Author's notes:! Hope you all enjoy the chapter (worked extra hard since having no computerat home makes it harder to write). Thanks for reviewing/reading! Oh also, you can look up the snack foods on wiki if you want. I've actually tried all of them that I used in the story except for the korokke. :3 Melon Ramune is too bitter for me!
Two hours before the game started, my head began to hurt. However, I had a high tolerance for pain and a small headache would not stop me from attending the outing. I was quite accustomed to them as they were frequent, but they never gave me anything more than a foul mood. Besides, I was perfectly fit in every respect thanks to my father's insistence that the Ootoris maintain a healthy lifestyle. We were a family of doctors and as the leading company in the medical field, he explained, a need to be a shining example of healthcare came with the business. I ate well, exercised daily, and had a set sleep schedule, though I sometimes encountered insomnia.
This headache though was unusual in that it seemed to exude the pressure that only the Sea of Japan in its entirety could cause. Only Haruhi dared to pierce my suddenly stormy mood with proffered painkiller, which I brushed off with a curt word or two having already taken twice the amount suggested.
Placing two fingers above my nose on my forehead, I was puzzled at the timing and persistence of the headache, chancing a moment to close my eyes from the acute light from outside. Perhaps Nekozawa-senpai experienced recurrent migraines and that prevented him from enjoying any form of light, though frustratingly his secrets were as well kept as mine. After the painkiller failed to take effect, I had deduced that my headache could be nothing less than a small migraine. If it lasted for much longer, I promised to excuse myself from the outing to check into one of the many hospitals my family owned. Uncommon migraines were not something to be trifled with.
"Tamaki, I think he's sick. You should call this off until he's feeling better." I overheard her say. Retaliating to this statement before Tamaki could answer, I met his gaze firmly with the dangerous glint he was all too familiar with; Cowed, he bent his head weakly answering. "But he spent all that time preparing for this… Would you be the one to ruin his fun?"
"All the more reason for us to postpone it! Look at how pale he is, and you call him your friend!"
"Lord, she has—"
"A point."
As usual, Hikaru was the first to speak, and Kaoru the second.
"Our 'mother' wouldn't want to be left out of 'her' children's activities, no?" They said together teasingly.
As the pressure lifted, the dull haze of pain that had settled on my mind, too, lifted; I adjusted my glasses. Not for the first time, did I wonder why they, Tamaki included, insisted that my position was maternal. Though their inference was unthreatening as I decidedly considered my position to be paternal, I didn't care enough to make it an issue; besides it amused me to play the 'mother' to Tamaki's 'father'.
Haninozuka-senpai expressed similar sentiment to Haruhi even as I felt my color come back to my face. With the time ticking away, all that was left to do was to board the nondescript van and seat ourselves in the stadium.
"While I appreciate the concern, it is unwarranted and unneeded, Hani-senpai. Take your 'Bun-Bun' back." Scanning my eyes over the group, I turned to the van raising a hand for them to follow. They brooked no argument as I boarded first through the sliding door that my driver held open for me. As I gazed out the window sitting rigidly in the seat, an open compact notebook and pen in hand, they chattered all the way to the stadium; despite this I was hardly able to extract anything novel about my fellow Hosts because I only had half-an-ear on their conversation. I was too concerned about the migraine; logic dictated that I should seek medical help since I had no history of such a headache before. It could simply be stress, I responded; my worry melted in defeat.
Shielding my eyes from the bright sunlight and ignoring the quotidian rabble around us, I stepped out of the vehicle and glanced at my watched: 2:57 p.m. I had miscalculated the amount of time that the drive was to take coupled with Tamaki's ardent assertion that to fully enjoy the game we had to buy high-calorie snack foods that lacked any notable nutritional value. Thus with cheap paper trays of takoyaki skewered with wooden toothpicks or patties of korokke carefully wrapped in economical waxed paper in one hand and different varieties of commoner beverage in the other, we squeezed between people to our seats. By then, the first pitch had already been thrown, but that didn't seem to bother Tamaki, though I neglected to inform him that we had missed the opening ceremony. There was another loud clack of wood and the crowd erupted into a frenzy of cheers and jeers.
"Whoa, did you see that?!" The club president exclaimed gleefully as the outfielder lunged over the fence to catch a ball on its course out of the field; the outstretched glove fell short of the ball. "Amazing! Bravo!!"
"Tch! He missed the ball, lord, that's not 'amazing'." One of the twins commented disdainfully, probably Hikaru, since he was more into athletics than his younger brother; his teeth tore into his deep-fried patty. By deduction then, it was Kaoru who countered with "It was still a good play. Would you have played as hard against a better team?"
The response was a roll of the eyes. "Why play a silly game like this in the first place?"
"Is it silly?" Kaoru's eyebrow raised, implying something entirely different as he drank from his Melon Ramune bottle, the clinking of the glass marble drowned out by another cheer from the crowd. Surprisingly he had had no difficulty in opening the strange design of the commoner carbonated drink, and I had duly noted it down.
"It's a home run!" Haninozuka interrupted, bouncing up as he squealed happily, his bunny hugged tightly against his chest. Morinozuka held out a stick of takoyaki when Hani-senpai leaned over mouth opened in hungry demand and quickly snatched a ball of fried octopus from it with deft lips. "Yummy! But…" Shifting his bunny over, he shoved his hand into a pocket and unwrapped the lollipop he procured one-handed, giggling as he lapped at it. "Better!"
Completely oblivious to the exchange of the Twins to the right of her and the pair of senpai next to them, or maybe she was deliberately ignoring them, the commoner of our group had a book about cooking traditional dishes cracked open, half of her own korokke consumed; the can of Pocari Sweat unopened and abandoned at her feet.
Realizing that a member was not participating in the 'mandatory' duties of a Host Club activity, Tamaki's eyebrows reached his hairline, mouth flapping open and arm coming down to point at her. Smirking, I poised my pen for Tamaki's lecture, even as I listened to Hikaru loudly and bluntly declare, when the teams switched defensive and offensive sides of the field in the second inning, that the team in the outfield would "mop the floor with the other team" because of how badly the other team was playing. Having already guessed that conclusion based on the individual teams' stats, I had bet on the superior team. I was more than confident that the team I had chosen would win; the second inning was only half as long as the first, and that team had seven home runs more than the other when the third inning began.
"Haruhi!" The French native pleaded discontentedly, but never got further; his voice overrode by the explosion of movement and noise from the crowd around us. Meanwhile, Hani-senpai screamed, gestured wildly, and stamped his feet happily in tandem with the masses, Mori-senpai smiling regardless of the noise.
"What happened! What happened?! Hey! I missed it!!" The president's head whipped up, turning this way and that quickly.
"A masterful save!" Kaoru hollered over the racket, while Hikaru scowled and yelled about luck.
Seeing the idiot's expression worsen from confusion to bafflement, I began to explain vociferously over the din of the boisterous throng that the batter had bunted the ball, the pitcher had caught it in midair, and then passed it to the third baseman who tapped the offensive team's runner out. "Two outs in one play," I elucidated, "that's why everyone's in a state of excitement."
During my explanation, there was a clack! of leather on wood again, presumably the new batter; another cry rang out this time full of eager jubilance. "FOUL BALL!!!!" If it was a tight fit earlier, it was certainly claustrophobic now as the aisles filled up and swarms of hands rose above us like greedy, sticks of unnaturally fast-growing bamboo, a canopy of fingers and palms outstretched.
Anticipating the stray ball, I blocked my head nonchalantly trying to determine where the ball would fall, but the angle of the sun was proving difficult to the senses. I frowned.
"Kyouya!!" I turned to Tamaki, who stood next to me, a quizzical look on my face, dropping my arm a little to get a better view of his expression; at that moment the ball slammed into my exposed cranium. My glasses gone and my ears ringing, I was unsteady but able to remain standing. It was no good; a torrent of people overcame me pushing me under them as they climbed. At least a dozen hands groped and many more feet crushed me as they frantically shoved each other out of the way for the ball that rolled under the chair behind where I had sat. I was overwhelmed by panic as I fell back, asphyxiating from the crushing weight of numerous people clamoring above me. It would have been rotten if I died underfoot a stampede of peons.
In that respect, I was lucky. I was dead before then.
