[Net King] Pilgrim

As the deadline for the Shanghai Fair draws near, CD boxes pile up on the floor of Machida's one-bedroom.

She tried to listen to some new popular playlists, and also looked at the sales rankings on the Oricon Chart, but found that these had no real effect except to help her popularize the latest trends.

In fact, for events such as school festivals, as long as the content of the performance is positive and the atmosphere is active, generally speaking, the programs submitted will be successfully selected and will not be cut off.Therefore, Matsuzaki and Aihara were very puzzled by her time-consuming selection of songs, and they had been giving her advice during basketball class.

Machida sat cross-legged on the floor next to the wall of the gymnasium, looking up at the teams playing on the court for a while, and looking down to draw circles on the ground with his fingers.

Sitting next to him, Aihara tied his shoelaces and put his hands behind his back, "The style of the music is bright and the lyrics are positive, so it's fine if you meet these two conditions."

When Matsuzaki heard it, he said excitedly: "That's easy to say! I recommend AKB48's "First Day"! It's a very sacred song!"

Machida was taken aback for a moment, with a difficult expression on his face, "I'm not very good at singing and dancing..."

Aihara smiled and straightened up, and hummed softly at Matsuzaki, "What a coincidence, as far as I know, this song is on the program of Class A, and the girls in their class have been rehearsing for the past few days."

Matsuzaki let out an "ah" and had a flash of inspiration within a few seconds, "How about "100% Courage"? This song is really full of energy!"

Aihara: "..."

Machida rested his chin and thought for a moment, and found that he couldn't imagine himself standing on stage singing this song except that his mind was full of ninja Rantaro.

Seeing that the two were silent, Matsuzaki clapped his hands together, "Let me show you the effect!" After speaking, he stood up quickly.

Aihara dragged her down, and hurriedly reminded, "Are you planning to recruit the teacher here! What if we are found to be lazy!"

Matsuzaki sat back on the ground with a slanted body, and said with a smile, "With Eie, the squad leader, I have nothing to be afraid of."

"Huh!?" Aiyuan was about to raise his hand to pat her on the head, "You girl..."

Matsuzaki withdrew and hid behind Machida Kazu with a playful smile, and the three of them instantly became a mess.Aihara ran away, and was so annoyed that he was about to grab Matsuzaki when he suddenly heard someone shouting in the distance: "Be careful!"

The three of them paused at the sound, and turned their heads to look strangely, but the next second they were terrified by the scene in front of them.

It may be that the people on the court slipped their hands when throwing the ball, and the basketball somehow deviated from the original track, and the ball flew straight to the outside of the court without slowing down, and it was smashing towards them.

The distance was so close that it was difficult to dodge, and before the three of them had time to react, a figure flashed in front of them, stretched out a hand to hook the ball, and blocked its path.

The scene reversed a bit quickly. When Machida was still in a daze, the person in front of him had already stabilized the ball, and then he pushed hard with his backhand, and the basketball in his hand was easily thrown back into the court.

Although he only had a back view during the whole process, but his signature dark green hair was really conspicuous, and she almost guessed who it was the moment he came into sight.

The student who missed the ball was in the second grade. When he saw that he almost hurt someone by throwing the ball so handsomely, he hurried over to apologize to them.

Echizen Ryoma turned around at this time, his eyes fell on Machida Kazu, his breathing was still a little unstable due to the violent running just now.

In fact, he saw her being lazy early in the morning. The physical education teacher always likes to disappear for more than ten minutes every time in class to let everyone train by themselves.Training is not training, but there are many people who are good at taking advantage of loopholes.

When the basketball flew towards the sidelines of the court, he had just finished running, and was about to drink water when he walked to the side, when he suddenly heard the sound of the basketball hitting the basket violently not far away.He looked up and saw that the ball crossed the three-point line and hit the court directly.

He remembered the direction, and his heart tightened suddenly. When he turned his head, he saw three girls laughing and making a fuss.

With the speed of the ball and the distance to the sidelines, he lost his mind and subconsciously raised his feet and ran over. The whole process was so smooth that even he felt inexplicable.

The second-year seniors apologized and returned to the field after confirming that they were all right.

Machida turned his head to look at Echizen Ryoma, but unexpectedly met his gaze.

She was slightly taken aback, feeling a little hot inexplicably.

Aihara and Matsuzaki seemed a little surprised when they saw him, but they quickly recovered and stood up from the ground to thank him.

Machida finally realized it, and stood up, but his brain was as dull as if he had been hit by a ball, and he forgot to even say a word of thanks.

Echizen Ryoma glanced at the two people beside him, and said softly, "It's nothing." After saying that, he looked straight at Machida Kazu, "Are you okay?"

The three people in front of them were all taken aback.

Matsuzaki and Aihara stood in place, looked at each other suspiciously, and after going back and forth a few times, they finally moved their eyes to the person in the middle unanimously.

The gymnasium was full of the sound of basketballs hitting the ground. As soon as Machida looked at Echizen Ryoma, she suddenly felt that those powerful slapping sounds made her heart beat a little unsteadily.

Not caring about the increasingly strange atmosphere at the moment, she subconsciously shook her head, "It's okay."

Echizen Ryoma's gaze stayed on her face for a moment, and he didn't say anything, but nodded in response.

After he left, Matsuzaki, who had been standing there in a daze, realized something was wrong, and recalled with a frown, "The ball just now...was thrown in the direction of the three of us, right?" She said while looking at Machida Kazu, Puzzled: "But why..."

Aihara narrowed his eyes, and moved his gaze away, and completed the words slowly, "... Echizen-kun only asked if you are all right?"

Machida was a little short-circuited in his mind, looked at them, "Yes, is there?"

Matsuzaki and Aihara looked at each other, then looked at her together, and nodded with certainty, "Yes."

Aihara let out a narrow "Oh", "It seems that the relationship between you two is unusual?"

The two people in front of them laughed more maliciously, Machida finally realized what was going on with the strange atmosphere just now, and quickly waved his hands to deny, "Don't think too much, Echizen and I are just friends."

She originally wanted to mention their trip to Shonan earlier, it's normal to have a close relationship, and Echizen Ryoma's straight-line thinking won't make detours.But these words were still suppressed by her when they reached her lips. The more she said, the harder it was to explain.

But what she didn't expect was that this title and rhetoric would be even more intriguing in the eyes of others.

"Earlier?"

"friend?"

Just as Matsuzaki was about to ask when the two became friends, he suddenly heard a whistle sounding in the distance, without warning, a group of students who had just been talking about the mountains on the sidelines stood up "噗" and began to run around the field, One by one, they ran faster than rabbits as if they were burned by fire.

The three of them were in a hurry for a moment, they didn't care about chatting, they just wanted to evacuate before the physical education teacher got mad.

As soon as Machida ran halfway through the second lap, when he passed under the backboard, his eyes unconsciously shifted to the court, and he happened to see Echizen Ryoma jumping up in a very standard shooting posture. throw out.

The moment his body fell, his eyes also fell down. The moment her eyes met, she turned her face away, and the next second she heard the sound of a basketball falling into the basket with a "shua".

Machida realized later, why did he hide because he hadn't done anything wrong?

After running, she walked to the sidelines panting.

Picking up the water glass, when he turned around, he saw the boy sitting on the sideline opposite the court, lowering his head and playing with the basketball in his hand.

The milky white light on the top of the stadium seemed to cast a soft filter on everything. Echizen Ryoma raised his head, his eyes seemed to sweep casually, and when he looked towards the opposite side, he inadvertently met her gaze.

Machida's breath was stagnant, and the fingers holding the water cup unconsciously tightened a little, just looking straight at him across the basketball court.

The two sides looked at each other for a few seconds, but Echizen Ryoma first moved his eyes away in silence, with a calm expression showing no emotion.

Machida breathed a sigh of relief, and after a while, a few vague melodies suddenly sounded in his mind, slowly pieced together piece by piece, and finally formed a complete piece of music.

She seemed to know what to sing.

After basketball class, Machida stepped on the bell for the next class and handed over the newly filled program list to Aihara.

"You are too fast!" Aihara was startled, sitting on the seat, glanced at the hard white cardboard in his hand, and followed the person who ran back to another group of seats, "Didn't you still be helpless in the last class?" What about it?"

As soon as Machida sat down, he took out his book, tilted his head and thought for a while, and said with a smile, "Maybe, it's because I shook my whole body while running just now and came up with the idea."

"...I think you have shaken up your wit and come out."

-

Less than two weeks before the cultural festival, Machida practiced singing until her throat was smoking, and she couldn't make a few high notes, so she went to the music classroom to secretly learn skills during the noon practice of the choir.

The reason why I say "secretly" is because the door of the music classroom on the top floor is always closed, so she can only listen to the corner.

But then she accidentally discovered that although the classroom door was always closed, the windows were wide open. Once or twice like this, she suddenly remembered that the music classroom was facing the rooftop.

Since you can't hear clearly at the closed door, it's better to be by the open window, right?

So after stepping on the spot a few times, Machida was very happy to go to the roof every day at noon to "listen to lectures".

During the lunch break this day, she practiced pronunciation while listening to the breath singing method taught by the teacher on the rooftop as usual. Halfway through the practice, she suddenly heard a lazy voice: "Hello."

Machida was taken aback for a moment, then stopped speaking, and turned to look for the source of the sound.

Apart from her, there was no one else on the empty rooftop, and she remembered seeing no one else when she came up.

Just wondering if it might be an auditory hallucination, the corner of his eyes suddenly glanced at the short stone pillar in the corner.She blinked and twitched the corners of her mouth, "No way..."

To be honest, Machida did not expect that at the end of autumn when the temperature was gradually dropping, there would be people coming to sleep on the roof, and it was windy these days, so she had to put on a coat before coming out.

At noon, the sun was thin, and it shone obliquely on the roof with a little warm temperature.She stood beside the stone pillar, her shadow overlapped with the small shade on the ground, and sighed, "Aren't you afraid of catching a cold when you sleep here...?"

Echizen Ryoma lay idly on the ground, resting his hands on the tennis bag behind his head, and lazily rolled his eyelids, "Aren't you afraid of getting wind in your stomach when you sing here?"

"..."

Who said he was not good at words...

"Did I bother you?" she asked.

"Hmm." He let out a muffled voice, sat up and rubbed his hair, and looked at her sideways, "Why don't you go to the music classroom? Or go to the teacher directly."

"I'm not from the choir, so I don't have the nerve to go in." Machida squatted down and straightened his skirt, "I went to see the music teacher a few times before, but every time I saw her taking students, she seemed very busy Like, I won’t go there again.”

"And you, don't you go to the stadium at noon?"

Echizen Ryoma put his hands behind his back, closed his eyes, "Sleepy."

Machida let out a "puchi" laugh, "Why do I feel like you are complaining that I woke up your dream."

"But I don't think you feel guilty at all." Echizen Ryoma raised the corners of his lips vaguely.

He opened his eyes, turned to her and asked, "How is the preparation for the show?"

"Almost." Machida nodded.

After a long while, he smiled and breathed a sigh of relief, and his tone was quite firm, "I know what my strengths are, and I also like singing, so I have confidence."

Echizen Ryoma raised his eyebrows, this was the first time he heard her say what she likes so definitely and frankly.

The sun is not so dazzling in the shade, but it still makes her face soft and bright.

He looked back, smiled shallowly, closed his eyes and leaned back on the tennis bag, "Well, it's not in vain to wake me up from sleep."

"... Then you should be prepared to be woken up by me several times!"