District Qualifiers Arc

The **District Qualifiers Arc** is the second story arc of the Blue Box series by Kouji Miura.

## Summary

Through his notable performance, Taiki is able to compete in tournaments, along with Kyo. Suddenly, he's paired with Haryu for doubles, who takes Taiki under his wing with expectations of improving Taiki's abilities. Haryu uses his knowledge that Taiki likes Chinatsu to motivate him during practice. After school, Haryu tells his friends that Taiki has promise and Taiki ends up finding out that Haryu got a girlfriend and that he was out with Chinatsu buying makeup when they were together.

At school, Taiki realizes after a message from Chinatsu that he accidentally grabbed Chinatsu's gym shirt, so he goes to swap it with her during sometime between classes. After meeting up on the roof, Taiki gets embarrassed when Chinatsu starts to change right in front of him even though she can do it without showing any skin. During the day before the regional preliminaries, Taiki goes in his backyard to practice, and Chinatsu ends up blushing from seeing him shirtless after noting that his shirt is inside out. She tries to cheer up Taiki by stating that he always has next year if he doesn't make it through qualifiers, but Taiki reacts negatively to that and walks away.

Later, both Taiki and Haryu compete in the regional preliminaries, easily advancing to the best sixteen, and meet Haryu's old teammate, Ichiro Kishisho. He is adamant on beating Haryu in order to get Chinatsu's contact details, so Haryu wagers Taiki's match result on whether Kishisho can get it. During that night, Chinatsu talks with Taiki's mom and she talks about understanding why Taiki was upset at her it was as if she was telling him that it doesn't matter if he loses this year. The next day, both Taiki and Kishisho play each other in the regional singles tournament. Meanwhile, Kyo tells Chinatsu of the wager, and asks her to take him to the aquarium as a reward for his hard work, which she agrees to. Taiki is able to win in a close game with him only losing to Nishida in the tournament. Taiki finds out later at school that Kyo asked Chinatsu to take him to the aquarium with Hina visibly upset as she leaves after learning about that. On Saturday, he and Chinatsu visit the aquarium where she apologizes for making the insensitive comment to him before he competed in the regional preliminaries. He brushes it off and says it was no big deal with him telling her to send him a penguin sticker to him if she ever feels uncomfortable or wants to talk.

## Story Impact

* Taiki becomes Haryu's doubles partner.
* Taiki learns that Haryu is not dating Chinatsu and started dating someone in show business the previous week.
* Taiki and Haryu make it to the top 16 in the regional doubles tournament.
* Taiki wins against Ichiro in the regional singles tournament but loses to Nishida.
* Chinatsu goes on a date with Taiki at the aquarium as a reward for winning against Ichiro.
* Chinatsu apologizes to Taiki for telling him before the tournament that he always has next year.
* Taiki tells Chinatsu to send him a penguin sticker on her phone if she is ever uncomfortable or wants to talk to him.

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Chapter 8
2. ↑ Chapter 11
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 13
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 14