Have you, dear readers, ever witnessed someone with the absolute worst athletic talent imaginable?
Does collapsing after a few steps like a stray dog beaten for days, longing to merge with Mother Earth, count as poor talent?
However, Izuru considered that mere physical frailty. True "abysmal talent" looks more like this...
Okita squeezed his eyes shut with a look of intense gravity, then bounced the basketball against the floor. As the ball rose on the rebound, Okita made his move. His right palm swung with all his might, and then... his foot slipped.
*SLAP!*
The high-powered swing veered sharply off course and landed squarely on his own face!
The force of the self-inflicted slap made Okita's eyes bulge. Not only did he whiff the ball, but he was sent reeling, his face skidding across the floor acting as an emergency brake!
Izuru froze. Only one thought remained in his mind: {Newton's coffin lid just flipped again. Okita-kun, if you're this talented, why not just step on your left foot with your right and fly to the moon?}
"Cough, cough, hack—!"
Prostrate on the floor, Okita wore a "just as I expected" expression. He prepared to push himself up, refusing to yield despite his spinning head. At that exact moment, the basketball he'd just swatted rolled right toward his feet...
As if oblivious to the fact that there was a ball larger than his own head right there, Okita stepped on it without looking, and...
*CRASH!*
He slipped again!
"..."
Watching Okita lie on the floor staring blankly at the ceiling, Izuru was speechless. Only after several moments did he manage to squeeze out a word.
"Are you sure your name is Hikawa Okita, and not Shirogane Miyuki?"
"Shirogane Miyuki? Who's that?" Okita asked, bewildered by Izuru's muttering.
"Someone whose athletic talent is just as legendary as yours..." Izuru's lip twitched, and he continued in a tone of deep concern. "Okita-kun, I think your talent is extraordinary. You should show this off on Bilibili; I guarantee you'd be the most popular content creator in three months..."
Bilibili? Content creator?
Okita didn't quite follow, but he caught the gist of Izuru's words. He began to mumble to himself in a spiral of despair.
"I know... just how bad I am. Even the kind seniors in the basketball club were helpless. It's only natural for the President to give up on me. After all, someone as cursed as I am is destined to be a laughingstock, forever unable to rise, just lying here like a salted fish..."
"If you think of yourself as a salted fish, then a salted fish is all you'll ever be!"
Watching this "salted fish" who had lost his dreams, Izuru's expression became increasingly awkward. Just as he was about to offer some words of encouragement, he was cut off by a woman's frigid voice.
At the sound of that unfriendly, icy tone, Izuru and Okita reflexively turned toward the source...
A beautiful, ice-cold girl with long black hair, and... black over-the-knee socks.
The first was how Okita recognized people; the second was Izuru's method. Regardless, both recognized the newcomer immediately.
"Yo, Hiranoshita Hiranon. You made it."
"Please address me as Yukinoshita-san, Kamukura-kun..." The arrival was, of course, Yukino. She looked at Izuru with a hint of resignation, correcting him by reflex, before turning her colder gaze toward Okita, who was still in salted-fish mode.
"Kamukura-kun told me about your situation. While witnessing that staggering lack of talent is indeed disheartening, that is no excuse to simply abandon your dreams!"
"I-I don't want to give up either!" Mortified that his failure had been witnessed by a girl—especially one this beautiful—Okita, who had been lying there in defeat, suddenly surged with the will to stand. Unfortunately, he failed to notice that the hand he used for leverage was pressing down directly on the basketball beside him...
*THUD!*
Exactly. He toppled over again in a fashion that defied logic!
"Forget it. I should just give up..."
This fall truly shattered the last remnants of courage he'd scraped together. With hollow eyes, as if he'd been toyed with by fate itself, he lay back down on the floor with no intention of fighting, seemingly content to remain a dead fish forever...
This made Izuru's expression even more awkward and Yukino's face even colder. However, Yukino then uttered a confusing line: "It's your turn."
Eh? Izuru thought Yukino was calling him and raised an eyebrow, but a moment later, he sensed something. He turned around and instantly grasped the situation.
"Um... Hikawa-kun, so you were here..."
It was a sweet-looking boy standing behind Yukino... or was it a sweet-looking girl?
Izuru's eyes widened as he scanned the figure from head to toe with doubt. Skin as fair as a girl's, limbs as slender as a girl's, a face as cute as a girl's, but... as his gaze drifted toward the lap area, his lip began to twitch uncontrollably.
Even if that area looked as flat as a girl's, Izuru could sense a "fierce monster" hidden there! In other words, this youth who was cuter than any girl was a 100% biological male!
At the sight of this sweet youth, Okita, who had just lost the will to live, practically bolted upright. His despair vanished instantly, and with an unnaturally red flush creeping across his face, he stammered: "Ka-ka-ka-kamu, Totsuka-kun!"
{Totsuka? Is this Totsuka Saika? Only...}
Izuru, recognizing the identity of the figure with ease, wore an extremely bizarre expression. Especially upon seeing Okita's reaction to Saika, his face went pale.
{How did it come to this!?}
In an instant, Izuru's mind descended into chaos as he connected the dots of this exasperating chain of events!
It turned out the "desk mate" Okita was head-over-heels for was Totsuka Saika...
The problem was, Saika was a boy. Not only did he have the face of a beauty, but his personality was more "girly" than an actual girl's—he was even nicknamed "The Prince" by the female students...
That was why the girls were so hostile when they found out Okita liked Saika...
In conclusion: Okita had fallen in love with a boy who looked exactly like a beautiful girl!
Izuru could only think one thing: {Oh my, how tragic.}