#6 Suspicion

Yuichi's school days were going pretty well and the school even accepted the fact of him attending 2 clubs which was very rare, not to mention both were the sports clubs. Of course, their condition was to have at least average grades since they were aware of how much time 2 clubs can take. Usually, the tournaments and such are held on different days so it would make Yuichi skip a lot of classes which he will need to catch up to.

He also had to undergo additional health check-up since he would be giving his body a big strain by practicing 2 different sports. And the school still wasn't even aware of him practicing the martial arts...if they were aware of such information, they would have definitely shut his request down.

Yuichi continued like this...Going to school with Mei and Ren, after school practice with soccer club together with Ren or basketball club and afterward martial arts lessons from the old man. Yuichi tried his best not to disappoint his parents so he was also trying his best to be attentive in classes, bringing home at least average grades.

He continued like this for the whole school year, getting even to Junior High nationals in both soccer and basketball. Ending up at the 3rd place in soccer and at 4th place in basketball. As this was his first experience in tournaments, those were quite good results, and even both the basketball team and soccer team complimented him a lot. They even started trying to persuade him to leave the other club so he can focus only on one at the time however he was able to somehow stop argument between two clubs, saying that he plays for fun and to improve however he has no desire to stop playing either of them, that he already abandoned other sports he liked before.

Yuichi's school was usually able to qualify itself to the nationals however they usually got 6th or 5th position at most, this applies to both basketball and soccer club.

Only during the summer holidays, he realized that he cut off the contact with all of his friends from elementary school. Now, he had only contact on Ren, Mei and other people from the clubs however most of the students liked to do something else other than playing sports since they have been doing exactly that the entire school year. This left him with a lot of time on his hand, he began spending more time with Mei and Ren, however, even those two have their own life so when he was left alone, he spent those days drawing the sketches with pencil and when he had even more time, he started filling them with colors even though it was never his intention in the beginning. After that, he also started playing a lot of video games.

Adding 2 more hobbies made the summer holidays pass by extremely quickly and the new school years started once again. Immediately after returning back to school, Toyama who used to be the captain and 3rd year naturally graduated however no other 3rd year wanted to be captain and gave this responsibility to Yuichi who found it a bit strange. However once the same thing happened exactly the same day at the basketball club, he was sure that there was an ulterior motive behind it.

'Are they trying to tie me to them? Or maybe they just had the same idea and they tried to name me the captain solely to make me focus more on their club instead of the other one...' Yuichi thought with a troubled expression since his workload as a captain of 2 clubs raised by a lot.

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A few months in the 2nd year.

Today, the soccer club had a practice match against the other school that arrived to play against them in their own field. Obviously, it was already after the classes ended so a few people decided to stop by and have a look.

----A smaller grandstand at the field----

"Hey look, that's Iwamura Yuichi! He is just a 2nd-year student and he is already a captain!" A 3rd-year boy said with an excited expression while watching the match and pointing at Yuichi who was currently coordinating the team on the offense side.

"He is my classmate and I can't figure out how he can be so attentive during the classes when he practices so much. Just looking at this match makes me sweat as hell..." A 2nd-year boy who was sitting next to the 3rd-year boy added with a disbelieving expression.

"Hm? Is he really that amazing?" Two 1st-year girls who were sitting on the benches nearby asked with doubtful expressions but this made the boys only turn at them with a dumbfounded expression.

"Just watch the match and you will see, he usually only plays the playmaker during the first half and when the second half starts, he immediately turn into completely different player, he turns into the most aggressive player I have ever seen in our school and there are a lot of students having different play styles. And even though he isn't scoring right now, can't you see how he is coordinating the entire team?" The 2nd-year boy replied while turning back to the match.

"I don't think that's what they asked about but even though all that, what really is amazing is the fact that he is the first student to become captain of 2 different clubs and at his 2nd year at that! Do you realize how much work it has got to take?" The 3rd-year boy added since those girls didn't look like they came to observe all details in this entire match so he used the most shocking known fact.

"What?! Is that even allowed to be the captain of 2 different clubs? W-Wait, is it even allowed to attend 2 different clubs?!" The girls were completely shocked and had to quickly ask additional questions.

"Well, he somehow got permission from the school and when our school got to the nationals previous year in both soccer and basketball, we got 3rd and 4th place respectively. With a great margin of those results were thanks to him due to him being able to coordinate the team and create better chemistry between teammates. After the school realized how big role Iwamura's help played in this, they even started supporting him, giving him the easier assignments, free meals, and even free field trips!" The 3rd-year who had some inside information from someone from the club explained with an envious look in his eyes.

"Whoa..." Both girls exclaimed with now dumbfounded expressions as they started to stare more attentively at the match.

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"Let's score even more!" Yuichi shouted with a wild smile and suddenly burst past his defender with the ball.

"What kind of acceleration is that?!" His defender cursed and immediately began sprinting behind him at full speed to stop him.

However, Yuichi suddenly sent the ball back with the tap of his heel without breaking off his sprint. The ball went straight between the guy's legs, finding its way exactly to Ren who was closely following the two of them.

Yuichi's defender obviously stopped running after Yuichi since he wanted to go after the ball however at that time he still had no idea that Ren is right behind him.

"Shit!" The defender looked back towards Yuichi who was already a few meters before the penalty area.

"Let's go!" Ren shouted with a wide smile while sending the ball back in the air to Yuichi who flawlessly received his friend's pass however at that time, another 2 defenders arrived to him from each side, blocking his opportunity to shoot.

Yuichi just provocatively smiled at his defenders while guarding the ball and waiting for the right moment.

Yuichi looked ahead at the penalty area where his 2 other teammates were which alarmed his defenders, ready to intercept the pass, however...

"Yu-chan!" When Yuichi finally heard Ren's voice from behind him, more dominantly in his left ear, without any preliminary movement he suddenly just kicked the ball to the left side with the side of his right foot where Ren made the shot right off the pass and the ball flew right to the top right corner of the Goal, nicely going in without any keeper's touch.

"Yeah! It's in!" Ren exclaimed with a relieved expression while jogging to Yuichi, holding up his hand.

Yuichi was looking at him approaching him with a smile however when he noticed something on his arm his eyes widened as he suddenly lost focus.

"Hey, what's up?" When he heard Ren's voice, he finally woke up from his daze.

"Nothing, that was a nice one!" Yuichi quickly smiled back and went for that high five.

Ren thanked him before jogging back to his team's half of the field however Yuichi remained standing at the same place.

'What the hell happened to you, Ren?' Yuichi thought with narrowed eyes as numerous nasty thoughts began to flow inside his mind. It was the first time, Yuichi had this suspicious-serious expression and it definitely gave a dangerous feeling to the players of the other team.

"Umm, you should go back to your half" One of his opponents suddenly warned him, waking him up from his thoughts.

"Hm? Yeah...I apologize about that" Yuichi turned at the one who spoke to him before he softened his expression and replied with a polite smile.