The scoreboard blinked 13–11, still in favor of the opponents. Their little run had stacked pressure over Yuto and Tsukiko's side like weights tied to their ankles. But that one smash from Yuto had cracked the momentum clean in half, and everyone felt it. Even the crowd noise dipped, like the whole gym inhaled at once.
Tsukiko wasn't about to waste that shift. She darted forward on the very next serve, her legs moving before thought could even catch up. Her return clipped the net and dropped in, impossible to reach. 13–12.
The opponents hesitated just a hair. Tsukiko punished it. A crosscourt slice. 13–13.
Then a lightning-fast push rally where she drove them corner to corner until one of them finally popped it up too high. Yuto pounced on that and hammered it. 14–13.
You could feel the crack widening. Their opponents' shoulders sagged like they suddenly remembered they were human. Tsukiko, meanwhile, looked like she had been plugged straight into a power socket. She fed on the fragility in front of her and tore them apart again. 15–13.
Then off a sharp drive from the left, 16–13.
The momentum had flipped like a switch, and the gym buzzed with that electric "here we go" energy. Still, the opponents weren't the sort to curl up and wait for defeat. They clawed back a point with a clever push, then another with a nasty flat drive Tsukiko barely scraped up. 16–15.
The match tightened again. The air got too warm. Sweat stung eyes. Every footstep echoed harder.
They traded points like knives. 17–15. 17–16. 18–16. 18–17. 19–17.
that cursed rally where everything suddenly tilted again.
Her string snapped.
That horrible, thin, traitorous ping that might as well have been a stab in the shoulder. She returned the shot anyway with a half-dead face of the racket. Going out now meant leaving Yuto alone. And he wasn't Masaru. He wasn't some unshakeable wall who could stall a rally for a small eternity. He'd crumble under pressure at the wrong moment, she knew it. So she stayed. Even with a busted racket. Even when her arm felt wrong with every hit.
Then the world did that thing it always did with Yuto: it surprised her.
A high return. A glint of movement. And then his racket flew toward her like he'd rehearsed this chaos since birth. She barely caught it. She barely understood it. He was already sprinting out to grab another racket while she held the rally together.
And she did.
The opponents were rattled now, annoyed, reckless. A lazy return, and Yuto smashed it the moment he came back, fresh racket in hand, making it 20–17.
Match point was a formality after that.
They bowed. They left. Yuto pretended he was going to vanish into thin air like always.
Except she was still holding his racket.
She walked toward the washroom with it and felt… irritated. But also strangely warm. And annoyed by the warmth. And then more annoyed by being annoyed. The entire match wouldn't stop replaying in her head like some highlight reel she didn't ask for.
She thought of how she hated players who relied on talent alone. How she lived for proving those people wrong. How Yuto absolutely wasn't one of those people, and that somehow made things worse. His stupid desperate throw.
The instinctive trust he had in her. The way he didn't hesitate to leave her with the whole rally for a moment.
Why did he trust her like that?
Why did she care?
She pushed the washroom door open with more force than necessary. Her cheeks felt hot. She splashed cold water on her face even though she wasn't sweating that much. She stared at her reflection and tried to school her expression back into something flat and familiar.
It was just a match.
Just a tactic.
Just a racket.
Then her mind helpfully added: his racket, the one obviously maintained with weird, quiet care. Black and white, smooth frame, the grip slightly worn in the pattern of someone who practiced way more than he admitted.
She hated how observing that made her stomach twist.
By the time she stepped out, Yuto was standing there. Not pacing, not pretending he wasn't waiting — just standing there with eyes way too round, way too earnest.
She expected him to say anything. Apologize for the scare. Congratulate her. Make some dumb comment.
But his gaze wasn't on her face.
It was glued to his racket like a lost puppy staring at food.
Her embarrassment nearly choked her. She had no idea why.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
Yuto opened his mouth and nothing useful came out. Just stuttering. Still staring at the racket like it was his lifeline.
She finally got it. And she almost laughed, because all that waiting, all that intensity, all that awkwardness… for a racket.
"You want it back?"
He nodded.
And something bizarre and reckless crawled up her throat.
"I will not return it."
She had no idea why she said it.
Yuto's soul visibly left his body. He nodded like someone accepting doom, eyes misty, and turned away in quiet devastation.
And Tsukiko stood there holding his racket, wondering what on earth she'd just started.