Diamond no Ace: Laugh, Love and Live

Indecision

A door loudly slammed shut. The sound echoed in the surrounding area of the Seidou Spirit Dorm, and startling the people who were passing by, by chance.

Megumi hurriedly made her way to her classroom, her bag slung around her shoulder. Her loose hair flying wildly in the air as she had forgotten to tie it into a ponytail.

A rare occurrence, indeed.

She reached her classroom in the nick of time. The poor door nearly slid off its place as it opened with a loud bang, revealing the panting girl.

The students inside jumped out of surprise. A sigh of relief escaped the baseball club's manager as she made her way to her seat, ignoring the inquisitive looks her classmates gave her.

She saw Miyuki smirking at her, out of the corners of her eyes. The girl simply paid no heed to it as she sat down, just in time for the bell signalling the start of classes.

~~~

"Hyahaha! You just barely made it on time earlier," Kuramochi teased as he leaned back on the table beside Megumi's.

"What happened? It's rare for you to be late." Miyuki asked, curiously staring at the subject of their discussion.

Megumi sighed and waved off their teasing, before turning her body a bit, so she was fully facing Kuramochi and half-facing Miyuki.

"I was up late last night, trying to organize the data I collected from the players in the team," was her short response.

Miyuki and Kuramochi looked at each other in mild surprise. The former smiled—or more like, grinned knowingly.

The girl chose to ignore his expression as she figured that she'd only get hot and bothered because Miyuki was surely bound to say something that would provoke her. In fact, he always did.

She cleared her throat before rummaging through her bag, and pulling out a blue, medium-sized notebook. There were several post-it flags marking the pages on her notebook, which the boys noticed.

Opening it on a certain page, marked by a green post-it flag, Megumi handed the notebook to Miyuki, while Kuramochi went over to the catcher's seat to take a peek.

Their eyes widened at the handwritten contents of the notebook—obviously, by the girl before them.

Written in the notebook was the complete profile of a player from the team, specifically, their team's current captain—Yuuki Tetsuya.

"You did all this? Last night?" Kuramochi breathed, impressed by the girl's dedication for the team. He was thankful and at the same time, afraid.

She was able to get a lot of data about them after all. And in a short period of time, to boot. It would be a huge—emphasis on the word—advantage for her to have on the team, but if she were not—then she is going to be a pain in the ass as well.

He shivered at the imaginary thought of their team playing the team who would have her as a manager. They'd probably have a hard time, if not getting a total beat-down.

"Actually, I just finished last night—or a while ago. But I was working on collecting data of everyone since last week, I guess?" She shyly scratched her head as she smiled lopsidedly.

"'Lemme see mine, Miyuki." There was a label of 'second years', and the bespectacled male turned it on the said page.

Kuramochi nearly popped a vein when he saw the words written on the page as some sort of note.

'A force to reckon when he gets on base, but if not—totally useless.'

'Really greedy; tries to get everything done and ends up getting struck out instead.'