After exchanging greetings with Hazel, Henry went and sat in the chair in front of Warren.
“…Hello.”
Henry cautiously greeted Warren, who was drinking water with full tension.
Lately, he seemed to get nervous unusually often in front of people. Uncharacteristically for his usual self.
“Hi. Henry Lowell, right?”
At Henry’s greeting, the man smiled pleasantly and even called him by name. At that, Henry’s eyes widened.
“My name, how…”
“I watched the game well. You were really good?”
Forgetting his earlier distress, his face was instantly filled with excitement.
Maybe I caught his eye during the game and he remembered my name, at the thought.
If so, the fact that he was looking at him earlier might not have been his imagination either.
Henry gulped and mustered up courage again.
“After watching the game, you memorized my name…?”
“Ah, um. That’s not it…”
He denied Henry’s question in an ambiguous tone.
Henry’s face reddened at the fact that he had one-sidedly expected and misunderstood.
Warren, who had a troubled face for a moment, asked Henry with an awkward smile.
“Is Iris doing well?”
“How do you know Iris…, ah.”
Henry, who was startled and about to ask if he knew Iris, stopped.
Come to think of it, it wasn’t strange. Henry’s two older sisters and older brother were all Platts graduates.
Considering Iris and Warren’s ages, the two would have attended school at the same time.
She, who was as lively as him, had done cheerleading throughout her teenage years, so it wouldn’t be strange if she knew Warren, who would have been in the football club.
“Iris is… doing well.”
“I see.”
The man smiled leisurely.
“I heard a lot from Iris. She bragged every day that she had a younger brother who played football and seemed to be doing pretty well lately.”
Ah, back then I would have been a complete beginner.
At the embarrassing stories that kept coming, Henry’s face, once flushed, didn’t know how to cool down.
Warren, who was watching such a Henry, burst into low laughter.
Henry knew well the meaning of the smile the man was showing him. In his childhood, Samuel used to look at him with just those eyes.
Henry looked at the man with questioning eyes.
Because there was no reason to look at a friend’s younger brother he’d met for the first time today so warmly.
He scribbled something on a memo pad and held it out to Henry.
“This is my number.”
Henry, who took it, looked at him with a surprised face.
“I’m glad we met like this, so it means let’s meet up sometime next time including Iris. Of course, you can contact me not just for appointments but when you have worries or you’re bored.”
Warren smiled with a wink. Before Henry could feel puzzled at the kindness that felt excessive.
“Shall we proceed with the mentoring? Even though it’s mentoring, it doesn’t have to be about football. If you have worries, anything is fine.”
He asked with a very kind smile.
Ah, Henry let out a small exclamation of realization. He had forgotten the original purpose with the story the man brought up.
Actually, before meeting him, there were things he’d planned to ask.
Essential questions like his training routine or off-season management.
But somehow, instead of the questions he’d thought of, only unrelated stories came to mind.
For example, the story of Declan Russell.
Henry ultimately decided to comply with his impulse.
Coincidentally, Warren was showing him favor to a strange degree.
If it was someone like this, he felt like he would keep it a secret that he’d asked strange content while giving a plausible answer.
“…When playing football, chemistry with teammates is important. Especially if you’re playing as fellow attackers, even more so.”
“Right?”
“I think personal closeness to some extent also affects play chemistry. I tend to maintain good relationships with all the players I play with as a team, regardless of whether they’re seniors or juniors.”
“Good attitude.”
He who heard Henry’s words praised him. Even hearing that, Henry couldn’t be happy. Because that wasn’t all.
“But there’s one friend that’s particularly difficult.”
“For what reason?”
“…I keep feeling like I’m losing to that friend in non-game aspects.”
Henry hung his head low. Because he knew even now as he brought it up that it was inappropriate thinking.
“Hmm, where do you feel that way?”
Warren seriously listened to Henry’s words, pondered, and asked.
His attitude, which wasn’t light, made Henry’s mouth open.
“The other person knows me too well, but I don’t know anything about them. There’s… closeness, but the fact that I feel closeness toward them rather feels uncomfortable. I keep wanting to dig into their inner thoughts.”
Henry took out the emotions he felt, appropriately packaged.
Though he’d done it, he worried about what Warren would think of him. What Henry encountered when he sneakily raised his head to check his face was a gaze staring intently at him.
“Hmm, so you’ve already exposed a lot of private parts to the other person, but that friend hasn’t done so. And you feel that’s unfair?”
“…Yes.”
Henry readily admitted it.
Every time he felt dissatisfied, he tried to give up from the moment he became aware of his one-sided love, telling himself it couldn’t be helped.
But he couldn’t give up.
The imbalance in the information he and the other person had about each other choked him several times a day, so he couldn’t just pass it over pretending not to know.
It was a sensation he’d never felt when he liked David, so it was all the more unfamiliar and he couldn’t control it.
Henry nervously swallowed at Warren accurately pinpointing his inner thoughts.
Warren asked such a him.
“What if the appearance the other person showed you is everything? You could just trust that.”
Henry’s eyes rolled around.
The man’s words were right. He had lived that way with other people until now too.
He had never wanted to suspect and dig into their inner thoughts wanting to know more than what the other person showed.
Only peculiarly with Declan Russell.
The fact that only with him this attitude wasn’t maintained felt like a terrible problem to Henry.
“…I thought that to trust the other person, I should also know a little about them.”
Henry put out an excuse toward him.
Of course, that opinion too was a thought that applied only to Declan Russell.
“But what you want to know is the other person’s private parts, isn’t it?”
Henry was at a loss for words.
As if he’d already understood Henry’s inner thoughts, Warren brought out his own thoughts to Henry.
“Trust isn’t something you can obtain based only on information exchange. It’s not a fight over who showed more of themselves first. If the other person has never broken your trust, isn’t that enough?”
Henry finally realized where his thinking had been twisted from.
It was embarrassing, but he could also know the reason. It was all because he was hoping for more than friendship from him.
Warren, who smirked at Henry who had realized his own contradiction, asked.
“Do you want to beat the other person?”
“I can’t… beat him.”
In the past he did, but recently he’d never even thought about beating him.
Because he’d become an opponent he couldn’t beat.
At Henry’s reaction, Warren’s eyebrows became crooked.
“Hmm, why? That’s strange? The quarterbacks I know all had such terrible tempers that they couldn’t stand losing. Why do you comply?”
Henry couldn’t answer his question. Because this wasn’t simple interpersonal relationship counseling.
“Don’t think you can’t win. I watched, and there wasn’t a kid who stood out as much as you on your team. If I had to pick… it was about your center level, but from what I saw, he probably won’t become a player.”
“…How did you know?”
Though he’d been gloomy, Henry raised his head in a flash as soon as Declan’s name came up and asked.
“Huh? You can tell by watching. He seemed like a kid who just does it as a hobby. You and a few other kids really run like your lives depend on it. But he wasn’t to that extent. You’d feel it too if you watched from outside the field, right?”
Henry was newly shocked. At the fact that one could feel even from outside the court that he didn’t have great affection for football.
“The conversation got sidetracked, well. Anyway. Think about winning. Don’t give up just because you think you’ll lose. You’re the core of the offense! You’re the quarterback.”
At Warren’s words tinged with playfulness, Henry reluctantly nodded.
But he was certain. At least within a few years, him beating him wouldn’t happen.
There was a necessary condition to beat him.
Either he would have to stop liking him, or a situation would have to come where he confessed to him.
The former would take time, and the latter was something that should never happen.
Henry felt skeptical.
“Wow, but this is the first time I’ve received a question like this. This really feels like giving romance counseling.”
While Henry secretly became gloomy, Warren’s voice, which had become excited at some point, was flushed, and naturally the volume had also grown.
At the story that popped out of his mouth, Henry’s words also became faster.
“Wh-what are you saying! That can’t be!”
Henry covered his exclamation with rapid whispers. Because he was afraid he might say something more and someone else might hear it.
He checked his surroundings and nervously gulped.
At Henry’s sensitive reaction, Warren was leaning on the table even lowering his head and laughing. What’s so funny, Henry kept grumbling.
“Was it helpful?”
“…It was enough.”
Warren, who had laughed so much he wiped away the tears in his eyes, asked. Henry answered without a trace of effort to hide his sullenness.
***
Around the time a few more exchanges took place, Henry’s allotted mentoring time ended.
At the story that those whose mentoring ended could return to the dormitory first, dissatisfaction was written on Henry’s face as he gathered his things.
‘Why did he have to say it was like romance counseling.’
When he stepped on the stairs heading to the dormitory, a familiar voice was heard.
“I decided to do as you said.”
“…Will you be okay?”
“I have to be okay.”
Though it was hard to understand what they were talking about, he could tell it was a personal conversation.
And that the person who heard the woman’s determination was worrying about her.
He couldn’t help but know who they were.
Because it was Hazel and Declan.
Henry noticed that their current conversation was the reason the two had been hanging out often recently. Even though he knew he shouldn’t, he kept wanting to eavesdrop.
Henry painfully lifted his feet that seemed stuck to the ground. He walked quietly.
Didn’t Declan Russell say it wasn’t what he was thinking?
So he had to trust him.
Though he might have looked back at least once unable to overcome his curiosity, Henry absolutely didn’t turn his steps around.
He didn’t want to nurture any pointless lingering attachment.
