Baseball and the Azure Blue Sky

Chapter 13: Baseball Idiots and battery partners

"Alright, Chris-senpai. We're done for today. You can put your shirt back on", Sora said washing her hands and pulling down her sleeves.

"Thank you, Sora", he gave back calmly, rolled his injured shoulder and got dressed before standing up from the infirmary stretcher. "Isashiki, Sawamura and Miyuki were right to praise you. You're surprisingly good at giving massages. And I can say that since I got a lot of them from many different people lately"

In fact, Sora had given more and more massages to almost every member of the first string and even some of the second string since it had gotten around a lot that her family was running a wellness center and also that she helped with Miyuki's recovery and the pitchers taking care of their shoulders. Especially Furuya used to get a little tense, so Sora had offered her help naturally. The blue haired girl also gave advice on taping, showed her teammates correct stretching and even volunteered to help out with partner exercises occasionally. And additionally, the third years had been dropping by since Sawamura had introduced them to her.

"You've talked to Kaz about me?!"

Well, that was certainly a surprise. The young girl knew that Miyuki was admiring Takigawa because he couldn't beat him as a catcher, but she wouldn't have thought that the two of them would have casual chit-chats about her massaging skills. That somehow really felt out of place.

"Ah, so apparently he didn't tell you. I'm not really surprised. It seems like he didn't tell anyone on the team besides Takashima..."

"...Tell me... what?"

"You know that he had been injured before the fall tournament and still played the whole match? And that he was banned from practice and his duties as the team's captain in consequence so that he could focus on his recovery properly? Kuramochi has been working as the captain's substitute since back then. I think that was even before you've entered Seidou"

"Not that I've heard the story in so much detail, but yeah, I thought something like that. It's pretty obvious that Mochi is leading the team at the moment and that Kaz has to sit out because of his injury", Sora responded, tilting her head in curiosity at the older catcher.

"Well, the team was still having matches at that time before entering the off-season and Miyuki had to watch them from the stands for the first time. It must've had some kind of impact for him, because not much later after our team had lost with Ono as the regular catcher, he suddenly started showing up in the clinic where I'm doing my rehab. Miyuki requested to exercise with me and Takashima approved, so we're working together since that day. I guess he didn't want to miss out on practice too much. Of course, that makes sense and he will have to attend the winter camp as well, so I didn't think much of it, but after I heard that you're helping him with his recovery as well... How should I put it? I guess, there is... something going on in his mind after all"

Sora chuckled and shook her head.

"That's just so... him!"

Takigawa raised an eyebrow at the young girl questioningly.

"Doing stuff secretly so that no one would notice how much he actually cares. Because in fact he really does, even though he always acts like he doesn't for whatever reason. He's fine with being the bad guy and others hating him, but Heaven forbid that someone might want to be his friend or very close to him in any other way. And no one is allowed to know that he works his ass off for the team, although it's pretty obvious that everybody already knows anyway, he still tries to hide it. He's good at upsetting people and pushing them away on purpose and his social skills suck great deal. So much that it's giving me a headache regularly. But I really think that he's a sensitive one somewhere deep down. He just has buried his emotions somewhere beneath all that mischief and sarcasm. Kaz is bad at expressing himself properly, so you have to watch closely to understand. If I didn't know any better, I'd classify him as some weird sort of Tsundere-boy", the blue haired girl explained while she was walking down the hallway with her kind upperclassman.