D.A.

Homerun fun

THWACK, HOME RUN!!!
This must've been the 100th time I've heard that sound and yet... I still haven't quite gotten tired of it yet.
The place Kokatsu had chosen for the afternoon was the batting center.
"Odd choice for someone that scrawny.", I first thought, until he challenged the three of us in an endurance contest.
The rules were simple, keep swinging and hitting the ball until your arm collapses. No need to even hit the target.
At first, I was really confident about my chances of winning. I mean, if there's one thing I was confident in, it was my endurance.
That was... until I was painfully reminded of our two friends' inhuman endurance as both Mary and I got disqualified early... which was a good 25 minutes in for me and 12 minutes in for Mary.
Then, the afternoon became me and Mary massaging our burning arms while witnessing the intense match between Melissa and Kokatsu.
They were both acting like batting machines as they found the perfect rhythm to constantly keep going.
This went on for another 25 minutes until Melissa finally gave up and dropped the bat, leaving Kokatsu in his own world as he kept on swinging his bat.
"As you guys can see, Kokatsu has quite the obsession with the bat.", comments Melissa as she sits down and starts lamenting about her burning arms.
"Does he have a bat collection then? You know... like your stun gun-", I started asking while teasing Melissa a bit.
"Shut up! And no, he doesn't have a collection. He says that he's fine as long as he has one in hand.", answered Melissa as she shut me up by poking me with a deactivated stun gun.
...
"I'll never tease her again.", I swore deep inside as the thought of what could have happened if that weapon was active made me shiver.

Coming back to Kokatsu, I gotta say, the sight he produced was absolutely breathtaking.
Every swing he made had the exact power and precision needed to hit the target directly, causing the "HOME RUN" sound to appear from the machine (which was weird since it's not a home run).
He looked so impressive that he made me forget about how small and scrawny he looked.
Unfortunately, the nice mood was ruined by two bastards that tried playing hookers with Mary and Melissa.
"Hey cuties, why don't you drop these losers and let us show you what real men look like.", they say as they try to approach them, making Mary uncomfortable.
Ugh, that line was so disgustingly unoriginal that it almost made me puke.

As the bastard tried to get closer to my dear Mary, Melissa and I prepared ourselves to give them a painful lesson.
That was until a ball suddenly zooms in through and passed in between the wannabe hookers, leaving them at a hair's breadth of having their faces smashed in as the ball crashed into the wall, leaving a hole.

The ball came from Kokatsu, who had deviated his swing to precisely aim for that spot.
"I won't miss next time.", simply said our friend as he just went back to swinging his bat.
"That... was seriously awesome.", I thought as I witnessed the two bastards making a run for it, their pants clearly showing that the threat made them let go.
"Ugh, there sure are a lot of pathetic guys in this world, huh?", commented Melissa as she let out a sigh.
"Th-thank you Kokatsu, but please be careful with your swings, somebody could get hurt.", blurts out Mary in an adorable pose, oblivious of what actually happened.
Her advice was completely ignored by Kokatsu, who simply swung his bat one last time and ended his session.
After that, we prepared to head out while casually chatting our way out.

While the girls were getting ready, I noticed that Kokatsu's expression was... weirder than usual, even for him.
It was subtle and he honestly did a good job hiding it, but his expression looked like he was pained by something.
But... what exactly?
My speculations were kind of confirmed when he suddenly got a call.
"Damn, sorry guys, I'll have to peace out. Got called by my boss for some emergency overtime. I'll see you guys Monday.", he simply said as he ran out.
So it was that huh, does he hate the job that much?
As he head out and ran to his job, I remembered the question he had posed before.
A situation where we couldn't save Mary and would instead fall into danger ourselves.
With Kokatsu currently out of the picture, we might get into such a situation.

I still didn't quite understand why I was so obsessed with that one-off question.
Perhaps I was being paranoid and apparently so was Melissa since she went ahead and said :
"Guess it's my turn to chose a place, huh? How about we go to my house so I can cook something up?".
I mean... Kokatsu and Melissa's home sounds like a pretty safe place but... wow.
I don't know if I should count this as expected or unexpected coming from her.