Of course Unmei knows who Sonozaki Airu is.
After seeing that first match between Hokuyou and Raimon, he pretty much fell into a complete frenzy and looked up everything there was to look up about Endou Haru: his Spring Cup matches, news clips, what he could gather from his Junior League days, several unofficial fan clubs, and wading through the midst of content farm articles, the name Sonozaki Airu is one that comes up more than once or twice.
He was said to be equally talented as Endou Haru. (Or possibly even more so!)
What Unmei could find about Sonozaki Airu was remarkably less than what he could find about Endou Haru. There was an interview, some online articles, and a photo of him in his youth team, all from years ago. Why his youth team? Did he not play anymore?
And as Unmei mused how none of these big city Tokyo star team kids were allowed any privacy at all, he stumbled upon a news story in a blogpost with a much more somber tone, about a boy who ran into traffic and died.
The boyās full name was omitted from the news article itself, but the author of the blog post seemed convinced that itās about Sonozaki Airu, recounting the time and location of the tragedy, and linking it to Sonozaki Airuās disappearance from the public eye.
It was a convincing blogpost. It was obvious that the author cared about it deeply. Too deeply. All this over a stranger that had nothing to do with any of them, and it was one thing to dig, another thing to post it all online like this for anyone to see.
Well, of course, blogposts like these were helpful to nosy people like Unmei. He was hardly in any position to judge.
Sometimes Haru moves to open doors for him. Itās deliberateā he does a little jog to get ahead. Regular middle school boys donāt think to do that for their friends.
Itās not just doors either, Haru is a whole gentleman, always walking on the outer side of the road thatās closer to the driveway. Unmei gets the entire princess treatment with him, and it gets on his nerves, just a little, just enough, like sand trickling down to the bottom half of an hourglass, or maybe more like straws piling up.
Haru fidgets, by the way, if anyone can believe that. Unmei couldnāt, at first.
He brings about natural disasters on the field, but off of it, he canāt stop rubbing his scarf between his fingers when heās nervous.
āUnmeiā¦ā he calls hesitantly, like heād rather be moving his mouth in the opposite order for a different name. āI-...ā
Is it something addressed to Unmei, really? Is he sure he has the right person?
āIām not Sonozaki Airu,ā he reminds Haru gently. He didnāt know Haru could turn this pale.
