'Stars' my ass, he thought. They didn't talk to one single useful player--just the ones with endorsements.
Hands shaking, the Naga's captain flipped it open to the centrefold: two pages devoted to Sakuraba, including a short interview with that slimy manager of his, Miracle Ito. That guy had followed Agon around for a while, too, but his brother had scared the man off pretty quick when he'd discovered how much sleazy stuff he'd wanted him to do. Unsui snorted dismissively. At least he never had problems like that. Sometimes being average had its merits.
Unsui had the text of the article memorized by this point but still he checked the subheading, just to see if it had changed some time between now and this morning when he'd first found it lying there on the kitchen table. The characters leered back at him in response, pink and jarring as they had been the first dozen times: Wakana Koharu--The Woman Behind the Man? The name was still hers. The picture still hers. And there she and Sakuraba were, his arm around her shoulders.
Unsui glared at the worst part of the text, the bit that appeared to mock him.
GOGO: Is there anyone important in your life right now?
KOHARU: Hoooee! No, no, nothing like that at all.
GOGO: So the rumours about you and Sakuraba-kun being close?
KOHARU: I... don't know how to respond to that...
Of course, it was all a slant. The latest trend to make Oujou's fans jealous and to get people speculating, watching the games on television and seeing the ads. Gods forbid anyone should want to watch amefuto for the actual sport.
As for the way she'd reacted to those answers, of course she couldn't have said the truth. Never mind the fact that Sakuraba Haruto had to be the biggest closet case this side of the Pacific (not that, Unsui reflected, his fans would mind--in fact, the news would probably spawn some kind of shounen-ai series directed at his fans). Never mind the fact that at the time of the article Oujou's manager was dating the team captain from a rival team. You just didn't sacrifice your school's reputation like that. Wakana hadn't been just covering her own ass--she'd been protecting her friends, keeping her own dirty laundry and Sakuraba's in the clothes hamper where it belonged.
But this morning, he hadn't been thinking all that rationally, had he? And his tone had perhaps been a little accusing when he'd called her. And maybe she'd been on the defensive, and maybe that made him think she was hiding something, and maybe they both said some things that they didn't mean. And now there really wasn't someone special in Wakana Koharu's life.
And it was all his fault.