch the control panel, but she didn't know which button. The more she panicked, the less she knew. Shuttlecocks rained down on the court. The floor turned white. She pulled the power cord. It went quiet. Shuttlecocks were scattered across the court. Nearly a hundred. White feathers scattered on the floor, glinting faintly in the morning light. 湖菜 was on her knees in the center of it all. The sliding door opened. It was 雨宮. He came in with his bag and stopped. He looked around the court. White covering the entire floor. 湖菜 on her knees. His gray eyes took in the situation in one second. "What did you do." "I was practicing." Three seconds of silence. 雨宮 looked at the floor, then the ceiling, then the floor again. "Clean it up." That's all he said before setting down his bag. 湖菜 started picking up shuttlecocks. One by one, picking them up and putting them back in the case. Gathering the white feathers scattered on the floor. 雨宮 came over beside her. He crouched down and started picking them up too. She thought it was rare. She'd never seen 雨宮 do this kind of work before. "You chased 葵 yesterday." It wasn't the kind of thing to say while picking up shuttlecocks. But 雨宮's voice wasn't blaming. It was confirming. "I lost her." "I see." 湖菜 picked up a shuttlecock and put it in the case. Then another. Beside her, 雨宮 was doing the same thing. "I had a reason to chase her that was stronger than your judgment, sensei." She said it quietly. 雨宮's hand stopped for just a moment. "The way you looked when you were watching 葵's form falter," 湖菜 continued. "And the voice you used when you called out to her yesterday—they were the same." She said it while picking up shuttlecocks, looking straight ahead. "I thought you were waiting for 葵. So I decided to go." 雨宮 was silent for a while. He picked up shuttlecocks while looking at a single point on the floor. Then he opened his mouth. "Your eyes are really becoming useful." The same words. He'd said them before. But his voice was slightly different. She couldn't quite explain what was different. But her skin received it. It felt like it came from a closer place than before. Not distance—something else entirely had shifted by one millimeter. The morning light slanted into the low gymnasium through the windows. The light before summer fell in a thin line across the court floor. The two of them picking up shuttlecocks in that light. It was quiet. The fan wasn't on yet. Outside sounds were distant. 湖菜 felt something stirring in her chest as her hands moved. The thing she'd noticed after her mother's words last night—the sensation of "like"—seemed to be taking a different form here. The "like" for badminton, the "like" for this time, and something else mixed in that she couldn't quite put into words. Her face felt slightly warm. She noticed this without stopping her hands from picking up shuttlecocks. Unable to name it, but knowing it was there, she was looking for a place to put it somewhere inside herself. That's when the sliding door opened forcefully. Bang. "Good morning!!" It was 千尋. She stepped into the gymnasium with her racket bag on her shoulder, full of energy—and saw the white shuttlecocks covering the floor. She saw 湖菜 on her knees working. She saw 雨宮 beside her. "Oh." 千尋's face changed through about three stages in a single beat. A face that understood something, a face that sensed something, a face that decided something. "…That's a lot of shuttlecocks." She sai