...

"Wow! How did you catch Sudo\'s ball so effortlessly?!" There was a silence for a while before Ike started to yell in full surprise.

"What do you mean by effortlessly? My hand hurts" Seeing how Ike didn\'t even pay attention to Karuizawa\'s words, I immediately answered him and acted like my hand hurt a bit.

"You are amazing Walker-kun! You have to go to the front as a blocker, it will be an easy win with you blocking Sudo!" Ichinose said with excited expression and fire in her eyes. She really wants to win.

"I think we should stop playing for now before anyone gets injured. Thank you, Walker-kun" Hirata said with a worried expression and thanked me for protecting Karuizawa.

Although no one has questions about Karuizawa\'s words, I am pretty sure a few people have a lot of questions inside their heads. If someone will ask about it then the best way to cover this is to simply be honest and tell the truth.

"No, no, no! We can still play a few games with special rules so no one will get injured!" Ike screamed aloud when he heard Hirata\'s words.

Why does he want to play volleyball so much and where is Yamauchi? What are you guys up to?

I couldn\'t help but frown after noticing Sotomura spying on our group from the window of building in the opposite direction of the court.

I had a feeling that we were being observed but I didn\'t pay any attention to it since it could be anyone in this public place but now I am getting really suspicious.

"But Yamauchi-kun still didn\'t come, shouldn\'t we go look for him? What if something bad happened to him?" Kushida said with a concerned expression.

"!!! I- You are right" Ike couldn\'t say no to Kushida.

"Alright, how about we go-" Before Kushida could finish her sentence, she was interrupted by someone.

"Hey! I am back!" It was Yamauchi who was running towards us and when everyone\'s attention was on him, I noticed someone pulling my shirt. When I turned around, I saw Karuizawa with her head down.

"*Th-thank you*" She whispered and let go of my shirt.

"*No problem, if you will ever find yourself in a troublesome situation, don\'t hesitate to ask me for help*" ...It\'s the least I can do for you after disappearing without telling anyone.

When she heard my words she looked up with widened eyes but when our eyes met she once again looked down and lightly nodded.

"Ok, since Yamauchi-kun is already here maybe we can-"

"Ah! Guys, my stomach hurt! I gotta go to the toilet!" Ike interrupted Hirata and run away while clutching his stomach.

"Will he be ok?" Kushida asked while watching Ike\'s back.

"Don\'t worry about him Kushida-san, let\'s play a few more games, haha" Sudo released a nervous laugh.

We continued playing for a while with better rules so no one would get injured, however, after a few minutes Sudo screamed out that he got a leg cramp and run away...

If I am not mistaken if you get a leg cramp you should just stretch your muscles instead of running around... Well, if you really get a leg cramp you would probably be unable to run anyway.

This is getting really annoying, I also noticed Sotomura contacting Sudo from the window. If I am not mistaken it was a call for help but why would he just call him? I should follow them, if they cause any trouble then we will definitely lose class points, after all, this pool is on school grounds and we are being monitored the entire time.

"Guys, I will go check on them if they are ok" I said and started to leave

"I will go with you" Kushida declared but I declined her offer to help and told them to wait.

When I caught up to Sudo, I noticed that there were 2 more groups.

It was once again Class A with Sakayanagi as a leader and Class C with Ryuen as a leader.

"Oh? Well, if it isn\'t Walker-kun, did the "king" come to retrieve his arrogant "queen"?"

"Well, well... Don\'t we meet quite often in this set-up, Walker-kun?" Sakayanagi chuckled a bit after seeing me but she totally ignored Ryuen\'s words

This is getting old...

"Walker-kun, what are you doing here?" Sudo asked me with a confused expression and I am not surprised that he got confused after hearing Ryuen\'s words.

I should be the one asking you... Why are you standing before changing rooms?

...Don\'t tell me, you guys...

"I came to check on you if you are ok" I answered him and nodded towards Sakayanagi.

"What\'s the fuss about? Even if this is a leisure facility, we are still within the school. Do you understand what does it mean?" The one who said this was no other than Horikita Manabu who came from the upper floor.

"Hmm? You are here too, Walker?" He looked strangely at me for a moment after noticing my shirt but he didn\'t mention it.

"What a coincidence student council president, wouldn\'t you say so?" I said with a slight smile

A really unpleasant coincidence... I was already having trouble thinking of a way how to distract Class A and Class C, now I also have to distract Horikita Manabu.

"Indeed, is your leg healed already?" He asked aloud while looking at my leg.

"Oh? What happened, Walker-kun?" Sakayanagi immediately asked with a curious expression after hearing Manabu\'s question.

"It was nothing, just a small injury when I was exercising" I answered to both of them at the same time.

"If you say so... Anyway, what\'s going on here?" Manabu turned at Sudo.

"I heard that changing rooms are being cleaned right now. Sudo-kun got a leg cramp so he probably wanted to go to changing room but he was apparently sent back by a cleaner" I answered in Sudo\'s stead.

"Cleaner?" Manabu looked once at changing room\'s doors and then back at me.

"There were even signs before Ryuen decided that they were in his way, fufu" Sakayanagi said.

Is she trying to help me or just to cause trouble for Ryuen? Perhaps both at the same time, seeing how she is looking at me with a playful smile.

"I also wanted to go change myself but since I can\'t, in the meantime, how about a small competition to make everybody busy before cleaning is finished?" I said aloud while looking at Manabu.

"Hmm? What do you have in mind?" He answered and both Sakayanagi and Ryuen looked at me.

Ryuen is someone extremely arrogant, he won\'t give up a chance to crush someone while making a profit from it. Now I just have to hope that Sakayanagi will agree with my plan, she is too unpredictable.

"How about beach volleyball? No one needs to change clothes for that. And to spice it up, the loser will give 10.000 points for each player in their team to the winner. Class A vs Class C"

"What about two of us and him?" Manabu asked while pointing at Sudo behind him.

"We will naturally join Class A or Class C with the same rules. As for Sudo, he can\'t play since he just had a leg cramp. What do you think, Sakayanagi-san and Ryuen-kun?" I asked them with a smile.

"Fufu, sounds fun but I want Walker-kun in my team since I can\'t play he will become a leader instead of me" Sakayanagi laughed a bit, amused by my idea.

"What?! Are you sure?" The one who questioned Sakayanagi\'s decision was a girl with purple hair I already met before, it seems that she is loyally following Sakayanagi everywhere she goes.

"I know that we are already at a disadvantage, Kamuro" Sakayanagi said to the girl.

"Heh, fine by me, just don\'t come crying to us later that teams are unbalanced" Ryuen said this with provocative smile.

With everything decided we started to walk towards the court.

"Walker-kun, you don\'t mind being a leader, right?" Sakayanagi asked me.

"Of course not, it was my idea in the first place. I am more surprised that you can trust me with this so easily" I answered

"Fufu, that\'s because you are a very interesting individual. Let me get you familiar with your team members" Sakayanagi started to introduce the team members to me.

I remembered just 3 interesting people: Masumi Kamuro, Masayoshi Hashimoto and Hayato Kito. With 2 more girls from Class A, we were the team with 6 members.

As for Ryuen\'s team, I need to be careful of Ryuen himself, Manabu and one more large guy who definitely didn\'t look like a native.

"What are the rules?" Manabu asked me.

"Let\'s keep it simple, shall we? We can change our positions by how we want and team to first score 21 wins. I think playing only 1 set will be enough. Of course, winning team must win by 2 points and every team has only 3 contacts" I proposed the simple rules and everyone agreed.

"So how will we do it, leader" Kamuro asked me with a sarcastic tone.

"Hashimoto-kun will be a setter, Kito-kun and Kamuro-san will be at blocker position. I will do serving and receiving.

.

.

We started playing and on the enemy team, Manabu played as a setter, Ryuen and the large guy were at the front. They had a better front-line than us but they had a weaker receiver and server.

We should be a weaker team but our positions compensated it. Overall we were evenly matched. I was able to receive most of the balls and I scored a lot of points as a server.

It was already 21:20 for us and we needed just one more point to win. Our match also attracted a lot of people since most of the people know how Class C is aggressive and everyone likes to watch conflicts, of course, having the student council president participate attracted a lot of attention too.

It was my turn to serve and a lot of people were watching me since I can win the entire game.

"Go for it, Walker-kun!" I didn\'t even need to look who shouted this.

Already done with the peeping session? They changed the positions and former enemy front-line is at the back, waiting to receive my ball.

"It was a good experience, playing against you, student council president" I took a deep breath and told Manabu which made him narrow his eyes.

"You are talking like it\'s your win already" Ryuen said aloud

"We will see" I said and served the ball in a serious manner for the first time.

Precision is the best weapon. I aimed for the corner of the court but even if it was a great ball, Manabu was still able to receive it by jumping after it. Although he received it badly, it still surprised me a bit but I had no time to be surprised since the ball was right above the net. It was a time for the contest of strength between blockers. But how could I put my trust into someone I don\'t even know while on the other side the large guy was waiting for the ball to fall down.

"Let me!" I shouted and run towards the net.

"Huh?" The 3 at the front-line were surprised but still followed my instructions. They already accepted me as a leader, even Kamuro who wasn\'t happy about it at first.

Let\'s test your strength, big guy. I was too excited to even care about his health, I just wanted to win. I formed a vicious smile and jumped up, we both hit the ball at the same time, however, I didn\'t hold back at all this time. Everyone thought that the large guy will win, however, when they saw him fall on the ground on his ȧss, they simply remained silent.

"OOH!!! Walker-kun!!!!!" Ike was the first to shout out.

What an awkward situation. But thanks to Ike\'s shout everyone woke up and started to clap with disbelieving faces.

When I looked at the guy who was on the ground I couldn\'t help but smile.

That felt good, to crush someone in something he is totally confident in.

"How did you win that exchange?" Even everyone from my team was asking me questions.

Crap, I lost myself in excitement and forgot that I was being watched by a lot of people.

"Just got lucky, my angle was better" I quickly answered all kinds of questions.

"Fufu, thank you Walker-kun, for winning points for our Class" Sakayanagi came to us.

"No need to thank me, it was fun. Plus you had to put your trust in me, I bet that wasn\'t an easy decision" Even though I said this, I knew that Class A probably had a lot of points and they wouldn\'t mind losing a "few" points.

I said goodbye to Sakayanagi and let her group collect the points from Class C and Manabu. I sensed Ryuen\'s glare at me but I ignored it and left. When I came to our class\'s group Ike immediately started to ask me a lot of questions but I made him shut up by mentioning the changing rooms.

In the end, no one had too many questions but I guess I made those sharper students a little suspicious of me. Main thing is that I made Class C bleed a bit. As for Class A... I will worry about them when we become Class B. And I wouldn\'t be the first athletic person in our class so people will be a little wary of me, at most.