Team Up

"Alright everyone, who wants to play baseball?" Hana asked cheerfully as everyone was finishing their breakfast. It had been decided the day before that everyone would take a break today, so Hana had decided to take the chance to suggest for a game as she knew how much Aramaki wanted to play.

"Count me in!" Arashi was the first to call out.

"Me too!" Momota chorused, getting agreements from Akio, Tsunomata, Ryuusei and Fujiko.

"Alright, ten more and we'll have two teams of nine" Hana said, naturally counting herself and Aramaki in as well.

"I'll play" Ayu said "Taka-san said I'm a good pitcher."

"That you are" Aramaki convinced "While I'd like to be the pitcher for my team, I definitely want you in it."

"To think he said that with a straight face… bet he doesn't even realize what it sounds like" Haru thought with a snicker.

"Do you want to play too, Haru?" Aramaki asks him, catching him by surprise.

"What? Me? You know I'm not exactly athletic" he pauses "And no offence, but baseball's not really my thing anyway."

"But it could be fun" Koruri tells him "C'mon, let's play, okay?"

"It's not like you can't play if I don't"

"But I want to play together" she insists "Please?"

They stare at each other, Koruri's puppy face making Haru sweat. Everyone watches them, eager to see where this goes.

"…Fine, let's play." Haru gives in.

"Ha!" Semimaru lets out a laugh "She has you completely whipped!"

Haru scowls at him, but doesn't comment. He's better than that, he tells himself.

"What about you, Semi-chan? You want to play?" Hana asks, but Semimaru refuses, saying that he still has his cooking duties "Alright, seven more! Nacchan?"

"Eh!?" Natsu's surprised "I-I don't really… know baseball. I shouldn't play."

"Do you mind if I join?" Gengorou asks suddenly "Not that I even know the rules, but I'm a fast learner."

"Of course," Aramaki cuts in "Six more."

"Well, since you're short on hands…" Ran starts, and Aramaki thinks she'll also play with them, but Hana knows better. Sure enough, Ran finishes: "Karita, Sakuya, you two are playing as well."

"Yes, Ran-san" the two chorus, knowing better than to argue, but Sakuya adds: "But Ran-san, you should play too. Don't be lazy."

"He's right, Ran" Akio cuts in before Ran can object "You play too."

Annoyed, she tries to get out of it by saying: "I'll play if you can get Nijiko to play."

"Why am I getting pulled in to this?" the other woman asks in annoyance as everyone looks at her expectantly. Glaring at Ran, a small, barely noticeable smirk rises to her face as she figures out how to get back at the woman "Fine, I'll play."

The surprise on Ran's face tells she wasn't expecting that, but that was the point. Ran clearly didn't want to play, yet now she had to. That's what she gets for pulling her in to this.

"Alright, only two more!" Hana said, grinning at Ran, who scowled in reply, knowing that the younger girl was pleased with this turn of events.

"I'll play!" Hotaru said suddenly "Hibari-chan, do you want to play?"

"No" the other girl flat out refused.

"Then I suppose I'll fill in the last spot" Botan added "Unless someone else wants to?"

But no one volunteered, so Botan it was.

"Great, that makes 18 of us!" Hana said "I think we can all agree that Aramaki-san will be the captain of one team, but who'll lead the other one?"

"How about Akio?" Ran asked. The man looked at her in surprise, but as no one had any complaints, he shrugged, saying: "Sure."

"How will we decide the teams?" Arashi asked "Will the captains choose, or will we choose by lottery?"

"I would prefer lottery; it'd make things more interesting" Aramaki said.

"Everyone on board?" Hana asks, still sticking to a leader's role for some reason. No objections.

"We can use these" Sakuya said, already piling up small pieces of wood, carving Xs on some of them. After he was done, he turned them all upside down and mixed them "Those who pick up ones with an X are in Aramaki's team, those who get blank are in Akio-sans."

"We'd expect no less from you, Sakuya." Akio said "You go first."

"Okay" he picked up a piece. It had an X "Next!"

One by one, everyone picked up a piece, resulting to the following teams:

Team Aramaki:

Sakuya

Ayu

Arashi

Koruri

Gengorou

Haru

Karita

Nijiko

The rest were, naturally, in Akio's team.

"You've got to be kidding me" Ran said as she realized how the teams had been divided.

"Holy shit!" Semimaru yelled, gaggling like a maniac "Hana, your team's so screwed!"

Hana couldn't deny that; the opposing team had Aramaki and all the playing Summer A members plus the powerhouse that was Karita. Arashi was athletic, too. Their only weak points were Sakuya and Haru, the former probably not even counting considering his intelligence. But even so, Hana did not like losing.

"We'll see about that" she muttered, grinning "Let's play!"