A new day dawned, and when Haizaki Shogo opened his eyes, he felt refreshed from the inside out.
That kind of exhilarating exhaustion from sweating through intense exercise—draining every last drop of strength—after a deep sleep seemed to release even purer dopamine. His whole being felt energized, as if he had been sharpened.
Carrying his basketball and schoolbag, he walked into the classroom while yawning and sat down in his seat under Shimizu Rena's slightly delighted, affectionate gaze.
A brand-new, thick, gray-white notebook was passed to him from the front, along with Shimizu Rena's hopeful voice and expression.
"Shogo-kun, please help me check—are there any parts in the material I organized that are inappropriate?"
"Oh?"
Hearing that, Haizaki Shogo's eyes lit up. This girl worked that fast?
He took the gray notebook, carrying a faint orchid fragrance, and opened to the first page.
There were no materials on the first page—just a single sentence.
A sentence written in elegant handwriting, strokes sharp between the horizontals and verticals: "The light of a firefly may be faint, but by shining, it challenges the darkness."
It was a very inspirational message; Haizaki Shogo could imagine how much hope Shimizu Rena placed on this notebook.
He turned to the second page. A clearly drawn pentagonal data-analysis chart appeared before his eyes.
The five corners of the pentagon were labeled speed, jumping, offense, defense, and special skills—describing a player's overall qualities from five aspects.
Though still a little rough, it already looked quite decent for a first version—impressive, actually.
"Shimizu-chan, what do you mean here by offense, defense, and special skills?"
"Offense means scoring ability, defense means defensive ability, and special skills are those particularly powerful techniques. Shogo-kun, is anything wrong?"
"Yes, Shimizu-chan, but it's nothing major. I think you can look at a player from two perspectives."
"Two perspectives?"
"Mm, two perspectives."
Haizaki Shogo lowered his head in thought, glanced at his own virtual data panel in his mind, then reviewed the various data models in his head and voiced his personal opinion.
"Shimizu-chan, the two perspectives I mean are hard strength and soft strength."
"Shogo-kun, please teach me more!"
Looking at that beautiful face filled with curiosity and anticipation, Haizaki Shogo couldn't help himself and reached out, wanting to pat it.
Halfway there, he suddenly felt that action was a bit rude, so his hand shifted to her silky hair instead, pretending to flick away a bit of paper scrap.
Only then did he formally explain his thoughts.
"I think a basketball player's ability can be divided into two aspects: hard strength and soft strength. Hard strength refers to physical attributes, while soft strength refers to skills and ball sense."
"Shogo-kun, is that like the difference between computer hardware and software?"
"Yes, you can say that. Hard strength—physical attributes—can be evaluated from speed, power, stamina, height, weight… Soft strength can be evaluated from shooting and scoring ability, rebounding ability, passing ability, dribbling ability, defensive ability…"
After finishing, Haizaki Shogo felt a little thirsty and took a sip of water. He then noticed the stunning girl before him staring at him with worshipful eyes—staring so intensely that even he felt embarrassed.
None of this is really original… I just borrowed it, he felt awkward inside.
Keep staring and I'll eat you up!
"Heh-heh!"
Shimizu Rena looked as if she had just won a battle and happily turned around, recording everything according to what Haizaki Shogo had said.
As for Haizaki Shogo, he continued reviewing yesterday's game predictions and analyses.
The prediction was that Fukuda Sogo would win. Shimizu Rena had guessed correctly again, so the number of small gifts Haizaki Shogo owed this girl increased by one.
And the animal metaphors that followed were even more interesting.
In Shimizu Rena's notes, Haizaki Shogo was clearly labeled as the great demon king—Taotie, the gluttonous fiend. Captain Fukuda Sasaki was labeled a hardworking, tireless ox, while the other team members were uniformly labeled as exhausted sheep.
Meanwhile, the opponent Seiho's Tsugawa Tomoki was labeled an injured gorilla, and the other team members were labeled strong monkeys.
Haizaki Shogo read this description very carefully—shocked and excited—but showed nothing on his face.
Through this description, he once again saw Shimizu Rena's true talent.
The accurate animal metaphors were one highlight, but what he valued more were the adjectives before the animals.
"Injured," "strong," "exhausted," "hardworking"—that was the true greatest talent of the girl before him.
She could accurately describe a player's condition and then find an animal that matched that state.
In other words, Shimizu Rena could sense players' conditions from their aura, emotions, and every movement—then analogize them to fitting animals.
Haizaki Shogo laughed wildly inside, and even the corners of his mouth curled upward.
Wonderful. From this moment on, Shimizu Rena's special ability had taken shape—Haizaki Shogo named it "Weakness Exploitation".
Closing the gray-white notebook, Haizaki Shogo handed it back, patted Shimizu Rena on the shoulder, and whispered:
"Do your best! I'm rooting for you, Shimizu-chan—you're one of a kind."
In response, she turned back and gave him a smile.
That smile stunned Haizaki Shogo and stirred his heart; he couldn't help but recite a poem.
"The most beautiful smile is the one when you lower your head—sayonara."
Coming back to his senses, Haizaki Shogo turned to look at the blue sky and white clouds outside the window. At this moment, he seemed to understand why the great poet Xu Zhimo once wrote that famous poem.
The day passed quickly just like that.
After school—practice, build stamina, go home, eat, take a walk, swim.
Everything seemed orderly and peaceful. None of those outrageous plots from the stories in his mind appeared, where protagonists storm in and challenge heaven, earth, and gods alike.
Haizaki Shogo's life had become a slow accumulation—one bite of food, one strand of strength gained.
If anything could be called a tiny twist, it would be the phone call he received from Satsuki Momoi after his nighttime swim.
"Hello, this is Haizaki Shogo."
"Shogo-kun! It's me, Satsuki."
"Yo, Satsuki-girl, what's up?"
"This weekend, are you free, Shogo-kun? Dai-chan wants to play basketball with you."
Haizaki Shogo quickly ran through his schedule in his mind. A few seconds later, he replied:
"I'm free on Saturday. I'll come find you guys. How has Dai-chan been lately?"
"Ah… Dai-chan… He's gotten lonelier and lonelier. He doesn't go to practice and doesn't join team activities. He keeps saying the only one who can beat him is himself."
Alright. After hearing that much, Haizaki Shogo understood.
It wasn't really that Aomine Daiki wanted to casually play with him—it was Satsuki Momoi who wanted him to play with Aomine, to help ease his gloom. She was afraid that the Aomine in her heart would suffocate under his loneliness.
"Alright, don't worry. I'll come on Saturday. Don't be late!"
"Don't be late!"
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