Coming back from the hot spring, Ranfa really do miss it and she wished the hot spring would come back with her. It's a Monday afternoon and she could see her boyfriend still looked very annoyed about the last day at the hot spring inn; every time Kamitani looked at his little brother or whenever his little brother call for him, Kamitani would react by looking at the little boy like he's utter crap and make a very audible 'Tch' noise.
"Hayato, don't be like that. He wasn't the only one who barged in on us." Ranfa pat Kamitani's head, trying to comfort him as best she could. To be honest, she was a little annoyed that Taka brought an army of babies to raid the mixed bath. Well, it couldn't be helped that Kamitani and her were well liked by the babies.
And speaking of well liked by the babies, Takuma seemed to have developed a major liking to Kamitani, he's standing by his leg looking at him with his very happy face. It's nothing new that Takuma would be all smiley like his mother, but to stand far from Kazuma? That's new!
"Hayato, you have a fan~." Ranfa thought it was adorable for Takuma to copy everything Kamitani was doing.
Kamitani didn't know what to say as he looked at Takuma. He started to scratch his own head only for the baby to copy him; when Kamitani put his hand down, Takuma did the same. And when Kamitani scratched his head again, Takuma copied him.
"Pfft! Hahaha." Ranfa laughed, "Why is he doing that? It's adorable~."
But not everyone thought it was cute; Taka, for instance, did not like it and he reacted by pushing Takuma. "Don't copy my brother!"
Of course, Kamitani reacted to Taka's negative reaction with his own negative reaction with a slap to the head! "Cut it out, idiot!"
"Bwaaaaahhhhhhhh!!!!!" Taka cried against Ryuuichi, who already have a crying Kazuma crying behind him.
"Huh..." Ranfa could clearly see what was going on; Kazuma was probably lonely Takuma's attention's all on Kamitani. She playfully looked at Kamitani, "Hey, you want me to be jealous of Takuma?" She asked while hugging his arm.
"What? No, you idiot."
"What? No, you idiot~!" Takuma had Michiyo hugging his arm?!
"Hee~." Michiyo cutely looked at Kamitani and Ranfa.
"How long is this monkey see money do act going to last...?" Kamitani wondered out loud, "Why is he copying me to start with?" He's unaware of it, but the children saw him throwing the sandal at the monkey so the missing underwears would go back to its rightful owners as a heroic act. "And stop imitating that!" Kamitani slapped Takuma's head but he was still smiling anyway?!
"Bwahahaha! This is like a soap opera~!" Usaida couldn't stop laughing because there seems to be a lot of drama here and there in this daycare room and he couldn't get enough of it.
"Usaida-san, you're not helping!" Ryuuichi complained, "And please stop hitting the kids, Kamitani, you're scaring Kazu-kun."
"Huh? I haven't hit him yet."
"T...Takuma...c-come look at picture book with me..." Kazuma bravely called out to his big brother!
Takuma looked at Kazuma and then at Kamitani. Takuma smiled cheerfully and he rejected Kazuma's offer to play! "I'm gonna play with Kamita over here~!"
Kazuma suffered a huge blow! He devastatingly sat down like it's the end of the world!
"Oof. Hayato, you really don't know how to read the atmosphere, huh?" Ranfa got down and she patted Takuma on the head, "You really like Kamita that much?"
"Yeah~!"
"Cute. I won't lose to you though."
"The heck are you saying, you idiot?" Kamitani slapped the top of Ranfa's head!
There needs to be a way to close the distance between the twins again! Ryuuichi suggested for everyone to play together instead of having two groups doing different things. He thought it'd be nice for everyone to play with Kamitani's group.
"Hmm..." Kazuma was still crying though.
"Kazu-chan." Kotarou put away the picture book and he pulled Kazuma by his left hand.
"Let's play~." Michiyo pulled Kazuma up by his right hand.
"They're such good kids...!" Ryuuichi watched all the kids go to Kamitani to play.
However, if Kamitani had told Ryuuichi his idea of playing, Ryuuichi would have stopped him because Kamitani held Kotarou and Kazuma by their waists and he started to do squats with two human dumbbells! Of course, Kazuma started to ball his eyes out as he went up and down.
"I like how you have a lack of reaction." Usaida said to Ranfa as he watched Kazuma cry against her for comfort.
"That's because he uses Taka and Michiyo as dumbbells if I go over to his house for dinner. That way, he can play with with and train his body for baseball at the same time, this is killing two birds with one stone. Very clever, right?"
"It is, but Kazuma is balling his eyes out."
"There, there..." Ranfa felt a little sorry for Kazuma. In a way, she doesn't blame the little boy because he probably felt Kamitani had stole his twin. Ranfa could understand that feeling because when she first realized Oikawa and Iwaizumi were dating their current partners, she felt they were stealing them from her. "You're still young, but you will someday realize you haven't lost anyone."
...
Later that day, Kamitani decided not to go to the club today.
"Oh? This is rare of you. Do you want me to accompany you?" She asked him.
"Do you want to?"
"Of course. Ryuuichi said he's okay on his own."
"Alright."
In a way, she was like the Baseball Club's Manager whenever she's accompanying him. Usually the club doesn't allow the girlfriends of a club member to stay and take up bench spaces, but since Ranfa put in the effort of doing something for the club, they treat her differently.
"Ranfa-chan is here again!"
"Yes!"
"I am so happy!"
It was obvious the Baseball team liked her a lot.
Ranfa looked at Kamitani with a playful smirk, "I'm popular~."
"Shut it, you."
"Hehe~. Hey, you're not coming here as an excuse to get Takuma and Kazuma close again, are you?"
"I'm not that kind to consider things like that. I am just being my usual self. You're overthinking this like Kashima."
"Just keeping an eye on you, that's all."
"Geez..." Kamitani looked away from her but she saw how red the back of his ear was.
"Fufu, how cute~."
She went ahead and she started to clean all of the water bottles with soap. She began to wonder what the other babies were doing. In the background, the Baseball Club were jogging for a warm up.
"Hm? Michiyo?"
"Ah! I found Nee-chan~!" Michiyo was outside and she's holding a handmade doll with a small little strap. The doll was in the shape of a cherry blossom flower.
"Where did you get that, Michiyo? It looks adorable."
"Usa made it~!"
"Did he now? And what are you looking for? Did you lose your doll?"
"Nuh-uh. Kazuma lost his horsie."
Ranfa deducted that everyone's looking for a little horse doll from what her little sister's saying. "Ah. Maybe Hayato and I shouldn't have avoided the club today. That idiot, trying to make Kazuma happy again..."
"Hm? But Kazuma likes Kamita." Michiyo pointed out as Ranfa picked her up.
"He does?"
"Yeah. Kazuma was telling Michi how cool Kamita was when he hitted the monkey with Usa's sandal! Kazuma likes Kamita a lot!" If that was the case, why was Takuma the one being overly attached to Kamitani? Surely it should be Kazuma the one who was attached, right? Ranfa was a little confused on that part.
"Huh?" Ranfa then realized something. When she realized it, she started to laugh.
"Nee-chan go crazy?" Michiyo asked.
"No, no. Nee-chan just realized something. Hahaha, Takuma is the older sibling after all..." Yes, this was something even herself, an older sibling could understand.
So what was it that Ranfa understood as an older sibling herself?
"Takuma~!!!!" Kazuma and Takuma found the culprit who stole the horse doll! It was the mean cat who tried to attack the chicks! It's running away with the horse doll's strap in its mouth! Takuma reacted by chasing after it! He even got in the way of the Baseball Club's way!
'I just have to get the doll, right?' Kamitani was about to go for the kill and get the doll, but he was stopped by Ryuuichi, who wanted Takuma be the one to get it.
On the other side of the bush though, Ranfa caught the cat.
Takuma crawled through the bush, and he waddled too fast that he fell face first! "Ah! Fafa!"
"Shh~." Ranfa understood Takuma so she stayed quiet. She let Takuma come close to the cat and take the horse doll away from the pesky cat.
"Fafa, you're not coming?"
"Nope. Fafa will be here playing with this cat. You go and show off to your little brother." Ranfa winked Takuma.
Takuma smiled happily and he understood right away that Ranfa understood what he had been doing the whole time.
"Takuma...Takuma...!" Poor Kazuma was still crying, he waddled a bit too quick and he fell on his face a couple of times.
Takuma came out of the bushes and he held the horse doll up. His appearance was disheveled, leaves were stuck in his hair, and he was a little dirty from crawling on the ground. "Kazuma!" He came out looking victorious!
Seeing his brother did such a heroic act for his sake, Kazuma cried as hard as he could as he waddled to his twin and cry out loud.
Ranfa was listening from behind the bushes and she was smiling with warmth, "Michiyo, did you know? They may be twins, but the older sibling always wants to become the type of person their little sibling will like and look up to." Ranfa could understand Takuma because she's the same; she's always hoping to stay as she was, as the person whom Michiyo will like and look up to.
"Ranfa, what are you doing?" Kamitani looked over the bush to see Ranfa sitting on the grass with Michiyo on her lap.
"Nothing~." Ranfa put Michiyo back down and she urged the girl to return to Ryuuichi, "And this is our little secret, okay~?" She asked her little sister.
"Secret!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Throughout the whole day, Kazuma had been going on and on about Takuma being so brave to chase the cat and retrieve his doll to his mother. Mrs Mamizuka wasn't annoyed one bit that Takuma had scratches and bandaids on his face. In her eyes, boys need to learn to take a fall or a scratch or two and then laugh it off like it's nothing.
"I beated the cat because I trained!" Takuma happily said to his mother.
"I am so sorry Takuma got hurt." Ryuuichi apologized to her.
"It's fine, Ryuuichi-kun." Mrs Mamizuka was not angry at all because Ranfa had already told her what happened so she did not blame Ryuuichi at all. "That's great, Takuma! You should fight it next time~!"
"Geh?! T-the poor cat..." Ryuuichi wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing!
"Seriously..." Kamitani was on the floor of the daycare center, he's waiting for his mom to finish scoring test sheets before buying fried chicken on the way home. He's tired because of training and he's glad that he's no longer indirectly upsetting Kazuma.
"You're very kind, Hayato." Ranfa said while stroking Michiyo's back as she slept on her lap.
"I am not kind at all."
"You were worried about upsetting Kazuma, no?"
"Be quiet. It's over so stop talking about it."
"Yes, yes~."
Kamitani looked at her once and then he looked away while scratching the back of his neck, "What are you having for dinner?"
"Hm, I don't feel like cooking. I'm going to pig it out with Michiyo and get a take out."
"That's unhealthy. Come round to ours and eat fried chicken with us."
Ranfa giggled, "How is that any healthier? Hahaha, but yes, fried chicken sounds great. Ask your Mom first though."
"No need, she always tells me to bring you home all the time. You can even sleep over if you want."
"Oh, getting brave now, are we? I can't say no to that, can I?"
Kamitani blushed when he realize what she was saying. "Idiot..."
"Yes, yes, love you too~."