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The day of the competition arrived.
"We've been preparing for over half a year, and the competition day is finally here!" Ran looked at the packed venue, feeling incredibly excited.
"Ran! You can do it!!" Sonoko started cheering for Ran.
"Sonoko, it's just the beginning!" Shinichi said nonchalantly, his hands in his pockets. "It's not too late to cheer after Ran makes it to the finals; it's still too early now."
"Yeah, let's wait until the day of the finals to cheer for you." Baishi Hui also felt it was too early.
"Okay! Then I'll make it into the finals first!" Ran said confidently.
After saying goodbye to everyone, she started queuing to enter.
"Alright, Hui! Let's find a place to sit!" Sonoko said, generously taking Baishi Hui's hand and heading towards the spectator stands, where they chose a good spot to sit down.
She mumbled, "I wonder how much longer it will be until the competition starts!"
"It's just the preliminary round at the start, there's not much to see. Ran will definitely fight her way through!" Baishi Hui actually only wanted to watch the finals.
If Ran and Sonoko hadn't strongly insisted he come, he wouldn't have.
"That's true." Sonoko also believed Ran had the ability!
"Sonoko, are you participating in any tennis competitions?" Baishi Hui asked. "Do you want me to give you some special training too?"
As the saying goes, one should worry not about scarcity but about unequal distribution.
He had been spending his after-school time training with Ran recently and hadn't spent much time with Sonoko.
"I just play tennis to keep fit, I wasn't thinking about competing!" Sonoko was happy to hear Baishi Hui was willing to give her special training and appreciated him thinking of her.
When Baishi Hui heard he didn't need to be a training partner, he said, "How about this, I'll take you to Toro Tropical Land this weekend?"
"Yay, yay!!" Sonoko said with great delight.
"Huh? This weekend?" Shinichi, who was nearby, interjected, "What a coincidence, I was planning to take Ran to Toro Tropical Land too! How about we go together?"
"Huh? What a coincidence?" Sonoko heard this and started teasing, saying, "If we go together, won't we be interrupting your date?"
"It's not a date!" Shinichi denied repeatedly. "We're just going to hang out together!"
"..." After hearing this, Sonoko said, somewhat speechless, "I say, Shinichi, don't you understand this?"
"Huh? Understand what?" Shinichi looked at Sonoko with a confused, remarkably clear gaze.
Sonoko really wanted to say, "You don't even know something as obvious as Ran likes you?"
But in the end, she held back. Something as important as a confession should be done by the person themselves!
Moreover, what if Shinichi didn't like Ran?
Wouldn't doing that ruin the friendship between them?
Although this possibility was small, Sonoko still considered it.
"Never mind, it's nothing." She didn't plan to say anything more.
Originally, she wanted to arrange their dates at different times from Ran and Shinichi, but she remembered that Shinichi had a history of abandoning Ran during dates.
Sonoko immediately decided, "Okay, then let's go together! It'll be livelier with more people!"
While they were chatting, the preliminary rounds of the competition ended.
Without any surprises, Ran defeated numerous opponents along the way and advanced to the top 100.
The next day, she fought her way from the top 100 to the top 8.
On the third day, the official finals began.
It was on the day of the finals that Baishi Hui saw Ran's mother, Eri Kisaki, in the spectator stands.
"You are the Shirashi-kun that Ran mentioned?" Eri Kisaki was wearing a purple work outfit, black-rimmed glasses, and exuded an indescribable cold and stunning aura.
Baishi Hui saw the hostility towards him in her eyes and felt a bit bewildered.
He remembered this was their first meeting, right?
Out of politeness, Baishi Hui still replied, "Yes, Madam."
Eri Kisaki pushed up her glasses and said coldly, "You really are a young hero. You haven't even graduated from high school yet, and you're already learning to drink like others."
Hearing this, Baishi Hui finally understood why she had such a strong opinion of him.
Ran must have complained to Eri Kisaki about him drinking with Mouri Kogoro.
In her eyes, he was probably one of those delinquent teenagers?
But then again... her judgment wasn't wrong either.
He wasn't exactly a law-abiding citizen either.
"You're only seventeen, aren't you? There are still three years until the legal drinking age." Eri Kisaki spoke with the oppressive aura only a lawyer possesses, saying, "Don't your family have an opinion about this?"
Hearing this, Baishi Hui immediately wasn't sleepy anymore.
One sentence, making someone else's wife feel guilty all day long!
Baishi Hui said expressionlessly, "They died in a car accident last month."
"Uh..." This one sentence directly choked Eri Kisaki's words in her throat. Her expression was startled, and for a moment, she didn't know what to say.
That's it! That's the expression... Baishi Hui felt greatly satisfied after seeing it.
Immediately after, he said decisively, "If there's nothing else, I'll be leaving now."
Having thrown out that sentence, he turned and left without any hesitation.
"Wait... wait!" Eri Kisaki was startled and wanted to apologize to him.
However, she watched him leave without stopping.
That back... made Eri Kisaki feel incredibly guilty and utterly ashamed!
"What... what did I just say?" She felt extremely remorseful when she thought about the words she had just spoken.
She hadn't even figured out the truth of the matter yet, and she had already started pointing fingers and commenting carelessly!
Regret, she felt extremely regretful now!!
At this moment, Mouri Kogoro walked over. After seeing Eri Kisaki, he asked strangely, "Huh? Where's that kid Baishi? He was just here, why did he leave?"
Eri Kisaki didn't dare say that she had accidentally angered him into leaving. She lowered her head and started counting ants, like a child who had done something wrong.
"Hmm, maybe he went to the restroom!" Mouri Kogoro mumbled to himself, hesitated for a moment, and considering Ran was competing, he finally sat down next to Eri Kisaki.
If Ran saw that they weren't sitting together, it would probably affect her mood, and if that affected the competition, then he would be a sinner.
Just sitting there felt a bit boring, so Mouri Kogoro reminded her, "Eri, when Shirashi-kun comes back later, make sure you have a better attitude, okay?"
"He sacrificed his afternoon time to help Ran train, you know."
"Just a while ago, to help Ran relax her nerves, he even took her to watch a Karate competition."
"Tsk, it's quite embarrassing to say, I, as her father, am not as considerate as him!" Saying this, Mouri Kogoro felt somewhat guilty.
But he didn't know that Eri Kisaki, who was sitting next to him, felt even more guilty after hearing these words!