Tsukishima Aoba watched Kitamura Kou fawn over the arrogant team manager, bending over backward to please her. The longer she watched, the more her irritation boiled over.
"What exactly does hitting for the cycle mean?" the Seishu High baseball team's female manager asked.
Aoba, who had already reached her limit with both the manager's attitude and Kou's shameless bootlicking, finally snapped.
"Hahaha, did you hear that? She doesn't even know what hitting for the cycle means. Is she seriously the manager of a baseball team?"
"The atmosphere in this shop is awful," the manager said angrily.
"Alright, alright, I'm begging you, Aoba. If you make her mad, I'm dead," Kou whispered hurriedly as he leaned close.
"Hmph!" Aoba turned her face away, refusing to look at him.
"For my birthday, please?" Kou pressed his hands together and pleaded again.
"The iced coffee is just as bad as I expected. Let's get out of this dump already," the manager said to the girl beside her.
"Ah, haha... sure, of course." Then Kou turned toward the counter. "Excuse me, the check."
Aoba looked ready to explode.
"That'll be 1,400 yen."
"I'll pay by card," the manager said, holding one out.
"We don't take cards," Aoba replied flatly.
"What? In this day and age? ...I don't have any cash with me," the manager said in disbelief.
"So you're planning to skip out on the bill?" Aoba said as she picked up the phone on the counter, ready to call the police.
Kou rushed over and stopped her, then turned to the manager with a smile. "I'll handle this."
After that, he leaned close to Aoba and whispered, "Put it on my tab for now. I swear I'll pay you back later."
"We don't do tabs here either," Aoba said firmly.
"Please, please, I'm begging you. Just this once. For my birthday," Kou pleaded.
Once he saw the situation had settled down, Kou hurriedly grabbed the mountain of shopping bags and left Clover Café with the girls.
At that moment, Ichiyo returned and spoke to Aoba, who was still standing stiffly behind the counter.
"Thanks for helping out, Aoba. You can go rest now."
Aoba's anger still hadn't gone down in the slightest.
"That idiot... to do something like that on Wakaba's birthday..." she muttered through clenched teeth.
"Hm?" Ichiyo didn't catch it and looked at her in confusion.
"It's nothing," Aoba said as she untied her apron.
Just then, Koganezawa Midori appeared once again, cornering people as usual.
"Midori?" Senda said in surprise.
Midori completely ignored him and walked straight toward Aoba.
"Is your wrist injury better?"
"Hey, don't push it! Stay out of my defensive range!" Senda jumped up to block her.
"What? If you have time to sit here drinking coffee, then come practice with me instead!" Midori shot back, pointing at him.
"Where I drink coffee is my business. It has nothing to do with you!" Senda retorted.
"Let's go," Aoba suddenly said, cutting through their argument.
"Eh?" Midori blinked, not understanding.
"You wanted a showdown, didn't you?" Aoba replied.
At the riverside sandlot field—
Whoosh!
Smack!
Whoosh!
Smack!
Whoosh!
Smack!
Midori swung three times and failed to even touch the ball once.
"Three pitches, three strikes. Batter out," Senda announced from behind the plate, acting as catcher.
"Alright, that's enough."
Aoba handed the glove back to the still-dazed Midori. Having vented most of her frustration, she turned to leave.
"Hey, have you decided what high school you're going to?" Midori suddenly asked. "You're definitely joining a girls' baseball team, right? Want to come to our school?"
"I'm planning to go to Yakushi High," Aoba replied.
"Huh? Wait, doesn't Yakushi High only have a boys' baseball team? Girls can't play hardball there, you know. You won't even be able to play in official games, so why go there?" Midori pressed.
"Keep working hard, Miss Future Japan National Team."
Aoba ignored the question and left behind only that brief encouragement.
"Next time, I'm definitely going to hit it!" Midori shouted at Aoba's back.
After her showdown with Midori, Aoba walked home alone.
"Hey, Aoba!"
A familiar voice called out from behind her.
When she turned around, she saw two of her friends carrying several shopping bags.
"Did you two go shopping?" Aoba asked.
"Yeah, near the station. What about you? Baseball practice?" one of them asked.
"Something like that," Aoba answered vaguely.
"Oh, right! We ran into that guy—the son of the owner of Kitamura Sporting Goods," the other girl said. "You remember that cat-shaped teapot they used to sell at that fancy gift shop? Apparently, he went there to buy it, but the very last one had already been taken to the register by someone else."
"Yeah, I remember. That cat teapot was discontinued last year, so it really was the last one," her friend added.
"Even though he practically begged the girl who got it first to let him buy it from her, she was awful," the first girl said.
"She actually told him she'd give it up on one condition—that he had to be her servant for the whole day. And that idiot actually agreed with a grin," the second girl said.
Aoba froze where she stood.
Only then did she realize she might have completely misunderstood Kou.
"If it were me, I'd never listen to a girl like that, not even if I died," one friend said.
"I'm seriously disappointed in him now!" the other added angrily.
"Yeah," the first agreed.
"Because he had no choice but to get it," Aoba murmured softly, staring blankly at the sunset spreading across the distant sky.
That night, at the Kitamura house—
"Kou, I heard from Aoba that you spent the whole day playing someone's servant just to get me a birthday present."
Wakaba narrowed her eyes dangerously at him.
"Ah... ahaha..." Kou rubbed the back of his head awkwardly, trying to laugh it off.
"Well, since you worked that hard to prepare a gift for me, I'll forgive you for standing me up and leaving me waiting alone in the park for hours," Wakaba said with a bright smile as she watched Kou squirm in fear.
"Then... happy sixteenth birthday to both of us!"
With that, the two of them blew out the sixteen candles on the cake together.