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“KURAMOCHI-SENPAI! WE ARE VERY GLAD YOU COULD MAKE IN TO PRACTICE GROUND IN THIS VERY FINE AFTERNOON!”
Life is a curveball. But if you’re living in the same space as Sawamura Eijun, then life might just be a series of blazing 150 km/h fastballs with sudden nasty corner changeup every once a while topped with his very own advanced splitter at the most unexpected times.
“The hell he’s up to again?!” Kuramochi grumbles.
Sachiko snickers beside him. She has Yui warped around her fingers and Miyuki dragged by the collar on her other side. No, literally.
This is some sort of punishment game, and Kuramochi’s very glad that he managed to escape Sachiko’s wicked truth-or-dare raffle in the first place by dragging the innocent Yui and Miyuki as sacrificial lambs to fill his place—because really, self-perseverance wins against solidarity by default whenever Umemoto Sachiko is involved.
“It’s, uh, a frog,” Kanemare says to him as a way of greeting.
“A frog?” Kuramochi repeats dumbly.
Before Kanemaru managed to elaborate, a force of weight suddenly attacks him from the side. Kuramochi’s quick reflexes gives him a view of what—or rather, who—it is that comes barreling into him. Although his brain immediately short-circuited when he gets a glimpse of the face.
“Sawa—”
The next second, Kuramochi finds himself laying on the grass, looking up at Sawamura’s sweaty face that appears to just be inches from his own.
Now, if it was any romance movie, they would do a staring contest for a couple of minutes before finally leaning in and—
“What the actual fuck you are doing?!”
Alas, this is not some romance movie. So, like the kind and caring senpai he is, Kuramochi shoves Sawamura face first to the ground before locking his kouhai’s limbs in such an awkward way that probably would’ve made normal human break some bones. This is Sawamura, though. The boy’s bendy as hell, Kuramochi doesn’t have to worry about damaging their dearest pitcher or anything.
“NOOO!! LET ME GO, KURAMOCHI-SENPAI! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO HELP US WITH YOUR CHEETAH SPEED! WE ALMOST GOT THE FROG!”
Another bout of one-sided wrestling on the ground later, Sawamura finally catchers his breath enough to explain the situation.
Apparently, Sawamura’s class was assigned to find a frog for science lab practice tomorrow. Sawamura got paired off with Kanemaru and Haruno. They haven’t had the chance to find any frog. Or buying any, for that matter. But apparently, Sawamura claimed that he saw one around the practice ground just minutes ago.
“It was around here! I swear! When I saw you, senpai, the frog was just at that corner! Your scary face probably scared it—”
“You wanna die, Bakamura?”
Not far from them, Haruno squirms uneasily. “Uhh, isn’t that the frog?”
Everyone turns around at the sound of her voice.
Kuramochi frowns. “Huh? Where?”
“Um, there… On Miyuki-senpai’s shirt…”
Miyuki yelps, which in turn makes Sachiko and Yui also yelp in surprise. Sachiko is the one who get ahold of herself first and immediately got the brilliant idea to jump at the frog.
…Which does not turn out the be a brilliant idea at all, because bad news is the frog has a quick reflex, so it quickly jumped from Miyuki’s shirt, leaving Sachiko to collide with Miyuki head first.
A concerned Yui jogs towards them. “Uh, are you two okay?”
“I sure hope she did not break my jaw or anything,” Miyuki quips sarcastically, rubbing the spot that had collided with Sachiko’s head with a scowl.
Sachiko thrusts an accusing finger towards him. “Excuse you, I was only trying to help our dear kouhai! If you hadn’t squeaked like a toddler when the little thing was clinging for its dear life on your shirt, we could’ve seized it easily earlier!”
“Well, I was surprised! I couldn’t help it, okay?!”
As Sachiko and Miyuki busily bickering with each other, Kuramochi, Sawamura, Kanemaru, and Haruno are scrawling on their hands and knees on the ground, trying to find the slimy offender between the untamed grass in this side.
“G-Guys…”
Yui’s shaky voice successfully snaps their attention again.
“T-The frog is… I-I think it’s in my head now…”
Sachiko gasps. “Yui! My dear!”
Miyuki tackles her back to the ground before she could jump-scared the poor frog again. “Don’t dive in head-first like that, idiot! If you do that, the frog will run away again!”
“Oi! This is not the way you should hold down a lady, you bastard!”
“HA? What did I hear? You? A lady?”
The rest of them who have little interest to Miyuki and Sachiko’s banter are focusing their attention on the little slimy guy currently making itself home on top of Yui’s pixie cut hair.
“Calm down… Calm down… Don’t move, ‘kay? Don’t worry, Yui. We gonna get that little bastard for you,” Kuramochi tries to calm the manager.
“D-Don’t worry, Yui-senpai! The boys are on the way to the rescue! You will be fine! H-Hang on there, senpai!” Haruno tries to support.
Sawamura and Kanemaru nod in unison. The two of them and Kuramochi are now slowly and surely making their way towards Yui from three different directions. Yui holds her breath.
“On the count of three,” Kuramochi takes the command.
As soon as his underclassmen give him the affirmation, he begins the countdown,
“One…”
The three take a huge step forward. They all have their arms spread out and ready, in case the frog decides to migrates from Yui’s body. Sawamura in particular is wriggling his fingers and flicking his wrists, warming it up, just like what he often does before pitching, in case his flexible wrists and fingers would come into handy—no pun intended, probably.
“Two…”
Kanemaru’s hands are shaking with the nervousness of being so close with a girl manager. A senpai to boot at that.
“One!”
Kuramochi takes a careful huge step towards Yui. Apparently, his two kouhai did not get the memo, as they practically jump towards the poor girl—redoing Sachiko’s mistake all over again.
The boys groan, tangled in each other’s limbs awkwardly. Luckily, Yui managed to escape them by taking a strategically timed back step.
“Now, where’s the goddamn frog?!” Kuramochi groans.
For the second time that day, Yui’s shaky voice wires up their attention again. “Uhh, Sachiko… D-Don’t panic, okay?”
Sachiko tilts her head dumbly, pausing her one-sided arm wrestling game with Miyuki for the sake of paying attention to his girl friend (yes, with space).
“Yes, baby?”
“Err, I think you’ve got something under your shirt.”
“Well, thank you! But you don’t have to flatter me, Yui dear—”
“No, no, no. I mean, Sachiko, the frog—”
Sachiko yelps for the second time that day, and again, colliding into the unprepared Miyuki who was hovering right behind her.
“THE FROG!! THAT DAMN LITTLE DEVIL IS GROPING ME!!”
“Sachiko, calm down—”
“Calm down, bitch. Stay put, I’ll try to get that little guy out, okay—”
“MIYUKI KAZUYA, WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”
“Oi, you two, calm down! Sachiko, stop struggling for a sec! Let me—”
“KURAMOCHI, YOU TOO?!”
“Sachiko-senpai, no, calm down! It’s poking out of your—”
Eventually, Yoshikawa Haruno soon becomes their savior as she brings a huge bucket of water and promptly dump it all over them. The frog finally jumps out of Sachiko’s shirt towards the grass. Haruno’s eyes sharply follow it until the opportunity finally presents itself and she leaps to trap it with the bucket.
“Mission is complete, everyone!”