The Rise of the Iron Wall!

Chapter 175: Hori is Back! The End of the Drama!

Another silence fell on the rooftop, but this time, Hori just stared at Kenji in disbelief.

"Are you serious?! You take 20 days to complete 30 juggles?!" His eyes widened in shock, as if wanting to say that the story was too alien for him to consider it as the truth.

Kenji himself felt the corner of his mouth twitching madly when he heard that. The boy really wanted to correct it, saying that it was just 20 minutes. However, looking at his hopeful senpai in front of him, Kenji couldn’t bear to fix his mistake, so he just nodded here.

"Yeah, that was like an eternity for me..." He laughed. It wasn’t wrong, since the boy really felt that those 20 minutes were the longest he had experienced in his life.

However, this was enough to shake Hori’s entire belief.

"20 days even for a genius like him...Even I could do that just in 6 days..." He muttered in disbelief.

"The thing, though, Senpai, we might be a genius in some eyes, but we also have our own struggles," Kenji added, somehow feeling like this mistake was a good thing for the older boy. "The others are probably the same. You don’t know this, but Hiroshi-senpai is probably not good at something at the beginning, or even Mamoru from Shimizu Higashi! We are too in love with this sport, though, too stubborn to give up on our way."

’...Love, huh?’ Hori murmured. It would be a lie if he said that he wasn’t moved by the description, remembering all the sweat and tears he shed on the pitch. It might not get a high result, but it was also the highlight of his life.

He was still hesitant, though. The story might sway him back to the team’s direction, but it seemed that he was too afraid to take the first step. So, noticing this, Kenji decided to lend a hand again.

"That 30 juggles? I end up doing it in almost every session, a reminder that no matter how much trouble I have to face, in the end, as long as I am locked in, there will be no problem. Well, it might be a problem, but as long as I work hard enough, the solution will come to me so naturally. Don’t worry about anything else, just go at your own pace."

After that, he left, letting Hori digest his words carefully. On his way, he also met Kumiko, who had just left the teacher’s office, and his eyes perked immediately as the boy strolled around lightly to walk next to her side.

"So, you have already finished your business, Shishida-senpai?" He asked.

"Yup. Why are you still here, though?" Kumiko asked back. However, she didn’t even bat her eyes at his presence, as if the girl had already known the answer at this point. "Did you skip the session with Makino-kun again? You will give him grey hair, you know?" She sighed helplessly.

"Eh, it will be good to let him know that his authority doesn’t work on everyone here. Keeping him humble." The boy laughed playfully.

As they were closer to the pitch, though, Kumiko finally asked the most important question here. "So, how is it going? Do you think it is possible to get Hori-kun

back to the team?"

Yeah, she might not say it out loud, but the girl knew that Kenji was coming again to Hori’s side earlier. Honestly, she had never expected that this narcissistic boy was the one to step up when the team was in crisis, and the girl would’ve never expected that Hori and Kenji, two boys who didn’t have anything in common, could be this close with each other.

Still, since it worked, why would she want to complain about it?

Kenji himself also knew that Kumiko would notice this. He didn’t question it, just answering with a shrug. "I mean, I have done everything I could. Now, it depends on whether he dares to take the step or not. But I think you will see him back on the team sooner or later, so don’t worry."

Hearing this, a wave of relief hit Kumiko hard, and tension ebbed away from her shoulder. She might not look like that, but the girl was so pressured by the thought of Hori leaving. Although Denki was indeed a stronger player, Hori had a special place in everyone’s heart, and it could affect the whole team’s unity.

"Thank you for your hard work, Kenji-kun." She mumbled softly.

Still, the girl didn’t tell the others straight away about the news. After all, the boy himself wasn’t here yet, and she didn’t want to give false hope to them.

This made the training session so grim, though. A lot of players couldn’t concentrate better, making some stupid and even horrifying mistakes here and there. They were definitely not on the level where they could challenge the best team in the prefecture; that was for sure.

Hori himself was still on the rooftop, digesting everything that Kenji had said earlier. His eyes were on his hand, especially the shoe bag where he carried his football boots. Yeah, even though he decided to leave the team, the boy still brought this item to the school, as if he was ready to go for the next training session here.

He just sighed out loud one more time, staring at the sky while also trying to fix the mess inside his head. So many conflicting thoughts were there, from how it would be useless for him to go back to the team to the one that he was not ready to give up on everything yet.

In the end, he finally took a deep breath, smiling wryly as a decision came out of his brain.

’Oh, fuck it. It seems I am not ready to give up my football career yet.’ He clenched his fist so tightly, this time his gaze was not lost anymore. ’Damn! I’m going to be late for the training session today! Let’s just hope that Shishida-senpai is giving me some sort of tolerance here!’