Upon arriving to his room, Ken was so caught up in guessing what kind of rewards he would receive with the Gold Lottery ticket's that he had completely forgotten who is roommate was.
Ken almost jumped in fright as he saw Kei with a tank top on, staring at the door with a menacing look.
"Welcome back roomie."
His tone was deep, casting an intimidating presence.
"H-Hey… Roomie." Ken managed to say after a few moments, cursing Hiroki inwardly at that very moment.
Kei tilted his head in confusion, "Well why are you just standing there? Come in come in."
He sounded like one of those gangsters on TV who would lure the protagonist into their lair with sweet words, only to attempt to do harm instead.
'Surely he won't do anything to me right?' Ken thought, battling his instincts that told him to run. He had no fighting experience or technique after all, therefore he liked to err on the side of caution.
The only time he'd been in a fight was saving Daichi from the bullies back in middle school. Although he broke the perpetrators nose, it hurt his knuckles like hell.
Ken made his way into the room and sat down on his bed, not diverting his attention away from the delinquent looking teen.
Kei didn't seem to notice anything wrong as he walked over to the bedroom door and closed it slowly and locked it.
'W-What is he doing!?'
Instantly Ken's mind began to race as he instinctively looked for either an exit or a weapon to defend himself.
The tall blond teen turned around and flashed a grin, his expression adding onto the fear that Ken was currently experiencing.
"Good, now that we're alone…" He said, inching closer towards Ken.
The closer he got, the more stressed Ken felt. He slowly moved his body closer to hid bag, intending to take out his metal bat and swing for the hills if needed.
As Kei stood in front of Ken, both of his hands moved to his pockets in a flash.
'Danger!'
Before waiting to see what he would pull out of his pockets, Ken made his move. He reached his right hand into the bag and grabbed the handle of the bat securely.
Without wasting any time, he swung the bat from within the bag, intending on incapacitating the tall delinquent before he could do any harm towards him.
WHOOOOSH
"Thank you for beating us at Koshien."
Ken was instantly flabbergasted as the metal bat sailed over the back of Kei who had just bowed at 90 degrees to thank him. A rush of wind caused the guy's shirt to rustle in response, causing a shiver to run up his back.
Seeing that Kei was about to raise his head, Ken quickly hid the bat under his pillow, his heart pumping loudly in his chest.
'I-I almost assaulted an innocent man!' He screamed in his heart.
"Hmm, what was that noise?" Kei asked, looking around oddly.
"Oh um must have been the wind ha haha." Ken replied, trying to act casually as he closed the window next to his bed.
"Sorry what were you saying again?"
Kei seemed a little suspicious for a moment, but he shrugged it off in the next second.
"I was just saying, you really helped me out by beating us at Koshien." He reiterated.
Though he was giving his thanks, Kei's face still looked somewhat menacing. It was quite possible that he was born with a scary face, and did not actually intend to do harm to Ken.
"Huh?"
It was only a single word response, but it perfectly summed up his confusion. What kind of person would give thanks to the opposing team for beating them in the first round of Koshien.
'Is this guy a masochist or something?'
Suddenly, his expression turned into one of slight disgust instead of fear.
"Hey… Are you thinking something rude?" Kei asked, a flash of annoyance appearing on his features.
"Ah… No no, I just don't understand why you would thank me."
This time, Kei's features softened a little. Perhaps if he wore such an expression from the beginning, Ken wouldn't have jumped to such conclusions and almost knock him out with a metal bat.
"Do you remember our short stop Tatsuo? The short immature kid who looked bored for the first half of the game."
Ken nodded. How could he forget since it was the same kid who had plagued his nightmares in his previous life. He could still remember being made a fool of in front of thousands of fans whilst on the mound in his first year of High School.
"Yeah, what about him?"
Kei sighed a little before sitting back on his bed and facing Ken.
"You see, Tatsuo has always been a genius. Whatever sport or game he picked up, he would rapidly become the best seemingly overnight. Soccer, badminton, basketball… You name it."
Ken's expression darkened slightly before remarking something under his breath.
"Must be nice."
However, Kei continued his story as if he hadn't heard anything.
"However, because nothing was a challenge for him, he became bored quickly. He'd stop turning up to practice and eventually games, becoming blacklisted from joining clubs in the future."
Ken silently listened to the story, though he inwardly admonished such a person. He wasn't surprised when he heard that the school had blacklisted him.
"Well I finally managed to convince the student council to lift the ban so he could come and play baseball."
"At first it was fine… But he quickly slipped into his old ways due to his talent. He could intuitively hit the ball after only a few attempts and could easily steal bases from anyone we played against."
Kei let out another sigh.
Ken could tell by the way the guy was acting, that he truly was a good friend to Tatsuo.
"After a few weeks he stopped going to practice, looking down on the players who couldn't even beat him, a newbie. If it wasn't for my insistence, he wouldn't have even shown up to games."