Baseball and the Azure Blue Sky

Chapter 5: Eavesdropping Baseball Idiots

The brown haired pitcher followed her movement with his eyes and had to suppress a snort. He covered his mouth quickly with one hand and Sora flashed him a wide grin.

"Couldn't possibly be worse off than those two, right Kawakami?"

It was just a lighthearted attempt to cheer him up, but it seemed to work.

"Right", he agreed, returning the grin. "And everyone calls me Nori, by the way. You're the only one who still calls me Kawakami, you know"

"Sorry, Nori. Force of habit since you're older than me. Miyuki already made me drop the senpai thing though"

"Did you always call your own classmates senpai since skipping a grade?"

"At first not, but many of them weren't happy about having someone younger in their class. Especially in High School when the teachers explained that I had skipped, a lot of my fellow students thought I'd be on my high horse and finally there were rumors spreading about me being disrespectful and cocky and looking down on anyone who wasn't a genius like myself", Sora explained under her breath while answering some of the questions regarding their history text.

Kawakami's shoulders dropped and he threw the blue head an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry to hear that, Sora"

"Nah, not your fault. But I wanted to avoid the same thing happening again, so better safe than sorry. Only because I'm in the same grade doesn't mean I don't respect my elders after all and also in a team showing some respect to your teammates is important. Particularly if you're a transfer student who comes in so late in the year. It's just good manners, ya know"

The brown haired pitcher nodded his head in understanding and also began scribbling in his notebook.

"J-Just so you know... I-I think you're doing great so far. I personally hope you make it to first string so we can play together. So, uhm... Keep up the good work and do your best"

Sora's head shot up in surprise and her bright blue eyes widened as she stared at Kawakami who was avoiding her gaze with a reddened face. She couldn't help it but to smile genuinely at the submarine pitcher.

"Thanks, Nori. That means a lot, really"

He nodded again and rubbed his nose in embarrassment.

"Can you help me over here?" Kawakami asked quickly to change the topic and showed Sora his textbook.

"Sure, lemme see..."

And thus, history passed with Kawakami and Sora working well together, whereas Miyuki and Kuramochi completely stressed out and it wasn't getting any better that day for the two of them. Next was chemistry and their teacher had decided to let his students write an unannounced test to define their levels of knowledge up to this point.

While Sora was finished in only a few minutes since it was multiple choice, Miyuki and even Kawakami were struggling and Kuramochi chose to completely give up and doze off. He literally fell asleep on his desk, causing the blue haired girl to facepalm.

She carefully reached out her hand to snatch the shortstop's paper without their teacher noticing and began filling it out just for fun. Then she tried getting the attention of the other two, who were sitting in front of them, but that was a bit more difficult because the young girl really didn't want to get caught.

Sora took her rubber and pinpointed a very cautious throw on Kawakami's desk. The brown haired pitcher winced a bit in surprise and turned around to give the blue head a questioning look. She stared back and threw a very pointed look at Miyuki sitting beside him.