Emotional status: contained but cracking.
Kenji sat at his desk, posture perfect, textbook open, page untouched.
He'd read the same line six times.
None of it stuck.
Outside his window, the city hummed softly—distant traffic, a passing train, the occasional bark from that one dog that never slept. Inside, everything was still. Too still.
The page stared back at him. He stared harder.
It didn't help.
Focus, he told himself.
It was a useless command.
His mind kept drifting. Backward. Sideways. To the court. To her.
Ayumi Takahashi.
A walking contradiction in tennis shoes. Loud, impulsive, incurably unserious. And yet—
Precise.
Uncanny.
Unpredictably effective.
He'd seen her play with zero structure and somehow pull out clean, sharp victories. She broke every rule of rhythm and tempo and yet landed on her feet like she'd meant it all along.
And she twirled. Midpoint. Who did that?
He rubbed the bridge of his nose.
It wasn't that she was bad—far from it. She was dangerous. Not because she played by the book, but because she didn't even bother opening it. She let instinct lead, and it worked more than it should've.
And worst of all?
She noticed things.
Small things.
She noticed him.
The way she zeroed in on his silences like they were mistakes. The way she said "forehead" not to insult him, but to… poke at him. Like she was trying to see if he could be moved. Like he was some puzzle she wanted to solve—not out of cruelty, but curiosity.
That was more unsettling than anything else.
Because if he were being honest—and he wouldn't be, not even with himself—there was something about her that felt like gravity in reverse.
She didn't pull people down. She pulled them out. Out of their shells. Out of their routines. Out of their carefully managed quiet.
He hated it.
He admired it.
And, annoyingly, he was still thinking about it at 11:47 p.m.
Kenji exhaled sharply. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling like it had answers.
It didn't.
He reached for his notebook and scribbled in the margin beside his doubles strategy notes:
"Takahashi = volatile. Study playing patterns. DO NOT get distracted."
Then, after a long pause, he added in smaller handwriting:
"...Find countermeasures for psychological interference."
"Avoid eye contact when she's smirking."
"Stop thinking about her twirling. It's not relevant."
"Why does she keep winning points she shouldn't win?"
"What is she actually playing at?"
He closed the notebook a little too forcefully.
Whatever it was she was trying to draw out of him—he couldn't let her get to it.
He needed structure. Order. Control.
Not… whatever this was.
Tomorrow was just another practice. Another match. Another data point.
He'd treat it that way. Clean. Efficient. Unemotional.
He had to.
Because if he didn't—
—he was afraid she might actually get to him.
And that was not part of the plan.