I write fanfiction for my own amusement because I'm lame and watch too much animated shows and read too many fanfics and play too many games and want to cosplay too many things at the same timg and my friends think I'm lame but they're lame for being my friends - true story

Thanks for all the reviews/faves/alerts :D

It's more than I thought I would get 'cause my friends don't watch Ace of Diamond T.T
They're laaaaaaaaaameee haha

"Mizushima Rin! Join the baseball the team as our manager!"

"Chris-senpai wasted no time, I see," Rin sighed before turning away and ignoring Sawamura's request, waiting for their teacher to start the class.

The moment she stepped through the school gates that morning, she felt something weird. At first she thought it was her imagination, but she could feel lingering glances as she made her way to class. "Is there something on my face?" was the first thing that came to her mind, but when she finally looked around to see who's been staring at her, she recognized many of the faces who immediately turned the other way when she made eye contact. It was, of course, Seido's baseball team.

"They know… Dammit Chris-senpai. I know I shouldn't have let my guard down. This is like a repeat of my first year in junior high." Rin cried silently to herself. Back then, Chris had somehow found out she had a knack for organizing and instructing baseball. He had let it slip to the rest of the team and they began bugging her every moment of her life until she agreed to join.

She had told herself she would just mess around with them for a week or so, until they get bored of her, but she ended up contributing more to the team than she imagined. Thus began her three years of being the baseball team's manager. Her job wasn't too dreadful (she'll rarely admit she had fun), but she felt like she should concentrate more on her future once she started high school, instead of focusing on other's goals. Yet by some strange coincidence, she found herself attending the same school as Chris again, the guy who started it all.

Now she's trying to convince herself that she's dreaming, and that there was no way everything from junior high was repeating all over again.

"Rin-san-!"

"Sawamura, quiet down! Class is starting!" The teacher scolded him from the front of the class, which made the boy slump into his seat.

"The attack is already beginning," Rin thought to herself as first period started.

Sawamura had confirmed her suspicions earlier when she entered the classroom. Before she could even sit down, the boy had greeted her with his demand that she join the team, causing many stares.

"I just have to ignore it and they'll give up on me joining. You can't win just by annoying me this time. Sawamura might have a lot of energy, but even he'll get tired and give up eventually." With that final thought to herself, Rin pulled out her textbook and began following along with the lesson, ignoring the determined stare from her right side.

"What? You were a baseball manager in junior high and you didn't tell me?" Haruno huffed accusingly. "I thought we were friends."

"Sorry, Haruno, we are friends but I didn't want anyone to know," Rin held her chopsticks with her teeth while putting her hands together as a sign of asking for forgiveness.

It was finally lunch time and Haruno took the chance to ask Rin what Sawamura was shouting about earlier. In fact, the whole class was curious, which is why some of them kept glancing at the girls to try to catch a part of their conversation.

"I guess I can forgive you…" Haruno averted her eyes in mock anger as Rin grinned and continued eating. "But I would like to know why you didn't want people to know."

Rin tapped her bottom lip with her chopsticks as she stared at the ceiling in thought, "Well, after I graduated from junior high, I decided I wouldn't be a manager again when I entered high school. So I thought if I didn't mention it, no one would ask. Of course I ran into Chris-senpai who was the one who convinced me to be a manager in the first place…"

"Really? I want to know more!"

Rin sighed, "Do I have to?"

"I don't know if I can forgive you anymore then…"

"That's so unfair," she groaned but Haruno only grinned.

"It started during my first year in junior high. I often stayed after school and watched our sports teams because many of my friends were players, so we would always get together and go cheer them on. Well, one time we went to go watch a friend who was on the baseball team. After the game, we met up with him and he introduced us to Chris-senpai…"

-may the flashback consume you-

"You guys did great!" One of the girls in the small group gushed as they all surrounded the pair with endless compliments.

"Haha, Chris-senpai has been helping me a lot so it's all thanks to him," Kouta grinned widely with a small blush to his face from all the attention. "You too, Rin-chan! Thanks for helping me with my pitching for this game, even if it was just a scrimmage." The blush on his face darkened as the group began giving him teasing looks.

"What's this? Rin and Kouta have been hanging out without us?" One of the guys snickered.

"I-It was nothing like that!" Kouta protested. "I just asked her to have a look at my pitching form since she knows more about baseball than the rest of you! A-And sometimes I couldn't ask Chris-senpai or my other teammates because they were busy!" By now his arms were waving all over the place as his friends and teammate began laughing at him.

"Kouta, stop freaking out. You're making it sound like you're hiding something," Rin sighed as everyone continued laughing.

"Oh, so she's the friend that you mentioned?" Chris asked as he turned towards the smaller girl.

Kouta nodded his head and took a hold of Rin's wrist, pulling her closer to them. "This is Mizushima Rin!" He introduced happily. "She's the reason I was able to make it to the first-string!"

"Kouta, you're loud," Rin rubbed the ear he was practically shouting in before turning to her upperclassman.

"It's nice to meet you."

-random thing to let you know it has ended-

"So that's the first time you met Chris-senpai?"

"Mhm. He praised me for being able to deal with Kouta and then invited me to watch their next practice, so I did. Apparently ever since Kouta joined the team, he blabbed about me helping him so Chris-senpai wanted to meet me to see 'what unfortunate soul has to deal with this over energetic dork'. Those were the exact words from him, too."

Haruno giggled at Chris' choice of words as Rin continued.

"So the first time I went to watch practice, Chris-senpai sat with me and asked what I thought of the team, so I just gave him a brief analysis of each player I saw. He kept asking me to come back and pretty soon, I had a notebook and pen every time I went to "watch" practice. I started refusing his offers of going to practice, but then members on the team kept asking me to come back, especially Kouta. Let me tell you, that boy doesn't know how to quit." Rin took a breath to blow her swept bangs out of her face.

"They asked me to be the official manager, and after days of being bugged and followed everywhere I go, I agreed. I thought they would get tired of me if I gave them harsh training menus and critiques, but it only made it worse when I tried to quit. They literally picked me up and put me in the dugout, and surrounded it so I couldn't leave until I agreed to stay. And that's the story of how I became the manager of my junior high baseball team: Stalked and held captive."

Haruno looked at Rin in awe. "Wow, you must be really good if they went through all that to make you stay."

Rin had a dumbfounded look on her face, "No, Haruno. You're supposed to be appalled, not amazed."

"But you can't ignore their perseverance."

"Too much perseverance if you ask me…" Rin grumbled at her friend not seeing her dilemma. "The thing is, if Sawamura knows, that means Chris-senpai told the team about me. He might seem nice, but under that gentle face is a cunning man."

Haruno waved her warning aside before eagerly asking for more. "Why didn't you want to be a manager?"

"Being around sweaty, smelly guys isn't my idea of a great use of my free time. But…"

"But?"

A nostalgic smile appeared on her face, "It wasn't too bad. I had fun sometimes. If everything went according to plan, and there was less than normal whining about my training methods."

"It can't be harsher than Seido's training methods," Haruno said. "Why don't you be a manager again? You have experience already, and we can be in the same club!"

Rin frowned, debating whether she should voice out her reason for the first time. "Well… It might sound stupid… but I don't want to play against Kouta. We're childhood friends and been through a lot together, especially since we were in the same year and on the same team. I know his style of playing and habits, and he knows what I pay attention to for my notes. It would just be kind of depressing if we had to play against each other… like we just threw away everything we accomplished together. He did ask me to join him at his school but I'd rather not go that far just to be a manager."

"Ah, pitchers are such egotists no matter where you go."

"I know right, Haru-?" Rin paused. That wasn't Haruno's voice.

The girls looked up to see Miyuki standing by their desk with a wave, "Yo."

"What do you want, Miyuki?"

Rin's tone made him stop waving, yet the shit-eating grin never left his face.

"Miyuki Kazuya! Let's go to the bullpen right now!" Sawamura shouted upon seeing the catcher.

Miyuki ignored him while pulling up a chair next to the girls and sat on it backwards with his arms propping his head up. "Oi, we haven't seen each other in over a year and this is how you greet me?"

"Knowing you, you probably didn't even remember me till Chris-senpai said something."

"Glad to know you remember me though, heh heh~"

"I want to smack that stupid smile off your face so bad," Rin's mumbled, hand twitching as she said that. Miyuki noticed it and quickly pulled his face away from Rin. "And your shitty personality has gotten worse too." She added.

"Why thank you! I've been practicing in case I ever see you again," he snickered as Haruno leaped up to pull Rin back from pouncing on him.

"If you're here to ask me to join too, then I'd like to tell you your method is not working!" Rin growled as she tried to break from Haruno, who was now joined by Sawamura. "Rin-san, if you kill him, there will be one less person to catch my pitch when Chris-senpai refuses!"

"Why is that your priority? Miyuki sweatdropped.

The few students who remained in class for lunch could only look at the four in bewilderment. Rin was struggling to escape her confinement while letting out a string of curses, Haruno was behind Rin with her arms wrapped around her waist in an attempt to hold her back, Sawamura had an arm out in front of Rin and would look like he was stopping her if he wasn't holding Miyuki by the collar at the same time, and Miyuki just had his hands out, pretending to be the innocent victim.

"Am I interrupting something?"

Everyone paused and turned to look at the door to see Chris. He made his way to his underclassmen while holding back his laughter. "What in the world are you guys doing?"

"Miyuki Kazuya's stupid face barged in-!"

"I just came by to give my greetings-"

"Is anyone going to help me practice before lunch is over-?!"

"Chris-senpai, they won't stop-!"

"Chris-senpai's amazing…" Haruno sighed tiredly. The third-year was able to quiet the group down with little effort, and right before the teacher came back to the room, too. Miyuki had left to go back to his class after his "greeting", and the rest of the school day went by without a hitch. Except the part where Sawamura started giving Rin forceful stares at an attempt to intimidate her, and she responded by flicking small wads of paper at him.

"You should know that he doesn't know how to give up," Haruno informed Rin right after the dismissal bell rang.

Rin shrugged and hopped onto her desk. "It's going to take more than that to make me cave in."

"But Rin-chan… it's kind of hard to ignore…"

Haruno looked at Sawamura nervously. The boy has been staring Rin down for the past couple of hours, and while she could ignore him, it was harder for Haruno.

"You're right. Idiots are hard to ignore," Rin muttered as she prepared to leave, but Sawamura heard her anyways.

"Who are you calling an idiot?!"

"You! I'm calling you an idiot! Leave me alone and go to practice, idiot!" She yelled back, about to step out the door, but walked into a hard chest instead.

"Son of a-"

"Oi, Mizushima."

Rin looked up, her hand still covering her nose from the impact. "Isashiki…"

There stood the vice-captain with his ever-present scowl, and right behind him were Yuki, Kominato, and Tanba.

"Don't "Isashiki" me! It's "senpai" to you!"

'Here comes another loud one…' Rin thought to herself while rolling her eyes. "Sawamura's still in there," she pointed her thumb at the room behind her as she walked past the upperclassmen.

"We're not here for Sawamura. We're here for you."

Rin stopped and turned around when the captain spoke up.

"Not you guys too," she sighed. "I already have Sawamura on my back."

"We're not forcing you into anything, but we would like to see why you're so highly praised by Chris," Yuki replied. "And then you can leave or do as you please."

Looking at his calm face almost made her agree, and her eye twitched when she realized what she almost did. "Why should I?"

"Are you refusing a request from your senpai?" Kominato gave his usual teasing smile which made the younger girl shudder.

Isashiki's scowl, Yuki's stoic expression, and Kominato's smile made Rin feel uneasy. Even Tanba, who hasn't said a word, added onto that feeling. Not only were they taller than her, but their intimidating presence made her feel even smaller.

And with that, Rin found herself sitting in the dugout of the baseball field once again.

"How did I get into this mess…?"

The four upperclassmen looked down at her, a hint of smugness radiating off of them.

"Ah, Coach, we brought her just in time for practice," Kominato nodded his head towards Rin as Kataoka and Chris approached the dugout.

Chris admitted he was a bit surprised they were able to bring her here on time, and it didn't seem like she gave them much trouble either.

"Why are you so persistent?" she sighed.

"Why are you so opposed?"

"Don't answer my question with a question."

The other five just looked back and forth as Chris and Rin went at it. They've never seen Chris so determined before unless he was in a game.

The verbal war came to a halt when Chris' cellphone began to ring. Without even glancing at the caller who interrupted, he handed the phone to Rin. "It's for you."

Rin peered up at the phone cautiously, yet she slowly accepted it and pressed it to her ear.

"...Hello?"

Kominato hummed in wonder as they walked away to give her privacy. "Do you think your plan will work?"

Chris nodded. "It's the only thing keeping her from joining. I think I asked the right person…"

"Why do you want the little runt anyway?" Jun scoffed. "We have you and the other four managers already."

They still weren't sure why Chris is so set on this particular girl. Sure she seemed knowledgeable about baseball, but so did the other managers of the team. Even if she took great notes, it's not like any of them could read her illegible handwriting anyways. In fact, it took ten minutes for all of them (excluding Chris) to decipher one sentence.

"She'll amaze you with what she can do. Just give her a chance."

They were quite startled when he turned around to bow to them.

"You already have my approval," Kataoka spoke up. "If you're being this persistent, then it's for a good reason."

Tanba cleared his throat, "I trust your decision. You don't do things without a purpose."

Yuki gave the smallest hint of a smile, "I also trust your decision, especially when it comes to the team."

"Things will get interesting and I'd like to see how it will play out," Kominato added.

"Tch stop bowing already," Isashiki rubbed the back of his neck. "We already agreed to help, geez."

Meanwhile with Rin…

"Rin-chan!" The voice called out from the other side of the phone.

"…Kouta? Is that you?"

"Good! You still remember my voice!"

Rin could only imagine the boy bouncing around as he talked excitedly and she smiled, "It's only been a few months, you dork."

"I know, but I miss you!" There were sounds of metal hitting and light chatter, so she assumed he was in the locker room. "So you ended up going to Seido with Chris-senpai? If you wanted to go to a baseball centered school, you should've came with me!"

Rin sighed, "I keep telling everyone: I only chose Seido because it was the closest to my home, and I didn't know they had a big baseball team or that Chris-senpai attended here. How many different people do I have to tell?"

Kouta responded with a laugh, "How did you not know that Seido's known for its baseball?"

"Shut up. I don't want to hear it from you, too." She let the boy mumble a few things about how "oblivious" she is before she interrupted. "So, did Chris-senpai ask you to call?"

"Hehe, you found us out!"

"There's nothing to find out if you make it so obvious, like calling his phone instead of mine for example."

"Ah? Are you jealous I called his phone instead of yours?" Kouta hummed teasingly.

"Kouta," she groaned. "If you have nothing important to say, then I'm hanging up." As she moved the phone away to end the call, she could hear him cry out.

"Wait Rin-chan! I'm just messing with you! Don't hang up! It's important! Please! Rin-chan! Don't hang up! Rin-chaaaaaaan- Ow!"

Another voice could faintly be heard on the other end, but Rin could make out that he was scolding Kouta about being too loud and that he should get to practice.

"Rin-chan, are you still here?!"

"I'm still here so stop yelling already. Whatever you're going to say, make it quick."

"I will, I will! One sec…"

She could hear a light ruffle of clothing, which was probably Kouta changing into his uniform.

"Couldn't this have waited till after practice so you're not trying to multi-task and be late?"

She could practically hear the grin on his face, if that was possible. "Glad to know you care! But this is important, so hear me out until I'm done talking… Chris-senpai called me last night. He told me everything. Like how you wrote some notes for him, but still refused to be a manager for the team. Honestly, I was kind of happy you refused because I don't want you managing anyone else but me… But at the same time, I felt guilty."

"Kouta…"

"On the day we graduated from junior high, I was disappointed when you told me you didn't want to follow me to high school just to be a manager. But I thought it was okay as long as you weren't with another team because I didn't want to ever play against you. But ever since Chris-senpai asked me to convince you to join, that's all I could think about today... Hey, Rin-chan, did you know…?"

"Know what?"

"That you've always looked your best when you're carrying out your manager duties… Wait- not that you don't look your best when you're not! I-I just meant you look better when you are, b-but you're still alright when you're not! I mean you're more than alright-!"

"What are you even trying to say?" Rin had a good laugh as he kept attempting to correct himself before finally calming down.

"I just feel like you always look happier when you're helping out the team. You're usually not serious about anything in particular, but when you're performing your duties, you just look so… Like… Ah I don't even know how to explain it! I give up! All I'm saying is that I want you to manage Seido's team! It feels bad just thinking about us going against each other, but at the same time, I want to see how much better you've gotten, and I want you to see how much I've grown too. Plus, we can see each other at the summer tournament… Damn, I have to go! Captain's going to be mad if I don't get to practice soon! I'll e-mail you or something. Bye Rin-chan! See you at the tournament!"

"I haven't said anything about joining yet-!"

But the energetic boy had already hung up.

We should all take this moment to thank for having these horizontal lines. I like them. They help me separate my thoughts xD

Reviews and everything and anything are always appreciated ;D
Just because I love them.
Because who doesn't love them? ;P