Chapter 9 – Timer's End
The timer reset. A soft click echoed in the room. Three judges glanced at each other and nodded.
Watanabe stood.
He held two sheets of speech notes—one from Haruka, one annotated by Kotarō. Neither looked like he'd read them until just now.
"Don't fumble. Just read. Please just read," Kotarō thought.
"Uh, good afternoon. I'm the third speaker for the Government side," Watanabe began. His voice was flat, eyes flicking down to the paper.
"So today, uh, we supported the motion that environmental protection should be prioritized over economic growth… and, uh, we made three arguments."
He cleared his throat.
"First was sustainability. Second was something about false choice. Third was ethics."
"Something about? It's literally the subtitle on the page," Kotarō winced.
Watanabe shuffled the page.
"And the Opposition said, like, growth matters more than the environment, but we explained how that doesn't work in the long term. If you don't have a clean world, you can't have a growing economy, right? That's just logic."
"You sound like you're summarizing a tweet. A good tweet. But still."
To his credit, Watanabe slowed his pace as he got more comfortable.
"We also said that protecting the environment can actually help the economy. Like renewable energy, green tech, and stuff like that."
"Stuff like that," Kotarō repeated internally, "the great eraser of detail."
"And we're not saying people don't matter. We're saying that nature is part of the people. Like, their world. And if you ignore that, uh, economy stuff doesn't even happen."
The timer began to beep.
Watanabe didn't stop.
"So in conclusion, our side proves—"
"Thank you," the middle judge interrupted gently. "That's time."
Watanabe froze, mouth still slightly open. He blinked, nodded, and sat down.
"He got most of it out. Just not with style. Or timing. Or tone."
"In a real tournament, he'd be the worst third speaker on record. But this isn't that. It's a school match. So... it gets a pass."
The round was over.
The committee staff stood and thanked both teams. No scores yet. Just formalities.
Kotarō leaned back in his chair, pressing two fingers against his temple.
Haruka quietly passed him a small pink carton.
Strawberry milk.
"You did well," she said. Then turned away and started gathering her papers.
Kotarō stared at the carton.
"I stumbled. I overthought everything. I said 'uhm' at least eight times. But I said it. And she noticed."
They found a seat on the bench just outside the classroom—a long metal one against the second-floor window.
The view overlooked the courtyard, where the festival crowd was still bustling. Flags waved. Speakers blasted music.
Inside, the second floor buzzed with debate energy. Doors opened and closed as other matches ended. A few students passed by, clutching water bottles or nervously flipping through folders.
Haruka tapped her pen against the folder on her lap.
"We hit two out of three points cleanly. The third... we lost the ethics angle halfway."
Kotarō nodded. "The Opposition reframed it into economics. We didn't drag it back."
She added, "Your response to their jobs-versus-planet framing worked. You flipped it just enough."
He sipped the milk without replying. It was warm now. But not terrible.
"We weren't flawless. But we didn't collapse."
Watanabe finally joined them, plopping down on the far edge of the bench, yawning.
"Did I go over time?" he asked.
Haruka didn't answer.
Kotarō said, "A little."
They sat in silence for a while.
More teams were filing out of their rooms now.
Kotarō scanned the hall. He recognized two students from another year, both wearing their team pins. Their match must have just finished.
"That's nearly all of them. It won't be long now. They'll tally, announce results, then prep for Round Two."
He looked at Haruka.
She was flipping casually through her notes, half-focused, half-listening to the festival noise outside.
"We made it past the first match. Now comes the part where we find out if it meant anything."
Chapter End