Batting Cages.

[Mitsuki Park]

Clink..... Clink..... Clink.....

At the local baseball field, you would see, off to the side, a row of batting cages. Inside one of those chained boxes was a girl with a navy blue baseball cap and a ponytail coming out of the little hole of the cap from the back along with a metal baseball bat in her hands. Clutched tightly, she stood staight up, the baseball bat tilted down onto the ground, while she watched the machine shoot baseballs one by one, letting it hit the chain wall behind her, which erupted into a rattling sound. One might wonder why the hell she isn't swinging her bat to hit the balls...well, it was simple. Mitsuki didn't know how, or rather, she knew, just not properly. At the time, she had a couple of quarters in her pocket for the machine, but all she did was stand there and watch the baseballs shoot out. Finally, after a while, she picked up her bat, holding it with her right hand above the left, she waited for the next baseball to come and...

Clink!

Swinging her bat, careful about how much force she used, she missed. Completely missed. Rubbing the back of her neck, she held her bat up again and waited for a baseball to come and...

Click.

Yay! She hit the fricken' ball, but she hit it that the ball angled downwards and bounced off the ground. Mmph. And so, for another ten minutes - or until the baseballs ran out - she'd stand there and lean against the chain wall, baseball bat loosely held in her hands while the cool, chilly air blew against her. Wearing dark blue jeans that hugged her waist, and a zip-up hooded sweater with two sleeveless shirts underneath, you could say it was a bit cold. But because she was outside for such a decent amount of time, you could say she got used to it. And besides, the black and red hospital mask kept her face warm, so it wasn't half bad.

Leaning her head against the fence, she closed her eyes and just listened to the chains rattling, the wind blowing against her ear, and the occasional bird singing its song. She was aware of footsteps drawing near, but she had a baseball bat in her possession, so.. Unless that person had a gun, then she'll start thinking about paying more attention.

[Deleted]

((OoC: Hope this is okay. ^_^))

It wasn’t hard to hear Saint approach considering that he made no effort to conceal his footsteps on the small walkway down from the parking lot. The cement helped to intensify the sound of his steps. His hands were jammed in his jean pockets as the breeze rustled its way through his white trench coat and the gold dress shirt he wore underneath. It also cause his hair to waft about as well, though he enjoyed the soothing effect it had. With every step the pillar got closer and closer to his destination, but each step was slower than the one before. Why? Because Saint wasn’t sure of what he was going to say or how he was going to say it exactly, but he had found to the captain and would have to get everything done with… better now than later.

What exactly did he need to say? Sorry. Odd, that something that simple was so difficult to say. After his encounter with another student while in the music room, Saint had been thrown for a guilt trip over abandoning the school, the students, and the captain. The accusation had hit him quite hard considering how much he tended to care about how his actions effected others. Mitsuki had been captured by the people posing as gods and needed the help of the people she had given the pillar positions to… Saint was one and he had been no where to be found. There was a feeling that he had betrayed her trust and might not be able to win it back. Not to mention the feeling that he had failed in his duties to the school as well. Someone who cared as much as Saint with a feeling of letting everyone down, made it difficult for him to do anything.

Pausing a few feet from where Mitsuki was leaning against the fence, Saint had a urge crying from the back of his mind to turn and leave since she seemed to be at peace. He shouldn’t bother her… right? Slowly the boy took his anti-psychotics out of his pocket, popped two pills, replaced the bottle, and finally washed them down with a sip from his water bottle. With that taken care of, and stall, Saint decided to wait a bit longer before speaking just so he didn’t interrupt something important. Once he did speak it was with a polite and kind that he always carried.

“Having fun?”

[Mitsuki Park]

OOC: It's fine =)

The footsteps stopped...and Mitsuki did not bother to open her eyes and look over. She knew the person was near, because the footsteps gradually grew louder, only signifying that the person was closer; that is, unless the person was trying to hide themselves, but wasn't it a little too late for that? There was a slight moment of peace - it was quiet, other than the chains rattling from the baseballs that were thrown against the fence.

Clink! (Rattle, rattle, rattle)

And then? A voice was heard. Catching her attention, she couldn't help but feel that it sounded familiar. Loosening her grip on her baseball bat, she opened her eyes and stared over at the machine that was shooting out the baseballs, watching the white circular objects be shot out against the fence. From the white of her eyes, she then knew who it was, and to tell the truth, she was slightly surprised to see him, of all the people, standing before her today. Turning her head slightly to get a view one of the pillars that disappeared, she wiped out every trace of emotion from her face and gave him a blank look; well, the same look that's been in her eyes since...forever, really, seeing that she's wearing that hospital mask on the bottom half of her face. Blinking once, a mass of questions began to swarm around her mind, coming in all at once; where was he? Where has he been? Did he know he shrugged off his duty as a pillar? Did he know how surprisingly difficult it had been to keep order in four buildings with only two people? Could he have not at least give an explanation before he left?

Clink! (Rattle, rattle, rattle)

She let a moment of silence pass between them for a while, her eyes never leaving his. There was slight tension in the air, but Mitsuki would blink every so often, so it was an...odd tension, you could say. A one sided tension, maybe? Whatever the case, she would be the one to break the silence.

"Long time no see, Saint.."

[Deleted]

Under her gaze, Saint’s green eyes shifted quickly to the ground as he stood there. It wasn’t very surprising that he had trouble looking her in the face after his departure, though he had no knowledge of what exactly had happened, he knew a gang leader had supposedly rescued the school. The fact that her face and eyes seemed devoid of any emotion didn’t help his uneasiness, he would have felt better if she was angry or disappointed or something, not just… empty. The student body president took a deep breath to collect his thoughts before he spoke, his head still tilted toward the ground, but loud enough for her to hear without a problem.

“I came here to apologize…”

Slowly the pillar strode forward and propped himself against the fence slightly to the captain’s right. Still his eyes evaded Mitsuki’s out of shame, though it may have been against proper etiquette to do so. He wasn’t done speaking but he took a few moments to get everything together in his head. The breeze helped to calm him, as did the deep sighs he continued exhale from time to time. After a few seconds Saint continued with his eyes staring out into the distance.

“… I’m sorry for… everything… for abandoning the school, my duties, the students…”

Saint swallowed hard as he took another deep breath, finally nearing the end of his little speech. Slowly he turned to glance at least sidelong at the captain. Always the sensitive one, the freshman’s eyes were starting to water slightly, as much as he tired to fight the effect. Feigning a smile, he said the final bit of his apology…

“and… I’m sorry for letting you down.”

[Mitsuki Park]

An apology wasn't something Mitsuki was really looking for. What's done is done; even if there was a time machine that magically appeared out of no where, she wasn't one to go back in time to "change" anything. It was like a domino effect - change one thing, you change all things. And who knows? If this and this didn't happen, Mitsuki might not have been here today, at this very location. A mental sigh crossed her mind when he apologized for letting her down - it was true. She was greatly disappointed in him; she gave him the job trusting that he would fufill it, but when he disappeared? Well, what more is there to say? Though now that he was back, all Mitsuki had to fret about was Max. Where was that girl? Mitsuki kept telling herself, next week, next week that they would come back. But she kept pushing back the dates - and now that Saint was back, all she had to hope for was Max. If she didn't come back, then that was it - her job would be given to someone else.

Again, that moment of silence filled the air, except the often rattling sounds of the chain fence from when the ball would smack against it. The birds seemed to have stopped their song, and the wind... Where did the wind go? And as if on cue, the machine ran out of baseballs to chuck, and shut down automatically on its own.

She had her head turned sideways so she could look over at Saint, noticing his glossy eyes and a slight smile. She turned her head away and leaned it once again against the fence, staring up at the sky.

"Where'd you go?"

[Deleted]

That was the million dollar question wasn’t it. Where had he gone exactly? Saint couldn’t claim to be surprised that it was asked, more so that he hoped it wouldn’t come up and he could avoid the whole thing. But if anyone deserved the answer it would have to be Mitsuki, still the student body president was unsure of exactly how much he wanted to say and what he would withhold for personal reasons. Obviously he would not mention his trip to his old psychotherapist to get his file to give to his new one here in Long Beach, nor getting the prescription for his medication. Everything else should be fine. He took a deep breath while gazing back into the distance before speaking again.

“My mother was contacted by an old colleague in Rio saying that he was in need of a bit of assistance going over his findings and doing a bit more field research. So we took it as an opportunity to visit our old friends and take Fleet for a romp about in the wild near Antarctica, where we first found him before coming back. I also did some help with their research while I was out there… but all in all, it was like a small vacation.”

Honesty is the best policy… right? After all, that wasn’t likely to be what someone who had been through what Mitsuki had been through wanted to here, that one of her assistants, for lack of a better term, had been on a vacation the entire time. Perhaps his omission of his psychiatric problems made his absence seem better than it was, no one could know, but either way Saint left it at that. He did not want to go dumping his own personal problems on anyone else, they were his and his alone to deal with. Another deep exhalation of air escaped him as Saint turned back toward Mitsuki to see what here reaction would be to his answer, which was completely honest and truthful but with just the few omissions. Inwardly he believed that she would in no way be pleased to hear what he had just said, but given her apparent lack of outward emotion… it was anybody’s guess.

[Mitsuki Park]

...vacation? He went on a vacation? Ah...well, you could say Mitsuki was expecting something more of the "extreme" - like he had to take care of some unfinished business or something. But...when he went on a vacation, couldn't he at least tell them that he went, or was it last minute? Couldn't he contact them somehow even when he was on vacation, or did it slip his mind? With a quiet sigh, she rubbed the back of her neck. Yeah, she was still disappointed at his reasoning for being gone, but it seemed he was being honest; even if he wasn't, she wouldn't push on further, seeing as how it could've been personal, and to lie was necessary. But, now that they got that out of the way, the birds seemed to have resumed it's singing, and the wind apparently came out of no where once again, but of course, the machine throwing baseballs remained silent.

Giving a small nod, she then looked down at the baseball bat loosely held in her hands, then out at the baseball field, where it was empty. You could say Mitsuki was an understanding captain when it came to certain things; she was strict, but also very...loose in other things. Then looking over at Saint, she blinked once before picking herself up from leaning against the fences.

"...do you know how to play baseball?"

Yeah, it was an invitation to play with her. One could pitch, the other could bat, and it would go like that - others would be free to join, but seeing that there was no one around, she doubted anyone would just randomly come out to play. That, and the fact that Mitsuki still had a lot to learn about baseball, so a bit of one-on-one wouldn't be so bad.

[Deleted]

Watching for the signs of her reaction, Saint wasn’t too surprised that Mitsuki’s reaction to his answer was mild at best. Though he was getting better at reading her slight signs and could tell that she was disappointed, however he was unsure as to what about exactly. It could have been the fact that it was described as a vacation or something else… he wasn’t sure and wouldn’t be asking since there was no reason to find out. Turning toward the breeze, the pillar closed his eyes and let it play with his hair as he took another deep breath to relax himself as the huge weight seemingly lifted off his shoulders. Though he would have to figure out how to make it up later.

Hearing the captain’s question, Saint opened an eye and glanced back toward her. Figured considering they were at the local field and she had a bat in her hand, but why was she asking him? Did she need help with something to do with baseball? If so, he wasn’t the best person to ask for help. Basketball, yes. Baseball, not really. Nonetheless he answered her simple question with his own complicated answer.

“Yeah… but I’m not very good. Well… I’m a good pitcher but I can’t hit the ball… at all. For some reason I just can’t pick it up as it’s coming in… it sort of blurs and whoosh… I miss it. Eye doctor said the problem is the same cause to me having to wear reading glasses.”

With a casual shrug, Saint reached into his coat pocket and lifted out a pair of small framed reading glasses before sliding them back into his pocket. He then shifted his position leaning against the fence, so to face the captain a bit better as he continued after the momentary pause to show the visual aid device.

“Why do you ask, exactly?”

[Mitsuki Park]

She gave a small nod when she heard he couldn't bat, but could pitch well. Heh, fine with her - she didn't have the best vision without her contacts either, but it wasn't too bad. She could survive without them, it's just the fact that Mitsuki depended too much on them now that it seemed odd without a clear vision. Picking herself up from leaning against the fence, she crouched down and picked two baseballs, and stood up, the baseball bat still loosely held in her hand. Once again, she looked out into the field before shuffling her feet quietly, pulling open the door, a soft creeking sound coming from the metals rubbing against eachother. Stepping through, she would look over at Saint and hand him two baseballs - if he wanted to make it up to her, he could start by playing baseball with her. Even if it was for only a short time, she had a sudden urge to try and hit the ball and make it crash into someones window.

Real smart, huh?

"Because I want to play.."

Dragging the baseball bat against the grass and sand, she would glance over at Saint for a moment before turning back around and give a slight motion with her hand to Saint for him to follow. She seemed a bit lazy right now, considering that she was dragging the bat behind her, but hey, she was feeling lazy. Or is. She just wanted to smack a baseball far enough to go through someone's window, if not, into someone's backyard or something. But...did she have the hand-eye coordination to do that? Was hand-eye coordination even necessary to play baseball? Her guess: Yeah, you do.

Once she stepped up to the plate, she would keep the tip of the bat on the ground on the ground until Saint got in position, if he got in position.

[Deleted]

Green eyes simply followed the captain as she exited the batting cage with two balls and placed them in his hand. Her answer to his question seemed simple enough as well. If she wanted to play, Saint figured he could oblige and her throw a few balls to her, though he was unsure if he should just toss them or go all out. Either way he followed behind her rotating the balls around each other with the fingers of his right hand quite skillfully. However before he could take the mound, the pillar figured it would be better to place his coat on one of the benches first. Once he had done that he would proceed to take his position on the pitcher’s mound as Mitsuki was tapping the bat on the ground.

As Saint waited until Mitsuki gave him a clear signal that she was ready, he placed the second ball on the grass just behind the mound so he would be free to use his left hand… just in case. Once she showed she was ready, the student body president slowly went through a faux delivery and tossed a ball right over the heart of the plate at about half speed of what he could actually throw. It was the type of pitch that coaches give players during batting practice. After all, if she wanted something more difficult to hit she would ask after crushing the daylights after this one. Though Saint would probably piss her off to no end, since in baseball terms he was a breaking ball pitcher, not a power pitcher. He could throw a curveball at a right-handed batter’s head and have it drop at the last moment right into the strike zone, though not the middle but upper inside. Not to shabby for fifteen.

[Mitsuki Park]

CrACKkKkk!

Well, it wasn't so hard to hit the ball when all you had to do is swing the bat because the baseball was thrown...well, right in position. She watched the baseball soar through the air, and watched it land in the outfield. Not bad, but she wanted to go farther, but at the same time, she wanted to see how fast Saint could pitch. Letting her bat drop back to the ground, she would then turn her head slightly to look over at Saint, blink, look back down at the bat, then look back over at Saint. By then, she would've made up her mind about which she wanted - a fast throw from Saint, or one like the first one so she can actually hit the ball with a garuntee.

"Can you throw it faster...?"

She would raise her voice for this so he could hear her, but not too much to cause a disturbance to anyone in the area..which was unlikely, since no one was in the area. Picking up her bat, she got ready for his pitch... Which probably didn't matter, because if he pitched super-fast, she'll probably swing her bat two seconds too late, or something.

[Deleted]

By craning his neck, Saint followed the hit as it soared into the outfield with relative ease. Not a bad hit. Grabbing the other ball from just behind the mound Saint took his position just as he heard Mitsuki ask for a faster throw. Well, considering how well she hit the first pitch, it seemed likely that she would ask for something harder to hit. Though his boots may not have been the best footwear for it, the pillar dug in to get a nice ditch in front of the rubber. It would take a few moments for him to get it to his liking, but once it was set he shrugged his shoulders while taking his stance.

He took a deep breath before starting into his delivery, stepping back with his left as his arms stretched well out before rotating over his head where his elbows hinged allowing his hands to drop to the back of his neck. In the next stage, he shifted his right leg parallel as his left kicked almost directly vertical. His arms came back over his hand to eyelevel before his hands broke apart, his right extended out behind his body while his left turn to point toward his target. At the peak point, everything seemed to freeze for a moment before the shift change into his release. Starting with his kick leg snapping down out at a full stride in front of him, his left arm tucked into his body as he drove off the pitching rubber with his plant leg. During which his throwing whipped around releasing the ball so that it would cross the plate at about the captain’s knees. As he finished his delivery it seemed as though his right leg was going to flip over his shoulder at the same time. Let’s see how well she dealt with that one.

[Mitsuki Park]

She watched his hand release the ball, as if in slow motion, and watched as the circular object got closer, and closer, and...

WHOOSH~!!!

The baseball flew right by her, smacking into the fence behind her, an eruption of chains rattling together. Her bat was still in its exact location, up in the air, and Mitsuki was, well, shocked. She was expecting a faster pitch, but dang... And he said he didn't play baseball? Letting the tip of her bat drop to the ground, she looked back at the ball laying still on the ground, a couple feet in front of the fence, then over at Saint, then...back to the ball. With a blink, she let her baseball bat drop to the ground, and went to pick up both baseballs and tossed them lightly back to Saint, before picking up her bat and getting ready, back into position.

"Again, please.."

[Deleted]

A small chuckle escaped Saint as he watched Mitsuki just stand there and, well, watch his pitch zip by before clattering against the backstop. So he may have understated his abilities a tad… but he never said he couldn’t play… he just couldn’t hit. He did mention he was a pretty good pitcher. Needless to say the pillar could tell that his superior was… shocked… to say the least. Without a word she went about the process of collecting the balls and tossing the balls back to him, all Saint could do was watch with a quirked brow. Either she was determined to get better, had underestimated him and wanted a second shot, or … nah that seemed about it.

Once the two balls were back in his possession, the student body president repeated the process of his delivery, releasing the ball a bit higher so that it would cross just above Mitsuki’s waist this time. And though the temptation was there to add a little English to the ball, Saint was able to restrain himself and stick with a normal fastball… for now!

[Mitsuki Park]

Waiting, waiting...

WHOOSH!

That sound only meant one thing - strike two. However, it seemed that Mitsuki's bat skidded against the baseball just slightly, though not enough for her to actually make the ball go somewhere. Again, the rattling sounds of the chained fences behind her clashed with the baseball, and she let the tip of her bat drop back down to the ground. Staring downward, she let a small smirk cross her lips, though because of the mask, well, you couldn't really see the difference. Picking up her bat again, her knuckles white from the tight grip - though again, because of her gloves, you couldn't tell - she waited for him to pitch again. They say third time's a charm, though who knows?

One thing's for sure - Mitsuki Park was not a very good batter. At least, not yet.