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Chapter 134×2 Part 1

(Intermission 4) The Women Who Had Their Hearts Stolen, Part 2

「Warning to suspicious people. This is the grounds of Sairyou Academy High School. If you continue to trespass, we will arrest you and hand you over to the police.」

「Geh, we’ve been found!」

「Dammit!」

Illuminated by the flashlight is one girl who has just landed on this side and is putting her hands on the ground, and two girls who have climbed over the wall and are about to climb down, a total of three girls.

The girls, dressed in dark clothes, perhaps trying to blend into the darkness, hurriedly climb down to the other side.

As for the girl who has already landed on this side, she hurriedly jumps up and tries to go back, saying 「Hey, wait for me!」.

On the other side of the 2m-high vertical wall with nowhere to grab on to, there’s a 1.5m-wide irrigation channel running along it, so they shouldn’t be able to climb over it so easily.

However, taking advantage of the fact that it’s getting dark, perhaps they have put up something to serve as a foothold.

Perhaps she fails in her landing, I feel like I hear a dull thud and a cry of 「Ouch!」.

Soon after, *clatter, clatter* it seems that they hurriedly get on their bikes and run away.

The club members head towards the wall.

I can see one of them, the particular tall one, pulls herself up and peers over the wall to the other side.

「It looks like they have put together several long bamboo poles to use as a ladder.」

「Good grief. You can’t be too careful, I guess.」

「Japanese people, sure are skillful.」

The last line must have been said by one of the members who have un-Japanese-like appearances.

When I see one of them make an O gesture with both hands, I pick up my walkie-talkie.

「This is Basketball Club – Team A. We found three suspicious people, probably middle school students, who were trying to climb over the wall on the second ground side and break into the school grounds. We warned them, and confirmed that they had run away. Over.」

『Roger. Thanks for the report. Ah, speaking of which, it’s time for your guys from Basketball Club – Team A to end your shift already, no?』

「Hmm… You’re right.」

When I look at my watch, I find that it’s already past 7:30.

『As you are, please go around along the wall and come to the headquarters. The curry rice is done, so do have some. It was made by the girls, though.』

The person on the other side seems to chuckle.

It looks like we missed out on the curry made by the boys.

Well, it can’t be helped.

「Even so, much appreciated. We were just getting hungry, after all. We’ll go back after making our last round. Over.」

When I tell everyone in Team A, which consists of eight members, half of them let out a cry of joy, while half others let out a cry of relief.

「I couldn’t help but get drawn to the smell of curry the whole time we were making our rounds.」

「As expected, when it comes to camping, it has to be curry, right?」

「I, know. Japanese Indian curry, is delicious!」

「Pauline, Japanese curry and Indian curry are two different things.」

「What?!」

My name is Shiina Chizuru.

I’m from class 3-7 (PE Department) at Sairyou Academy, and am the captain of the basketball club.

Even though I managed to get into a co-ed school, I spend my days immersed in basketball.

Well, I still get to see boys, albeit occasionally, so you can say my circumstance is still on the better side.

Moreover, in the spring prefectural block preliminaries, we had boys cheering us on in the quarterfinals and semifinals.

With that alone, you can say I’m more blessed than the girls from other high schools where there are only girls.

There is of course a reason why we are patrolling the school grounds at a time like this, right before the preliminary round of inter-high, the most important event of the year.

This is because during the Ayakuni Cup Quiz Championship, which was held in the morning, and the school camp, a boys-girls social event that started in the evening, the sports clubs are assigned to guard the school grounds in shifts.

The three gates and the area outside the grounds are kept on guard by security guards hired by the school, but we make rounds to make sure no authorized people slip through them and break into the school grounds.

That’s because, although it’s not so bad during the day, after dusk, like moths attracted to a light, we expected that some people would show up with some wicked plan, such as breaking into the school grounds illegally, trying to catch a glimpse of the boy, and then, if circumstances permit….

In fact, even during the time we were patrolling the second ground, which is the area we’re in charge of, we found and drove away four groups of suspicious people.

In the spring tournament, our Sairyou Academy basketball club acquired the seed qualification, so we’re exempt from the regional tournament, and are waiting for the prefectural preliminaries coming up on Sunday the day after tomorrow.

It hurts to not be able to use the gymnasium for a whole day at such an important time.

However, not only the Ayakuni Cup Quiz Championship, which was held for the first time, the boys-girls social event is also an important event for the whole school.

Almost every time, security is essential to protect the boys.

Especially this year, the student council has promised that they will put more effort into the participation of boys in cheering for the strong clubs that are expected to make it to the top of the prefecture, after all.

Besides, it’s great that as a result of the quiz championship ending in a draw, we obtained the right to use Sairei’s sports facilities, which was also the demand from Sairyou’s side.

Up until now, we’ve been sharing the gymnasium with the volleyball club, and practicing on the outdoor courts except when it rains.

Although there’s a need to travel, it will increase the number of hours during which we can use the entire gymnasium, so I’m sure the juniors will give their everything into their practice.

In return, it’s been decided that the boys will be invited to Sairei, which is concerning, though…

Getting back to the point, it’s become a tradition for sports clubs like ours to take on guard duty during Sairyou Academy’s boys-girls social events.

Though, taking into account the possibility of them getting into trouble with suspicious people and getting injured, for events that are held before major tournaments, it seems that most of the clubs exclude their regular players.

However, as captain of our basketball club, I decided to take charge of Team A myself.

That’s because simply having me, who has a solid build, keeping an eye on them is proving to be effective.

Even though there was no need for them to force themselves to join me, the other regular players said they would participate too, so we decided to split into two teams.

Team A, which I lead, is made up of mostly regular players, all of whom are over 180 cm tall, including me.

And the ones that stand out from the rest are the two who have been talking about curry in an over-the-top foreign-like manner since a while ago.

An African-American who came to our school last September as an exchange student from a coeducational high school in San Francisco, which is Sairyou Academy’s sister school abroad, Pauline Anderson.

Her Japanese listening comprehension has improved, but she still speaks broken Japanese and occasionally uses English words in the mix.

She only started playing basketball after entering high school over there, so she doesn’t have much experience, but in addition to being 195cm tall, she has excellent athletic ability.

Playing as a center, she’s become an indispensable player for our team.

The other one is a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Anglo-Saxon. A girl who grew up in Japan with parents who were naturalized from the United States, and speaks Japanese so fluently that you could call her a native, Constance Wilson, aka Connie.

In addition to being almost as tall as Pauline, she has played basketball since elementary school, making her a reliable forward.

As the two of them and I belong to the same PE department and the same club, we’re so close that you can call us close friends that go beyond race.

After that, we walk along the wall from the second ground, looking around, but find nothing unusual.

Given that Sairyou Academy is surrounded by greenery, it gets completely dark after the sun goes down.

A campfire is burning brightly in the middle of the first ground, but the light doesn’t reach the corners.

From time to time, thin beams of light shoot towards those areas, but these are probably the flashlights of the teams in charge of security, just like us.

When we reach the west gate, we turn left and head for the gymnasium.

That’s because the headquarters is located in front of it.

As expected, there are lightings in front of the gymnasium and school building, making the area bright.

「Good work!」

「Yeah, good work.」

When we head to the headquarters tent, the eight members of the kendo club, to whom we will pass the baton, have already gathered there.

As expected, they aren’t wearing kendo uniforms, but like us, they are wearing gym uniforms and crimson happi coats with 『Sairyou Academy Security Team』 embroidered on them.

The shinai (bamboo swords) attached to their waistbands must be their own.

「On the second ground side, suspicious people set up a homemade ladder to climb over the irrigation channel and the wall. You need to be careful.」

「Understood.」

Apparently, the captain of the kendo club, Hayase Mika, is also leading the team herself.

Although she’s not from the PE department, but from the regular department, her kendo skills are the best in the club, and it’s said that she made it to the finals in the individual competition at the spring prefectural tournament.

I exchange high five with her, who looks like a samurai resurrected in the modern era, and hand over the security guard duties.

「Let’s go get some food right away~」

「Curry! Curry!」

Relieved after finishing our security guard duties, we head towards the headquarters tent while chatting in a lively manner.