Chapter 43
Baseball. Colloquially known as dog-bat.
Among Blanks, it was practically a national sport, and ever since a long-ago wizard named ‘Randall’ developed rules for magic users, it had been one of the most popular team sports at school.
“Me! I’ll do it!”
After school, we gathered to decide our positions.
The moment the words ‘starting pitcher’ came up, I shot my hand into the air.
“You, Rene?”
Teacher Justina asked, sounding surprised.
I nodded forcefully and shouted decisively.
“I’ve played it a lot back home!”
It wasn’t a lie. It was just something Evan had done, not Rene.
Teacher Justina asked, “Really?” then nodded and wrote Rene’s name at the very top of the chalkboard.
‘Heh heh… I was already feeling down, so this is perfect.’
Baseball was also one of the events in our performance assessments. As the eldest son of the Friesna family, I had even received private lessons from a famous professional player.
On top of that, my father and older sister were such passionate baseball fans that the word ‘obsessed’ practically had to be attached to them, so I personally liked baseball and played it quite a bit too.
After suffering the humiliation of having Kairos pat me on the head yesterday, I intended to use this opportunity to show that arrogant bastard there was something I could do better than him.
I had to land a solid hit on that smug face.
“Then, anyone else volunteering?”
Teacher Justina began taking volunteers again.
I crossed my arms and watched with interest, wondering who would dare challenge me.
Whether they had been cowed by my presence or were trying to avoid the starting pitcher’s position—the one practically begging to get blamed—no one stepped forward. They only exchanged glances.
Teacher Justina asked one last time, “No one else?” then turned toward the chalkboard as though she had no choice.
“Me.”
A familiar voice rang out at that moment.
“Ha.”
Damn it. Just hearing that voice made a hollow laugh escape me.
Teacher Justina turned back toward the students and looked at Kairos.
“Starting pitcher?”
“Yes.”
Kairos nodded without hesitation.
When I stared at him incredulously, Kairos also glanced back at me with a somewhat sour expression.
‘What a riot.’
Of course, it wasn’t strange that Kairos wanted the starting pitcher’s position.
The position practically guaranteed you’d get blamed, but conversely, it was also the best position for making an impression if you performed well.
But seeing as he had hesitated until the very end before barely raising his hand, I couldn’t shake the reasonable suspicion that he had chosen the starting position because of me.
Teacher Justina, who knew about our overnight fiasco, glanced back and forth between us for a moment before shrugging and saying,
“There are two volunteers, so I’ll watch your skills during the next P.E. class and decide. The one who loses will be a relief pitcher, all right?”
“Yes!”
Even in baseball, I had absolutely no intention of losing to Kairos. I answered without hesitation.
“Yes.”
Kairos also nodded without showing any particular reaction.
※※
“Can I ask why you chose the starting pitcher’s position?”
Surprisingly, Kairos was the one who spoke to me first this time.
The positions had been roughly assigned, and Teacher Justina had just finished her passionate declaration that we absolutely had to win the baseball tournament because it was a matter of pride between the dormitories.
“Because I’m good at it.”
I answered casually. I really was good at it, too.
But Kairos looked down at me with that subtly strange expression from earlier and opened his mouth.
“You’re not good, Rene.”
His voice was so blunt it was almost absurd. You’d think we had played catch together before.
I let out a genuinely incredulous laugh and glared at him.
“Have you ever seen me play baseball?”
“……”
“Then why are you picking a fight already? You’re getting on my nerves.”
I shot back, propping my crossed legs on the desk.
“Can you even play baseball? From what I saw back then, your stamina didn’t look like much either.”
“Baseball isn’t played with stamina alone.”
“Even so, it’s still a sport. Especially coming from someone without so much as a proper muscle.”
I remembered the body I had seen in the cave, which had looked soft in all sorts of ways.
Even though I was in Rene’s body now, there was no way I’d lose to Kairos, who looked completely devoid of athletic ability—not after I’d mastered the proper grip.
“What, are you two already starting a pissing contest?”
Ria approached us with a beaming smile.
She naturally sat in the seat in front of mine, stared at my leg resting on the desk, and said,
“Rene, your panties are showing?”
“What?!”
I startled and quickly lowered my leg, pressing down on my skirt.
Ria giggled as though it were hilarious and waved a hand.
“Just kidding.”
“You little punk!”
“Still, you almost showed them, though. Right, Kairos?”
Ria looked up at Kairos playfully.
I also shot him a cold glare.
“I-I don’t know! About stuff like that!”
Kairos startled and turned his head away. Sometimes, he had a surprisingly hopeless side to him.
I glared at him as his ears turned bright red, then shrugged.
“Anyway, if you want the starting pitcher’s position, challenge me with your skills. I’ll face you with everything I’ve got, too.”
“Ooh~ Things are heating up!”
Ria continued with a mischievous grin.
“Since we’re talking about it, why don’t you throw a few pitches right now?”
“Right now?”
“Yeah. You can just borrow a glove.”
Ria looked at Kairos with a look that said, ‘What do you think?’
“I don’t mind.”
I nodded readily. Bring it on, anytime, anywhere.
“Not today.”
But this time, Kairos backed down first.
When I looked at him in surprise, Kairos answered, “I have something to take care of in the library,” then changed the subject.
“Anyway, you don’t plan to give up the starting pitcher’s position, right?”
“Of course not.”
“Got it. Then I’ll keep that in mind.”
After saying that, Kairos immediately turned around.
He walked quickly back to his seat, grabbed his bag, and left the classroom.
“Kairos seems kind of down, doesn’t he?”
“Did he?”
“Yeah. Usually, how should I put it… he feels a little more relaxed.”
Ria muttered while looking toward the classroom door.
“I didn’t notice.”
I merely shrugged. I didn’t care what Kairos was usually like anyway.
“Maybe he was intimidated by my confidence.”
“Good grief. But you really must be confident, huh? I’ve never seen you look quite that self-assured before.”
“Of course I am. I’m a baseball master, you know.”
“With arms that skinny?”
“Baseball isn’t a sport that depends entirely on physique.”
This was baseball played by mages. If I used a strength-enhancement spell, I could pitch at the speed of a Blank professional.
“Just trust me. I’ll bring the championship trophy to Petrus Dormitory myself.”
And if that victory came as the result of pushing Kairos out of the way, it would be sweeter than anything.
I wore a confident expression and pretended to toss a ball into the air.
※※
“How is the world even working…?”
In the dark room, Kairos muttered without realizing it as he clutched his head.
He pushed the secret diary he had spread open aside on the desk, leaned deeply back in his chair, and stared up at the ceiling.
‘Even so, isn’t this too much?’
He could understand if the order of events had simply been messed up.
He could even accept Christina’s route suddenly appearing if it was the result of that confusion.
But this wasn’t merely a case of the sequence getting tangled or a route going astray. The very premise of the event had been twisted.
Kairos rubbed his face and tried to sort through his thoughts once more.
‘Why the pitcher of all positions?’
The most important event at the baseball tournament was unquestionably the ‘Sweat Drops in the Dead of Night’ event.
Depending on the route, two people who ended up in the same position would practice defense late at night. Then, when she suddenly made a spectacular defensive play, they would cheer and naturally embrace one another—a small but important affection event.
‘But there’s no way they’d practice defense as pitchers that intensely, is there?’
No matter how he thought about it, it made no sense. At this rate, the very justification for the event to occur had disappeared.
‘It’s not as though she would skip the final affection event of the first semester of first year, either….’
His head began to throb. Even his ribs, which had been healed with magic, seemed to ache again.
As Kairos unconsciously placed a hand over his ribs, the kiss he had shared with her in the cave suddenly came to mind.
“……Don’t tell me I went off the route?”
Of course, there was no fixed order for physical intimacy.
In the Christina route, for instance, the kiss came before hand-holding.
But even so, the kiss in the cave that day had been… too intense. It had been so passionate and seductive that it had given him the ominous feeling that they had already become lovers.
And according to the laws of this damned world, refusing to become lovers and choosing ‘remain friends’ could mean that he had permanently left her route.
“……”
All that came out was a deep sigh.
‘This isn’t easy.’
Kairos unconsciously covered his face with both hands.
He stayed that way for a long while… then finally lowered his hands as though he had reached a decision.
“Right. From now on, I’ll be more proactive.”
It hadn’t been decided that everything was over yet.
Given how unpredictable and prickly she was—more than anyone else—he might need to be more proactive too.
Having steeled his resolve, Kairos picked up the baseball rolling around on the desk. He rolled it around in his hand and tried out various grips for different pitches.
‘Sigh.’
Of course, since he had only ever been a batter until now, even the feel of hooking his fingers around the seams to throw a breaking ball still refused to become familiar.