It wasn't quite what she'd expected at first, there weren't many people in the tennis club who looked down on her, or rather, there weren't many who even dared step up and talk to her.
Only Hachiman, who had come along from the Service Club to handle the request, looked down on her, saying it wasn't about tennis skill but about who could teach better.
Could she stand that?
She accepted the bet on the spot.
A week later the pairs they each coached began to compete; whichever side won would prove whose teaching was better.
If Hachiman lost he would have to give up the Service Club president position; if she lost, then within the Service Club she'd have to wear a maid outfit from then on.
She couldn't beat Hikigaya in a match purely by playing, even if she had confidence in her technique, her stamina was lacking; she wouldn't last long and would be worn out by Hikigaya.
But teaching tennis?
Her tennis skills weren't learned for nothing.
'Just wait, a week from now the bad customs in the Service Club will be wiped clean, and the club will become exactly the way I wanted.'
Yuigahama Yui glanced at the fired-up Yukinoshita Yukino beside her, then looked at Hachiman and his group heading to the neighboring tennis court, frowning in frustration.
She didn't care about the position of Service Club president. After all, the president, both openly and behind the scenes, already had special relationships with so many members, and even teachers were easily manipulated. If Yukino became president she'd be an empty, puppet-like head, unable to command others; unless new members were recruited into the Service Club, Yukino would still mostly be surrounded only by her.
This bet was just the president playing around with Yukino.
Still, now that she was on Yukino's side, it would be wrong not to help. She might even have to wear the maid outfit with Yukino, she couldn't let Yukino wear it alone.
Although she now knew nothing about tennis and, like Momioka Risa over on Hikigaya's side, could only help by collecting balls.
Squat, pick up balls, stand up, squat.
Yuigahama Yui looked down at herself and felt rather troubled.
"Senpai Chika, could you go over to the other side to act as Haruna's practice partner first?"
"Haruna, accept Coach Hikigaya's instruction first; I'll go over and rally with you."
Just as they arrived at the empty court, Momioka Risa and Kitamura Chika both spoke up at the same time. Hearing the other's words, they both paused, exchanged a glance, and chuckled.
They'd initially thought the other person was a hindrance; each wanted to divert the other so Sairenji Haruna and Hachiman could be alone. Unexpectedly, both had the same goal.
This made things easy, the two of them would team up to bring Hikigaya and Haruna together. They were determined they could manage it.
"About the mechanics and key points of tennis posture you've already learned, so I won't explain everything. Today I'll just make slight adjustments to your posture based on each of your characteristics," Hachiman ignored the two girls' scheming and went straight to Sairenji Haruna to explain his training approach.
"Slight posture adjustments? Do you mean manually correcting our grip and stroke motions?", Haruna had wanted to mention something about middle school to see if he remembered her, but when Hikigaya went straight to the point she was a little puzzled.
"Yeah, something like that. I've studied human anatomy, biology, ergonomics and such, so I can make a training plan tailored to you," Hikigaya nodded, telling Haruna to raise her racket and show her usual serve stance while casually talking.
"The adjustment process may involve some skin-to-skin contact. If you, Sairenji, mind, tell me in time."
He did have that kind of knowledge, but the positions he knew weren't enough to massively boost their results with just a few hands-on corrections. For tennis, at most he could tweak a better hitting posture.
Overall, if you ignored skill factors, he could improve their performance through scientific theory, but expecting obvious improvement without long-term training from just a few small tricks was unlikely.
After all, while tennis technique can be theoretical, converting technical theory into practical reflexes without long-term practice so the body remembers the movement is very difficult.
"Oh…"
Haruna was a little lost hearing talk of biology and anatomy, but trusting Hikigaya's character, she obediently allowed him to handle her body.
Still, watching Hikigaya hold her hand to adjust swing angle, pinching and adjusting her arm, her fair face reddened more and more.
Did the posture adjustment really need to be that intimate?
Did he really need to be pressed against her body?
If it weren't for knowing Hikigaya already had lots of pretty girls around him and there was no need for him to take advantage of her, she'd suspect he was doing it on purpose.
"Sairenji, try this serve posture. Keep a comfortable force, jump lightly, don't jump too high, give Chika a topspin serve."
Hikigaya let go of Haruna's slender arm and handed her a tennis ball, ready to see the effect of his instruction.
There was no doubt, he was taking advantage of Haruna's proximity.
A normal posture correction wouldn't require being that close; even without hands-on adjustments he could say more and let Haruna do it herself. But his number of students was small; only Hanamori Kotomi was available as a qualified teacher, and she felt like only a half. So to raise his teaching contribution, he needed more close contact, otherwise the Teaching Aura's bonus would be too low, and the temporary raise in learning aptitude would be meaningless. In that case Haruna would only have been taken advantage of for nothing.
"All right… huh?"
When Hikigaya asked her to serve, Haruna swallowed her shyness and nodded seriously. She lightly gripped the ball with her fingers, supported it on her palm, raised the arm straight up to head level, and then released.
At first she hadn't felt anything, but upon tossing the ball she suddenly felt a strange warmth where Hikigaya had just touched.
The tossed ball seemed to rotate slowly in her vision, her thoughts unusually clear, and her body naturally employed the serve points Hikigaya had just told her.
Her body leaned back, arched properly, relaxed, kept balance, and swung at the ball in an incredibly comfortable posture.
BANG!
She swung hard, the ball flew downward in an arc and sped over the net.
"Haruna, that topspin serve is pretty good," Kitamura Chika on the other side held her racket and didn't go to return the ball, but watching how the ball bounced up immediately after landing, she was surprised.
Was it coincidence, or did Haruna really have feelings for Hikigaya and break out in front of her crush? That spin and bounce were much better than usual.
"Haruna's serve is good, but there's room to improve. I'll demonstrate again. Let's practice serves first, then footwork," Seeing that the Teaching Aura actually worked, Hikigaya stopped hiding his special hands-on coaching and stepped forward to demonstrate for Haruna.
After the demonstration he continued to make micro-adjustments to her posture. He didn't necessarily have to say much useful, but he had to have intimate contact with Haruna.
Haruna realized she really had improved under Hikigaya's guidance and stopped doubting him, though she still felt shy about his hands-on, up-close instruction.
From swing posture to jump technique, from arm muscles to thigh muscles, "It's like I'm not even needed. Didn't you say you didn't know him? Haruna, are you lying to me?"
While collecting balls, Momioka Risa watched Hikigaya's hands-on instruction of the lovestruck Haruna and muttered in frustration.
The two who had no prior relationship were now touching intimately, fine, but it wasn't the tender, romantic scene she'd imagined.
Even when Hikigaya crouched and pressed Haruna's thigh, it seemed he was doing so to help her adjust posture.
When it could have been a very lewd scene, why were they being so proper?
"Wait! I want to coach too! Haruna, you can't hog Coach Hikigaya!"
Seeing Haruna's improvement, her serve spin increased rapidly, her angles became tricky, forcing Chika to run all over to reach the returns, Kitamura Chika was displeased.
'No, I asked you to woo Haruna, not actually teach her!"
'And she's improving so fast?'
———
[On the Neighboring Court]
Yukinoshita Yukino watched Saeki Ai, Sugiyama Mio and the others practice doubles while taking notes.
Like Hikigaya, she wanted to first understand their usual training, play styles, and prepare a personalized training plan.
Second-year Saeki Ai was naturally pure and had solid fundamentals; her strength was decent, but her style and tactics were standard and conservative.
First-year Sugiyama Mio was arrogant and capricious, with great tennis talent and a more aggressive play style, prone to being caught off guard.
There are all kinds of tactics, one attacks while the other defends, one is up front and one is back, so you can't say there's inherently a problem. But the two lacked coordination, often failing to cover for each other. Despite good individual skills, they were overwhelmed by opposing pairs with average skill but better teamwork.
Training must either strengthen strengths or patch weaknesses.
In just a week, obvious improvement wasn't possible, Yukino and Hikigaya agreed on that.
Saeki and Sugiyama's weakness was a lack of coordination... they needed targeted exercises.
Yukino took notes and thought about solutions. Their weak point was obvious, and surely the tennis club had noticed it too.
The key was targeted training to improve coordination.
How to improve coordination? Become good friends, would that count?
Once you leave the realm of technical theory and enter interpersonal relations, Yukino began to struggle.
After all, she had no real experience with friends; how did she know which methods would increase coordination instead of decreasing it? Theory is theory, practice is practice, dealing with various people by sticking to fixed theory doesn't always work.
Still... she had a thorny problem, and Hikigaya's side wasn't doing much better either.
Both teams had roughly equal overall strength. On her side the issue was partner coordination; on Hikigaya's it was an even harder problem: raw ability imbalance.
Kitamura Chika was strong; her partner Sairenji Haruna's raw strength was comparatively thin.
Yukino glanced over and immediately saw Hikigaya standing behind Haruna, pressed close, guiding hand-over-hand, occasionally crouching down to press Haruna's thigh, all in a serious coaching manner, she thought, 'Does tennis instruction require touching thighs? That angle is almost visible, right?'
There was no way for close-contact coaching to be this outrageous and for him to be taking advantage.
The tennis club wasn't all girls like the girls' swim team, there were male members. Wasn't he afraid of arousing fury, of the club members charging over and beating Hikigaya up?
However, the club members seemed not to notice. They ignored the flushed Haruna and Hikigaya's even more intimate instruction of Kitamura Chika at her side.
Neither Kitamura Chika nor Momioka Risa nearby seemed to mind, and the person being touched didn't resist.
Yukino frowned, staring at the neighboring court. Rather than being coached, it looked more like Kitamura Chika was the one holding onto Hikigaya, she felt out of place in this world.
'This tennis club... something is off.'
'This familiar feeling... how was it like the girls' swim team.'
Whatever. Once she won this match, she would reform the Service Club's customs, ban the president and vice president from abusing power by engaging in impure relations with club members, and stop accepting strange requests.
The Service Club had become bloated, so many members, but only a few actually participated. Others were off in different clubs or forming bands; it felt like the Service Club had been taken over by other clubs.
Yukino silently complained about the current Service Club and refocused on making a training plan to beat the arrogant Hikigaya.
Although this bet carried risks, if she lost she'd have to wear the embarrassing maid outfit in the Service Club, she had no choice. Hikigaya had the backing of the Elf Princess; her sister and Touka couldn't help her, and she still had to act according to Hikigaya's mood.
Without challenging Hikigaya, she'd never become Service Club president under normal circumstances.
"Chika, try this posture, this hitting posture fits your power."
"Really? I'll try it."
Meanwhile, Hikigaya was still focused on taking advantage of Kitamura Chika, well... more accurately, Kitamura Chika was taking advantage of him.
Unlike shy Haruna, who tried to stay composed under the guise of training and blushed while waiting for hands-on instruction, Kitamura Chika had no embarrassment. Having already received guidance in the sports storage with Tachibana Mikari and Asai Saki, she fully accepted Hikigaya's hands-on adjustments.
Even when manual corrections weren't strictly necessary, she'd press close to him proactively so he'd continue with close instruction.
Though Chika's motives weren't pure, her behavior matched the Teaching Aura's requirements.
Because she contributed a lot physically to teaching, the Teaching Aura's bonus effect was strong.
Chika, who'd wanted to use training as an excuse to get intimate with Hikigaya, astonishingly found his guidance actually worked.
Her strength had already been high; after serving in the club her physical condition had improved significantly, only slightly below the top players who could reach national tournaments like Kaede.
How was it that after just hearing Hikigaya's verbal guidance and a few hands-on corrections she'd improved so much?
She'd assumed only Haruna, whose base level was low, would improve quickly, but Chika improved fast too.
Strangely, though they heard the same explanations, the second time felt completely different. Were those minor hand adjustments really that effective?
Moreover, Service guidance improved physical condition and training guidance added technical knowledge; if this continued, couldn't she, relying on technique alone, join Kaede, Aika, and Senpai Idachi in the national tournament and maybe even take first?
Such progress... was kind of addictive.
"Huh? Wait, Risa, what are you doing?", Kitamura Chika suddenly snapped out of the wonderful state and found Momioka Risa pulling her away from Hikigaya. She immediately demanded an explanation.
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