Sobu High, tennis court.
Yes, although it was in a very inconspicuous corner of the sports field, a public high school like Sobu High still had a tennis court.
Although it could also be used to play badminton, badminton didn't seem to be particularly popular in this country compared to tennis.
At least Sobu High had a tennis club, but no badminton club existed.
It was currently after-school club activity time.
However, on the tennis court, aside from the people from the Magic Club, only Saika and Hachiman had shown up from the tennis club.
"Tsk tsk tsk, setting usual times aside, the Triwizard Tournament is right in front of their eyes, and they can't even bother to come practice to maintain their touch?" Asakura shook his head and sighed: "This is way too lazy."
"It's because I lack authority and can't manage them properly..."
Saika's shoulders slumped despondently.
"Saika already sent a message in the tennis club's LINE group about today's training," Hachiman, unable to bear seeing her (struck through) his aggrieved appearance, immediately stepped up like a knight in shining armor and said in a deep voice: "Rather than calling it laziness, it's simply showcasing their senior status as third-years."
"Even if the former tennis club president passed the position to the second-year Totsuka-kun instead of a third-year, those guys shouldn't harbor this much resentment toward him, right?"
Asakura asked in confusion.
"That might have something to do with me."
Hachiman coughed dryly: "Because I was dissatisfied with their actions before and had a conflict with them, I used slightly harsh language to lightly torture their self-esteem."
"..." Asakura looked at him completely speechlessly: "Just say straight out how badly you chewed them out."
"Hachiman was doing it for my sake too, please don't blame him, Asakura-kun."
Saika quickly defended Hachiman.
To be fair, in Asakura's view, anyone who could say something like that with that kind of manipulative expression was either a genuinely good-hearted white lotus or a scheming green tea bitch.
However, considering that the other party had taken a clear-cut stand on Hachiman's side from the very beginning and hadn't drawn a line with Hikigaya even after becoming disliked by the rest of the tennis club for it, the former was much more likely—it was simply a naturally kind personality.
As a side note, although Hachiman had been stammering and refusing to say how he had self-detonated before, Asakura could roughly guess his plan. It was basically acting like a dirty bomb, blowing himself up and getting shit all over the other club members so that he became public enemy number one of the tennis club, after which Saika would cut ties with this shit-blasting expert to gain the support of the other members and build prestige to become a proper club president.
As it turned out, Saika was a genuinely good person who refused to sever ties with him even after getting splashed with shit. As a result, now that Hachiman's self-detonating deterrence had vanished, the two of them ended up stuck in an awkward position in the tennis club.
"Give me their roster."
Yukino suddenly spoke up, her face cold as a thin layer of ice, her gaze sharp and decisive. "It hasn't been long since school ended; they shouldn't have left school yet. I'll go to their classrooms and corner them one by one."
"Eh..." Saika showed a somewhat troubled look, clearly not wanting to push things to such a stalemate.
At the side, Asagumo shook her head lightly, saying with a hint of helplessness: "Yukinoshita-san, let's not make things difficult for Totsuka-chan."
Saika froze slightly: "-chan?!"
"Forcibly dragging them over like that will only make them lose face in class, and they'll end up hating Totsuka-chan and Hikigaya-kun even more when the time comes." Asagumo continued her calm analysis as if she hadn't heard Saika's astonished voice.
"That's right, Yukinon, those kinds of people are unreasonable to begin with," Yui also nodded emphatically in agreement. "Even if you really dragged them here, they might just shout righteous nonsense like 'This is the tennis court, the ones who should beat it are you Magic Club people' or something!"
"It doesn't matter, I'm from the Service Club," Yukino said.
"Ahaha, Yukino-senpai can make jokes now too," Anon said with a smile.
Then she noticed Yukino staring right at her, and instantly her smile vanished.
W-Wait, it wasn't a joke?
"So what should we actually do?" Hachiman mumbled anxiously, looking toward Asakura, who was deep in thought: "Asakura, do you have anything to say?"
Only after pondering for a long while did Asakura speak in a deep voice.
"Yanami, did you gain weight again? Feels like the rubber court surface caved in."
"Eh-eh-eh?! No, I didn't!" Yanami, who had been excitedly taking in the sight of the tennis court, immediately protested with tears in her eyes.
"So after thinking for so long, you just wanted to say that? Besides, how could a normal person's weight make a tennis court—" Before Hachiman could finish, he instinctively looked down at Yanami's feet: "Holy crap, it actually caved in?!"
"It's just an optical illusion! An illusion!"
Yanami hurriedly defended herself, though her tone was somewhat guilty.
"Huh, isn't that Yui?"
Asakura's group instinctively turned their heads toward the sound.
Outside the wire fence stood a blonde-haired girl whose hair was curled like Swiss rolls, looking inside with a face full of curiosity: "What are you doing here?"
Yui raised her voice in surprise and asked: "Yumiko? How come you're here?"
She then looked left and right, discovering the other girl was actually alone, and asked in confusion: "Where's Hayama-kun? Aren't you usually by Hayama-kun's side, Yumiko?"
"Hayato is the soccer club president, how could he possibly have time to come out and wander around right now?" Miura waved her hand.
The idle person who had time to wander around seemed to refer to herself.
"Then what about Hina? Why isn't she here either?" Yui asked again.
"Just like you, she ditched me and ran off to the manga club, acting all secretive. I have no idea what she's up to."
Miura sighed, then asked curiously: "Aren't you in that trick club or whatever? Why are you here at the tennis court?"
Looks like being called the trick club made Takuma-kun very angry. Asagumo sighed, shooting a glance at Yui in an attempt to get her to ease the tension.
Yumiko didn't mean anything by it... probably. Knowing that Miura had a lot of issues with her joining the Magic Club and giving up on walking home together after school, Yui guiltily returned a look.
When we start playing tennis later, doing a toss serve will probably look a bit cooler. Anon, completely unaware of why she was on this frequency, gave a sugary look.
"What kind of escape magic trick is it?"
Without noticing the three over there having an eye-contact meeting, Miura simply asked Asakura out of curiosity.
Asakura kept a smiling demeanor, his tone steady and forceful as if explaining like a narrator: "It's very simple: invite a lucky audience member, lock them inside an airtight box, and then the people outside just stab into the box with knives."
"Huh? Isn't that way too traditional and old-school? There's no originality at all," Miura showed obvious disappointment on her face, pursing her lips as she casually guessed, "There must be a trick mechanism inside the box, right? Deliberately designed so it wouldn't actually stab anyone, right?"
"No, there's no such thing," Asakura shook his head lightly, his tone remaining calm without the slightest ripple.
Miura froze for a moment, then immediately knitted her brows to continue guessing, her tone adding a bit more seriousness: "Then there's a mechanism on the knives stabbed in! It looks like it pierced through, but in reality, the blade had long retracted, never actually piercing into the box, am I right?"
"Not that either," Asakura still shook his head, supplementing, "We will hand the knives over to the audience for inspection, guaranteeing they are real, and sharp, edged knives at that, without any trickery."
"Then... then there must be a trapdoor mechanism under the box!" Miura refused to give up. Her eyes darted around as she proposed a new guess, "When the knives are stabbed in, the person has actually already slipped away through the trapdoor under the box and is no longer inside, right?"
"Before stabbing, we'll let the lucky audience member stick their head outside the box to prove to everyone that the person has been inside the box the whole time without ever leaving," Asakura continued to shake his head at a unhurried pace, completely dismantling her guess.
"Then how on earth is it done?!"
Having her guesses rejected one after another by Asakura, Miura's curiosity, far from fading, grew even stronger. She leaned closer, staring at Asakura through the wire fence, her tone carrying a hint of urgency: "Hurry and tell me, hurry and tell me! I definitely won't tell anyone!"
"Mainly relying on the epidermis and dermis layers to tank it through sheer toughness."
Asakura answered.
"Huh?!" Miura's eyes instantly widened, her face written all over with shock as she couldn't help shouting out loud, "A magic trick with zero mystery has appeared, hey! That's not magic at all, that's self-harm!"
"I only said we'd stab the box, I never said the person would come out unscathed," Asakura acted as if he hadn't heard her jab, still asking with a smile: "Miura-san, would you like to come be this 'lucky audience member' and give it a try?"
"No way in hell!" Miura shouted out her rejection without even thinking, her tone full of resistance as she instinctively took a step back, "Besides, this thing of yours isn't a lucky audience member at all! It's completely an unlucky audience member!"
With her hands on her hips, she shouted out a jab at Asakura inside the tennis court: "And this is a tennis court! Don't do such weird and dangerous things in a place like this!"
Asakura tilted his head in feigned confusion, his tone carrying a bit of innocence: "Then what should we be doing?"
"Playing tennis, of course!" Miura was caught off guard by his question, then said even louder, "This is a tennis court, isn't playing tennis common sense?!"
Asakura let out a soft snort, his tone carrying a bit of banter as he retorted unceremoniously: "Don't you know that very clearly? Then why did you ask Yui earlier what we were doing here?"
Miura was rendered temporarily speechless by his rebuttal. She opened her mouth but didn't know what to argue back, able only to glare at Asakura huffily, her fluffy blonde hair swaying slightly with her movements, looking surprisingly a bit cute.
"Alright, Theme-chan was just curious too," Yui seemed to finally get back online, quickly stepping in to smooth things over: "We were originally here to help Saika and Hachiman practice tennis anyway. Since you're here, why not join us for a bit?"
At any rate, the other members of the tennis club hadn't come, so the tennis court was as empty as a sidewalk in Cairo.
Saika also hurriedly nodded in agreement, a gentle smile appearing on his face: "That's right, Miura-san, stay and join us, we happen to be short on people."
After all, the only ones who currently needed practice were him and Hachiman. They were far too familiar with each other's playstyles, so sparring together basically did little to help. Introducing some new variables at a time like this to get used to various different playing styles would keep them from being so easily helpless when playing against others.
Miura knitted her brows, glanced at Asakura, then looked at the expectant faces of Yui and Saika. Ultimately, she let out a sigh of relief, pursed her lips, and said, "Fine, fine, for the sake of Yui and Totsuka-kun, I'll stay and play with you guys for a bit. But let's get this straight first—I won't be holding back!"
"Holding back? What kind of joke are you making?" Asakura shrugged: "As long as you don't cry from my beating, that's good enough."
"You..." Miura furrowed her pretty eyebrows, "Game on! What if I win?"
"Then I'll treat you to griddled bullfrog in Chinatown," Asakura answered: "What if you lose?"
Why griddled bullfrog?
Miura instinctively wanted to ask that, but her body instinctively swallowed a mouthful of saliva—ever since returning from the volunteer camp trip over summer break, she had subtly lost her fear of things like frogs that she previously had a physiological aversion to, and instead felt a strange impulse—yet she still said in annoyance: "The tennis club is preparing for the Triwizard Tournament, right? Before the tournament begins, I can come over to help out anytime!"
"It's a deal."
"Hmph."
Standing to the side and watching the noisy group, Hachiman couldn't help rolling a dead-fish eye, quietly complaining in his heart—We came here to solve the tennis club's training problem, so how did it unconsciously turn into a gathering of friends? Also, this guy Asakura, he clearly came to help out, so why is he doing nothing here except teasing Miura...
"Hey, is it really fine?" He couldn't help asking Asakura, who had already picked up a racquet and was practicing his swing.
"It's fine," Asakura looked at Hachiman and said, "Or do you think I'd lose to that girl?"
"No, what I mean is... Miura shouldn't get scared into wetting her pants by you, right?" Hikigaya asked, still remembering Asakura's joke earlier.
"Takuma-tan, you can't do that kind of thing! Even though Yumiko is a bit overbearing, she's still a good person deep down!" Yui quickly ran over to whisper her instructions to Asakura.
"Mere small fry, there's no need for me to take it seriously," Asakura waved his hand nonchalantly: "Don't worry, it won't waste much of your time."