The Substitute

Part 4 (Edited)

The trio goes back and gets some more sleep before waking up at 5:30 for practice. Slowly the players started gathering in the cafeteria for breakfast before practice. Erika was sitting with the fist string when she received a text message. She smiled. It was from the coach of Yakushi. He agreed to a practice game that weekend, meaning tomorrow, on Saturday, at 9 a.m. She first showed the text to Kazuma who was eating beside her, and looked at her with a raised brow, a silent question in his eyes- 'When did you have time for this?'. 'Wouldn't you like to know..."-answered the female with a coy smile before addressing the whole team.

"Boys! Good news! I managed to get us a practice game for tomorrow!"-said the coach.

Cue the chokes and surprised looks from the players at the table, even the Kominatos were surprised.

"SIS! YOU CAN'T JUST DROP THINGS LIKE THAT ON PEOPLE OUT OF NOWHERE!"- yelled Sawamura junior.

"He's actually right for once you know!"-agreed Kazuya.

"Hey! What do you mean 'for once'?!"

"Exactly what it sounds like, now be quiet for a sec! When did you even have time to organize this?!"-asked Miyuki junior.

"Oh, yeah, I may have talked to few schools about practice games on the plane to Tokyo. None of them replied till now, but I guess I should've mentioned it. Opsie?"-said the female while sticking her tongue out a little with a wink.

"Opsie she says..."-thought the players and the older Miyuki with exasperation.

"What team will we be playing?"-asked the first baseman Yuuki.

"Ah, right, our opponent's Yakushi. You played against them in the Spring I believe. Anyway, we leave at 8: 30, right after practice, I expect you all to pack your bags in time. I'm gonna go change for practice since I finished eating, I'll see you all there."-continued the woman.

With this Erika got up and left. Soon after Kazuma left too, saying that he needed to look at some documents for the tournament in the summer. When the duo left everyone started talking about the game and how they won't be able to do any research on the team they're playing against.

During all this commotion about the sudden match Kazuya turned to Eijun and spoke.

"Hey! How about we bait them into going inside the storage room after practice and lock them in there until classes are over. That way they might finally get their shit together and stop being just best friends with benefits."-he whispered to Eijun who was sitting next to him.

"That's...not a bad idea actually."-Eijun answered, but bit his lip, suddenly remembering the looks his crush (*khm* who he's currently talking too khm*) sent to his sister. His heart hurt, but he managed to continue speaking- "Are you sure... you... want to help them get together though?"-he asked his catcher with worry and hesitation in his tone and on his face. He already asked this once, but he felt like he needed to confirm his thoughts. He was scared of the answer, but he knew that he shouldn't force it if Kazuya didn't actually want to do it.

Kazuya looked at him, they made eye-contact. He saw the worry on his pitcher's face. He had took look away. He always had a hard time dealing with compassion shown to him.

"Of course...I already told you right? This is what I want."-he said finally, still looking away from the pitcher. The pitcher sighed at this with closed eyes before looking away as well. They both tried to go back to eating...

"I have to move on. They can't be happy if I don't. I won't be happy if I don't move on. Them getting together would just help me with that."-Kazuya said after a few seconds of silence and eating. Eijun and Kazuya made eye-contact at this. They both smiled slightly, though not even they knew why exactly.