Chapter 24: ~Chapter 8~ Part 3

"Why are you so excited?" Joshua low-key grumbled while looking at me sideways. The mark on his face had already faded considerably by the end of the first period and by this point it was barely visible. I glanced back at him between two swings of my arms and smiled.

"Why shouldn't I be? I missed the last PE class and my body is full of excess energy to burn off."

"If you say so..." He sounded decidedly unconvinced. I didn't really care though; I was too busy limbering up my joints. Then he asked, "This isn't about the girls' uniforms, right?"

Now it was my turn to look at him sideways while doing the splits.

"Pardon?" For some reason Josh was only giving me a ‘How are you doing that?' look, so I repeated myself a bit louder. "I said, pardon? What was that about the girls?"

"... Nothing." He dismissed me and began his own warm-up routine. Now that was just a dick move, piquing my interest like that.

I tried not to be bothered by it as I did a few one-handed push-ups, alternating between the arms after every fifth push, and I felt nice and limber in no time. Since the weather was still nice, we were having the physical education class outside, on the sports field behind the main building. The class was co-ed and, unsurprisingly enough, it was also taught by Mrs. Applebottom. Nevertheless, we were still separated into two groups. The guys, which of course included me, were preparing at one end of the field while the girls did so at the other, and Joshua's comment involuntarily drew my attention to them.

They were... nothing special, really. I mean, they were generally attractive teenage girls doing warm-up exercises, but it wasn't like it was a special sight, unless if it was one's thing, of course. I'm not judging. I took an even closer look, but it wasn't the clothes either. I was half-expecting them to wear those silly form-fitting tight shorts they inexplicably called ‘bloomers' in certain corners of the internet, but they weren't. In fact, their getup was fairly sensible, with almost knee-long sports shorts and thick white t-shirts. There was nothing really titillating about them.

"A-ha!" Josh suddenly exclaimed at my side.

"Hm?" I looked over to him and he was smiling triumphantly.

"What?"

"You were looking at the girls!"

"Erm... Yes, I was. So? I wanted to figure out what you were talking about."

"U-huh," My friend patted me on the back with a skeptical smile in tow as he walked by, leaving me none the wiser of just what the heck he was getting at.

The confusing start aside the rest of the class went swimmingly. After some further warm-up mandated by the teacher, the class continued their separated yet equal activities.  We were playing basketball, which was a ton of fun. I had a natural height advantage over practically everyone, and since I was brimming with energy, I kept dashing around the field and scoring points left and right.

The only guy in the class who could keep up with me was Josh. We were on opposing teams, and over time the match slowly devolved into a duel just between the two of us. I was bigger and stronger, plus I proved to be pretty nimble on my feet, but Josh was just a little faster and had better control over the ball. Not only that, he was better at pacing himself, and while I soon lost the initial rush I felt over being able to move freely, he was able to give an even performance from beginning to end. It was a tough match, but in the end my team, and by that I mean me in particular, came out victorious, though only by two points. Most importantly, it was a blast.

As for the girls, most of them were gawkers, cheering for one side or the other. Angie in particular was constantly shouting advice to Josh. Most of them were actually good ones, so they must've made up during one of the breaks when I wasn't looking. The class rep seemed to prefer the underdog, always cheering for the side that didn't have the ball at the moment, though in her case ‘cheering' might have been too strong a word. Let's go with ‘reserved encouragement' instead. Now the princess, on the other hand, was loud enough to make up for two and then some. Unfortunately for me though, she wasn't as much cheering for Joshua as rioting against me. In a sense, I had to admire the way she managed to come up with insults that somehow didn't sound insulting. Just how did calling me ‘handsome lecher' even related to my basketball skills anyway? That said, she was still distracting enough that I missed a couple of shots because of her.

As for my assistant, she mostly stayed silent, kept writing her notes, and whenever I looked at her she made it a policy to limp-wristedly wave a tiny *Go Team ______!* flag. Don't ask me where she got it, I had no idea either.

As for why the girls had time to cheer, it was mostly due to the fact that they were playing tennis, and there were only two courts for that. Some amused themselves by playing with the rackets and some spare balls, but whenever it wasn't their turn they generally just idled around the basketball field. On the other hand, when it was their turn they immediately stopped cheering, even the core girls, and rushed to play.

As far as I could gather from the snippets of placeholder dialog I overheard during the game, girls' tennis was actually getting popular in the country, which I had no idea about, but it made me stop and think for a moment: What country? Not only that, I kept forgetting to check the geography of this world, so I still had no idea where the hell I actually was!

Then I had an idea: Why not ask Judy? She should be able to tell me, and then some other details too, stuff that asking Josh about would have been awkward and possibly data-contaminating. In the worst-case scenario, where she had no idea either, I could still ask her to remind me to look into it so that I wouldn't keep forgetting about it.

With that in mind, I stood up from the bench where I dropped myself after the match was over just as Josh was returning from a quick errand, carrying a pair of soft drinks (for which I had to pay, of course). He tossed me one of the cans and it felt almost icy against my sweaty palm.

"Thanks."

"You are welcome."

He raised his can and we toasted before drinking them in one go. Once emptied, I handed the can back to him.

"Could you throw this away for me? I have something to take care of before I forget it again."

"Sure." He took the can, but his eyes were fixed on me.

"Have you seen my assistant?"

"Judy?" His eyes suddenly narrowed in suspicion. "Last time I saw her she was sitting on the grass by the tennis court. Why?"

"Because what I need to take care of involves her."

"Ooooooh..." Josh smiled knowingly and I rolled my eyes.

"Get your brain out of the gutter, please."

"Hey there pot, this is kettle. He says you are black."

"Ha. Ha. I would love to listen to your stellar wit, but I have to run."

I walked past him and he kept waving after me with the same smile. Seriously, why was he convinced that I was some sort of pervert?

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"Hm... Maybe I used to be...?" I contemplated as I was about to reach the tennis court. It took me about half a second to find Judy in the crowd, which surprised even me. It was probably because of how much I've interacted with her in such a short time, but to me, she stuck out of the uniformity of the other placeholders almost as much as any one of Joshua's girls.

I found her leaning on the ball-catching fence around the court in the company of a few other girls. I walked up to her without hesitation and somehow my presence seemed to scatter the other students. I didn't mind it though; the fewer people around, the lower the chance they might overhear something.

She didn't notice me right away. In fact, she was so wrapped up in watching the match that I had to poke her shoulder a bit for her to look my way.

"Hi. Whatcha watching?"

She wordlessly pointed to the field with a ‘duh' in her eyes, and I had to whistle in amazement. It was Angie and the princess playing, and they gave one heck of a performance. Now, I am the first to admit that I knew as much about tennis as I did about quantum mechanics, but even I could see they were pretty damn impressive. There were times I could barely see more than a yellow blur of the ball.

Just as I looked over the princess returned a high ball with a sharp smack that landed just a hair's breadth outside Angie's reach. My assistant immediately raised her little triangular flag in the familiar unenthusiastic wave. So she was doing that for everyone, huh? In a way that was both a relief and a little disappointing.

"Where did you get that?" I asked, pointing at her hand.

"From the storage room," She answered matter-of-factly while pointing at the small white building at the other end of the field with her flag. "They have a lot of them, though most of them already had sports teams written on them. It's either ‘Team Eduard' or ‘Team Jackson'."

"Huh. Those are weird names for a team."

"Maybe they are for individuals? Probably a team's star player."

"That's really rude to the rest of the team."

"Agreed."

We both concurred and then fell silent, watching the match between Angie and Elly unfold. The princess was in the lead, and she looked like she was in her element on the field, but Angie wasn't half bad either. In fact, she looked really fired up and was dishing out fastballs as hard as she got them.

I was just thinking about whether they might have been actual professionals when I noticed the princess stumbling. It was only for a moment, but after that I paid closer attention to her and noticed that she indeed was still favoring one of her legs. I formed my hands around my mouth in a funnel as she was about to serve and called ut to her.

"Take it easy, princess! You are going to hurt your ankle again!"

She twitched and looked around frantically. She finally found me and waved her racket in my direction in a show of almost comical outrage.

"I don't need your warnings! I hate you!"

"The two things are in no ways related! Just be careful, okay?"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up!"

I lowered my hands and shrugged. "She sure is an irritable girl," I muttered, and Judy silently nodded at my side. In the meantime the princess served and it prompted another heated duel on the court. "They are pretty good."

"Angeline is on the tennis team. Eleanor was apparently playing in tournaments on the mainland," Judy explained to me, though she didn't actually take her eyes off the match.

"Really? That explains a lot..." As I was saying that, her last word finally sunk in and I remembered why I came over in the first place. I clicked my tongue over the near-miss and turned to her to hit the iron while it was hot. "Hey, Judy? Can I ask you a quick question?"

She turned away from the match to face me, but all of a sudden her legs buckled and she fell backward, away from the fence.

"Whoa!" I immediately reached out and caught her by the waist before she could completely topple over. Her legs were still slack, so I lowered her and had her sit down. I also realized that she was warm. She wasn't burning up or anything, but she definitely had a high temperature, and as I took a closer look I quickly realized that she was pale even beyond her usual complexion.

"I'm all right..." she told me between pained breaths, and somehow her words managed to remain impassive even in this situation.

"Like hell you are!" I completely ignored her protests and put my hand on her forehead. "Just as I thought, you do have a fever. Why didn't you say anything?"

"I'm not sick, just drowsy."

"No, you are both."

It was around this time that Angie came to the fence and began tiptoeing around like she could see more that way.

"What happened?" Her voice sounded more curious than worried, but then she noticed the girl lying in front of me and her face tensed up.

I looked up at her and gestured towards my assistant. "According to her, it's just lack of sleep. I'll take her to the infirmary, just to be safe." Saying so, I turned back to Judy. "Can you walk?"

She feebly nodded and tried to rise to her feet, but she was so wobbly it was painful to watch. I lent her a shoulder, though she had some difficulty holding on due to the height difference. Just then I noticed that there was a disturbance in the loose ring of placeholders idling around us, and a moment later a familiar face elbowed his way to our side.

"Is there a problem?" Joshua asked as he finally arrived by our side. "I saw her collapse, did something happen?"

"Hopefully nothing serious. I'm taking her to the nurse. Where's the teacher?" Josh looked around and gave me an unknowing shrug. "Fine, it's not like they would be a lot of help. Please tell her what happened once she actually shows up."

I didn't even wait for him to nod before I began all but dragging Judy along.

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