Baseball and the Azure Blue Sky

Chapter 32: Valentine with the Baseball Idiots

Sora was bathing in self-pity. Her head had plopped down on her arms resting on the table in the staff kitchen of Tomoko's café. She didn't even have work today, but she came nevertheless since she hadn't known where to go instead.

It was weekend once again and on top of it, it was Valentine's Day. The blue haired girl had attended morning practice with the first string and after that she had been busying herself with distributing her self-made platonic friendship chocolates into the lockers of her teammates. This time she had been prepared at least and had taken several days to make them beforehand without having to wake up one day earlier in the morning.

After that she had excused herself and had escaped to Yakushi, also giving Sanada and Todoroki some chocolates to thank them for the other day again and to invite them over to her home to play some videogames together the next time she had a day off. Now that she had made some friends outside of Seidou, the young girl wanted to cherish them.

Her next stop would've been Inashiro, but the words Narumiya Mei and Valetine's Day combined together had sent a cold shiver down her spine. Sora had no intention whatsoever to attempt suicide aka to get assassinated by crazy maniac fangirls. Thus, the blue haired girl had decided to wait until later, after the usual afternoon practice for her and hopefully also for the Inashiro team would've ended. She hoped that in the evening the coast would be clear and the fangirls and journalists would've left the school compounds.

However, on her way from Seidou to the subway station, she had dropped by at her workplace to greet Tomoko and her colleagues from the cosplay café, only to regret it instantly. The young blonde manager had noticed the dark circles around her eyes, her pale face and the lingering insecurity and worry in her cerulean eyes. It was merely a lack of sleep because of a certain nervousness that had been settling deep inside of her stomach. Sora was restless and fidgety, but usually managed it very well to hide it with her acting skills. That her boss of her part-time job of all people had been able to pick up on her current mood still surprised the young girl.

Tomoko had dragged her along to the small staff room, calling in Aka-chan, Ki-chan and Mido-chan as well who had switched shifts and had been about to leave. They were Sora's colleagues with the respective character colors red, yellow and green, resembling their hair and eye colors. Aka-chan and Ki-chan were in fact girls just like Sora and Mido-chan was a crossdressing boy who seriously knew how to do his job exceptionally good. They all shared a passion for anime, manga, videogames and cosplaying after all. Aka-chan had been the girl to cosplay Nami in their One Piece week, so she had had a lot of shifts together with Sora as Vivi.

Currently at work were Shiro-chan, a very beautiful guy with the character color white, Kuro-chan, the girl who had cosplayed Nico Robin from One Piece with her color being black, Mura-chan, the older brother with purple hair and eyes and Pink-chan, his cute and cheery younger brother in... well, yeah pink.

The blue haired girl was wearing a black turtleneck, courtesy of Miyuki and a pair of jeans. She had tied her hair up into a messy bun and her natural make-up was covering up her tiredness quite well. So, she still wondered how the hell Tomoko had been able to recognize it. Her manager had provided the young girl and her three colleagues with coffee and tea and had started to interrogate her like a mother as to what was up with her. The problem was, Sora didn't even know that for sure herself. Plus, she didn't have time for this since she still wanted to visit Inashiro to give Narumiya his share of chocolates.

"Okay, back to the two hot dudes you're constantly hanging out with", Aka-chan started and blew into her cup to cool down the hot cappuccino. "Are you sure that they don't have anything to do with your inability to sleep properly?!"