Do You Have Business with My Friends?
Tennessee's room.
After Park Jihoon left, Tennessee sat alone in the emptied room. He hadn't noticed it earlier.
"......!"
What if Park Jihoon had seen that?
An excuse came to him on reflex. This isn't even the first room I've lived in. If he insisted the things were traces left by whoever had been here before, wouldn't that be enough?
The thought lasted only a moment. A thin, bitter breath escaped him. How long was he supposed to go on like this?
Tennessee went to the wardrobe, shut tight, and opened it slowly. Perhaps because he had crammed everything in so hastily, the contents spilled across the floor. He didn't tidy them. For a while he only looked down.
He hadn't needed anything so paltry as a friend. A stake in the studio that made D-Que would have been plenty. Yes—with only that, he could have filled as many hours as he liked, all by himself.
But the problem was this.
Partnerships crack even when you walk in knowing everything. I wasn't sure I could keep on like this.
Park Jihoon had been the one to offer a hand first.
"Tch."
He had said he was comfortable enough to need no investors. So that was why. Becoming a shareholder, even once, was absurdly difficult.
If the proposal had been rugby, Tennessee would have refused outright. But what Park Jihoon had named was weights, wasn't it?
"Hm."
He rolled his arms in a slow circle. A heavy pop sounded in his shoulder. He was stiff.
Weights are essential, for one's health and for keeping one's dignity.
Yes. Exactly. Even if it hadn't been Park Jihoon's suggestion! He had been meaning to take up a little weight training anyway. Even if no one had said a word about friends! He had been planning to look in on the strength room. That was all he meant.
That aside.
Since we're friends now, I might as well take on one more favor.
The fellow had some nerve. One minute he was asking for help with the weights; the next he had left a request behind and walked out.
Tch.
Now that it had been said, was he simply supposed to do it?
Tennessee drew out the desk clock he had stuffed into the wardrobe. Engraved with Super Orlando, it pointed to 7:45 in the morning.
Outside the office of Gary Pink, form teacher of the honors class.
Knock, knock.
Had he come too early? The knock drew no real answer.
Knock, knock.
He was on the point of turning away if this one went unanswered too.
"Come in."
A low voice came through the door.
The latch clicked. The hinge creaked.
"Oh?"
The teacher who found Tennessee shot to his feet, came around the desk, and hurried toward him.
"What's the matter? Why? Has something gone wrong?"
"No."
"Then? Anything I can do? Just say the word. A teacher is here to help his students."
"I don't need any help."
"......"
"I came because I have business."
"Then sit, and we'll talk—"
"It's a simple matter."
"Ah. Is it?"
A deep disappointment crossed Gary's face, as if he had hoped to earn a little credit while he had the chance.
"All right. What's the business?"
"I want to stand for first-year student council president."
"You what?"
It must have been the last thing he expected. From everything he had gathered, Tennessee was a very quiet student, hardly the sort to put himself forward.
"President... you want to enter the election?"
"Yes."
"You'd have to sit in meetings as the first years' representative, and there's a fair amount of bother in it. You do know that?"
"......"
When no answer came, the form teacher studied Tennessee's face. He plainly didn't want to do it, and yet he looked as if he meant to hold his ground all the same. The man seemed to guess that his parents had wanted this and that he had been pushed out the door.
"Do you have a candidate for vice president? As you know, president and vice president have to stand as a pair."
"Yes. I have a candidate."
"Who?"
"Peter Bint."
"I didn't know the two of you were close."
"......"
"You know a number-one pledge has to go on the ballot?"
Tennessee nodded.
"All right. What's the first pledge?"
At that, Tennessee looked quietly down at his toes. The words seemed reluctant to leave him. He opened his mouth as slowly as he could, and still each syllable came out distinct.
"My pledge is that the first and second years hold a selection match for the right to enter the rugby tournament."
"Hm? What do you mean by that?"
"......"
"I'm only asking because I don't quite follow."
Had some defense kicked in?
"Must I explain the pledge as well?"
Tennessee's question had a barb in it.
"Ah. Not at all."
The form teacher only shrugged and offered an awkward smile.
At the same hour, Ralph, vice-captain of the rugby club, let out a long sigh over a towering stack of magazines. He had heard that Queensman had sold out in no time.
"......"
Of the magazine Carl had made, it seemed only a third had been taken. And even that was only because the second-years had each been forced to carry a copy off. The other years hadn't spared them a glance.
Ralph squeezed his eyes shut. Carl would be raging, no question, and taking it out on someone. The thought alone already made his head swim. The despairing part was that it didn't end there.
Why is Tennessee even running?
And of all things, his number-one pledge was to force a selection match between the first and second years.
The captain already refused a selection match.
He had put the pledge up knowing that?
The new boy has raised a flag against us in the open...
Pretend not to see it, and he would lose face as a senior. Accept the challenge, and he would have to make an enemy of Tennessee. The more tightly they were boxed in, the worse Carl's viciousness would get.
Damn it.
How was he supposed to absorb all of that hysteria?
"Haa."
It was right then. They say a way appears when you're desperate. A fairly decent idea flashed through his head.
No grounds for refusing Tennessee's proposal, and no guts to accept it?
Then I just make the match itself fall through, don't I?
His thoughts were whirring, nothing like usual. Yes. If trouble broke out again between the upper years and the lower—and if a whole crowd of them were hauled before the disciplinary committee—
Selection match or whatever else, the lot of it would collapse.
Heh heh heh.
There were risks, of course. Still—this was one of their own stepping forward to pull the aching tooth. Carl would never look the other way. Was it the thought of using the chance to lock his own position in even tighter? Ralph quietly lifted the corner of his mouth.
After school, in the strength room, Mr. Devon announced that he had an evening engagement and called us in an hour early. He didn't say what the engagement was, but he had packed his cold-weather kit so thoroughly that I could guess. He meant to spend the night outside the Queensman shop.
Anyway, with no time to spare, the workout ran even tighter.
"Aren't you getting up?"
"Nngh."
"If you've got the strength to groan, get up with it!"
He had definitely called it a warm-up. If this was harder than the session itself, in what world was it a warm-up?
Maybe it was the oversized Ultimate pieces swimming in front of my eyes.
"You can't do this? Why? Want me to do it for you?"
Devon looked fully charged on dopamine.
"I told you to pull!"
Easy for him to say...
"Why can't you do this? Pull! Pull! Pull!"
Thanks to that, we were wrung out like old rags in under thirty minutes.
Nngh. There was still a long while before Tennessee was due.
"Don't even save the strength to hold a fork. Use it all!"
At this rate the session would be over before he even arrived.
After Devon had driven us through another savage fifteen minutes, he called out.
"Park Jihoon."
"......"
I didn't have the strength to answer. My mouth only twitched.
"I told you earlier, didn't I? I've got an appointment."
Devon drew a few bills from inside his coat and held them out to me.
"Today the two of you can buy yourselves something to eat."
When I still couldn't manage a reply, he tucked the money into my trouser pocket. Maybe he felt bad. The amount seemed larger than usual.
Is that really what matters right now?
Jack and I were both so limp we couldn't even get out a proper thank-you. Devon paid that no mind.
"I'm off."
He packed his things up tight and left the strength room.
God, I wanted to wash and go fall onto a bed. Had he pushed us too hard? I felt like sleeping right where I was.
How long we stayed like that, I couldn't have said. Then loud footsteps came down the corridor, and a door was flung open. I forced my head up. One, two, three... six big bodies in all, looking down at us.
One of the faces was familiar. Ralph, was it? Vice-captain of the rugby club, a bulk as huge as Devon's. At first I thought they had come to train. The eyes on us were anything but ordinary.
Sure enough, Ralph's eyes flashed as he opened his mouth.
"Well, look at this. Everyone dying to get famous, all gathered in one place."
A voice behind him picked it up.
"Yeah. Word gets out there's a bit of press coming, and they all lose their minds."
They barge in and start spouting this? Rather than get angry, I tried first to read what they actually wanted. Even so, their mouths didn't rest.
"That the one who had trouble with the second-years?"
"Yeah. Jack. That's him."
"Back then, too—didn't he just smash the place up because he wanted attention?"
If a lynching had been the point, they would have rushed us already. Instead they kept running their mouths. The right read was that they had come to provoke us. And there was a reason to think so.
"Hey. Why no answer?"
"Your dad's some big shot in Parliament, is he?"
They were openly aiming at only one of us. It was obvious they meant to jab hot-blooded Jack and start something.
The one mercy was this.
"......"
Jack didn't have the strength to throw a single punch, and so, wildly unlike himself, he stayed exactly where he was.
Maybe the lack of a reaction made them impatient. The muttering went on.
"Not so much starved for attention, I think. His blood was up."
"His blood was up?"
"Military family for generations, aren't they? A chance for a knife fight shows up, and the body answers first."
"True. He's not even liable for the draft, and he still marched off to war on his own two feet..."
"For the motherland, my ass! He wanted a license to kill. Just wanted to put a hole in somebody's skull once, that's all."
"How do you know it so well?"
"I've run through those serial-killer documentaries more times than I can count."
They had finally crossed the line. Coming this far meant they had arrived ready to see it through to the end.
I got up before Jack did. He had already been hauled before the disciplinary committee. If he caused trouble again, there would be no coming back.
"What? You a military family too?"
"Well, well. I had you for a model student, but that look could kill."
"You about to hit me? Go on, then. Hit me. I'll take the chance to owe a hospital a visit."
A fight here would only be doing their work for them. I had to hold out somehow without getting dragged in.
Can I even manage that?
My head was a tangle when a voice came from the doorway.
"What are you doing here?"
The big bodies blocked my view, so I couldn't see him properly.
Tennessee?
The old-fashioned cadence peculiar to the Grosvenors was unmistakable. They knew it too. The big bodies turned, startled.
Tennessee asked it glaring at them.