My bet with Hayasaka went like this.
We had to hit 7, 8, and 9 three times each, and before each set, we had to predict how many pins we’d knock down. One point for a correct prediction, minus one for a miss.
If you got a strike or spare before the final set, that was worth a two-point deduction.
The player with the higher total score got three bonus points.
The reason we were doing it this way was to keep the main focus on the Shirogane Miyuki versus Shinomiya Kaguya matchup.
If Hayasaka and I jumped into the score race too aggressively, the whole face-off between the two of them would lose its impact.
And so, each of our contests began.
**
By the time we reached the eighth set, Miyuki’s expression was getting worse and worse.
...This was a little shaky.
He was falling behind in the team match in a strangely awkward way.
Here’s how the scores looked.
NO.1 Shinomiya Kaguya
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
X X X X X X X X
30 60 90 120 150 180
A miraculous eight consecutive strikes, as if to say, This is what talent looks like!
Against that, Shirogane Miyuki’s scorecard was...
NO.2 Shirogane Miyuki
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
9/- X X X 9/- X X X
20 50 79 99 119 149
Six strikes and two spares.
For Miyuki, that was pretty impressive, but against Shinomiya, it still wasn’t nearly enough.
At this rate, winning the team match was going to be tough.
Meanwhile, Hayasaka’s and my scores looked like this.
NO.3 Sumisu A Hasaka
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
8 8 9 7 8 7 9
8 16 25 32 40 47 56
NO.4 Suzuki Hotaro
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
8 7 9 8 9 7 8
8 15 24 32 41 48 56
Two pitiful scorecards.
Compared to the first two, ours looked tiny.
But what if those scores were all predicted correctly?
"I’m going to knock down nine this time."
"...Understood."
As soon as Hayasaka made her call, she stepped forward and rolled the ball.
Crash!
Every pin fell except one on the right.
With that, Hayasaka had successfully predicted eight in a row.
She came over as if it were nothing, and when she was right in front of me, I lowered my voice too.
"I’m going to get nine too."
"...Sure."
After I said that, I walked forward and rolled my ball as well.
Crash!
Nine pins went down, leaving only one on the left. I had also successfully predicted eight in a row.
As I walked back, Hayasaka looked at me with interest.
"Not bad."
"...Right back at you."
Shinomiya or Hayasaka, they were both no joke. At the very least, they were better bowlers than Miyuki.
By the time I’d started to sense that the team match was probably a loss, something unexpected happened.
"...Ah!"
Maybe fatigue had finally built up in Shinomiya’s wrist, because she made a tiny mistake. And the result was...
NO.1 Shinomiya Kaguya
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
X X X X X X X X 8/1
30 60 90 120 150 180 208 227 236
She gave Miyuki an opening to catch up to Shinomiya.
"I can’t waste a chance like this...!"
Miyuki rolled the ball with fierce determination, and the result was—
Crash!
A clean strike!
Taking the final set into account, Shinomiya’s maximum score was 266. Miyuki’s maximum score, on the other hand, was 269.
That gave him a chance to pull ahead if he did well in the last set.
Hayasaka frowned for a moment, then declared nine and rolled her ball.
The result was, as expected, nine. That made nine successful predictions in a row. Since the prediction game only went to nine sets, she had effectively gotten every prediction right.
Now it was my turn. I walked up calmly and rolled too.
The result, naturally, would be seven.
Crash!
Seven pins fell. One on the left, one on the right.
So that means I got every prediction right too... huh?
The pin standing alone on the left swayed for a moment, then suddenly started wobbling.
Then,
Roll...
It fell over anyway.
No, how does a pin that’s been standing perfectly still for over three seconds just collapse on its own? Does that even make sense?
Leaving Hayasaka snickering behind me, I walked up to the counter and confronted the manager.
"How does a pin that was standing perfectly fine suddenly fall over by itself? Does that make any sense?"
"Ah, sometimes the center of gravity on a pin gets a bit strange, and that can happen. The student might feel wronged, but isn’t luck part of skill too?"
"No, I mean, even so..."
"But if you got the points, ain’t that a good thing?"
"There are complicated circumstances here-"
The manager handled it with a warm, folksy dialect and an easy smile.
I’d calmed down a little, but just as I was about to keep talking, Hayasaka suddenly appeared behind me and grabbed my shoulder.
"Right? Luck is skill too, isn’t it?"
"Hahaha, this pretty young lady knows what she’s talking about!"
That was infuriating.
In the end, I went back to my spot with nothing to show for it.
No matter how much people say luck is thirty percent skill, seventy percent fate, this was just ridiculous...
In the meantime, Shinomiya rolled her final ball. But it seemed the fatigue in her wrist couldn’t be ignored.
NO.1 Shinomiya Kaguya
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
X X X X X X X X 8/1 8/2/X
30 60 90 120 150 180 208 227 236 256
She finished with a spare and a strike. Shinomiya’s final score was 256.
It wasn’t bad, but if Miyuki had just done a little better, the gap could have widened a lot. It was a frustrating score.
"Shinomiya. Looks like you’re getting tired. I’ll go ahead and settle this now."
"Ugh, to make a mistake like that..."
Shinomiya trembled at Miyuki’s declaration.
Well, Miyuki was on four strikes in a row now. If he did well in the last set, he could open up a ten-point gap. But...
"Ghk...! No way...!"
NO.2 Shirogane Miyuki
1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10
9/- X X X 9/- X X X X X/7/1
20 50 79 99 119 149 179 209 236 254
Shirogane Miyuki completely blew the final set!
Excellent, excellent!
After talking so confidently, he finished with a score two points lower than Shinomiya’s, and a shadow fell over his head as he despaired.
"My, didn’t you say you were going to settle this?"
When he looked up, Shinomiya was staring down at him with a contemptuous expression.
"T-That was...!"
"...How adorable."
"Ghaaaah——!"
He took a massive blow from the finishing strike and went down for the count. Then Shinomiya turned to Hayasaka and said,
"Finish him off, Hasaka."
"Okay! Got it~"
Hayasaka stepped up triumphantly.
The ball was thrown.
Crash!
Strike!
And then once more.
Bang!
Strike—!
Two strikes in the final set. That gave one more chance.
Boom!
"Ah, I slipped a little..."
Nine pins fell. She scored twenty-nine points in the final set alone, which meant a thirty-point gap in the last set. With that, winning the team match was impossible.
Shinomiya and Hayasaka, certain of victory, smiled and high-fived.
Miyuki had finally recovered enough to stagger over to me and ask,
"...Can you do it?"
"I have to try. You should’ve done better."
"Hngh. I have no rebuttal."
I took out the heaviest sixteen-pound ball, tucked it under my right arm, and rolled my left shoulder before heading toward the lane.
Hayasaka looked at me and asked in confusion,
"Why are you using your left arm...? Did you hurt your right arm?"
"You’ll see. Oh, and..."
"...Hm?"
"I’m coming back with thirty points."
"Predictions ended at the ninth set."
"I know. I know."
As soon as I finished speaking, I took one step, then another toward the lane. My waist stayed as low as possible, my left arm stretched high into the air, and then I threw with all my strength—!
Whoosh!
The ball shot forward in a full swing, rolling as if it were about to crush the pins. The result was—
Bang!!
Strike.
At the thunderous impact, everyone in the bowling alley turned to look this way.
Miyuki grinned like he’d known all along, while Shinomiya and Hayasaka stared in surprise.
"You were left-handed...?"
Hayasaka, shocked that I’d suddenly thrown with my left hand after using my right so well, asked the question. I gave a simple answer and walked back to throw again.
"No. I’m ambidextrous."
".........!?"
And then the two balls were thrown again.
The result, well, you all know it.
**
The final set earned thirty points with three strikes in a row, and when the team totals were counted...
NO.1 Shinomiya Kaguya: 256 points
NO.3 Sumisu A Hasaka: 101 points
Total: 357 points
NO.3 Shirogane Miyuki: 254 points
NO.4 Suzuki Hotaro: 103 points
Total: 357 points
The team match ended in a draw.
Shinomiya, who had thought she’d won, wore a sour expression, while Miyuki let out a relieved sigh.
Actually, the person with the worst expression out of the four of us was someone else.
"Hey, Hasaka."
"Hm? What is it, Suzuki-kun...?"
She was sweating nervously and avoiding my eyes. But a bet was a bet.
"I won, didn’t I? The bet."
"Mm... right?"
When we added up the bet we’d made earlier, Hayasaka had nine points. I had ten.
She knew it too, and was fidgeting miserably, twisting her body around. Then she blushed and said,
"N-No dirty stuff, okay..."
..............
Unbelievable.
Had she spent all day acting so much that the pure and delicate act had swallowed her whole? Was she doing this because the other two were watching?
I shut down her concern in one shot.
"Don’t worry. Even if you begged me, I had no intention of doing anything."
"..............What?"
Then the Hayasaka mode suddenly burst out.
The bright, sparkling eyes from her Hasaka act returned to their usual cold stare.
Then she glared at me like she wanted to kill me. What was that look, like I was her mortal enemy?
I mean, what am I supposed to do about that...
I only said I wouldn’t do it because she told me not to. That’s unfair, really.
**
"Where are we going next?"
Shinomiya asked in a tired voice. She’d done her best, but since it hadn’t paid off, she was probably even more drained mentally.
But the next location was guaranteed to produce some pretty remarkable progress in their relationship.
"Our next stop is the trendy escape room café!"
Hayasaka, back in her Hasaka mode, cheerfully introduced the next destination.
"An escape room café? What’s that?"
"Think of it as a place where you gather clues and escape from a locked room within sixty minutes. It’s no exaggeration to say deduction skills matter more than anything else."
At my explanation, the word deduction made Miyuki and Shinomiya’s eyes gleam.
They must have thought this was their chance to show off their intelligence.
"Hehe, President. I’ll solve everything, so you can just stand there and watch, okay?"
"...What are you talking about? Shinomiya, you’re the one who can just sit back and watch me solve everything."
The second round of tension flared up again!
Hayasaka and I watched it all with quiet smiles.
This wasn’t a normal escape room café.
**
On the very day we held the advance scouting meeting,
the place Hayasaka pushed hardest for was an escape room café.
She seemed to value the fact that a man and a woman had to spend an hour together in a confined room, and that they had to work closely together and put their heads together.
At first I was reluctant too, but I agreed on one condition, because...
"Anything too heavy on deduction is out. For the top two at Shuchiin, that’ll be way too easy."
Hayasaka also agreed with me that making it harder with brainwork alone would be pointless.
"That could be true. That’s not what we want anyway. In that case..."
She tapped one side of the pamphlet. There, it said, Horror Theme.
"...This could be fun. This should definitely do it."
What we wanted from the horror theme was pretty standard.
Shinomiya going, "Eek, President~" and throwing herself into Miyuki’s arms, and
Miyuki saying, "Haha, leave it to me," and handling everything with reassuring confidence.
Before long, their relationship would naturally grow even closer without either of them even realizing it.
"Lady Kaguya is extremely afraid of ghosts, so there probably isn’t a better choice than this. What about the president?"
"That guy? Probably just average."
He was terrified of bugs to the point of disgust, but I’d never heard that he was especially afraid of ghosts.
At the very least, he was a guy, so he should be less scared than Shinomiya. Probably...
**
Hayasaka and I visited the horror-themed escape room café as a preliminary inspection.
Right before entering, I asked Hayasaka,
"Are you scared of this stuff too?"
"...I’m a pro."
"Meaning?"
"Meaning I don’t get scared by fake horror like this."
"Is that so."
Thinking she probably wasn’t very jumpy, I entered the locked room.
Following the staff inside, I took off my blindfold and found myself in a dark, gloomy room.
We were trapped inside a cage. A sinister iron-bar prison, with the lights flickering on and off to create an eerie atmosphere.
There were words written in blood on the wall, and a shabby lock hanging there, so it looked like we had to find a key somewhere in the room.
"See any place where the key might be?"
"Not on this side. Wait, do you hear footsteps somewhere?"
Tap!
Tap-tap-tap!
"Footsteps? This sounds like someone running. It feels like they’re getting closer and closer..."
I couldn’t finish the sentence.
"Kuwaaaaaaah———!"
Because a blood-soaked man wearing a monster mask suddenly burst out, screaming and shaking the cage violently.
Startled, I sucked in a sharp breath.
"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Kyaaaaaaa———!"
Hayasaka screamed beside me so loudly I thought my ears would fall off.
When I turned my head to look at her, she was maintaining a perfect poker face as if nothing had happened.
.........
"You said you weren’t scared?"
"...Not me. The scream sound effect is really realistic."
"Please, put your hand on your conscience and say that again..."
And so the horror-theme experience continued with Hayasaka screaming, then acting like nothing had happened whenever I looked at her.
No, you said you weren’t scared because you were a pro...
At this rate, I was seriously worried about whether this would go well on the actual day.
It’ll work out as planned... right?
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