Can't Wait for Camp
I can't wait to get to camp.
“Hey!!”
At lunchtime, the sharp voice cutting in from behind made Yohan's shoulders hunch on instinct.
“W-what...?”
Startled, he turned around to find Hailey stomping toward him, her face twisted into a scowl.
“Why...? What's wrong?”
“You wanna die? Are you seriously that desperate to get yourself killed!?”
“No...? I'd rather stay alive...”
“I got it right!”
“Got what right?”
“The math homework! The last problem!”
“The last problem? They already graded it?”
“Yeah! The answer's five! Not two and three!”
“That's weird... I was pretty sure my answer was correct.”
“How the hell does fifteen divided by three turn into two and three!? You absolute...”
“Don't get mad—just hear me out. Calm down. Let's take a deep breath first.”
Faced with Yohan's unfailingly easygoing tone, Hailey let out a sigh that came from the very bottom of her soul and finally unclenched.
Even when she tried to resist, she found herself following his lead without meaning to.
“You calm now?”
“...Yeah. Explain.”
“Okay, so Alberto bought fifteen loaves of bread, right?”
“Right.”
“With his own money. Correct?”
“...What?”
Hailey's brow furrowed as if to ask what kind of nonsense he was spouting now.
“Think of yourself as Alberto. Nobody sent him on an errand, yet he bought fifteen loaves. That means there's a high chance he paid for them with his own allowance.”
“Well... I guess you could look at it that way.”
“Exactly. But then he shared them with two friends. Alberto must've figured two or three loaves were plenty for himself. He's kind enough to give away bread he bought with his own money. He was being generous.”
“.....”
“Right?”
Hearing Yohan's answer, Hailey squeezed her eyes shut.
Crunch!
At the same time, a terrifying grinding sound rose from inside her mouth.
Yohan, thoroughly spooked, put a safe distance between them right away.
“Right, my ass...! Ugh... the stress.”
Hailey's face had gone bright red as she fanned herself with her hand.
Then she beckoned him closer.
“Come here.”
“I'd rather not...”
“Get over here already!”
“You gonna hit me?”
“Just come. I won't hit you.”
“Then you're gonna yell at me?”
“I'm not gonna do anything, so hurry up. I promise.”
Only after extracting that promise did Yohan edge closer.
“What?”
“Hey.”
“Yeah.”
“If you look at it that way, Alberto... haah...”
She started replaying his answer in her head, only to find it so absurd she couldn't finish the sentence. A sigh slipped out of her.
She even blew out a long stream of air through her nose before continuing.
“Fine... Alberto bought fifteen loaves of bread.”
“Right.”
“It wasn't an errand for his parents. Right? If it was an errand, he'd have to hand all fifteen over to them.”
“Oh. That's exactly what I was thinking.”
“But how do you know he bought them with his own allowance? It could've been his friends' money.”
“Hmm...”
“Right?”
“Yeah, true...”
“If he bought them with his friends' money, then the two or three loaves Alberto kept for himself could be his cut for the trouble. So the answer could even be one?”
“I guess so.”
“But one isn't the correct answer.”
“Giving only one would be too stingy...”
“Oh, for crying out loud...! Two isn't! Three isn't! Four isn't either! The answer was five! Fifteen divided by three! Five!! It was a problem you could've finished just by solving it properly without all that imagination!!”
“Twelve divided by three is five? I didn't know that.”
“.....”
Hailey's words died in her throat.
Is this kid messing with me right now?
Yohan's reply left her so flustered she couldn't even hide it.
She pressed a hand to her throbbing forehead and said,
“The teacher asked me if I cheated. Because my answer was the same as yours.”
“Oh. Did you get in trouble?”
“What trouble? I just said we did the homework together and talked it over, and that was the end of it. I'm never doing homework with you again.”
“Why? I thought it was fun. Let's do it together again.”
“Have you ever done homework with other kids?”
“Yeah. But they don't want to do it with me anymore these days.”
“And why do you think that is?”
“Beats me?”
“Ugh... You're the only one who doesn't know the reason.”
Oddly enough, Yohan's invitation to do homework together didn't bother her at all.
So Hailey decided, with great magnanimity, that she would do homework with him after all.
“Fine. I'll do it with you. But since you suck at studying, you have to listen to me carefully.”
“I keep telling you I'm good at studying.”
“You're terrible at it.”
“Are you jealous?”
“.....”
“Okay, okay. Don't make that face.”
One thing Hailey had learned from hanging around Yohan was just how shameless he could be.
Even knowing that full well, there were still times when talking to him made her temper flare up out of nowhere.
Moments like this, when he said something completely brazen—yet even while she was angry, she couldn't quite understand why she was still standing there with him.
After giving her own personality some serious thought, she briefly considered smacking him upside the head for the way he was casually angling for ice cream, then shook her head instead.
After the homework incident, time crawled by at an agonizing pace.
From Yohan's perspective, at least.
He wanted to get to the football camp in Rome as soon as possible, but merciless time seemed determined not to let him enjoy that happiness yet.
Still, by exercising the patience of a saint and having fun with his friends, Yohan managed to forget his fretting.
And so the vacation he had waited and waited for finally drew right up to his doorstep.
“Gio! You're gonna get me Lorenzo Lucca's autograph, right?”
“Me too!”
“I want Sebastiano Ricci's!”
Friends who knew about Yohan's camp invitation clustered around him in little groups.
The biggest topic of conversation was whether or not he could snag an autograph from the player they all idolized—Lorenzo Lucca.
“I already told you no.”
“Why? You said you get to meet the players at camp!”
“If I get an autograph, I'm keeping it. I'm not giving it to you guys.”
“That's so mean...!”
“I like Lorenzo just as much as you do.”
“Then when you get the autograph, ask him to write my name on top.”
“I don't even know if I'll be able to get one, okay? And you guys already have tons of Lorenzo's autographs! On days you're not playing football you're always hanging around Roma's training ground...”
For the past few days, more and more friends had been pestering Yohan.
They were jealous he was going to the camp.
Yohan couldn't help regretting that he had ever mentioned it—if he'd known it would turn out like this, he never would have said a word—but whenever he got cornered, Hailey always came to his rescue.
And today was no different.
“Hey, Turtle.”
As Hailey ambled over, the kids parted to either side like the Red Sea.
Even if she caused fewer incidents these days, her forceful nature hadn't changed, so to kids their age Hailey was still basically the Grim Reaper.
Her girl friends were the exception, though.
She got along well with them now. Even the ones she used to fight with all the time.
Caroline, having sized up Hailey's standing at school, had taken every chance to hand out snacks or stationery that girls liked to the rest of the class, so Hailey now enjoyed a certain popularity of her own.
Being rich and having that personality had combined to give her a kind of boss-like charm.
“What?”
Watching his friends scurry back to their seats, Yohan asked in relief. Hailey let out a short snort of laughter and shot back,
“When you go to that camp over break, when did you say you'd be back?”
“I told you it's three weeks. We have to go home on Sundays.”
“So it ends on the last Sunday?”
“Probably?”
“Then I'll call the convent on the last Sunday. When they call you, come out.”
“I thought you were going to your house in America?”
“I'm only going for a few weeks.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
“Don't do the vacation homework early. Do it with me.”
“Why? I want to finish it fast so I can play football...”
Hailey planted both hands on her hips.
It was a habit she'd picked up recently, and when she stood like that she surprisingly didn't get angry—she just looked disappointed.
That was harder to deal with than an outright explosion, so Yohan made a reluctant face and accepted her half-threat of a proposal.
“Fine. I'll wait. But what about all those times you said I suck at studying...”
“That's exactly why I'm going to save you. You should be grateful you've got such a nice boss.”
“Yeah.”
“Aren't you gonna say thank you?”
“I'd rather not.”
“You little...!”
Riiing-!
When her usual methods of discipline failed, Hailey was about to blow up the way she always did—but the raw, jarring bell from the fire alarm that signaled the end of the day rang out at the perfect moment.
“Bell's rung. Go sit down already.”
“What are you talking about? The teacher won't be here for a bit. I'll buy you ice cream after, so say thank you right now.”
“The last supper before vacation, huh.”
“Where did you even learn that?”
“From a book. Anyway, thanks.”
“Again.”
“Thank you.”
“Good. Behave from now on.”
“Yeah.”
Only after receiving her thanks did Hailey look satisfied and head back to her seat.
Right on cue, their homeroom teacher walked in. Yohan half-listened to whatever the young teacher was saying, his heart already pounding as he waited for camp.
From Yohan's point of view right now, nothing ranked higher than that camp.
A chance to meet a few of the players who were actually out there playing, and a chance to learn from professional club coaches.
It would have been strange if his eyes hadn't lit up at that.
He didn't dare hope that he'd catch someone's eye and get into the youth team.
Of course he imagined it every single day. Who in the world would turn down the chance to join the club they loved?
But imagination was imagination and reality was reality. Yohan never thought he would stand out among all the other football-mad kids.
To put it more accurately, he simply didn't know how good he really was.
He knew for certain he was one of the better ones among his friends, but he figured he wouldn't even be in the same league as kids his age who had proper training.
That was what came of kicking a ball every day only at the convent with his friends, and of there being no school football team—no coach or trainer at all—to give him any real evaluation.
Even so, Yohan's dream was to become a footballer.
For now, just being able to belong to his favorite club for a little while, even as a temporary member, was enough.
That was how Yohan felt at the moment.