He laughs. "You guys gossip worse than the kids back at Nada did."

"No we don't."

"No you don't," he agrees.

"Good to have confirmation that you're from Nada, though."

He rolls his eyes and looks away again. "Well, I'll add you to my mental list of queers at Shimamoto, and I'll stick up for you."

"Amen."

"Ishida-san! I'd been looking for you."

The boy startles and turns around, looking a bit like a deer caught in headlights. "—ah, Iwasaki. Hello..."

...that response was a little...

"Something wrong?"

"No, no, I'm fine, it's fine, uh..."

"...alright. Anyway, regarding the football team tryouts—"

He looks away. "Right, about those..."

A small alarm sounds in the back of his head. Up until yesterday Ishida had been nagging Yutaka a lot about joining 'cause he thought Yutaka looked fit, but now...

There's only one thing that changed since then.

He rubs the back of his left forearm with his right hand. "...I think that might not be such a great idea after all?"

So he had been avoiding Yutaka, huh.

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I mean, uhhhh," he clears his throat, "it's a boys' team? And the boys might get, uh, a bit uncomfortable if, I mean, in the changing room—"

"Ah. That's about the rumours, huh?"

Ishida blinks and looks at Yutaka. "Uh?"

"Tell me, Ishida-san. Are you in the habit of believing everything you hear?"

Blink blink. "Wait, uh, you mean, I mean—?"

"What do I mean, what do I mean, I wonder.

"A little bit of advice, Ishida-san, this one for free: you should be a bit more careful with how readily you make decisions based on what you think you may or may not know."

He turns red, both with embarrassment and anger. "Now hold on a minute—"

"But thank you for this little chat, it's been informative. I think I've decided against trying out after all. Have a good one!"

"Iwasaki! Catch!"

Wha—