shortstop // kuramochi

0.3 // his name

three weeks. 

maiko had been waking up at the crack of dawn everyday for three weeks to watch the baseball team's morning practice.

to watch the shortstop with the nice smile. 

she saw him walk into class 1-B in the second week of her 'educational observations'. maiko wondered how she had never seen him before, since their classes were right next to each other. 

three weeks, and shy center fielder still didn't know his name. 

she was on her way to practice after another long school day. maiko pondered her short time on the team since it started a few weeks back. no numbers had been assigned yet and coach was still working the girls to the bone with drills. she knew that coach kusano started seriously watching them now, and this week they would play practice games to determine who the starting players would be soon. 

since her assignment started she also became aware of its role to the team, not just her. coach used the information about the practice coach kataoka ran and used it as reference for some of her own practices. maiko noticed coach mostly used the team-building exercises. and she could guess why.

three weeks, and the girls on the team were fairing well, but you could hardly call them a cohesive team. individually everyone held promise, but they faltered whenever they tried to put their skills to use together. all the girls were trying to play their own softball. 

"god," she breathed out, "we couldn't play against another league in this shape. not even on our best day." 

after changing in the bathroom and carefully organizing her uniform into her duffel, maiko ran out onto the practice field. the team name, the Diamonds, was proudly scrawled on the front of her uniform, only missing the number on the back. she was greeted with a smile and a quick slap to the back by hatagome kana, a second basemen she had grown pretty close with. something else she had learned since the team started, hatagome also attended seido. hatagome was a first year like maiko, but was in class 1-A. at least maiko had a friend to talk to during their breaks. 

"are you ready for this week?" the baseman asked, "these practice games are gonna put us on the first string!" hatagome announced giddily. 

maiko laughed, "or on the bench."

"tch, whats with the negativity? scared tanito will beat you out for center on the first string?" 

"as if, but i'm not in the clear yet. neither of us are, so don't start getting comfortable." maiko scoffed. 

"yeah, yeah, i know. but acting like you've won is half the battle."

"i don't think that's how that works—"

"alright girls!" coach sugome called everyone's attention, "start your stretches! we're doing practice games today!"

the first practice game was promising. maiko was on practice team a with hatagome, and tanito was put on practice team b. maiko's team lost by two points, but she was confident in her fielding throughout the whole thing. she had to hand it to the pitcher on practice team b, her pitches were nasty to hit. she couldn't imagine what kind of monster pitches she would have thrown if team a's catcher, saiki, had been on team b instead. a shiver of excitement crawled up her spine. 

not to mention, the girls seemed to work well together today. hatagome blended well with the shortstop on their team, and they made some pretty impressive plays for their first practice together as a pair.