Summer at Dawn // DnA

Totally Worth It

Your hands shook as you picked up and stared at your phone that was laying next to the manga you had all but abandoned. When were you supposed to get there? Right when practice started? A little after? Would your plan even work? Would your father say anything if he saw you? Oh God, maybe you just shouldn't go and say you weren't feeling well.

     No. You had to do this; you needed to make at least a couple of friends. Though leaving junior high with none was a lot easier than if you actually did have some, you had actually felt quite lonely, especially after your one-sided falling out with your father.

     You jumped and nearly had a heart attack when your alarm went off, signaling that it was now four o'clock. You shakily rose from your spot on your bed. You were just glad that your roommate hadn't ended up being in your room because she was kind of scary when she was woken up from her afternoon nap. As you walked to the door, you checked yourself in the mirror. You had decided upon wearing muted colors (so as to not draw more attention to yourself than needed), and street clothes. You knew that sometimes, there were some alumni who came to watch practice, and you would hopefully blend in with them somewhat.

     You decided upon taking a slower pace than usual, so that more people would be there already and you could hide in the crowd. The sun was beating down on you, and you were glad that you hadn't decided to take the hoodie route.

     Though you had tried to prolong the inevitable, it seemed as though you had gotten to the field at the speed of light. As you walked to the so-called 'viewing area', you noticed that, to your horror, there were only a couple of people there watching practice. You begrudgingly stood in the middle of the few people, because if you were going to be here for a bit, might as well get a good view of that was going on, right?

     Wrong.

     Standing near front and center had only made it easier for Kuramochi to spot you and nudge Miyuki, who was running next to him for warmups, and obnoxiously point towards where you were standing. This brought a lot of unwanted attention to you, from both the people standing around you and some of their teammates. They turned their heads from where they were looking forward and looked at you curiously as they continued their jogging.

     As you tried to hide your warm face from them without making it obvious, you vaguely noticed a pink-haired boy karate chop Kuramochi in the side with what looked to be a frighteningly happy(?) expression on his face. He grasped at his side in what seemed to be exaggerated pain (or what you assumed to be exaggerated, since the boy who had done the chopping was somewhat small, though he was on the baseball team).

     Miyuki sent you one of his signature wide grins, at which you clenched your fists and sent an obviously forced smile back at him, but he just turned his head back forward and continued jogging, not sparing you a second glance. You crossed your arms in indignation. It seemed that all of their teammates had refocused on warmups also.

     After secretly scrolling through your phone with boredom since it seemed that your father had them on an annoyingly long jog, your attention was caught by all of the boys finally stopping and panting. Geez, he was really running them into the ground. You watched as they got out all of their equipment do practice what seemed to be different situations that they could encounter in a game. You had to give it to him; with all of the time your father spent away from you, he really was a good coach.

     What surprised you was the fact that they both seemed to be on the first-string, despite only being first years. Kuramochi was practicing in his position as shortstop, and Miyuki was... catching? Their positions did fit their personalities, you thought. You watched, your face showing just how impressed you were. Kuramochi was surprisingly fast, though he did seem to make a few mistakes when trying to get the ball to and from the second baseman, who you recognized as the pink-haired boy from earlier.