CH 11.3

As I quickly left my seat and walked out of the classroom, Sugiuchi followed behind me.

I walked out of the exit in my shoes and ran to the baseball field, ignoring the voices that said, “Don’t you ever change your shoes?! “

I spotted Hinagata and Uchinokura-san and spoke to them over the fence.”

“Hey, Hinagata!”

A large crowd of other interested students had started to gather at the fence as a gallery.

“I heard that Hinagata-san, a second-year student, is going face to face with the ace of the baseball team.”

Someone said  this as the gathered people ask for an explanation.

Hinagata glanced at me and smiled nervously. The senior catcher said to Hinagata, “Here’s a helmet, and you can get a bat from there.” The helmet that she put on didn’t suit her shiny hair, and she picked the bat out from the case.

I asked Uchinokura-san; who was close to me.

“What is happening? Did you know about all this?”

“She said she had some kind of a weak spot.”

I knew it, she saw me and Hinagata that day.

“I asked Sugicchi to be my coach because I didn’t want to cause trouble for Tonomura-kun,” she said.

Uchinokura-san looked over and saw Sugiuchi catching up with him out of breath.

“Ahhh~…. I’m getting more nervous….. I’m going to throw up from nervousness.”

When Sugiuchi felt my gaze on him, he scratched his head.

“I told her that Tonomura would be better. But she stopped me.”

“Of course, That’s why you’re secretly doing this?”

The development was so sudden that I couldn’t follow it at all.

I tried to ask Hinagata, but she was already on the field.

Hinagata picked up the bat and headed for the batter’s box. The crowd, which had been buzzing with tension, became silent.

“I’m ready.”

As Hinagata bowed, Nishimura-san, standing on the mound, said一

“It’s a one-shot game. If it’s not a foul and it goes in front of you, you win.”

“Yes. If I win, please pretend that incident never happened.”

“Alright! However, if I win, I’ll give you a choice between going out with me or being my manager in a swimsuit for a month, okay?”

It’s not okay. His ideas were no better than Sugiuchi. I could see that the crowd was a bit taken aback.

“Yes.”

“Hinagata! You can’t win. So it’s better if you already give up!”

“Shut up, you’re the weakling who ran away from me when I was a monster!”

Nishimura-san’s thorny words flew straight at me.

In fact I was a weakling.

I only told the coach how much the injury had affected me. It was hard for me to tell my teammates that I was a bird that couldn’t fly anymore.

“Ryunosuke is not a weakling.”

“Yeah, yeah, I guess.”

As if to dismiss the ramblings of a child, Nishimura-san snickered.

As Hinagata prepared, Nishimura-san swung at her.

“Hey, Sugiuchi. What did you teach Hinagata?”

“‘Look at the ball carefully and swing.”

The first pitch

I guess he thought that he didn’t need to be serious with an amateur girl. A loose, elementary school-grade straight ball was thrown.

But it never hit the bat as she tried to swing.

The crowd let out a small sigh. Sugiuchi let out a pessimistic murmur.

“High school baseball bats are so heavy dude.”

If you swing a bat that doesn’t suit your physique and strength, you will be swung by the bat. That’s exactly what happened to Hinagata.

“But, she just has to shoot the ball forward.”

“Yeah, ….if she can somehow, someway, hit it…..”

Uchinokura-san and Sugiuchi were having a somewhat prayerful conversation.

Nishimura-san, who caught the return pitch from the catcher, laughed mockingly.

“Two more pitches.”

The members of the baseball team also stopped their activities to watch the game.

Sugiuchi would have seen it coming. Even if the pitcher was someone else, she wouldn’t be able to hit it properly in the state Hinagata is in.

“Shiori! Go for it!”

Uchinokura-san shouted, and Hinagata nodded from the batter box.

It was the second pitch he threw.

Whether it was due to Sugiuchi’s coaching, Hinagata’s hard work, or her natural athleticism, she hit the same ball as the first pitch. With a small ging, the ball rolled into the foul zone.

Rather than hitting it, it would be more accurate to say that the ball just happened to come into the path of her swing. To put it more simply, it was a fluke.

I wanted her to win, but my baseball history would not allow me to cheer for her honestly.

“You’re doing great, Hinaga-san!”

Sugiuchi couldn’t help but call out to her, and she heard cheering from the people around her.

As I was watching the situation, Sugiuchi poked me with his elbow.

“Tonomura, it’s fine right? Going like this.”

“It’s not good.”

“Then what are we gonna do?”

“What do we do? There’s nothing we can do.”

“That’s not true. Can’t you  think of anything when you see Hinaga-san.”

Of course I can’t.

But for now, we’ll just have to wait and watch.

“Manager in a swimsuit, I think it’s a great idea! Hahaha.”

Nishimura-san, in a good mood, twisted his mouth as he manipulated the ball in the palm of his hand.

He swung and went into motion.

It’s not the same as before, but the swing of the arm is sharp.

Oh… he threw a curveball!

The ball curved so that it escaped Hinagata’s bat, and she struck out.

The crowd let out a sigh that was much louder than in the first pitch.

“Strike out. I guess I won.”

Nishimura-san proudly declared victory from the mound.

He’s not even embarrassed to throw a winning shot against an amateur.

“…Yes.”

The sullen Hinagata was biting her lip in frustration. She clenched her fists and her strength involuntarily went into them.

“Tonomura, do you have something you want to say to that man?”

“Indeed.”

I handed Sugiuchi the jacket I had taken off, bowed, and entered the ground through the doorway.

“Nishimura-san, can I have a shot at you?”