"Not that we don't love having you here," Niki said slowly, "But what about your baseball friends?"
Haruichi looked at the ground and smiled a little bitterly, his right arm coming up to grasp his left. "They don't…seem to notice me. Unless I'm playing, or helping Eijun-kun or Furuya-kun with their homework…sometimes I feel like I'm invisible. They haven't even noticed that I haven't been around lately. Not even my brother." His voice got quieter towards the end, until the others were almost straining to hear what he said.
Setting her notebook down, Niki hugged her younger friend. She didn't realize it had been that bad. She couldn't say anything, because she'd always been so loud and determined that people always noticed her.
Yuta frowned at the wall. Sure, Haruichi was a little quiet, but it wasn't hard to notice him. And when you got him talking about something he loved or was passionate about, he tended to be louder than Niki was.
Kotarou didn't get it. Haruichi was so unique, and fun to be around. How could his teammates just forget about him? If he just cut his hair, or even changed the style so those beautiful eyes were showing, he'd have nearly the entire school throwing themselves at his feet. Hell, he could easily start acting or modeling and get to the top without trouble. And Kotarou had a brother who was an actor, so he'd met a lot of actors or models.
Leaning his head on his hand, he said, "You should start modeling."
The others looked at him, and Haruichi's face turned an adorable shade of pink. How could anyone forget about this precious boy? Niki looked down at the male still in her arms and nodded slowly, a grin beginning to form on her face.
Yuta glanced at Kotarou, before his eyes moved to Niki and then finally down to Haruichi. "They'd eat him alive."
Tisking and waving a finger back and forth, Kotarou said, "And that, my dear Yu-chan, is why we would have to be with him." Seeing his friend frown, he rolled his eyes. "Oh come on Yu-chan! You could be the manager. You know you'd enjoy it. You'd get to make business deals that benefit us and make the others feel like crying. You'd get to tell those who bother us to fuck off. And you'd be in control of the schedule."
"And what about us?" Niki demanded. Haruichi was like a little brother to her. She wasn't going to let him go into a world that would eat him up without her.
"We'd be in charge of the press as well as keeping others away and taking care of Haru-kun."
Throughout this exchange, Haruichi wondered if they were ignoring his protests on purpose or because they couldn't hear him. "Don't I get a say in this?"
"Nope!" Frowning at Kotarou, Haruichi huffed.
"Look at it this way," Yuta said, "If you did this, people wouldn't forget about you. They wouldn't see you only as someone who can help them. They wouldn't see you when it was convenient for them. They'd have to acknowledge you. And you could make enough money to let your parents retire and do what they wanted."
He knew that was a low blow, as Haruichi had always felt guilt about having their parents pay for baseball or anything else he and his brother wanted to do when it was rather expensive, but it was the truth. It may take a while, but they all knew Haruichi would be at the top. He just had to want it first.
Biting his lip, Haruichi looked at his friends. "Can…can I think about it?"
Ruffling his hair, the three smiled. "Of course you can," Kotarou said. "And if it makes you feel better, I'll talk to one of my brothers friends who's a model and see if he'll talk to you about it and let you know what it's like."
"And I'll look up some information about managing," Yuta promised.
Niki laughed. "I'll see about going with Ko-chan to talk to some of the agencies and find out what kind of stuff we'd get to help with also."
Haruichi smiled and nodded. "Thank you."
This came because I felt that Haruichi sometimes gets ignored or isn't really noticed by some people outside of baseball. Probably just me, but meh. Let me know what you thought!