POV: Ryota (with Hana's inner monologue woven subtly)
Score: 2–0, Ayumi/Kenji lead
Ryota wiped his face with the hem of his shirt, staring at the scoreboard.
0–2.
Not how this was supposed to start.
They hadn't dropped the opening games in six matches.
He'd studied Kenji Arakawa. Watched two full scrimmage videos. Built a mental map of his patterns.
But Ayumi?
Ayumi Kondo was chaos with grip tape. A human wildcard with the attention span of a vending machine commercial.
No one plays like that. No one's supposed to.
"She's not trained," Ryota muttered, just loud enough for Hana to hear. "She's improvising."
"Not randomly," Hana replied, voice like soft sandpaper. "Instinctively."
She adjusted her ponytail—not because it needed fixing, but because she needed a second.
She's not textbook. But she's effective.
Ryota didn't like that. He hated unknowns. The court was supposed to be a system. Cause, effect. Angles, timing.
Not this jazz tennis nonsense.
"She'll overextend," Ryota said. "Eventually."
"You sure?"
He looked at her. A second too long. Hana wasn't smiling, which was rare. And unsettling.
Hana Nishimura never panicked. But he could feel it—something quietly unraveling beneath the surface.
Kenji isn't playing to control her, Hana thought. He's adapting to her chaos. That's scarier than control.
She glanced at Ryota. His posture was rigid. Perfect form.
But she knew him too well.
He was thinking too much.
Across the net, Ayumi was dancing to a song only she could hear.
Kenji stood beside her, silent but sharp-eyed, resetting his grip with quiet precision.
Hana narrowed her gaze.
That's the problem. They shouldn't work. But they do.
Ryota tossed the ball up in his hand once—caught it.
"Next game," he said. "We don't play cute. We play cold."
Hana nodded.
But her thoughts weren't cold. They were calculating.
If we break now, we recover control. If we don't...
She didn't finish the thought.
Because in tennis, like in chess, momentum was a queen that only bowed once.