"Who's Marui-senpai bragging to?" Akaya wondered. He'd wandered into Jackal's discussion with the other second year -- he doubted Jackal knew his name but he was in Akaya's class and scored higher than Akaya in math, Akaya kind of hated him when they weren't at tennis club -- but it was mostly Jackal saying stuff Akaya already knew so he'd gotten bored of listening and let his ears wander.
"You collected his form, didn't you read it?" Jackal asked. The other kid seemed to recognize that Akaya got priority by being a regular, and wasn't fussed. "Next year, you might need to know."
Akaya hardly ever thought about 'next year,' because this year was Yukimura-buchou's third year to be undefeated and anything past that one thought was terrifying. Yukimura was and would be undefeated. The thought had to stop there.
"There's nothing on a form that could explain Marui-senpai just blowing off us to pay attention to some random first year," Akaya argued.
"Maybe he thinks he's interesting," Jackal said. He looked at Akaya critically; Akaya clearly hadn't been waiting for this year's potential killer first year. Or even considered the possibility. It made him want to smile, but he didn't want Akaya to start thinking his self-centeredness was cute or anything. Jackal didn't need to be bailing him out of the problems that would get him into.
"How can you be interested in someone you've never even heard of?" Akaya demanded, and Jackal debated telling him to fetch some balls for his lack of self-awareness. Nobody's ever heard of you, either, but Bunta immediately latched on to you. "Nobody's been standing out at that level, okay? I saw the kids who were scouting us out and none of them looked like they were worth paying any attention to. Anyway, isn't it my job to break in the new meat?"
"No," Jackal said, as authoritatively as he could. "Shut up and watch the match if you want to know what's going on."
Jackal was planning to. If Bunta was interested in someone, well, that was Bunta-- he'd found him one day and decided they were friends, too. But if Yanagi was following up on it...
"Marui-senpai!" Akaya hollered. "Leave some of 'em for us to beat too!"
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"You collected his form, didn't you read it?" Jackal asked. The other kid seemed to recognize that Akaya got priority by being a regular, and wasn't fussed. "Next year, you might need to know."
Akaya hardly ever thought about 'next year,' because this year was Yukimura-buchou's third year to be undefeated and anything past that one thought was terrifying. Yukimura was and would be undefeated. The thought had to stop there.
"There's nothing on a form that could explain Marui-senpai just blowing off us to pay attention to some random first year," Akaya argued.
"Maybe he thinks he's interesting," Jackal said. He looked at Akaya critically; Akaya clearly hadn't been waiting for this year's potential killer first year. Or even considered the possibility. It made him want to smile, but he didn't want Akaya to start thinking his self-centeredness was cute or anything. Jackal didn't need to be bailing him out of the problems that would get him into.
"How can you be interested in someone you've never even heard of?" Akaya demanded, and Jackal debated telling him to fetch some balls for his lack of self-awareness. Nobody's ever heard of you, either, but Bunta immediately latched on to you. "Nobody's been standing out at that level, okay? I saw the kids who were scouting us out and none of them looked like they were worth paying any attention to. Anyway, isn't it my job to break in the new meat?"
"No," Jackal said, as authoritatively as he could. "Shut up and watch the match if you want to know what's going on."
Jackal was planning to. If Bunta was interested in someone, well, that was Bunta-- he'd found him one day and decided they were friends, too. But if Yanagi was following up on it...
"Marui-senpai!" Akaya hollered. "Leave some of 'em for us to beat too!"