Interesting (1)
“Hmm?”
“·····”
The blonde girl who noticed me tilted her head and looked my way.
The corners of her mouth lifted slightly. Those big eyes blinked.
She was smiling, so she didn’t seem annoyed, but how was I supposed to react?
I’d thought she looked familiar—she was the girl who’d been with Higuchi Shiori last time. And she was definitely a second-year.
“Seisho, second year.”
“Ehh?”
“·····”
With no idea what to say, I just mumbled.
“Aha! You’re a student from the same school as me?”
“Yeah—no, yes.”
“And a second-year just like me!”
“Yes·····”
Huh. That actually worked.
The blonde girl pieced it together all on her own.
At least I managed to avoid looking like some shady guy in front of a girl.
Still.
Even if we went to the same school, this was Japan—polite speech was the way to go, right?
“I’m Hirose Satsuki from Class 2-7! Nice to meet you.”
Right. Hirose Satsuki.
The moment she said her name, I realized I’d heard it before.
“Hongo Yukihisa, Class 2-1.”
“Okay, Hongo-kun, what were you doing here? Do you like cats? Oh my! It just vanished!”
“Haha·····”
Before I knew it, the cat had disappeared right in front of us. Stray cats always took off that fast.
“I was going to buy some baseball gear.”
“Hmm? Why the polite speech with a classmate?”
“·····Going to buy some.”
Was this a little different from what I knew?
“But baseball gear?”
“I’m on the baseball team.”
“Really?”
Hirose-san clapped a hand over her mouth in exaggerated surprise.
“That’s so cool! Our baseball team is super famous. Ah, of course I don’t know much about baseball myself.”
“Yeah, well, I guess?”
I had no intention of riding Seisho’s baseball reputation, but she wasn’t wrong.
More than that.
This girl was kind of hard to handle.
She didn’t seem like a bad person, but she reacted so big to every single word that I couldn’t figure out how to respond.
Even Nagasawa Haruka, who at least said hello, and nothing in Hongo’s memories prepared me for a girl like this.
Still.
Looking at her like this, she really was pretty.
A small, pale face with big eyes and a high nose. Something cat-like about her, yet she didn’t come off prickly—that was the charm.
And with that lively personality, she had to be insanely popular with guys.
On top of that, whether it was confidence or just her style, her top button sat slightly undone, and the overall outfit had a bit of exposure without going overboard. Was she what they called a gyaru?
From what I knew, these days “gyaru” didn’t just mean heavy, flashy makeup—it was girls who liked dressing up and having fun. Thinking of her that way seemed fine.
“What about you, Hirose-san? Why are you here?”
I asked with the polite honorific attached.
Turning the question back on someone who’d asked about me was basic manners.
“Meeting a friend in Ikebukuro!”
“Aha.”
I nodded. Of course Seisho students from Nerima Ward hung out a lot in nearby Ikebukuro. Not that it had much to do with me.
“Uwaaa! I’m gonna be late—sorry, Hongo-kun!”
“Huh? Uh, yeah.”
“Bye!”
“·····”
Even while bolting off because she was late, she skidded to a stop halfway, turned back, smiled at me, and waved.
Naturally I waved back.
Yep—classic gyaru high school girl. Ridiculously energetic.
“Phew·····”
I’d already been heading home, so I started walking again.
Ugh, drained.
High-tension girls really were tough.
Baseball had its flaws, but you could fix them with practice and training. How were you supposed to learn talking to girls?
I’d figured Hongo’s memories of getting along with girls would help, but they were completely useless.
His personality didn’t match mine at all—it just made me recoil.
Hirose Satsuki.
Yeah. Now I knew who she was.
Before I came into this world, I’d definitely seen her once in the manga.
One of the few friends of the main heroine, Higuchi Shiori. And a year above her.
Basically a support character for the quiet, emotionally reserved protagonist Higuchi Shiori.
Blonde, made-up, eye-catching looks.
Unlike the tall, slender Higuchi, she had a great figure with curves in all the right places.
Plus the exaggerated reactions.
A textbook service character designed to keep the readers’ eyes happy.
That was the impression I’d gotten from her in the manga.
Early on she handled the aggro, then once the story found its footing she vanished without a trace.
Since she existed to prop up the cool, aloof heroine, her role was always going to shrink later.
“·····”
No—what am I even thinking right now.
Hirose Satsuki from the manga. But what did that matter anymore?
I myself had originally been the thug number one who harassed the main couple and got taught a lesson, yet here I was living a completely different life.
“Listen to what the article says!”
Seisho Baseball Team Deserves Attention
The vanished hard-throwing first-year Hongo Yukihisa has returned.
A fastball topping 150 km/h, plus a slider, a splitter, and the occasional big-breaking curve.
Even as a second-year he already looked like a fully formed pitcher.
He brought to mind the high-school aces wearing the number one for schools aiming for the top of Japan—the ones scouts are watching for this year’s draft.
I’m not exaggerating.
Against Taira High he struck out ten batters over four innings without allowing a single run.
If that version of Hongo Yukihisa carries into the summer, Seisho High School’s first West Tokyo District title and Koshien appearance in five years is no longer a dream.
“Amazing, Hongo-kun!”
“Uh·····”
Right before class ended, I listened to Nagasawa Haruka read the internet article out loud.
Come on.
They’d even sent sports reporters to cover a school practice game and written an article like that?
It really drove home how baseball-crazy Japan was.
“You’re already getting so much attention, Hongo-kun.”
“But that also means other schools have info on me now, so I’ve got to work even harder.”
“I-is that so?”
“Yeah.”
I’d already steeled myself for it, of course.
I’d quit baseball, come to a new world, and started playing again.
On top of that I’d gotten a body so talented it couldn’t even be compared to my old one.
I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but when the know-how I’d carved out with blood and sweat in my previous life combined with this body, the results were so good it was almost unsettling.
Still, I was fully prepared.
The higher people rated me, the more they’d analyze me and the more carefully they’d watch me.
When I took the mound, batters would step in already knowing my pitches and velocity inside and out.
The world always handed heavier loads to the people who could carry more.
That was why even after reaching a certain level you could never afford to slack off.
Of course.
If the weight was worth carrying, I was ready to shoulder it. Hell, I welcomed it—being watched this closely.
I wasn’t the type who needed much motivation to begin with, so the second class ended I headed straight for the baseball club.
Huh?
A girl caught my eye on the way.
“Ah! Hongo-kun!”
And she recognized me too.
It was Hirose Satsuki from Sunday.
“Hirose-san.”
The moment she saw me she broke into a bright smile.
Wait.
I only noticed belatedly that she had company.
Two other girls.
One I didn’t know—a second-year with a bob cut.
The other·····
Crap.
“·····”
First-year Higuchi Shiori.
A girl I was inevitably going to have an awkward relationship with.
She looked a little startled when she saw me too.
“Heading home?”
“No, I’m going to practice.”
“Ehh? Hongo-kun? Why the polite speech again all of a sudden?”
“····Going to practice.”
“Got it—Hongo-kun’s just a gentleman, huh?”
“Ah, haha·····”
Hirose-san, always forcing the nicest possible interpretation.
I wasn’t actually a polite-speech character; I’d just gotten flustered and used it with a classmate I’d already introduced myself to.
Having Higuchi Shiori standing right behind her wasn’t helping either.
Ugh, so embarrassing.
It was mortifying, but dealing with girls still made me uncomfortable.
How to put it—just the scent of cosmetics floating over was enough to make my body go a little stiff?
I was supposed to be an athlete. What the hell was this.
“Practice hard! I’m heading straight home, so kids who do club activities are seriously cool.”
“Yeah, thanks. Take care.”
“Hehe.”
Whatever she found funny, Hirose-san laughed again and turned back to her friends.
“·····”
Higuchi Shiori glanced at me, then looked away.
Probably.
Higuchi wouldn’t tell Hirose-san what I’d done to her.
But there was nothing I could do about it.
That wasn’t me. I was someone from outside this world, just borrowing Hongo Yukihisa’s body.
Saying that out loud would just get me called crazy.
And I was playing baseball with this blessed body—if I refused to pay even that much of a price, wouldn’t that make me shameless? Honestly, as long as it didn’t interfere with my baseball, it wasn’t a problem at all.
“Phew·····”
Somehow school life was getting weirdly complicated.
I’d originally thought of this school and its students as nothing more than a stepping stone for baseball, but if it felt like things were growing bigger and bigger, was that just my imagination?
“Hm?”
“Eek!”
“What are you doing?”
I was about to head to the baseball club when my eyes met Nagasawa’s. Why did she suddenly look like she’d been caught doing something wrong?
“I-I’m sorry!”
“·····I’m going on ahead.”
Nagasawa said “sorry” so often that I’d stopped bothering to figure out what she was apologizing for.
I left her there and continued toward the baseball club.
“Huff, huff·····”
Seisho baseball team’s weight room.
Second-year pitcher Hongo Yukihisa was doing overhead presses.
“Is this for real?”
“The weight keeps going up.”
His teammates muttered while dripping sweat.
The weight Yukihisa was moving was already impressive, but the fact that he always worked at his absolute maximum made it look even more brutal.
“Besides Hongo, the only ones hitting heavier are Matsuda and maybe Inoue?”
“Or·····”
Clang!
“Hm?”
Third-year shortstop Shirakawa Satoru, who’d been taking a water break, watched second-year right fielder Sanada Atsushi add two more ten-kilo plates before starting his deadlifts.
“Getting motivated?”
“Probably.”
Atsushi had only just returned, yet he was already on the verge of catching up to Yukihisa’s lifting numbers.
“·····I should bump my weight up today too.”
“Hey, hey, Junpei.”
The training fever spread like a contagion, pushing everyone to add more weight, and it had even lit a fire under third-year third baseman Kazuma Junpei.
“Good grief.”
Even the usually level-headed Junpei was getting into it—team captain Satoru smacked his own forehead.
Thwack!
“Curve one more time.”
“·····”
Seisho baseball team’s pitching practice area.
Yukihisa threw to the third-year catcher he formed a battery with, Matsuda Masahiro.
Thwack!
“We should use the curve more for getting ahead in the count.”
“That so?”
“Yeah. Batters don’t usually sit on a first-pitch curve.”
Masahiro said it after catching a beautiful curve that filled the zone perfectly.
Yukihisa took pride in himself as a pitcher and in the weapons he possessed, but he wasn’t the type to dig in his heels in front of a veteran catcher.
He still had no complaints about Masahiro’s game-calling in real games either.
“Want to just go to a hundred pitches today?”
“Seventy.”
“Eighty?”
“Seventy. No compromising on pitch count.”
“Hmph.”
Thwack!
Masahiro didn’t indulge the pitcher’s grumbling.
Pitchers, I swear.
Seisho’s starting catcher had been behind the plate since elementary school and knew full well that talented pitchers were stubborn—and that this was exactly where you couldn’t give an inch.
Not that I don’t get it.
He understood perfectly well why Yukihisa was so fired up right now.
This weekend.
The four-school friendly tournament—the last practice game before the twenty-man roster announcement.
And Yukihisa had been named the starter for the first game.
Thwack!
“·····”
This time.
Hongo Yukihisa was burning.
Last time he’d only thrown four innings, but in the practice game this weekend—his first start—he wasn’t going to settle for a mere four innings.
He was going to dominate the entire game.