For Rukawa, who had nothing to do during summer vacation, playing a thoroughly satisfying game of basketball with Sakuragi felt practically like a holiday.
And while they were changing clothes in the locker room after the game, Sakuragi told him that today really was a holiday, because there was a fireworks festival.
When Rukawa was a little boy, his mother had taken him to a fireworks festival. Dressed in a yukata, young Kaede had kept a stern face the entire time he walked with his mother, and then told her very seriously, "I'm never going to such a boring place again."
Chapter 41