The Game

Saturday.

The school gym was alive with a feverish, electric energy. Hina had never seen the place so full. The bleachers groaned under the weight of hundreds of parents, students, and scouts from the prefecture. It was the regional final. The whole school was there to see "King Ren" and the team bring the trophy home.

Hina sat in the highest row, as far from the court as possible. Next to her, Kaito looked nervous, his sketchbook in his lap, nervously drawing the crowd.

And next to Kaito was Mei.

She hadn't wanted to come. Hina had to spend all of Friday morning at Mei's house just to convince her to leave her room. Mei was destroyed, too humiliated to even think about going to school.

"I can't go," Mei whispered, her face swollen from crying. "Hina, he'll be there. Everyone will be there. They'll look at me and laugh."

"They won't," Hina said, with a firmness she didn't feel. "They'll be looking at him. You need to see this."

"See what?"

"Justice," Hina answered.

The word seemed right at the time. But now, sitting in the noisy gym, the word felt like poison on her tongue. She hadn't told Mei or Kaito about what she did in the gym. Kaito didn't know why Ren had pushed her. Mei was too devastated to ask.

There they were, The Reject Club, about to watch an execution that only one of them knew was coming.

The ring on her finger was cold, dormant. But she could feel a tingling, a memory of the intense heat from Tuesday.

The whistle blew. The teams entered the court. The crowd exploded.

Ren Ishida looked like a god. He was the last to enter, and he soaked up the applause, raising his arms. He looked perfectly calm, arrogant, and in control. He didn't look like a boy who had been cursed.

Hina's heart sank. What if it didn't work?

What if the touch wasn't enough? What if her anger wasn't focused enough? The idea that she had done something so dark—wished harm on someone—and failed, somehow made her feel even worse. She was evil and incompetent.

The game began.

The first five minutes were a massacre. Ren was unstoppable.

He stole the ball, ran down the court like a lightning bolt, and made a perfect layup. A minute later, he hit a three-pointer. By the end of the first quarter, he had already scored twelve points. The Nakamura team was leading by ten.

"He's... incredible," Kaito murmured, having stopped drawing to watch.

Mei just shrank down, hugging her knees.

Hina felt sick. The ring hadn't worked. The magic was unstable. Or maybe Haruto's anger was stronger than hers. Ren wouldn't be punished. He would be celebrated. And he had humiliated Mei, and there would be no consequences.

The unfairness of it made her clench her fists. The ring warmed slightly, as if responding to her frustration.

The second quarter began. Ren grabbed a rebound and was pushed by a defender. Foul.

He went to the free-throw line.

The gym went silent. Ren bounced the ball. Once. Twice. Three times. He took a deep breath, aimed, and shot.

The ball rose in a perfect arc. It swirled around the rim... and popped out.

A collective "oh" came from the crowd.

"It's okay, Ren!" shouted the coach.

Ren frowned. He bounced the ball again for his second shot. He looked annoyed. He shot.

This time, the ball hit the corner of the backboard hard and didn't even touch the rim.

Hina held her breath.

Ren shook his head, confused, and went back on defense. The other team scored. Ren caught the ball, ran down the court, and went up for an easy dunk he could do with his eyes closed.

But somehow, his feet got tangled in the air. He let go of the ball too early. It hit the underside of the rim with an ugly thud. Ren landed awkwardly, falling to the floor.

The gym went silent.

"What... what is wrong with him?" Kaito whispered.

Ren got up, his face red with shame. He yelled at a teammate, blaming him for the pass.

From that moment on, the game changed. It wasn't a slow decline. It was a collapse.

It was as if the basketball itself was actively rejecting him.

If a teammate passed to Ren, the ball "accidentally" slipped through his fingers. When he tried to dribble, the ball seemed to hit a rock on the floor and bounce toward his foot, making him trip. And his shots...

His shots were a tragedy. Balls that should have gone in spun out. Easy shots hit the backboard. At one point, he was so open Hina thought he couldn't miss. He shot, and the ball flew over the rim, over the backboard, and landed in the stands.

At halftime, the Nakamura team was losing by eight points. Ren hadn't scored another point.

As the teams left for the locker room, Hina saw Coach Kenta grab Ren's arm, his face like a storm cloud, yelling at him. Ren just looked at the floor, shocked.

"Hina..."

Mei was looking at her. Not with anger. With pure terror.

"What... what was that?" Mei asked.

"I don't know," Hina lied, her voice dry. "He's just having a bad day."

"That's not a bad day," Kaito said, watching Ren being dragged off the court. "That's... unnatural."

Hina felt the weight of Mei's gaze. Mei knew. She didn't know how, but she knew Hina was to blame.

The second half was worse.

The coach, furious, benched Ren for the first ten minutes. The Nakamura team fought and managed to cut the lead to three points. Then, the starting point guard twisted his ankle. The coach had no choice. He pointed at Ren.

"Ishida! Go. Fix this."

Ren entered the court, his face pale and determined. Two minutes left on the clock. The crowd was on its feet, screaming. This was his chance for redemption.

He played cautiously. He didn't shoot. He just passed the ball, and it worked. With thirty seconds left, his teammate hit a shot. Nakamura was down by one point.

The other team missed.

Ren grabbed the rebound.

Ten seconds on the clock.

The gym was a wall of sound. Ren dribbled down the court. He was being guarded by two players.

Five seconds.

He passed both of them. He was free. The lane was open.

Three seconds.

He jumped. The gym held its breath. It was the winning shot.

Hina couldn't watch, but she couldn't look away.

Ren was in the air. And then, for no reason at all, his left foot knocked against his right. He lost his balance in mid-air.

He didn't shoot. He didn't pass.

He simply... fell.

The basketball flew out of his hands and rolled slowly out of bounds.

The buzzer sounded. Game over.

The opposing team exploded in celebration. The Nakamura gym was so silent Hina could hear the hum of the scoreboard lights.

Ren Ishida was sitting in the middle of the court, exactly where he had fallen. He wasn't crying. He didn't look angry. He was looking at his own hands, turning them over, as if they belonged to someone else. As if they had betrayed him.

His own teammates didn't go to help him up. They walked past him, kicking water bottles, some crying in anger, heading to the locker room.

"He lost," Kaito whispered, incredulous. "He... he literally tripped in the air."

Hina stood up, her legs shaking. "Let's go."

She didn't look at Ren. She didn't look at Mei. She just walked down the stairs.

As they left the gym, she passed the open door of the locker room. She heard sounds inside. Not the sounds of a team consoling each other.

It was a scream. Coach Kenta's voice.

"You embarrassed me, Ishida! You embarrassed yourself! What was that? Did you give up?"

And then, another voice. A colder, sharper voice.

"I took time off work to see this? You are a joke, Ren. A joke."

Hina stopped. Kaito and Mei stopped behind her. Hina looked through the crack in the door.

She saw Ren leaning against a locker. And his father, a tall, impeccably dressed man, was standing in front of him. Mr. Ishida's face was calm, but his eyes were chips of ice.

"You humiliated him," Ren's father said to the coach, completely ignoring his son. "You never should have put him back in the game if he was injured."

"Injured?" shouted the coach. "He wasn't injured! He was useless!"

"Dad..." Ren whispered.

His father finally looked at him. "Don't talk to me. Get your things. We're going home."

Hina stepped away from the door, her blood running cold in her veins.

She had done it. Justice. Ren had been humiliated.

But as she, Kaito, and Mei walked home in the cold evening air, in silence, Hina didn't feel like a winner.

She didn't feel just.

She felt like an executioner. And she felt exactly like her brother.