Forbidden Protege

Ch. 3: Pitchers (Part 2)

"Here, I'll help you," Alexia said as Miyuki loosened the straps on his catchers gear and slipped it on.

"It is your fault that I need this readjusted," Miyuki stated as he held still and left her retighten the straps to fit him. Alexia didn't respond as she worked, being careful to touch him as little as possible. She had already made him and Kuramochi uncomfortable once and she wasn't trying to make them wary of her. After she finished she took a step back and asked Miyuki how it fit. "It's good, thanks."

"No problem," Alexia nodded her head and joined Kuramochi behind the pitching net. She tucked her mitt under her arm and massaged her palm. "Well that's gonna hurt for a bit."

Kuramochi looked over at her with surprise. "You hurt your hand? Was it on that first pitch?" Alexia hummed in response. "And you kept catching for him?" Kuramochi hadn't caught Furuya's pitch at all, but he could imagine how much it would hurt to have mis-caught it how Alexia had.

Alexia chuckled lightly. "I've had worse. It's not a serious injury so I'll be good by tomorrow's practice. Although, I probably shouldn't do any extra practice tonight, just to make sure I don't bruise it worse," Alexia said, half thinking out loud.

"That's still impressive, how you were able to catch Furuya's pitch so easily."

Alexia laughed aloud at this. "'Easy' isn't the word that I would use. More like 'barely'." She shook her head and watched as the ball smacked into Miyuki's mitt loudly. Her eyebrow twitched a bit. The sound was louder than when she had mis-caught the pitch. "I've just had practice with catching super fastballs like that before."

Kuramochi's eyes lingered on Alexia's hands. Her right thumb was pressed into her left palm and drawing small circles. It was obvious it hurt a lot. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Alexia hummed, pressing her tongue to the roof of her mouth, as she followed Kuramochi's gaze to her hands. "I'm fine, Mochi-san. It hurts, but I'm fine." She then chuckled a bit. "Do you remember what I had done right before we met?"

Kuramochi looked up at her and furrowed his eyebrows slightly just as another loud smack was heard. "Oh yeah, you'd just given yourself a paper cut. How's that healing?"

"It's already healed fine. But anyway, that happened, and now I have a slight bruise on my arm from when Miyuki-san grabbed my arm when we were about to fall down the stairs, and my palm stings a bit from the pitch," Alexia said, smiling lightly. "It's just my luck that the first few days I keep injuring myself. Give me a few days and I'll be fine."

"Kyahahaha! Are you always this clumsy?" Kuramochi asked, finding the humor in Alexia's state.

Alexia grimanced. "I said give me a few days and I'll be fine. I'm just physically incapable of giving a good first impression."

"I bruised you?" Miyuki asked, turning around right after catching another pitch from Furuya. Alexia looked at him and found genuine concern on his face which took her aback a little. Kuramochi also found it interesting to see the jerk catcher looking concerned over a girl. Over anyone for that matter.

Alexia bit back a smartass remark and nodded. "It's just a light bruise. When you were falling, you grabbed my forearm a bit hard. It's nothing and it'll be gone in a few days."

"It was your pitching arm, though, wasn't it?" Miyuki asked, thinking back to the near accident. He vaguely remembered grabbing onto her with his right arm and if the railing was on his right, then that meant he would have grabbed her right arm.