Baseball and the Azure Blue Sky

Chapter 26: Baseball Idiots heart-to-heart

The blue haired girl smiled genuinely at him. He was slowly but surely getting better at expressing himself and his honest feelings and thoughts in words and somehow the blue head felt proud about it, although she never had done much to help him with it.

"So, how did it go? Your date, I mean?" Kanemaru asked, earning a sigh from his best friend by his side.

"Shinji, you're being rude!" Toujou scolded and shook his head in exasperation. "That's absolutely none of our business. And it wasn't even a real date. Sora is still a boy in case you already forgot"

"Wha-...?! N-No... That's not what I wanted to... -agh!" the blonde stuttered helplessly and his teammates around him started to laugh at his flushed cheeks.

"Sora and Kuramochi were visiting the arcades today, right?" Ono questioned and tried to save the poor first year from further embarrassment. "I think there wouldn't be anything wrong with us asking how it turned out? Since you two are experienced video gamers, I suppose you've won most of the time?"

"Oh, right! I want to know about that too!" Maezono said, pumping one of his fists eagerly. "You've played against some other guys Kuramochi had met the other day, no? There's no way you two would've let them beat you, right?! You were representing Seidou and our team even in this situation after all!"

And suddenly the competitive spirit of the baseball team's members and also former members was filling the cafeteria in which they had already been waiting for Sora and Kuramochi when the two of them had returned to the compounds. Yuuki's and Furuya's fiery auras were exploding and making the guys right next to them flinch in surprise.

"Hyaha! Of course we crushed them into the concrete!" Kuramochi stated proudly and exchanged a glance and a wide grin with Sora.

"We won every single round with a big difference in points and they even paid lunch for us", the young girl added with that special glint in her cerulean eyes that sometimes caused her to look rather impish and cheeky.

"Well, that was to be expected, I assume" Shirasu said sounding utterly satisfied.

"Right, nothing less from you two" also Kawakami agreed with his best friend.

"And did you get to know their girlfriends as well?" Watanabe asked curiously, piquing the interest of everybody else in the room. "It was supposed to be a triple date, or am I missing out on something?"

"Hah!"

Kuramochi suddenly jumped from his chair with a triumphant laughter, facing his blue haired teammate confidently.

"There, see! The other guys didn't suspect anything either, so it's not such a common thing like you wanted to make me believe!"

Sora rolled her azure blue eyes and facepalmed.

"Kaz... please?!"

Miyuki smirked.

So much faith in your captain and your catcher, huh?! May as well reward it...

"Lemme take a guess, neither of them actually had a girlfriend and they didn't expect or believe Kuramochi to have one either?"

Sora just raised her eyebrows at Kuramochi meaningfully and the young shortstop ruffled his hair in annoyance.

"Ahhhh, hell! I just really can't with you two!" he complained desperately. "You texted him or somethin', right?"

"Nope..."

"Honestly Kuramochi, that wasn't so difficult to figure it out", Miyuki remarked dryly. "For someone so sharp and observant you're awfully dense sometimes"