Kabedon: Part 2 of A Tanabata Story

Chapter 3

The two teams were evenly matched. The ball continually flew back and forth over the net in furious volleys despite  the players' growing fatigue. Gasping, Miko crouched before net on the front line as the other team chased down the ball and returned it to their server. She yanked her long ponytail back. It kept grabbing at her face and wrapping around her throat, plastering itself against her with her own sweat. It would be good to end this quickly.

She tugged at her soaked shirt, breaking the suction with which it clung to her body. She barely noticed the hoots and whistles coming from somewhere nearby, but she did catch the flash of Junko's glasses as Junko's head snapped to the ball court's fence.

The opposing team served up the ball low and fast. A back row passer misjudged the speed and sent the ball to the club's president who deflected it upwards. "Get it!" she shouted as the ball slowed and fell toward the net in a high arc. The blockers on the other side crouched, ready for an easy spike if the ball should look like it might even get close to crossing the net.

Miko tensed and rocketed into the air. Her opponent's blocking hands barely rose to the height of Miko's shoulders. Spectators gasped and cheered as she pounded the ball into the ground. But then, as she dropped, her embarrassingly oversized breasts caught the top of the net.  It burned in a long scrape up the length of her shooting arm , pulling her into the net and twisting her fall.

She landed on the side of her left foot. It rolled under her and knives of pain sheered through her ankle. She fell on her ass with a gasping cry and curled up to grasp her ankle, her eyelids clenched against leaking tears. 

A male voice shouted. "Looks like the net caught something big!" Numerous male voices joined his laughter.

"I'd say two big things," another added.

Baka! I should have set Yamada up for the spike. With a blinding flash of clarity, Miko finally understood the depths of her arrogance and pride. 

The faces of everyone who had been counting on her flashed across her mind: her father's expression of confident expectation as he outlined her future, the hidden pride tugging at the corners of her mother's mouth as she pretended to complain about her daughter spending "too much" time studying, the furtive smile of her teachers as they discussed their "other" students, treating Miko as almost a peer, the patient chiding of her sport coaches, her math tutors, her English tutors —all of her tutors— even her poetry, flower arranging, kimono and tea service instructors... each had assured her of her outstanding potential... if only she would focus a little more, work a little harder or spend a little more time in practice.

She had let them all down.

Miko's breath hissed through clenched teeth as she writhed on the ground.

Whatever it was that she had needed to reach that potential, she just didn't seem to have. Despite re-doubling her efforts with each failure, she had still come up short.

One of the senpais at the edge of the ball courts shouted. "You're pretty good at handling balls. Let me know if I can help you practice."

She had betrayed them all. Worse than that, she had lied to them by pretending she could do it.

Miko remembered the look of frightened awe from the boy she had bumped into in the school hallway. Why hadn't she told him that she wasn't who he thought she was? Why hadn't she insisted that the giggling girls of her fan club call her by her first name? By letting them treat her like a famous pop idol, she hadn't allowed them to indulge in a harmless fantasy. She had robbed them of the truth. She should have stood up at the start and shouted that she couldn't be the person they thought she was. Now that they had found out, they would surely hate her...