Ken felt his stomach rumbling in protest to the alarm that had woken him up. Since he parted ways with the remnants of his dinner last night, he felt the full effects of his hunger this morning.
He quickly turned the alarm off and opened the notification waiting for him.
[You have consumed: A-grade Balance and Coordination Elixir.]
[Balance and Coordination grade has been increased by 3!]
PHYSICAL FITNESS: (Avg. B+)
Balance and Coordination: A+
Agility: B-
Strength: A-
Stamina: B+
Seeing the blue screen in front of him, Ken’s eyes sparkled. He finally had a grading of A+, filling him with pride and a sense of achievement. This was probably the highest he would be able to reach with the A-grade Elixirs.
Ken had never seen S-grade Elixirs even mentioned before by the system, but perhaps they would appear once he upgraded the system to a sufficient level.
Either way, he felt another layer of confidence after his Balance and Coordination had increased. He needed to perform well in the finals and get the attention of Toin or another famous baseball school.
There would be a few high school scouts who would offer scholarships for talents who played in the finals. Ideally, he and Daichi would be able to shine on the field and move on to an established team which would set them up for a professional career in baseball.
With these grand thoughts in his mind, Ken left his room to start his morning routine. Today was the last day of final exams which ended at 12pm. From there he would go to the last baseball practice before the Kanto finals against Seigakuin tomorrow.
When he arrived at school, everyone seemed to be in a much better mood than they were on Monday. That was to be expected since it was the last day of school before the summer break started.
Ken and Daichi were both more excited for the final game of the Kanto Tournament which would take place tomorrow. Chris was due back from overseas sometime today which the two were looking forward to.
As he walked towards class, Ken could still feel the stares directed at him from the other students. A few girls walked up to him in the hallway and stopped in his path, looking as if they wanted to ask him something.
“Hey Ken, what are you doing after school today? Did you want to go shopping in Yokohama with us? Your friend can come too.”
Ken almost couldn’t believe his ears, turning to Daichi as if to ask him if this was an illusion. However, Daichi’s face was beet red and filled with panic.
Now that he thought about it, he had never seen Daichi talk to another girl before apart from their mother. His nervousness caused Ken to let out a mischievous grin as he had finally found out his brothers weakness.
Thankfully, Ken didn’t share the same feelings he had for Ai with these girls, so he was easily able to decline their invitation. The reason he was so shocked in the first place was because he had never been invited to such things even as the Ace of Seiko.
“I’m sorry, we both have baseball training after school today. We’ll be playing in the finals tomorrow after all.” He replied with an apologetic face.
Seeing the girls look so disappointed, Ken’s eyes flashed for a moment as a wicked idea entered his mind.
“How about you exchange email addresses with my brother here and we can go shopping during summer break?”
Daichi felt a shock run down his spine as he slowly turned to Ken with a horrified expression.
‘This is what you get for bullying me little bro.’ Ken laughed inwardly, snatching Daichi’s phone from his pocket and handing it to the three girls.
They all entered their email addresses and turned to Ken expectantly.
“Ah sorry, my phone is out of battery. But don’t worry, you can reach me through my brother here.”
Outwardly Ken looked apologetic, however inwardly he was cackling like an evil villain from one of those Anime’s. Even after the girls walked away and his phone had been returned, Daichi had yet to recover from the whole ordeal.
Ken didn’t bother to collect Daichi, choosing to walk straight into class in case he was stopped by anyone else.
‘Have I gotten more handsome or something?’ He thought, humming a merry tune as he went and sat down at his desk.
“Ah…” Ken exclaimed, finally thinking of a reason for all this unwanted attention. His reward from the mission against Fujimi was that weird skill with hardly any description.
Everything started to make sense now. Charismatic Air seemed to not be limited to the baseball field, working in his everyday life. While it wasn’t a lie to say that he was enjoying a little extra attention, it might turn out to be annoying in the future.
While he was deep in thought, Daichi finally managed to collect himself and sit down at his desk next to Ken. He was staring at his phone in a daze, looking at the 3 new entries in his contacts list.
They were easy to locate because he only had 3 contacts on his phone to begin with. Ken, Yuki and Chris.
The bell was what finally woke Daichi up from his mood, prompting him to put his phone away. When he looked over at Ken all he could see was a giant toothy grin, giving him the feeling of wanting to wipe it right off his face.
Once the teacher walked in, the room went silent and the final block of exams for the semester commenced. Since the final subject was English, Ken was able to finish the paper in record time.
While it may have been a breeze for himself who could be considered fluent, the rest of the class was in crisis mode. Daichi seemed to have a better time considering he had been actively trying to learn with Ken at home.
Since the two wanted to join the Major league in the future, he would be best to learn the native language as soon as they could.
Once the bell rang, there was a collective celebration around the room. Summer break had officially started and they wouldn’t have to return for 6 weeks.
Ken and Daichi quickly left the classroom and headed down to the baseball club. This was the last training session before the final tomorrow.
When they arrived, everyone seemed to be in high spirits.
The coach took the players through some warm ups and a light training session. Considering the game was tomorrow, he didn’t want to push them too hard, yet he was a little worried that since there hadn’t been training all week that their might be some game shape issues.
However much to his surprise, everyone seemed to be in good shape. That was especially the case for Ken and Daichi who looked like they could run laps around the rest of the team if asked to.
After a little over an hour, Coach Yoshida called for everyone to gather around.
“You’ve all done well this summer and I couldn’t be more proud as a Coach. This is probably one of the strongest teams we’ve had at Seiko, but none of that matters if we can’t win tomorrow.”
He moved his gaze over his players, stopping on Daichi for a few moments longer than the others before continuing.
“Seigakuin are a tough team, they’ve blown out most of their opponents thanks to their strong batting line up. Kouichi, Daichi, you will need to work your magic in the battery for us to have a chance.”
Kouchi and Daichi both nodded, their faces solemn.
“Keisuke, Ken, your job is to get on base no matter what it takes. It’s going to be a high scoring game so we’ll need all the advantages we can get from the very start of the match.”
The two also nodded, understanding their roles. As long as they could get on base, Kenta and Daichi their two big hitters would have a chance to send them all home and maximize the run total.
“I won’t say too much else. All I ask is that we do our best and have fun while doing it.”
Coach Yoshida then extended his hand, prompting the players to place them on top.
“Captain, take it away.”
Kenta had a serious expression as he called out.
“SEIKO!”
“FIGHT!”
Everyone else shouted the word fight as loud as they could, raising their hand together in unison. Afterwards, the Coach sent them to get changed and headed home, reminding everyone to be at the stadium an hour early for tactics and warm-ups.
Keisuke walked next to Ken and Daichi with his hands behind his head, he seemed in a weird mood.
“This will probably be our last game in middle school.” He said solemnly.
“Yeah. We’ll be too busy with entrance exams for High School to participate in the Autumn Tournament.” Ken replied, feeling a little nostalgic.
However, he was even more excited for High School baseball and the chance to return to Koshien. The real Koshien, not the empty stadium within his image training.
“Where are you going to apply for?” Daichi asked Keisuke curiously.
Keisuke smiled wryly, “My number 1 choice is Sendai, but I’m not sure if I’ll be accepted into the baseball team. If that doesn’t work out I’ll probably just go to Yokohama High.”
“It’s always good to aim high. We’ll be trying for Toin.” Ken replied, his face full of determination.
“Wow. Daichi probably has a good chance of making it, but you?” Keisuke scrunched his face, squinting as he looked at Ken.
Thud
Ken sent a quick kick to Keisuke’s behind, propelling him forward a few steps and almost causing him to trip over.
“Eek! I’m kidding!” He yelped, causing the other two to break out into laughter. Keisuke soon joined in, feeling his nerves calm down significantly.
If he was honest, he didn’t think that he was good enough to make it into one of the large baseball schools with his current talent. However, seeing Ken work so hard to make it into Seiko after giving up pitching made him want to better himself.
He would never admit it out loud, but he was thankful to Ken for giving him the motivation to improve his skills this season.
His gaze moved to the person in question and he couldn’t help but take a closer look.
‘Did this guy get better looking or something?’