1. teen idle
Takeshi raised a curious brow as he watched his team mates in the locker room. The boys had crowded around the bench ever since the coach had dismissed them, sharply whispering to each other with cheeky little grins and shoves. Every once in a while, a senior would walk over past them and make a round of noises that ranged from reluctant approval to resigned sighs laced with a quick apologetic look to the younger boy.
Takeshi didn't know what to make of it- so he look on with a sort of innocent curiousness.
He didn't know any of these boys; none of his friends from the Elementary were interested in baseball and he had only talked to a handful of them since starting out on the team. It was the beginning of the year, and only this morning did his dad remind him that some people had the tendency to stick to whatever was familiar in an unfamiliar environment. He could still hear his old man's voice ranting off over the sound of the sink and another digitized hymn that joined soon after over the phone. With shaky fingers, Yamamoto Takeshi swallowed back his hesitation and surged forward.
Tossing his towel back into the locker, he took a step towards the small crowd.
"Oi, Yamamoto! What do you think of 'asari' ?" One of the boys- Ogino Satoshi, looked up eagerly as he sat beside him. He watched as Satoshi wrestled a bit with the other boys before a magazine was thrown into his face. He heard his team mates all take in a collective gulp of air. His eyes focused in on the image before him.
The unrestrained laugh that escaped his mouth was enough for that tenseness to dissipate.
Yamamoto Takeshi had long grown used to being called the 'sushi man's kid during his Elementary days. The adults down market street all knew of the Yamamotos and the balls of energy Tsuyoshi called 'his roundabout kids'. True, he had long grown out of his habit of hiding behind his sister's legs when meeting strangers but there were some things that wouldn't change. Case in point, how the upperclassmen had easily managed to wrangle Takeshi into joining the baseball team the moment they saw him enter the school because they knew first hand how enthusiastic the teenager felt about the sport.
His sister might've had their hearts but it was Yamamoto Takeshi who held their baseball-shaped souls.
On a more honest note, when the magazine revealed the disgruntled image of his older sister, Takeshi didn't quite know how to react. So he opted for the path that bordered hysteria and awkward hissing.
Takeshi, to that day, had never thought much of his older sister's idol career. In fact, he couldn't care less about whatever Yuzuki was doing as long as she was doing whatever she loved best.
Between her constant calls home and reign over her little brother's phone bill, it felt like to him that she had never truly left his life anyway. The ever growing presence of posters promoting her newest endorsement only solidified this fact. Somewhere along the line, he had stopped listening to the adults comparing the two siblings and made a game out of their achievements.
So what if she couldn't attend the school festival? Yuzuki would without a fail show up to the city tournaments held by the local elementaries to cheer him phonecall home involved the flaunting of their latest trophies which extended to her stage persona asari endlessly bragging about how her little brother just recently won a school race and him bragging about his 'cool sister' during show and tell.
From the neighbourhood tutor with too many volunteer hours to raising idol star, it never occurred to him until now, that this would be his defining moment until the game that solidified his position as Namimori's youngest Baseball Ace.
(-and idol to the eyes of his soon to be flourishing local fanbase-)
"Nee-chan?" The words tumbled out of his mouth like they were naturally meant to be on the tip of his tongue. His eyes scanned the article before him and locked onto the words 'provocative' and 'queen'. They rolled over his head and triggered another airy laugh that racked his sides. "She never did like doing swimsuits."
"Nee-chan?" The team repeated in astonishment.
Yamamoto Takeshi only looked at them with slightly wide slightly sheepish eyes.