STILL WATERS 2
By Hoowee

Warnings: This was written a few years ago and I've only just now decided to post it. Vaguely takes place before volume 9. Spoilers from volume 1 to 8 are fair game. Future cannon may prove this to be completely wrong.

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Mami-chan was a lot of things. An exceptional strategist in softball, an attentive and patient friend, a smart student and a pragmatic girl who had her head placed firmly on her shoulders but who could still enjoy girlish silliness.

What she was not was a glamorous social butterfly with suitors lined up down the street all vying to ask her out.

She sometimes wondered, more often then not when sitting down to lunch with her friends in the school cafeteria, if she should be jealous of Haruna and Asami with their boyfriends. Fumi adored Assa, and even with her current 'no longer single' status, Assa seemed to have a never ending parade of boys trailing around after her, lead on by soft, dark eyes, long glossy hair and a secretive smile.

Haruna, her friend since middle school who threw herself heart and soul into whatever she decided to do, had found her high school debut love with Yoh in a typical Haruna-like way, which was to say, in a somewhat unconventional manner. But she was so bright and honest with her heart clearly worn on her sleave that it was hard not to be affected by her in some way or another and Yoh seemed to have been affected quite a lot, despite his original declaration of "don't fall in love with me". And like Asami, Haruna was beginning to have her own trail of admirers, regardless of her naivete and Yohs' quiet glares at would-be suitors.

In contrast, the one and only time Mami-chan had been approached by a boy had been during middle school and even though Haruna joyously envied the experience, she'd been sweaty and tired with her leg and arm muscles cramping up from a long afternoon of softball practise. It was hardly the a romantic situation her shoujo-manga obsessed friend thought it to be, and she had been completely uneasy, not sure what to say to the stumbling words of the baseball captain. She'd felt sorry for him, he had been so nervous he hadn't looked up from the ground when speaking to her. A quiet, blushing 'thankyou, but I'd like to concentrate on softball for now' from her had seemed the best answer, and both of them had been relieved afterwards.

Since then she hadn't received any confessions nor felt the need to confess to anyone, leaving her as a single entity, a point which Haruna had somehow picked up on. Out of the six of them, it was only Mami-chan and Asaoka who hadn't paired off, although Mami-chan had her suspicions about who Asaoka-san really liked.

She was fairly certain that Haruna had tried to set the two of them up together. She hadn't been too fussed and when nothing seemed to eventuate from her friends' good-natured intentions she hadn't been upset. While she knew Haruna worried that she might be feeling left out because of her single status, the fact that she didn't have a boyfriend truly didn't bother Mami-chan in the slightest. In the end, it came down to the simple fact that she just didn't mind. She was happy enough with her friends and simply enjoying her high school life as each day rolled around.

… although having a boyfriend at some stage might be quite nice.