Meanwhile, Masuda’s team simmers in barely contained outrage, cheeks tight, eyes sharp. A few of them lean toward each other, whispering harshly:

"Did he really just say that?"

"He’s calling us placeholders..."

"What kind of rookie talks like that?"

Another mutters under his breath, "Kurose-san, we can’t let that slide. That kid’s getting full of himself."

But Coach Kurose just shakes his head, eyes closed, trying his best to ignore it.

Masuda hears every word, but he doesn’t join in. He sits unusually still, jaw flexed once, eyes locked forward.

The humiliation burns, sharp and clean, sitting just behind his composure.

He breathes slow, controlled, refusing to let the anger spill outward. Yet the message is clear in the tightness of his shoulders: Ryoma has crossed a line.

The moderator tries to calm the room, but the air has already changed, thick, electric, and confrontational.

When the fighters stand for the face-off photo, the atmosphere is a different beast entirely.

Masuda steps forward with controlled breaths, no longer polite. He’s now offended, burning with something personal.

He locks eyes with Ryoma and murmurs, voice low enough to be calm but sharp enough to cut:

"Talk as big as you want today... tomorrow we’ll see if you can still open your mouth."

But Ryoma doesn’t try to meet his intensity. He simply stands there, arms loose at his sides, gaze flat and distant, as if Masuda barely exists.

The cameras flash. What began as a respectful weigh-in now crackles with hostility.

At the very back row, where the veteran reporters usually sit, safely removed from the frenzy, Tanaka and Sato watch the face-off with matching expressions of dry amusement.

Tanaka exhales a soft chuckle. "This reminds me of a few months ago. After his last fight, when the kid joked, what was it... the Champion might be scared of me?"

Sato snorts. "He said it with a grin, total throwaway line. And half the media lost their minds for a week."

Tanaka’s grin fades as he studies Ryoma now, expression flat, detached, almost hollowed of emotion.

"But this time..." he murmurs. "This isn’t a joke. Not even close."

Sato nods slowly, leaning forward just a bit. "No chance the champion ignores that. Not with every camera here recording it."

He tilts his chin toward Masuda, whose jaw is locked tight with humiliation.

"And Masuda? He’s got no choice now. Kid basically called him a warm-up."

A burst of shutters crackles through the hall, capturing Ryoma’s indifference and Masuda’s restrained fury.

Tanaka leans back in his chair, arms folding with a quiet sense of recognition. "He just picked a fight with the whole lightweight division. And judging from that deadpan face... he’s serious enough to make it everyone’s problem."

They share a glance, two men who’ve covered boxing long enough to know when a shift is happening.

And this moment, they both silently agree, isn’t one anyone in the room will be laughing off ever again.

***

The moment the press conference ends, the room doesn’t release them. It collapses inward.

Reporters swarm as Nakahara’s camp attempts to leave, cameras and microphones pushing forward like a living tide. A dozen voices call Ryoma’s name at once.

"Takeda-kun! One more comment, please!"

"Do you realize your statement challenges every contender in the country?"

"Are you saying none of the ranked fighters are worth worrying about?"

"Takeda! Takeda! Look this way!"

"Takeda! How do you think the rest of Japan’s boxers will take this?"

Ryoma walks straight through it all, utterly unchanged. There’s no irritation, no interest, no acknowledgment.

His pace is calm, almost serene, eyes forward as if the hall were empty. It’s everyone around him who moves with urgency. Sera steps to his right, Hiroshi to his left, both forming a barrier with practiced subtlety.

"Careful, watch your equipment," Hiroshi says firmly, guiding a mic out of Ryoma’s path.

"Please step back," Sera adds, voice low but unyielding, intercepting a reporter who leans too close.

Even Aramaki and Kenta lend their shoulders to the effort, gently but insistently pushing the press back to create a thin corridor.

Nakahara keeps at the rear, bowing repeatedly, offering apologies in a steady, controlled tone.

"We appreciate your interest, but that’s all for today. I’m sorry, please allow us to pass. Thank you, thank you..."

It takes almost a full minute to push through the lobby and out the front doors, where the taxi Nakahara requested is already waiting.

Sera yanks the taxi door open, and Ryoma slides inside first without a word. Nakahara follows, exhaling quietly as he pulls the door shut behind him.

When Sera circles the vehicle to take the passenger seat, the media isn’t done with him yet.

"Sera-san! Just one comment!"

"Can you explain what Takeda-kun meant earlier?"

"Is he really targeting the champion next?"

Sera raises both hands in a polite warding gesture, stepping backward with a strained smile.

"Tomorrow. Ask us tomorrow, okay? Not today. Let us go home."

He eases himself into the front seat as the crowd keeps pressing.

"Tomorrow," he repeats through the closing door, "after the fight."

The taxi finally pulls out of the curb.

A few meters away, Hiroshi, Kenta, and Aramaki get unto the other taxi, watching the first taxi fade into traffic.

"That idiot... Kenta rubs his forehead with a hand. "He really said all that with a straight face."

Aramaki lets out a helpless sigh. "He basically challenged the whole contender list. The whole thing."

Hiroshi crosses his arms, eyes still on the direction the taxi disappeared. "Boldness... or suicide. Can’t tell anymore."

***

For a while, no one speaks.

Hiroshi stares out the front window, jaw set. Aramaki leans back with his arms loosely crossed.

Kenta slumps into his corner of the backseat, breathing out slow, shoulders sinking deeper into the upholstery.

The silence stretches, tight, heavy, unfamiliar for the three of them. Until finally, Kenta breaks it with a long, tired sigh.

"...Kid’s different lately," he mutters, eyes still on the window. "Hard to approach. Hard to read. Like he’s... drifting somewhere we can’t follow."

Aramaki turns his head lazily toward him. "You know..." He scratches his cheek. "I keep forgetting something stupid, the fact that Ryoma’s the youngest among us."

Kenta turns to him slowly, brows lifting. Hiroshi glances back from the passenger seat with the same expression, something clicking, something quietly unsettling.

And Aramaki blinks. "What? Did I say something wrong?"

The two go back to staring ahead, acting back normal.

After a long sigh, Kenta speaks first. "Now that you say it... yeah. It’s weird, isn’t it?"

He lets out a weak, almost embarrassed laugh.

"In fact, I’m supposed to be the oldest boxer in the gym. The senior. The one everyone looks to. But somewhere along the line... I stopped feeling like the oldest. Or the senior. Or anything, really."

He rubs the back of his neck, his expression twisting with a kind of self-directed amusement.

"Gym doesn’t revolve around me. I didn’t even notice when it stopped. Hell, I think it revolves around him now."

He huffs a breath, half-laugh, half-disbelief.

"What kind of senior forgets he’s supposed to lead?"

Sera glances at Kenta through the rear-view mirror. "Come on," he says with a light chuckle. "That’s only because you haven’t had your own fight for too long. Win tomorrow, and everyone will start treating you the way they’re supposed to."

Kenta snorts softly, but the sound fades quickly as his expression tightens again.

"Yeah... tomorrow," he murmurs, almost to himself.

His eyes drift toward the city rolling by, the afternoon sun flickering unevenly across his features as he thinks about his next fight.

Yet he still can’t overlook Ryoma’s recent pull in the gym, or the strange air that follows him like a shadow.