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**A Supporting Character's Perspective**

It’s similar to kendo.
It’s like that feeling after a match starts, where you're unsure of your first move.
Even when faced with what should be a limited number of options, hesitation arises about what to do.
It’s like my two eyes and hands are trying to grasp things separately.
My voice cracks, and the thoughts in my head don't quite reach my body.
When I can't stand it anymore during that time, do I keep my distance or charge in?
I usually choose the latter, though.
But with this current, similar-yet-different problem, I don't have the guts to choose charging in.
Ah, what a coward.
Apparently, its name is “love.”

I've never liked sweet things.
And yet, Ebihara Kanae falls in love often.
If I tried giving it a title like that… my cheeks felt like they’d burst into flames from embarrassment. Suddenly—
“Hey, Ebihara. The flame’s too strong.”
Whoa! Are my thoughts completely obvious to Kaneko sitting across from me?! Getting flustered, I shook my hair wildly, and Kaneko warned me again, “Hey, that's dangerous!” This time, he accompanied it by pressing the heel of his hand against my forehead.

.........Hm? The message from my senses finally resonated through every corner of my mind. It seems Kaneko's warning was referring to the blue flame of the gas burner we're using for the chemistry experiment. Making a fuss over nothing.
But looking down at my hands, sure enough, a blaze like a wildfire scaled down to one-fiftieth was starting to make my fingertips tingle. What's more, if Kaneko hadn't pushed my forehead back, my bangs would've been singed from leaning forward. Kaneko's pretty observant, I thought, mentally flipping my hand.
Fourth period on June 2nd should normally be time spent in the classroom chanting "H, He, Li, Be..." or whatever, but thanks to the chemistry teacher's whim, we sometimes have experiments in the science lab. Since I'm in the kendo club anyway (with an 800% humanities bias), whether I'm staring down a textbook or dealing with fire makes no real difference to me.
Sitting on a four-legged, warped chair that looks like something a middle schooler made in tech class, at a desk so old you'd expect termites, it's a class where I just end up sighing. Besides, what kind of lesson involves making Bekko ame? It's like an elementary school science club.
Still, the smell of burning protein is unbearable; it makes my heart feel smeared with sludge.
I almost threw up once when I got burned back in middle school. So, I grabbed the valve to adjust the output—
“Whoa!” Kaneko yelped in surprise—it was an unexpected 'Osotogari' from Ebihara Kanae's slipped finger. I'd knocked the gas burner over sideways. Everyone around jumped back instantly from the flames showering the desk, which had a yellowish-green surface. Spurred into a panic by the commotion, though my technique was abysmal, I managed to get the fire under control before it spread to notebooks or textbooks and before the chemistry teacher heard about this blunder. The flame pointed towards the ceiling once more.
Just as I was about to proudly declare, "See? Back to normal!", I looked around and saw everyone's wariness hadn't faded. Ah, right, because the flame itself was still going strong. Once I finally managed to adjust the flame strength too, my lab partners returned to their stations, like children in a forest peeking out from the shade once the noisy people have left.
One spot on the upper right of the desk is blackened. “This is so-called carbonization,” I muttered, imitating the chemistry teacher to gloss over my blunder to myself. Good grief.

Girls' Kendo Club Captain, Class 3-D, Ebihara Kanae.
I'm at least self-aware enough to know I'm clearly not the type of character who gets to be the protagonist.
So calm down, Ebihara Kanae. Your name doesn't sound like something out of classical Chinese for nothing, you know. But what a dangerous yet convenient name, Ebihara Kanae. If I were a character in a novel, my appearances would skyrocket just to pad the character count, Ebihara Kanae. Ebi... (abbreviated). .........Ngh, I can't write it anymore. Like some god... This isn't the time to get my thoughts blocked by fictional restrictions. The problem is this ditzy head of mine. It's stuffed full of non-combustible junk, causing worries mixed with a headache that feels like my frontal lobe is about to burst like red berries.

My headache hasn't gotten any better lately. If it's not due to stiff shoulders, judging from my usual test scores, maybe I'm worrying and overthinking things? I thought about buying some medicine at the nurse's office once class ended and lunch break started, but when I looked up at the clock, there were still over thirty minutes left. Unbelievable.
Aargh, entrance exams, debt, finding a job—all that is still far off, so why do I have to suffer like this now?
Did this Shrimp Kanae do something wrong...? Um, let's see, which one could it be? Was it enjoying that baseball tournament during morning practice using tennis balls and carbon shinai? Or was it disassembling a shinai, combining two parts, tying the top and bottom with string, and playing with the bow I made? Or maybe it was when I just straightforwardly smashed a ventilation window pane playing soccer. No, I should have been scolded and punished for that one. Before I could destroy the evidence, a serious club member snitched on me, the advisor lectured me, and I got suspended from club activities for a month. Damn you, Biwashima Yagoto.

But thinking about it, it's strangely terrifying. Looking back at the past, I've even rapped murderer number one, Sugawara, on the head, and I've thrashed number two, Biwashima, in practice matches.
What were they thinking at the time?
Or rather, if I'd been introduced to them at our first meeting as murderers, I seriously doubt I could have maintained a frank attitude. At the very least, I wouldn't have heckled them for striking out.
The floating sensation clings to me—the fact that I was chatting amicably with two people who possessed hands for which "Drop dead" wouldn't pass as a joke. Why were those two doing kendo so diligently while also killing people?
Both of them hated losing at everything.
Sugawara's fighting style could be summed up in one word: calm. Contrary to his naturally arrogant personality, the structure of his attacks followed the fundamentals and was precise. His shinai upswing, suriashi, zanshin—all just right. He was just plain strong.

Biwashima, in contrast, was usually as uninteresting as cold pilaf, despite being pretty, but the moment hitting an opponent was permitted under the pretext of a "match," she suddenly became aggressive. However, she wasn't *that* strong. This Ebihara Kanae could snatch victory just by training with soccer and baseball practice swings, then mixing in her assets from middle school. But, to counter that, her downward shinai swings were heavy.
When we had our first practice match in our first year, her strength was so brutish that my hand went numb during tsubazeriai, and I dropped my shinai. She must have hit my men six times in that interval. After it ended, while I was grumbling, "What the hell was the ref doing?", she asked with an innocent look, "What were you doing, dropping your shinai?" And ah, how mysterious—my temper flared.
Beating her soundly in a later unlimited match out of spite is also a fond memory. And then, Kamioka's grandma... my first love in middle school... Wait! Don't let this turn into my life flashing before my eyes. What's important is the now.

Needless to say, "the now" doesn't include things like this sickly sweet yellow candy, or Kaneko handling it listlessly, or the pair of girls next to me abandoning the experiment to chat about stuff like, "Next month's finals are sooo annoying, kinda wanna say." What's important is the thing nesting in my heart.
A parasitic emotion, devouring my sense of shame and reason. This thing has been snatching away Ebihara Kanae's peace since April.
The kendo club's advisor changed this year. And the new advisor, well, he's got my brain in a death grip. Basically, he teaches P.E. for the third years, but just as you'd expect from someone who's trained, his grip strength is *insane*! *Squish, crush*—those upper arms just made my heart *pound*! Yeah, the teacher's the absolute best! Basically, what I want to say is—Shiritori start: Rinse, Maki (roll), Kirigirisu (grasshopper), Script, Toss, Ski, Isu (chair), Suburi (swing), Risu (squirrel), Suika (watermelon), Kasu (dregs), Su, Su-su-su-su SKYDIVING, kinda like that!
So, Tekumakumayakon, make me the protagonist of a rom-com novel! ...Like hell that's gonna happen, huh?! Besides, if I *did* become one, that'd be a problem in itself. Because, you know, it means I'd have to start trying hard. Try hard at *what*?! Are you telling me to greet the teacher with a cheerful "Mornin'!" and a big smile?! Consider my personality, damn it! If I did that, our friendly relationship would be totally obvious to everyone else, I tell ya! He'd be totally put off, I tell ya! It doesn't suit me, that's why I'm talking to him while wearing a mask and hiding my true face, I tell ya!
Ah, but maybe protagonists just rest their chin on their hand doing nothing, and the person they like just comes over to them? That would be a problem too... How should I react? Just acting suspicious isn't going to make him think, "Wow, what an interesting girl," and raise his affection points or anything... Ah, but maybe there's protagonist plot armor or something?

Anyway, I wish my feelings would just behave and stop running wild. It's too much for my heart and the pit of my stomach.
This Ebihara Kanae is becoming like Yamane-kun, unable to go anywhere without stomach medicine.
Besides, just seeing the teacher's face causes a noticeable rise in my body temperature. Burning up fueled by this impossible crush might be fine, whatever, but that should be a winter-only thing! It's the rainy season now! Consider the season! I wish I could just rattle off a lecture like that to myself. Either way, I can't just let this feeling run wild. That would be... sad. That's why it's so damn annoying.
Right now, as a form of escapism, I want to make the flame in front of me flare up again with enough force to reach the moon. Melt the ceiling, that's fine! Let the students in the classroom above turn to gel! This maiden in love has simultaneously awakened the qualities of an arsonist.
Gah, if I actually got serious about that, it would just be the final nail in the coffin proving this high school's kendo club is a den of evil.
Our reputation's gotten really bad lately... Our kendo club, I mean... what were those two thinking, becoming murderers? And we don't even have enough players for soccer now. Our team's playing soccer with some absurd 5-1-1 formation, you know? Feels like there are problems beyond just the number of players, though. Oh well, we're amateurs, so as long as we're having fun playing, it's fine.

It's just that if those two were here, it would be a little more fun, that's all.
Well, the moment the advisor changed, the 'paradise factor' for the club was pretty much secured anyway—
No, no, this Ebi-something... what's with the 'something'? Even abbreviating it like that is six characters, not much different from writing the full name, Ebihara Kanae. Who's the one typing on this word processor in my head?
The previous advisor was unpopular. From the way he arranged his shoes before entering the dojo, to the way his mouth curled, his words, his actions—absolutely everything about him was detested by the club members. He was one of those hot-blooded, deluded 'sports-guts' teachers (the 'guts' part completely missing the point), so he got too carried away on his own, and nobody tried to follow him. Even B-hara Kanae was bothered by the hairiness of his arms. The Sugawara and Biwashima incidents had a considerable influence on the reason for the advisor change, so in that sense, it's complicated that there are aspects where I should be grateful to those two. Somehow, I feel like doing a backbend.
“Want some candy?” Kaneko asks, holding out a washed beaker into which he's transferred fragments of the Bekko ame.
I remember mentioning several times during club activities that I dislike sweet things, so is it okay for me to interpret this as harassment? I did like the candy an old lady used to give me because it wasn't that sweet, though. When I was a kid, there used to be a strange old lady in my neighborhood who would just persistently stuff candy into your mouth. That woman got hospitalized at some point, but I liked her because she sometimes gave me mysterious candy. However, sometimes she tried to make me lick small, round, white pebbles, so I also kind of disliked her.
“Don't need it,” I replied curtly in three syllables, avoiding Kaneko's “harassment,” then covered my mouth with the palm of the hand supporting my chin.

Rather than putting something in my mouth, my tongue is complaining of a thirst that makes me want to drink water right now. The parasite in my heart generates a huge amount of heat, so my thirst is rapid and vicious.
But somehow, I don't feel like drinking the tap water in the science lab. There's something similar to how, back in elementary school, I wouldn't drink from the sinks inside the school building, but for some reason, I'd run out past the shoe lockers to the drinking fountain just outside to get water. Image increases or decreases the value of a substance.
In this way, the everyday time students spend at school changes its color and volume depending on what each person feels, coming to provide liberation, pressure, and enemies.
The advisor, too, is abnormally beautified when viewed through Ebihara Kanae's eyeballs, but seen by others, he might just be an annoying person. No, no, especially when it comes to *that* teacher, that surely can't be true, right? Ahh, why have I fallen for him so much that my gaze is mixed with such favoritism? I wonder if Miss Maiden here ends up imagining things like, "What's the teacher doing right now?" It's raining during P.E. class, so maybe they're doing volleyball or something now? Like him quietly watching over the students making the gym echo with *bang bang* noises.

Imagining the teacher made sweat bead up again. The stuff coming out of my scalp vividly stimulates my sense of touch. Was rain always this stiflingly hot? The haze before my eyes, like solidified humidity, is awful. More than the summer heat that beats down so hard your memories feel like they'll turn into dried fish, this is the toughest season.
Mold grows on kendo kote and men, too. Once that stuff starts propagating, it's a pain to remove. So, ultimately, lots of people jump to the conclusion of just leaving it alone. Naturally, it starts to stink. In the final stage, you get used to it and stop noticing. When that spreads, the bullying-like public opinion that "the kendo club stinks" emerges, you see.

What an unpleasant club activity. And with the upcoming tournament, now that those two are gone, the range for member selection has really narrowed... It must be tough for Kaneko, the interim boys' captain, too. Though you wouldn't imagine it from his face stuffing itself with Bekko ame. Maybe he's not really thinking about it much at all.
And as for the girls' captain, Ebihara Kanae, she herself isn't exactly someone who should just straightforwardly participate.
I hardly practiced at all during my second year... Even though I'm captain, is it okay for me to compete in the summer tournament? But, the individual matches... It's my last chance, so maybe participating would be the 'youthful' thing to do...
Besides, at this late stage, do I even have the motivation to do kendo seriously?
Aren't you just going to see the advisor, blushing, and drinking tea?
......No, no, that's stupid, haha. ......Haha, well, maybe.
Well? How about it, Ebihara Kanae?
Do you just want to show off for that teacher?
No, but I have been doing kendo since middle school... Hmmm... Back then, we swung shinai in the gym, not a kendo dojo. But I wonder why...?
Now, maybe it's because the teacher is here, but back then, what was it?
Maybe I should try seriously thinking about that for a bit.

To solve the mystery of my heart, I guess I have no choice but to sort out my head. How about it...? How is it...? ...A five-yen coin... how...
I endured.
In the summer of my first year, I became captain. That was because all the second years had quit by that point. Incidentally, half of the people in my year had also quit by then. Practice was tough. To make a reasonably strong kendo club even stronger, the advisor relied on a connection to bring in a coach who was a typical 'demon'. He wore a green tracksuit top and bottom, so we called him Midori Oni—Green Demon. The color was unusual.
He was the kind of old guy who'd hit members on their bare heads with a shinai if they were even slightly slow putting on their men or tare. The third-year members, both boys and girls, were used to it and accepted it as normal, but the first years, knowing the reason the second years weren't around, became hesitant. Biwashima, I recall, used to make a disgusted-looking grimace.
Midori Oni's practices seemed structured purely for efficient vomiting, making members run to the washroom or dribble sticky fluids from the gaps in their men. Only the two competitive ones endured until they got home.
It was effective enough for weight loss that people around got worried, but at a rate of about one per week, my female friends transferred to other clubs. Ichimiya, who transferred to the softball club, said, "My boyfriend's worried about me getting too skinny, so I'm quitting," her cheeks turning bright red, looking impossibly happy. I felt like hitting her with a shinai.

By mid-June, when the fifteen new members had dwindled to seven, the downward trend in membership finally subsided. Midori Oni put on his own gear to instruct the members, and also held matches—partly to relieve the stress inherent in disciplining cheeky brats. He seemed dedicated solely to kendo, so initially, as expected, nobody could beat him.
That's when Sugawara, a first year at the time, fully displayed his competitive nature, and using some slight rule-bending, managed to beat Midori Oni. After that, in addition to the regular practice, extreme discrimination towards certain members started appearing. Naturally, Sugawara was disliked [by the coach]. Next was Biwashima, who crushed Midori Oni with kendo mixed with even more fouls.
Personally, I think the fact they were having matches without a referee was the problem. But Midori Oni started obviously harassing those two. Of course, both of them retaliated. Specifically, things in the changing room... (details omitted).
Kaneko, well, he was treated normally. He's a guy with no distinguishing features. Good at defense, but a third-rate goalkeeper. Or rather, if *he* had managed to catch my Shrimp Shoot (Guts Consumption: 200) instead of just deflecting it with his hands, the sacred kendo dojo's window wouldn't have been smashed. Thinking about it now, it seems like something I'd get angry about, but since it's a dream, there's no real feeling to it.
So, what about Ebihara Kanae, abbreviated as 'Eh'? She was also treated normally. I neither liked nor disliked Midori Oni, so he probably picked up on that vibe.
The enemy of everyday life is boredom. When boredom becomes too much, you start wanting to change your days yourself.
And for Midori Oni, everyday life was things related to kendo. But that was about to be swept away by boredom. Boredom usually refers to a situation where you aren't needed by anyone. Midori Oni understood that, so he was desperately resisting it—that was the selfish, unspoken empathy I felt.
Because I also felt that if I quit the club, I'd have nothing to do and would lose sight of the small details of everyday life. So I was able to somehow keep going with the club. And compared to my middle school days, I had more stamina, so it was easier.
In middle school, I joined the kendo club for the reason that "the sunlight looks too harsh for outdoor sports clubs." I only learned it was actually one of the most prestigious [dojos/clubs] in the area a year and a half after joining, when I took over as captain. Practice back then was about five times stricter, with members pushing themselves voluntarily, than in high school. Me joining as a beginner was like a single shrimp deciding to hang out with families at the public pool. Know your place! Nevertheless, for some reason, I was entrusted with the captaincy, so I needed to get stronger. And I did end up being the strongest one around.
And so, came the first July of my first year in high school. Around the end of the rainy season, with the tournament looming. Midori Oni unceremoniously disappeared, saying his coaching position at another school's kendo club had been decided. Apparently, he'd gotten an offer from a school overwhelmingly more prestigious than ours and got carried away. Everyone except the third years who blindly followed him gave it a huge welcome. We first years even tried having a drinking party by ourselves. It was everyone's first time drinking alcohol; we all got smashed. Biwashima drank the most.

Naturally, the third years monopolized the regular spots for the team competition in the tournament. However, on the boys' side, Sugawara's name was listed for the chuken position. Sugawara had a triumphant expression, like "Well, naturally," looking down on his upperclassmen.
Except for Kaneko, the others had initially been bewildered by Sugawara, who was a year older, when they first entered school, but by that time, they were completely comfortable speaking casually with each other and were friends. He was the kind of guy suited to manga-like expressions such as "mysteriously attracts people." Mystique rating: Good, something like that.
So, after winning some and losing some at the tournament, the upperclassmen happily retired.
With the reason I was entrusted with the captaincy still unclear, from September I ended up leading the hollow, newly formed girls' kendo club. The very first thing I did was start playing soccer during morning practice.
The reason was that a sci-fi manga I was reading at the time featured a soccer boy, and it was depicted in a way that looked fun. As long as we did club activities, played, and killed time, anything was fine.
Besides, I understood that what the current members expected from me as captain—setting aside the alumni and advisor—wasn't strict practice or anything like that.
However, since there were only seven girls, I needed to involve the boys too. I devised a plan and proposed, "Hey, let's have matches with mixed-gender teams!" and the adolescent brats bit, needing not even shrimp for bait but just the hook itself. The fact that we surprisingly had a gathering of the school's beauties probably also worked effectively (though naturally, I didn't neglect the effort required to try and pride myself on being number one, this Ebihara Kanae).
Sugawara and others took the initiative, becoming friends with the ball and using their feet. "This serves as practice in its own way," he'd said in his arrogant tone, but the possibility that he was simply girl-crazy cannot be denied.
Biwashima, too, was nothing but sarcastic at first, saying things like, "This *is* the kendo club, you know," but after we incorporated baseball too, she started participating with a more positive attitude. For some reason, I feel like Ichimiya was also joining in from the sidelines.
Evening club practice involved just enough training for sweat to dry on our gear and leave salt crystals behind. It was just repeating that.
Perhaps influenced by the fact we didn't have to be formal since there were no upperclassmen, club activities became fun. In inverse proportion, our tournament results declined, but nobody regretted it except the advisor and the competitive ones.
When we advanced to second year, underclassmen who weren't exactly pure and naive came flooding in.
And after the number of members increased, morning practice gradually started becoming boring. Moderation is key in all things. That applies to member numbers too. The dojo wasn't spacious enough for the swollen ranks to fully play around in, so we gradually started returning to more serious practice content.
Above all, one strong kendo practitioner had joined among the underclassmen. He was serious and hot-blooded, the type who seemed to dream of the weak defeating the strong. An outstanding talent who could have become a protagonist if he didn't take a wrong step.
Blamed by the underclassmen—centered around the strong newcomer—as the cause of the frivolous club activities, it turned into something like a light witch trial, so before summer, I imposed self-restraint and stopped showing my face in the clubroom. Even if I tried to object, the advisor at the time took the underclassmen's side, so it was too much trouble. I tried to hand over the captain title to someone, but Biwashima and the others bluntly pushed back, saying, "Kanae is fine." After that, I think Biwashima added a reason, saying, "Because... um... because, something-or-other..." I forgot.

Then, in autumn, Sugawara Michizane got caught, and Kaneko became the interim captain.
In winter, Biwashima Yagoto got caught, and the 'ghost captain' was held responsible.
After becoming a third year, I started showing my face at the club again.
With two familiar faces gone, I became a little anxious about whether we could make full use of the dojo just for playing around.
To check that, I tried starting the ball game morning practices again.
Maybe because the 'competitive personnel' were gone, it was just people following along without any challenge, which was anticlimactic at first.

Anyway, what's going to happen to those two now? The death penalty?
Hmm, it's a complicated feeling. Even now, I can't really think of them as bad people.
If they're going to die, well, that's sad. If I found out for sure, I might cry a little.
Though if I were to carefully watch someone close to me being killed up close by Sugawara Michizane, or perhaps Biwashima Yagoto, with my own eyes, I do feel like I would be frightened.
Even so, it's doubtful whether I could come to hate them. Oh well, that's not related to the dream I was just having, though.
The number of members had decreased a bit. Apparently, the strong underclassman had also quit, disappointed in the other low-level members. He must have been a kid who didn't know the meaning of 'knowing your place.' They say kids like that don't improve much. My older cousin often says that forcing things doesn't lead to genuine continuation, too.
Last year, the group of underclassmen who had been hostile towards me came to apologize as a group, so I forgave them, saying, "It doesn't matter." It was nothing more than an emotional state prior to forgiveness. I hadn't hated them anyway.
Kicking some balls around again, my boredom was slightly alleviated. The uncertain future of my daily life also straightened out somewhat.
Because of boredom, your feet start wanting to go not just forward, but sideways and diagonally too.
Were those two also lured by boredom into killing people?
“Ebiharaaa, wake up!”
I felt like the hair on the crown of my head was poked by someone's second knuckle. Actually, something did land on my head with a *thump*, and combined with the voice, that's why I wiped the sweat from my forehead and woke up.
I fixed my hair, which had been parted over my shoulder, with my hand and looked up. The girl in the next seat (aka Tanaka)—who, though it's not really relevant now, is mischievous and steals side dishes daily from our timid classmate Fukutomi—was smiling exasperatedly.
“You're sleeping too much. What's up with you lately?”
I thought about saying something like, "The advisor doesn't let me sleep at night," but that seemed likely to cause misunderstandings, so I refrained. As if that would make the teacher burst into a double feature of deep emotion and grateful tears... *zzbwarrr*... No way.
Having just woken up, my tongue wasn't working right, and my headache was bothering me, so I skipped replying.
But was I sleeping and therefore dreaming, or dreaming and therefore sleeping? Hmm, philosophy isn't my strong suit. The teacher even teased me about probably being low on iron...
And the dream... I'm pretty sure I met Biwashima and Sugawara. There was a pretty flower garden... No, not that.
But it felt like encountering those two was impossible now, unless it was in a dream.
I looked up at the paint-peeling clock above the blackboard.