Am I being simulated by their love affair.

Chapter 173 The End
The third quarter had to be suspended just as the game started.

Amidst the cheers, Joe was helped to the sidelines. The painful expression on his face had not yet disappeared, but the audience in Tsuchiura High did not care and even waved the red flags more vigorously.

"Was someone tripped?" Jun Matsueda asked with a frown. His vision was blocked by the moving players and he couldn't see clearly.

"I was blocked by the opponent's No. 16. Let's see how the referee decides." Chengwei Zhang was lying on the ground. Medical staff were performing emergency treatment on his ankle. His frown relaxed a little.

One minute later, the technical desk indicated that player No. 16 of Tsuchiura High School had committed a flagrant foul and was ejected from the game. Because of the foul record, he was banned from playing in subsequent games.

The girls in the wind band watched the guy wearing the No. 16 jersey walk into the aisle calmly. The audience on the opposite side cheered again, and many people waved their fists to see him off.

"That's too much!" Yamami Moji didn't know much about basketball, but she understood the referee's decision. "It was clearly a foul, why are they so happy?"

"Matsueda, it's your turn to play. Remember to watch out for Tsuchiura Takashi's fouls."

Standing next to the basket, Natsumi Imokawa pointed the camera lens at the sidelines, and the anger of the students of Hanaoka High School was difficult to calm down.

"Matsueda! Show those bastards of Tsuchiura Takashi how powerful you are!"

"Dunk on them! Make them stop laughing!"

"Pine branches!"

"Pine branches!"

The audience cheered in unison. Jun Matsueda half-knelt on the ground, tying his shoelaces, preparing to go on stage. The girls looked at him with anticipation and worry in their eyes as they stood up.

When the timeout ended, the live broadcast showed the players on both sides who were on the court, and Jun Matsueda's number 99 stood out from the crowd.

Number ninety-nine was last in line, and Jun Matsueda had no intention of playing, so the team gave him this last number.

"Haigaoka!!!"

"Tsuchiura!!!"

The audience on both sides started cheering again. Some stood on their chairs and waved their coats, some in the first row banged on the railings with cheering sticks, and some blew their instruments hard with red faces.

Shortly after the start of the third quarter, the score was 46:48 and Yuqiu was behind.

Jun Matsueda took over the second position from Ken Sakamuro and walked outside the three-point line. In front of him was the audience stand of Tsuchiura High School.

There was another round of tacit boos, overwhelming. Their mockery was like a sign that Jun Matsueda would be the next target of attack. Some people even made a throat-slitting gesture to him.

It feels like going back to the days when I was in junior high, disciplining delinquents. I miss it a bit.
Jun Matsueda raised his head, raised his right hand and waved towards the red audience seats, showing a kind and perfect smile.

The audience seats at Tsuchiura High School seemed to have been muted, and the people on the stage were stunned, not knowing what the enemy in front of them was thinking.

After a brief hesitation, boos, curses and roars broke out, and Jun Matsueda had already followed Sakamuro Ken, who had the ball, to the other half of the court.

He accelerated, jumped up, and caught the pass from Ken Sakamuro outside the three-point line in the air. The two players who arrived late had just made a defensive move when Jun Matsueda had already dunked the ball into the basket.

A wave of cheers echoed in the Tokyo Gymnasium, rising and falling with the girls' majestic trombone sounds.

"Pine branches!!!"

The faces of the Tsuchiura High School students turned ugly as they realized that the player their team had dug out from the bench seemed to be an extraordinary opponent.

He jumped and shot from beyond the three-point line, the ball swishing through the net. Matsueda Jun landed heavily, forcefully crushing his toes where he landed. "Is this all you guys have left?" Matsueda Jun looked at number 36, whose face was twitching with pain, and moved his shoe away.

Back at his home court to defend, Jun Matsueda was still booed when he passed by the audience. "Tsuchiura High School will not be defeated!" the student playing the drums shouted.

Jun Matsueda ignored them. He turned around to meet the opponent's counterattack and blocked the long pass.

"Back to defense!" The players of Tsuchiura High School ran towards their home court, but the person who intercepted the pass ran faster than them, crossing half court like an arrow. He even slowed down when he made a layup, looked back, and then lightly put the basketball into the basket.

At the end of the third quarter, the score was 76:58. The player from Tsuchiura High School walked to the sidelines tiredly and looked at No. 99 who was wiping his sweat on the opposite side.

"Where did Yuqiu find this monster?"

The students of Yugaoka High School gathered in the first row of the auditorium to welcome their hero.

"Matsuji! Invincible!!!"

"Did you let your guard down during training?" Joo Jo patted the seat next to him, but Matsueda Jun had already been pushed to the other side by the crowd.

"Matsueda-san, a towel!" Tomatsu Tomoka handed him the towel with both hands. She looked at the sweat slowly flowing down the boy's neck and wished she could wipe it off with her own hands.

"Pine branches, water." Mochizuki Haruka took out the sports drink that she had been holding in her arms and stared at him with blinking eyes.

The audience was silent as people looked at Jun Matsueda's upturned face, tears overflowing from the corners of his mouth and flowing through his moving Adam's apple.

At this moment, in the eyes of thousands of people, he standing in the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium is the best symbol of strength and beauty.

The empty water bottle fell to the ground. Matsueda Jun's expression was calm. He turned around and looked at the audience seats opposite Tsuchiura Takashi.

The thumb of the right hand slid across the neck, also making a throat-slitting gesture.

A thunderous roar came from behind him, drowning out the foul warning from the technical table.

The fourth quarter turned into garbage time, and Jun Matsueda was like an ice-cold machine, bombarding the basket in various ways precisely and ruthlessly.

Tsuchiura Takashi's players used concealed moves to collide with Matsueda Jun's body, but he either avoided them sharply or simply ignored them as he rushed forward.

In the last minute of the game, the people of Tsuchiura High School watched in despair as Jun Matsueda jumped high again and slammed the basketball into the basket through the defenders.

The score was fixed at 99:72, and the score scored by Takashi Yuzuka was exactly the number behind Jun Matsueda.

When the final signal sounded, Jun Matsueda returned to his home court. He walked past the audience seats of Tsuchiura High School and once again responded to the throat-slitting gesture.

The fanatical, violent, and uncouth red auditorium fell silent in despair.

Jun Matsueda was lifted high by the students from Haneigaoka who rushed into the field. In the huge Tokyo Gymnasium, only the sounds of "Jun Matsueda" and "Haneigaoka" echoed in people's ears.

After the competition, the girls from the wind band returned to the audience and played the school song.

Everyone looked at the champion of Hanegaoka High School, standing in the center of the field. He stood alone at the front of the team, his blue and white jersey stained with dirt, but he was the entire scene that dominated everyone's attention.

The students of Haneda stood in the audience, and all their strength, youth and ambition turned into high, slightly trembling, passionate singing, which rose and fell with the voice of Jun Matsueda and echoed over the gymnasium.

"By the window in April, I await the free wind; all things flourish, and the sky above Haneoka is clear."

(End of this chapter)