17 Competition

Hearing Su Qing's greeting, Yoshizawa hurriedly shook his head.

"I'm fine. Let's get on the field!"

If he wanted to protect his position, he had to start with defense! As long as he demonstrated an ability to completely surpass Su Qing defensively, the coach would never let Su Qing replace him in the future!

Full of confidence, Yoshizawa ran onto the field with Su Qing...

"Why were you so slow? You only got here now..."

Shirakawa, who was closest to Su Qing, checked on his teammate.

"I was waiting for Yoshizawa-senpai. He seemed a little upset."

The moment Shirakawa heard that, his expression turned grave. Of course he understood Yoshizawa's concerns. It was perfectly normal. If his batting had been poor lately and someone else had taken both his defensive position and batting spot, he would be worried sick too.

"The next time you run into Yoshizawa-senpai, it'd be best to bring me along."

Shirakawa wasn't spouting nonsense. He was simply worried about Su Qing. After all, Su Qing was the main culprit behind Yoshizawa's recent situation. Though Yoshizawa had simply been outclassed, how many people could truly accept that fact so magnanimously? Especially when the person who outclassed them was their junior—a junior two whole years below them.

Shirakawa hadn't interacted much with Yoshizawa. The second-year clique led by Narumiya Mei, which included him and Carlos, had always been thorns in the eyes of many third-year players.

So aside from Harada and Hirai Tsubasa, they had little contact with the third-years. Harada was the captain and his roommate, while Hirai Tsubasa was the team's nice guy, gentle with everyone. As his middle-infield partner, it was only natural that they interacted more often.

Although Inashiro looked harmonious on the surface, the internal struggles were fierce. There were all kinds of cliques, openly and covertly competing with one another. Coach Kunimoto knew about all of it, yet neither encouraged nor opposed it.

He didn't encourage it because he felt that players forming factions was bad. But he didn't oppose it because such competition did help players improve. So long as it never came out into the open, Coach Kunimoto wouldn't interfere.

Coach Kunimoto was a coach who valued ability above all else. You could see that from the fact that Inashiro's starting lineup included three second-years and one first-year. There were only nine starting positions! That was rare throughout Tokyo, even all of Japan.

Naturally, Su Qing understood what Shirakawa meant, but he didn't care. Wasn't that how competitive sports worked? The capable rose, and the weak fell. Since Su Qing had started playing baseball, he had no idea how many people around him had been eliminated. He had never cared about competition, nor had he feared malicious competition.

When he had played professionally in his previous life, he had been a workhorse pitcher, pitching once every four days. He hadn't needed to socialize much, and the person he communicated with most was the team's starting catcher. Still, he had plenty of close friends. They ate together, went shopping together, threw parties together. Su Qing had been hit by pitches before, and when benches cleared, plenty of teammates had been willing to throw punches for him.

After coming to Inashiro, he had quickly tied himself to Narumiya Mei's clique as well. He wasn't afraid of malicious competition. Who would knock whom unconscious was anyone's guess!

If the school punished him, he could always just return to the United States to study. He had nothing to fear. But the person who fought him might have their entire life ruined.

Su Qing smiled at Shirakawa to show that he understood, then the two returned to their positions and waited for the Half Inning to begin.

Yamamori's most formidable batter, Mihokata Katsunori, stepped into the Batter's Box.

Once Mihokata stepped into the Batter's Box, the game truly began. Yet Harada took a long time to call for a pitch. Ever since Su Qing had told him about stealing strikes, he had been itching to try it himself. But this was still a game. It didn't seem right to attempt something like that during a game, yet he still wanted to give it a shot.

After hesitating for a long while, until Narumiya Mei was getting impatient, Harada finally gave the sign. He wanted to try it. He called for a ball just outside the Strike Zone. Narumiya Mei was dissatisfied with the pitch selection, but he didn't want to keep waiting either.

Narumiya Mei nodded, confirming Harada's call. Harada also got ready, opening his mitt much wider than usual.

The ball entered the mitt from the far right side. It was so far outside that Harada nearly failed to catch it. He couldn't help lowering his head as he waited for the umpire's call.

"Ball!"

Did it fail? Harada felt somewhat frustrated. He hadn't caught that pitch cleanly. Su Qing, over by second base, had also seen what Harada was trying to do. The moment Harada lowered his head, he knew it was over. How had he forgotten to tell Harada not to lower his head?

Harada didn't try again after that, instead returning to normal pitch-calling. Even if it was only a practice game, it was better to take the game seriously.

But then Mihokata Katsunori demonstrated why he was Yamamori's cleanup hitter. After battling through four pitches, he caught a Forkball from Narumiya Mei that hadn't dropped and sent it into Left Field.

However, Mihokata wasn't particularly fast, so he ultimately stopped at first base.

Yamamori's fifth batter didn't choose to bunt, instead batting normally. After all, this was a practice game, and the main point was to show off one's ability. Of course, if you were exceptionally good at bunting, no one would object to laying one down.

After reaching base, Mihokata sensibly stayed close to the first-base bag and didn't stray too far. Narumiya Mei gave him a perfunctory glance before ignoring him.

The fifth batter wasn't as capable as Mihokata. He missed two straight fastballs from Narumiya Mei, swinging through both. Just as Harada called for the final pitch to put him away, the kid somehow got lucky and actually made contact!

But it was only a foul pop-up. Once Harada and Yamaoka determined that the ball would likely land in the Rest Area, they stopped pursuing it. But unexpectedly, Su Qing came running over from who knew where and shouted:

"I've got it!"

Su Qing kept his eyes raised, tracking the ball's flight, completely failing to notice that he was nearing the Rest Area. Everyone hurriedly warned him, but Su Qing was focused entirely on finding the ball's landing point. How could he spare any attention for what they were saying? Just before he was about to fall into the Rest Area, he caught the ball.

Only after catching it did Su Qing realize that he had reached the Rest Area. One more step and he would have fallen in. Luckily, this was Inashiro's Rest Area on the first-base side, and someone grabbed hold of him. Otherwise, he would have fallen in. Just as Su Qing was about to show the ball in his glove to the umpire, Yamaoka and Shirakawa suddenly shouted:

"Stealing!"

Su Qing looked closely and saw that Mihokata had started running at some point. Forgetting about his balance, Su Qing hurriedly threw the ball toward second base.

Without setting himself, and with too much force behind it, the throw was certainly fast—but it was also very high. Fortunately, Mihokata wasn't fast. After Shirakawa reached up to catch the ball, he still had time to tag him out.