Minato Narumiya/LN Synopsis

###  Ten Years Ago

Minato and his mother are visiting a shrine when he hears the sound of a bowstring and runs ahead, stumbling across a kyudo match at the kyudojo at the back of the shrine grove. His mother catches up and tells him not to run ahead of her. He apologizes and asks her what this is. She explains that it is a kyudo match and that the one who hits the most wins. When he remarks that sounds like fun, she tells him that it is much harder to hit than it looks, something she knows as she did kyudo in high school.

They continue to watch as the two male archers, one middle-aged and one elderly, shoot without missing their targets. Minato asks his mother about the sound he had heard earlier. She tells him that is a *tsurune*, a sound the bowstring makes after an arrow is shot, and the sound made when an arrow hits a target is called a *matooto*. She explains that *tsurune* sounds different depending on the bow and the archer's ability, and that the *tsurune* is an especially beautiful sound. Minato declares that he wants to try kyudo, and makes his mother promise that she will go see him at a tournament.

Just then, the middle-aged archer had missed his shot, and the elderly archer shoots, creating a beautiful *tsurune* and hitting the target. Minato is excited and thinks to himself that he wants to make a beautiful *tsurune* like that as well.

### First Day of High School

Minato is finishing his morning run when Seiya and his dog Bear appear next to him in the neighborhood park. Minato did not want to meet him during his training, but greets him as well as Bear, who licks his face and tries to get him to show his left flank where his scar is. The three then set off on a forest path behind the park, with Bear leading the way. Minato feels faint from the completely different tone of his morning, which Seiya notices. He asks if he's alright and jokes that it will be a spectacular high school debut for him if he collapsed on the first day of school. He then says that when that time comes he will offer to nurse him in his family's hospital, which Minato says he will decline as he does not know what he is going to do. He wonders why Seiya chose to go to the same public high school as him when he could have gone to the best school in the prefecture. He had not known they would be in the same school until just a few days ago. He thinks about the new life he will be starting in high school.

After the entrance ceremony, where Seiya was speaking as the freshman representative, the school clubs are recruiting new students in the school courtyard. Minato tries to quickly pass through the area, but Ryouhei throws his arms around him and Seiya. Minato is indignant at first but then recognizes who it is, their old childhood friend who he can't get angry at. The three then happily caught up and recounted their old childhood stories, until Tomio Morioka, Ryouhei's homeroom teacher, approaches them.

Tomio claims to have a secret mission, which Minato finds suspicious, but then he reveals that he has been ordered to revive the kyudo club. Ryouhei tells him that Seiya and especially Minato are interested in kyudo and have experience. Minato panics about where the conversation is going, telling Tomio that he cannot join since he has many chores to do ever since his mother died, though he can hear a voice asking him why he is still running every morning. Tomio tells him that he can come by anytime if his situation changes. Seiya and Ryouhei are both on board with joining, and they go with Tomio to the kyudojo. Before he leaves, Seiya turns back and Minato tells him that he is not doing kyudo anymore. He replies that he knows, and that he is carrying around something important. Minato grabs his bag in spite of himself and goes home when he realizes he fell for Seiya's bluff, refusing invitations from the other students.

## References

1. ↑ Tsurune Volume 1, Prologue
2. ↑ Tsurune Volume 1, Chapter 1