It was November, and the weather was gradually turning cold. People walking on the streets unconsciously pulled their clothes tighter to keep the biting wind out.
At this moment, a few teenagers on the street seemed unfazed by the chilly wind. They walked as usual, some with their hands clasped behind their heads, others simply with their hands in their pockets. They chatted as they walked, the leader, not particularly tall, grumbling under his breath, seemingly expressing his dissatisfaction about something.
They weren't delinquents upset about being provoked; anyone with even a slight understanding of the junior high baseball scene would know that any one of them was a prominent figure.
Carlos of Jonan Junior Baseball.
Shirakawa of Marugame Junior Baseball.
Yamaoka and Yabe of Takahira Junior Baseball.
And standing right in the center, the youthful star, Narumiya Mei.
Narumiya Mei's dissatisfaction primarily stemmed from an incident that occurred about half an hour earlier in a nearby park. If that person had agreed to his proposal, his ideal team would have been realized.
Perhaps they would have become the new-era 'KK Duo.'
Of course, Narumiya Mei didn't feel that missing a catcher would be any loss to his future high school career. On the contrary, the one who rejected him was the real loser.
"While you keep saying that, I don't think a catcher has to be Miyuki Kazuya. I think Takayama Akihito and Masu Shinichiro are both good choices." The speaker was Shirakawa, with wine-red hair and his left fringe slightly covering his eye. He wasn't too pleased about Narumiya Mei's attempt to recruit Miyuki.
Especially now that Miyuki had rejected them and become their challenger, Shirakawa's opinion of Miyuki had dropped even further.
Narumiya naturally retorted, "I'm not angry because he rejected us, but because I find it amusing." After speaking, a confident smirk appeared at the corner of his mouth. "He talks a good game, but I wonder if he'll still be able to say such arrogant things once he's in high school."
"Seido High School?" Shirakawa pondered for a moment, then burst into laughter. "Even if we don't know when we'll get a starting position, Miyuki will definitely have to wait until his third year to become the regular catcher. If he's unlucky, Seido might even have other talented catchers vying for his spot."
The others looked at him in confusion, wondering why Shirakawa had suddenly come out with this statement.
"My Senior from junior baseball was at Seido High School, and his position was also catcher. Last year, we faced Miyuki's junior baseball team, and do you know what the result was?" Shirakawa built up the suspense, pausing for a few seconds before slowly continuing, "Whether it was in pitch calling or batting, he was completely defeated by my Senior."
When talking about that Senior, a look of admiration appeared on Shirakawa's face, a stark contrast to his usual taciturn demeanor.
Every time he saw that Senior's confident pitch calling from the shortstop position, it made the fielders feel very secure. His pitch calling always made the balls thrown by their not-so-strong Ace turn into easily fielded ground balls.
Most importantly, he was very humble. Every time he spoke, it felt like bathing in a spring breeze, and his advice to his teammates was always very pertinent. Every word he spoke was incredibly insightful. It was probably thanks to his father, who had played in professional baseball, that his baseball knowledge was exceptionally rich.
With such a Senior as an opponent in the same position, it was clear that the only time one could take his spot was when he graduated.
One could already imagine Miyuki wasting away in Seido's bullpen for the next two years.
Meanwhile, they would gain a wealth of game experience, which was a fundamental difference between Miyuki and them.
Aside from the comparison with that Senior, Shirakawa was still full of confidence in his own abilities. He didn't believe he would have to endure on the bench until all the Seniors graduated to get his chance. Summer seemed a bit too soon, but he believed he would definitely be in the team's starting lineup by Autumn.
There were many exchange games in junior baseball over the year. Five of them came from four different junior baseball teams, and they had encountered each other in many games throughout the year. Of course, they also had an impression of the Senior Shirakawa mentioned. After briefly recalling their own team's game against Marugame Junior Baseball last year, they all nodded thoughtfully, sighing for a second about Miyuki's future high school career.
"Alright, let's stop talking about people who aren't coming. While it's true, as Shirakawa said, that we don't necessarily need to recruit a strong catcher, we still need to check out the abilities of other catchers. If we find someone we like, of course, we'll invite them."
Time skipped forward a few days.
They also scouted other catchers, including the two catchers Shirakawa had mentioned earlier, but Narumiya Mei wasn't too satisfied with any of them. Each had more or less obvious shortcomings; at best, they could only be called good players, not star players.
Or, if Narumiya Mei did take a slight liking to someone and went to invite him, he would be told that the player had already accepted an invitation from another school.
Narumiya Mei's over-reliance on Miyuki Kazuya meant he had no Plan B. By this point, the Autumn Tournament had ended, and schools had entered their winter training period, which was the perfect time for management to scout players. Every day, player profiles would start to update on the Baseball History website.
"We can't just expect to find hidden gems among the regular admissions, can we?" Carlos joked.
It was well known that the starting lineup of most sports powerhouse schools was formed from players invited in advance. Students admitted through regular admissions naturally started at a disadvantage compared to specially recruited students, or rather, this was the most obvious difference in so-called talent.
Taking Carlos's comment as a joke, the others didn't pay much attention. Anyway, the players they had set their sights on had already gone to other schools, so there was no need to dwell on it. Their focus would now be on themselves: how to secure a starting position in the shortest possible time.
"Let's go to the batting center and practice hitting." Yamaoka, the most obsessed with batting among the five, suggested, "There's a batting center nearby."
"Alright, we've been scouting other players lately, so we've neglected our own practice a bit."
The others strongly agreed with this suggestion. Their minor fame in junior high wasn't solely due to talent; training was ingrained in them. They felt restless if they missed even a few days of practice.