"Oh my God!" Kazuhiro ran forward. Asakawa spluttered and pushed his sodden bangs out of his eyes. "Kei-tan, I'm so sorry," Kazuhiro said, picking up the bucket and clutching it in his hands. "At lunch Kobagin had been checking my geometry practice test and he was being really harsh, so I told him he was all wet, and he did that thing where he looks over the top of his glasses and said that he seemed pretty dry to him, so I said we'll see about that, and that bucket wasn't meant for you!"

Asakawa blinked. It was impressive the way Kazuhiro could say all that in one breath. "It's okay," Asakawa said, and Kazuhiro breathed out. He'd still had air in his lungs? No wonder he liked running so much. "Uhm, could you get me a towel?"

"Yes, of course!" Kazuhiro ran to the clean laundry bin, shouting over his shoulder, "Did you want to borrow a pair of pants?"

"No," Asakawa said quickly, waving his arms. "I'm okay."

The door to the locker room swung open and Sato and Misaki walked in, sloshing through the puddle and spotting Asakawa.

Sato's eyes went wide, and Asakawa felt his lower lip tremble. He was always getting into messes and Sato had to clean them up! Even if this time wasn't his fault. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and plucked at his t-shirt so it would stop clinging so much to his chest. Kazuhiro bounded back over and threw Asakawa a towel.

"I'm so sorry, Sato." Kazuhiro put his hands up in front of his face. "Please don't kill me."

Sato shook his head, like he'd been the one to have a pail of water dumped over his head. "What?" he asked. "Why would I do that?" Sato was still staring at Asakawa. Oh, man! This was really bad!

"I heard about what you did to Kaidoh when he said lacrosse was stupid," Kazuhiro said.

Misaki raised his eyebrows. "What did you do to Kaidoh?"

"What, you don't know?" Kazuhiro asked.

"No." Misaki's cheeks were turning pink for some reason. Asakawa didn't know why. "I was...er, finishing up my home economics project with Tachiki."

Kazuhiro grinned. "Yeah, sure, I'm sure home ec was real important."

"Home ec is important!" Asakawa piped in. "A modern man knows how to take care of every aspect of the household."

"Of course it is." Kazuhiro rubbed Asakawa's head, then wiped his hand dry on the front of his t-shirt. "Anyway, I thought you beat him up because Kaidoh told Kei-tan that lacrosse was stupid!"

"LACROSSE ISN'T STUPID," Asakawa shouted.

Kazuhiro nodded and raised his fist. Asakawa hit it with his. "Right," said Kazuhiro. "So that's why Sato beat up Kaidoh."

"I did not!" squeaked Sato.

Asakawa tilted his head and dried his arms. "You didn't? But you promised!"

Sato scratched his head. "I-- I, er, meant to, I guess. But we ended up going running together and then to the pet store to look at cats."

"You went to the pet store without me?" asked Asakawa, pouting. He rucked up his t-shirt and dragged the towel across his belly. When he caught Sato watching that, he dragged his shirt up a little higher.

"We can go right now! Well, after practice so Tsukada doesn't kill us. But anyway, I told him I thought lacrosse was a good sport and we were a good team and that if anyone took lacrosse away from us now, we wouldn't be the same. I asked him what he'd do without tennis, but he just hissed at me."

"What a freak," Kazuhiro said.

Misaki raised his eyebrows. "Says the habitual streaker."

"Things are okay now, though," said Sato. "What I did was okay, right, Keisu-- er, Asakawa? Even though I didn't beat him up?"

Asakawa nodded and threw his arms around Sato's neck, not caring that he was getting Sato's clothes all wet, too. "That was very noble of you, fighting for the team's honor!"

"HONOR IS THE CORNERSTONE TO ANY TEAM!" bellowed Harada, passing through. Kobayashi was right behind him, searching through his bag for his contact lenses. He threw his bag on a bench and looked up, then looked startled.

Kobayashi looked at the puddle, the bucket, a grinning Kazuhiro, and finally Sato and Asakawa. "A drippy Asakawa?" said Kobayashi with a sigh. "Must be Wednesday."

END.