Sticks And Stones

Day 10

[Day 10]

I don't know how celebrating Lydia's birthday ended up with us going around with Kyo Izuma and his sister, but I definitely wasn't complaining. When we revealed that we were out of the school compounds celebrating Lydia's birthday, Yuki had beamed right up, and wanted to spend the day along with the birthday girl if Lydia accepted.

Of course, my best friend had the same crippling weakness against anything cute, and had agreed to have Yuki and Kyo tagging around with us as we walked through the town, stopping by flea markets, theme parks and shopping centers. It was definitely a great day for us girls, as we accepted Yuki as one of our own without a single hitch. Yuki was a cheerful little girl, and had a definite taste for cute stuff that Lydia and I were so weak against. Perhaps the only ones who were tortured throughout the day was Ronin and Kyo, who both had to put up with our squeals whenever we saw something cute, rolling Yuki to wherever she wanted to. Yuki even allowed Ronin to push her, which –according to Kyo afterwards –was a show of how much Yuki accepted Ronin.

By the setting sun, we were almost tired out of our wits, having spent quite a fair bit of money on everything that we liked. The birthday girl herself had bought a whole armload of clothes, and was beginning to complaining about how to cart the bags back to Sogano when Yuki spotted something nearby.

"There! I want to go there, Big Brother!" Yuki pointed eagerly the same way she had been eager for everything else, and all of us turned to the direction to see a stadium. The open gates showed that there was nothing going on in the stadium, but for some reason, Yuki seemed excited enough.

"Can we have our dinner there, Big Brother?" Yuki continued, flashing up such innocent puppy eyes that even if Kyo said no, we would have pushed the girl there ourselves. But it was obvious that Kyo was as weak to his sister's devices as we were, as he sighed heavily to himself, and turned his sister that way. Ronin didn't say a second word, following after the guy with our bentos in his hand. True to the cruel brother Ronin was pretending to be, he had refused to help us carry our load no matter how much I begged and pleaded. The only thing he had been willing to help carry was our dinner, since Lydia and I had no more hands to even hold our bentos.

Dragging a sighing and complaining Lydia, we chased after the guys and Yuki into the stadium, gasping when we took in the size of it. Okay, it was supposed to be a stadium, but the size of it as it engulfed us made Lydia and I gasp, looking wildly around at the seats. In the middle was a field surrounded by a large track and various equipment open for the public's use. There were even archery boards put up, as I watched Ronin's eyes glance over them appreciatively.

"Over here, Sister Shainey, Sister Lydia!" Yuki's high voice took our attention, and we found Kyo already sitting nonchalantly on the low bench, his sister wheeled in place beside him. Ronin was already unpacking our dinner mechanically as if he were our butler, and I stifled a laugh at that thought.

"I'm surprised –it's such a big place, and it's not in use!" I commented casually, sitting on the floor with Lydia and Ronin since there wasn't enough space on the bench for all of us and our goodies. The bentos we'd bought were pretty normal, but the atmosphere in which we were in was a strange change from the usual. Not many would people think about having dinner in a stadium...

"This has got to be the first time I've had dinner where people play sports." Lydia nodded in agreement. "This reminds me of the times we had to eat lunch on the bench while the Basketball Nationals went on, right Shainey?"

I smiled fondly in the memory. Lydia might not look like much of a sports player, but she was as much a Basketball Player as I was. While she wasn't in the Junior National Team, we were in the same team back in Sogano, and the times we spent together as teammates were great.