Book 2: Chapter 5: 20th of July (Monday)
It was Monday morning of a new week. Upon entering the school’s classroom, I could feel my vigor physically leave my body. It all looked like a black and white movie to me. I could hear bits and snippets from my classmates’ conversations, but their voices seemed much more quiet than before. An idle atmosphere reigned.
The reason for this was simple. Halfway through this week, summer break will start. It’s different from the mentality of next week will be summer break which was the case last week. The end-of-term exams were over, and summer break was right in front of our eyes. It’s pretty much impossible to ask for people to show any kind of motivation for a throwaway match.
While I observed the passage of time inside the classroom moving a tad bit slower than usual, a single male student sluggishly walked into the room.
“Morning, Maru. Morning practice must be tough.”
“Yo, Asamura…” Both his voice and even his expression were out of steam.
Although not many of our sports clubs compete on a national level, there’s a lot of them who put in enough effort to at least reach the middle of the road solidly. My good friend Maru Tomokazu keeps up a competitive position in the baseball club, which is why he has morning and after-school practice practically every single day. Normally, he isn’t as exhausted as how he looks right now, so maybe something else has happened.
“You’re like a dried-up tree without your usual energy there. What happened?”
“We lost the second match in the local preliminaries.”
“So you’re depressed.”