EVENT: The Game Begins! (Pre-game through Inning 3)

[mod_calls_lead]

After closing ceremonies, there was some scrambling and gnashing of teeth as people with tickets to the Lions game were separated from people without them. The group that was going was pushed towards the shuttle bus, which took off for the park as soon as everyone was safely in place. A representative of the online network stood, distributing

Comments

[jundere]

Junta had gone ahead of Riou and Kazuki because he was still somewhat disgruntled over having had them gang up on him when they were obviously supposed to be making him cakes. He was going to let Riou worry that maybe he had decided not to go along, and let Kazuki to fret about the cost of the ticket. Maybe that was mean.

Still, once he got to the fourth row in the proper section, he decided it was easier to get to where he needed to be by coming from the higher numbers down. He didn't know what kind of bottleneck there was on the other end, but it appeared to involve Nishiura's injured catcher and Musashino's Haruna, which meant that Riou would probably be pouting for a good portion of the game. Riou pouting was always amusing.

Junta's mood improved at the thought without his meaning to let it, as he slid into his seat, draping his legs over the arm to rest his feet on the seat to his left and dropping his bag into the seat to his right. Kazu and Riou would get there eventually, but until then, Junta was going to be comfortably cheeky.

[riousgeneration]

“Aa~, where’s Jun-san?” complained Riou, changing his large bag from one hand to the other. “Kazu-sa~n, do you think he might’ve decided not to come just because he’s still giving us the cold shoulder?”

[kawainotkowai]

Kazuki grinned and patted Riou’s shoulder, hitching his own bag up on his shoulder. “Don’t worry too much. He’ll show up eventually. He wouldn’t risk not getting cake and homemade bento.” He said it with the cool assurance of a man who knew whereof he spoke.

[riousgeneration]

“He’s totally avoiding us,” Riou mourned. “He wouldn’t talk to me the whole of today. It feels weird when he isn’t constantly getting in digs at me.” He considered his statement and hastily added, “Not that I like getting teased or anything, okay, so don’t get ideas!”

[kawainotkowai]

The only response to that last hasty defense was a lifted eyebrow and a smirk, but Kazuki let it pass by without any verbal reaction. “He’s hiding like the finicky little pitcher he is. Take note, Riou, pitchers are all fragile little flowers. You have to learn when to let them grow on their own without a lot of watering, and when to properly care for them.” He waved a hand in a gesture that meant something like ‘let it go.’

[riousgeneration]

Riou, however, wasn’t such a philosophical personality. He didn’t ‘let things go’. He hung on tighter, like a dog with a bone. “But it’s --” He stopped short of saying lonely, because that was just a little too needy. “Weird,” he finished lamely. “Still, if that’s how to handle him...” Kazuki was, after all, older and wiser, so Riou bowed to his superior knowledge and stopped complaining.

[kawainotkowai]

“Yes, well.” Kazuki checked his watch and frowned. They could wait for Junta to just show up at the Lions’ game without them. But it was getting pretty late. “Let’s go find mama. I think this is one of those times when our fragile flower needs some nurturing.”

[riousgeneration]

They made their way through the stands, arriving at the block reserved for the Dreamers not too much worse for the wear (Riou’s mutters about the state of his ice cream cake in the oppressive heat of the crowd notwithstanding). The first person he recognized was that arrogant asshole Haruna. Riou hissed like an enraged cat, taking the presence of the Musashino pitcher as though it were a personal affront. “Kazu-san, where are we sitting? Tell me we aren’t in row --” he counted quickly, “row four. Please say we aren’t.”

[kawainotkowai]

Kazuki rummaged for his ticket stubs, double checked their row and shrugged up one shoulder, giving Riou a smile. “Okay, we aren’t. But I’m lying and you’re going to be sitting next to the redhead.” He waved at Akimaru, who was next to Haruna. He looked at the row, smile slipping a little bit. “Where is Junta...?”

[riousgeneration]

“Jun-san!” His displeasure at Haruna’s presence momentarily forgotten, Riou’s face lit up like a switch had been flipped. Their errant pitcher was a few seats down Haruna’s row, draped over three adjacent seats like an overgrown Ragdoll cat. Complete with whiskers, since he was eating several chocolate Pocky sticks at once. Riou bounded down the steps to reach the row at the far end from Haruna and pounced on his sempai. “Jun-san, we were looking for you!” he whined. “Why didn’t you wait for us?”

[kawainotkowai]

Following a little more slowly, Kazuki took the time to survey the assembled group. A few members of the Nishiura team were there, as well as Haruna, and that seemed to be it for people he recognized. He slipped into his seat next to Junta and sprawled himself out across his former pitcher.

[jundere]

Junta shifted in his seat, so his back was against the arm-rest and Kazuki's side, barely managing to get his legs up and apart before Riou pounced on him and risked hurting his ankle. "Took you long enough! I wanted to find our seats, idiots. And I don't trust you two alone anymore."

He nudged Riou with his foot, hooking one leg up over his shoulder as a lazy way to return the not-quite-hug he'd gotten when Riou glommed onto him. "You normally dive head-first for laps like that, puppy?" he asked, all dry and sarcastic, even as he ruffled up Riou's hair. He offered Riou the opportunity to take a few sticks from the box of pocky he'd been devouring, and sighed as he leaned his head back against Kazu's shoulder.

"You two still owe me, anyway!"

[riousgeneration]

Riou pouted at Junta from where he was entangled in the pitcher's legs. "Don't call me a puppy," he whined, even as he snagged a few sticks of Pocky from the box his sempai was holding. "And we brought the cakes we owe you. I made mine extra-big!"

From his disproportionately large bag, Riou produced a huge cake-box and, balancing it carefully with one hand, opened it to reveal a monster of a cake. It was fully sixteen inches in diameter and liberally coated with chocolate icing, chocolate cookie crumbles and several generous handfuls of M&Ms. "Your pudding-cookie-ice-cream-M&M apology cake! It got a little melted on the way, even though I put in lots of ice packs, but it should still be okay. I think." HIs large eyes fixed on Junta's face, radiating anxiety. "Is it okay?"

[kawainotkowai]

"You are a puppy," Kazuki said dismissively, but with a grin to soften the words. Out of his own bag, he pulled a large, three-story, family bento box. And a much smaller cake than Junta's. It's was an individual-sized cake-box, in fact. But there were frosting roses on it and everything. ~Fancy~

[jundere]

Junta looked at Riou's cake, and then at Kazu's bento, and then at the cake with the bento, and he made a very serious decision. As angry as he was for everything that Riou and Kazu had done to mess with him the other day - or rather, as embarrassed as it made him to think about it, there was cake.

"If it's melting, you'd better have brought spoons, Riou!" Junta was very careful to untangle his legs from Riou and sit up properly in his chair without having any foot-cake-contact or other cake-endangering incidents.

"And you!" Junta turned to Kazu, expression stern. "You'd better feed me like a good spouse would. You two have a lot to make up for. I didn't even make you burn the photos."

[riousgeneration]

Grinning in triumph -- Jun-san wasn't angry with them anymore! -- Riou set his gigantic cake on Junta's lap. "Of course I brought spoons. How could we eat an ice-cream cake without spoons?" Riou gave their pitcher an incredulous look. "I'm not as stupid as you think!"

Reaching into his bag once more (who knew, perhaps it was actually a disguised fourth-dimension pocket), Riou pulled out a packet of spoons and a picnic mat with a flourish. "I thought we could have a picnic," he explained rather bashfully when his two sempai blinked in surprise.