In this chapter, the narrator reflects on his life. He realizes that every adult in his life is a "bastard," and that he will have to leave his home and find a new place to live if he wants to survive. He also realizes that if he stays where he is, he will be dragged deeper into the world of people who try to manipulate him. He decides that he must find a place where he can "be myself just as I am . . myself" . He wonders if it is the man who gets punched out of the crowd at an away game that makes him want to cheer louder at home. The narrator realizes that the man is the same man who punched out the man at the beginning of the chapter, and he wonders why the crowd does not cheer louder when they get an opportunity to do so. He thinks that the crowd is "suckballs" and that they should just do it the way they always do. He tells us that his life has changed since he first went to the away game. He had a rift in his family, and his classmates did not know how to handle him. They wanted to be near him, but he told them that he was fine standing there and watching the game. They asked him if he thought the game was fun. He replies that it was, but that his "usual lives" are awful. Hisa's life is the worst, he says, because there is nothing "upbeat about our lives." He says that he and his friends meet at the home of the tengu cup, which he attended last year.