#sawa04

[shrapnelsong]

@museguided​ asked: "Sakura-senpai." Eijun's hushed as he leans into her space, brows drawn together with trepidation. It's been on his mind since they left the stadium, the way she looked as if she saw a ghost. He can't help but worry and he wants to remind her that he's here. "What happened back there? Who'd you see?" cont. 

     It’s the familiar cut of a sharp suit. The color scheme he seems to favor. Even the ever present elegant pinstripes. All the gentle laughter that had been filling her at her adorable underclassmen’s exasperation with being guided back to the bus leaves her in a rush as her body suddenly halts all function. He can’t be here. Why is he here? Was he told to keep track of club activities too? Is he going to report back?

Her duties as a manager fall away from importance as her undivided attention goes to keeping track of that man. She can hardly breathe until she finally gets a glimpse of his face and confirms that no, it’s not him. A wave of relief washes over her, yet a touch on her shoulder almost makes her jump out of her skin. And when she snaps back to reality, Alice finds Sawamura-kun looking worriedly at her. It takes a moment to place herself again, and the answer to his question slips before she can compose herself. “I’m sorry, I thought I saw-”

Just the thought of him has her eyes searching the area again, needing the added reassurance, but whoever that had been, they’d long melted into the crowd. It’s enough for her to suck in a breath and force the anxiety away the best she can, smiling apologetically at Sawamura-kun while noticing how wrong it feels for him to be looking so concerned. But then he’s grabbing her hand and stepping up to do her job, tugging her along as he heads back to where the rest of the team is waiting. “That’s right.” She manages to say in a quiet voice, in awe at the fact that having him holding onto her like that could ease the panic inside her almost to the point of making her feel like crying.

By the time they’re back in the bus, she’s calmed down and looks normal again, reporting to the captain that the first years could be trusted to get themselves back from now on with a smile. Taking her usual seat a little more to the front, she busies herself with reviewing the scorebook and writing down the statistics. Or so she tries. She can’t help tapping out of her phone’s calculator and opening the calendar instead, double checking the next date when she’s actually supposed to meet him.

Even after reassuring herself that they didn’t have a meeting scheduled anytime soon, she can’t focus enough on the task at hand. It’s okay. It wasn’t him. She doesn’t want to mess up the calculations so she stops, but leaves the scorebook open on her lap as a deterrent. The team will probably fall asleep soon and she won’t have to keep herself so tightly reigned in. Quietude falls over the bus, and that’s when Sawamura-kun takes the seat next to her. His hushed tone as he calls out to her already feels wrong, and seeing so much worry in his face makes her feel even worse for burdening him with this.

Anyone else and she would have been able to talk her way out of it. Even Miyuki-san might have left it at something too personal to ask about, despite his curiosity. But Sawamura-kun wears his heart on his sleeve, and she would never want to be the reason why that beautiful heart of his gets weighed down in the slightest. “That must have been surprising, huh..? I’m sorry.” She apologizes again with a small smile, finally closing the scorebook but still holding onto it atop her lap just to keep her hands busy. A deep intake of air for courage and a quiet sigh and she answers truthfully. “I thought it was my father’s assistant.”

Toyotomi Shigeru-san, an inscrutable business man of his own accord, but made even more by virtue of being Sakurazuka Nobuyasu’s right hand man. She can’t imagine what her father’s schedule is like, and the fact that he would ask his personal assistant - who is just as busy - to check up on her should be reassuring. Only it isn’t. She could never get a read on the man, and knowing he is the one who ultimately holds her immediate future in his hands makes every meeting with him absolutely unsettling.

“You know I live alone, right? My father worries, so he has Toyotomi-san meet with me every now and then, to make sure I’m well and that everything’s going okay at school.” How much should she tell him? The whole truth of this matter is not something she’ll disclose to anyone if she can help it. But she wants to ease Sawamura-kun’s worries first, and keep him from asking more questions second, if possible. “I... am not very comfortable with him.” An understatement, but she can’t say more without needing further explanation. “I don’t know what he thinks of me.” Much like everyone else in her father’s family, he probably sees her as an annoyance at best or a liability at worse. “Our meetings take up time he must feel could be spent doing better things. So, when I saw someone who looked like him at the stadium,” She panicked. “I thought he’d been asked to keep an eye on what I do at the club too.” 

Her gaze falls to her hands and Alice forces them to ease up their tense grip on the book, having not realized they’d been clenched. “I don’t want to trouble anyone...” A whispered, earnest confession that escapes despite herself. Peeking at the sweet boy sitting next to her, she manages a smile. Much less you, Sawamura-kun. “But it’s okay. It wasn’t him. I can’t really see Toyotomi-san being a fan of sports.” She muses with a chuckle, sounding more like her usual self and hoping it’ll be enough to soothe his concerns.