Chapter Text
It Felt a Bit Strange
I - Captain
“Catch for me, Miyuki Kazuya!”
The booming noise exploded way too close to his eardrums, and he wondered if it was a bit sad that he was already so used to it he didn’t even flinch.
Cold doorknob against his fingertips, night wind crawling over his bare forearms, electric eyes and restless energy bouncing on the balls of their feet at his doorstep.
“Only if you show me some respect, Sawamoron.”
“I will respect you if you catch for me more!”
This kid, seriously. “Well, seems we are at a bit of a stalemate then~.” Sawamura puffed his cheeks, skin rosy from the cold winter weather. He really should be in bed. “Go back to your room. It’s the off-season, it’s late, I’m tired and sure it can wait for tomorrow.”
The first-year furiously shook his head, his fluffy hair whipping his cheeks like an over eager pup refusing to let go of his toy. “I tried a new grip, and it feels good! We could add it to the Numbers!”
“Oh, awfully confident, aren’t you? Is this pitch even going to go anywhere near my mitt?”
“Even if it doesn’t, it’s your job to catch it, Miyuki Kazuya!” He beamed.
The nerve of him. “Stop calling me by my full name.” Sawamura didn’t budge from his position in front of his dorm room. He stared at him with those lion’s eyes, the light from behind Kazuya making the strokes of his face sharper, daring him to deny him. The doorknob had warmed up under his hand. Kazuya sighed. “Tomorrow, okay. Show me what you’ve got after getting some sleep, first-year.”
“First thing in the morning then! I’ll be waiting for you!”
“Does it have to be morning—”
“Yes! You lazy-ass catcher! How can you even pretend to be captain and still always be the last to get up?!”
“Oi, oi, I was injured, stupid.”
Something flickered in his expression, like awareness and hurt and determination. Kazuya felt weirdly guilty for bringing it up, his ribs aching and his toes curling in his socks, trying to fend off the icy air seeping into the genkan.
“But that is a yes, right?!” the kid replied, huffing. “You won’t back out and catch for Furuya last minute? Right?!”
“I won’t. Do you need me to make a pinky promise or anything?” When Sawamura seemed to seriously consider that prospect, he laughed. “I was joking, see you tomorrow. Now go rest. Captain’s orders, Sawamoron.”
“Prepare to be amazed!”
And he scuttered off into the night, having said what he wanted to say, having heard what he wanted to hear.
Kazuya closed his door with a now-familiar mix of exasperation and anticipation and crashed into his bed, alone in the room. His skin was cold, but his insides weren’t quivering from the winter. He wondered if this was how it was supposed to feel: cold skin and warm guts; his time at Seidō.
*
The weight of the ball in his glove felt good. Better than good, actually.
Crouched knees and stinging palms, leather and sweat and baseball in the air, white dust from the rosin bag floating through the first rays of the sun.
He had missed playing so much during his recovery period, and of course the first person to jump him as soon as he had received approval for light practice had been the loudmouthed southpaw. Said pitcher, a few meters from him, laughed and whooped, the sound reverberating around the walls of the indoor practice building. It managed to make him feel more awake than the two coffees he had downed and more alive than in the last two weeks.
“It was good, it felt so good! One more! No, ten more!”
“Greedy…”
“You say that, but you still want to catch more of that pitch! Don’t lie, Miyuki Kazuya!”
He might have missed it: that thrill and that unpredictable ball; that unpredictable boy, when both went right to where his mitt was calling. Not that he would admit it to the brat.
“Calm down, I won’t catch for you if keep yelling.”
“I’m not YELLING!”
“That’s it, I’m gone.”
“No, no, no! We said ten more!”
“You said ten more, I don’t remember agreeing to anything.”
The sound of bickering and the ball hitting his mitt kept echoing for hours into the day.
*
The pang of loneliness was stronger than it had ever been when he opened the door to the empty house in Nikotama. He had thought he was immune to solitude by now, but maybe the noise around him lately had made him forget what silence felt like.
He had no idea if that was a good thing or not.
The heater was off, and dust collected on the furniture. Everything he touched felt like the cold ashes his father’s smoking left behind him. On the chest of drawers, the picture his father was too sentimental to take down was taunting him; the picture where they looked like a family. Kazuya had no memory of that time.
The convenience store–bought sushi on the table reminded him of other awkward dinners staring at his father’s aging face, counting the new wrinkles on his forehead, New Year’s the only time they would ever really see each other. His father would ask about baseball and pretend to be interested, and the conversation would die down after a few stilted exchanges, leaving them in the company of their faithful acquaintance—silence, and the knowledge that they were all the other had left.
*
Spring Kōshien was over with, and frustration could be read in every line of Sawamura’s face and body. It was warm in the bullpen, and sweat dripped from his chin into his jersey as he threw to Ono, gnawing at his lower lip, determined to prove himself.He took another gulp from his water bottle—lukewarm—and adjusted his gear.
“That stupid guy really didn’t get a chance to shine this spring, with Furuya being this awesome.” Kuramochi mumbled beside him. “If he feels too down about it, I’ll choke him to death.”
“Aw, he’ll be fine, Papa bear. So sweet of you to worry about him~,” Kazuya drawled, snickering when he got an elbow to the ribs. “Careful there, that’s where I got injured you know…”
“Shut up, damn Tanuki!” Kuramochi grumbled, trying to hide his blush and failing. “And I’m not the one checking up on him every minute of the day.”
Kazuya frowned. “What’re you talking about, I’m not—”
“Yes, you are.You make sure he eats, bathes and rests, is dressed according to the weather, and you indulge him as soon as you think he feels bad about something. If I’m a Papa bear, you definitely are the mother.”
“Wow, Kuramochi, I didn’t realize you felt that way about me~!”
“Yeah? Well you’ll soon realize I feel like I’m going to kill you! Die, Miyuki!” the shortstop screamed, trying to put him into a headlock he avoided easily, laughter spilling from his lips.
*
“He’s so good, that guy. And everyone knows it.”
Kazuya tilted his head, his finger on the selection numbers of the vending machine, his eyes on the sitting form of Sawamura Eijun in a shirt and a pair of sweatpants. The clunk of the can falling to the bottom of the machine made a sharp noise, redirecting his gaze. He bent and picked it up, strolled to the bench and sat beside him.
“What are you doing here alone, brooding in the dark? Don’t you have people to annoy with your exuberance?”
“Jerk.”
“Thank you.”
“That wasn’t a compliment!”
“You’re going to catch a cold in just a shirt, idiot.”
“No I’m not! I do that all the time and I’m always fine!”
“Well, they do say true idiots don’t get sick—”
A splutter, red cheeks. “You are the absolute worst!!”
Kazuya laughed and let his head rest on the wall behind him, his fingers loose around the cold coffee.
“Why are you drinking that stuff at this hour, Cap?”
“Maybe I want to stay awake longer to catch for Furuya~.”
“What?! He had you all afternoon! If you have to catch for someone, catch for me!”
He snorted and looked at his fuming pitcher, feeling oddly remote from reality as he sat between vending machines with Sawamura. The sound of bats hitting balls from the third practice field was barely louder than their breathing, and the cold from his can seeped into his pants. His windbreaker cut off the chill of the late March evening, and a pleasant warmth from overworked muscles oozed into him, making him drowsy after a long day.
“Mmh, you’re too easy to rile up, Sawamoron.” He adjusted his position, knee bumping into the other’s, thinking about the homework he had left and the stats of Eigen High he wanted to look at for their first match of the Spring Tournament. His shoulders were heavy from swinging his bat. “So, what was that about everyone knowing how good that guy is?”
Sawamura perked up at that and turned his whole body toward him: legs, chest, mouth, eyes, like nothing else existed, and suddenly it was a bit too much for Kazuya. “What. Why are you looking at me like that? Want more of my handsome face?” He tried to make his tone teasing but knew he didn’t completely succeed.
“No, it’s just, you— you don’t really listen to my complaining, usually. So. Feels weird, is all.”
“I can still leave if I weird you out.”
He said that, but Sawamura’s eyes seemed to pin him in place, forbidding him to stand up just by focusing on him. What a disrespectful first-year, even in the way he stared at his upperclassmen.
“I didn’t say it was a bad kind of weird!” Sawamura huffed, turning his face to glare at the wall opposite him, freeing Kazuya. “I just— I don’t know. I’m glad he’s in the same year as me.”
“Furuya, you mean.”
“Yeah, that annoying bastard. I know that because of him, I’m so much better now—”
“I wouldn’t exactly say so much better;maybe slightly less bad than your first day here? Which wouldn’t be hard.”
“Shut up, bastard, I’m opening my heart! You shall heed the woes of my soul and—”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.”
“I’m going to kill you, Miyuki Kazuya!”
“I hear that a lot.”
“Well, you do have the shittiest personality known to mankind.”
“And yet, here I am, listening to the woes of your soul.”
Here I am. With night around them, and grumbles beside him. They both should be in their rooms.
“I don’t know if listening is the right word,” the southpaw muttered, scratching the floppy mess he called hair. It was still a bit wet; that idiot was going to get sick. “The thing is, I love having to fight for recognition. It’s not fun, I guess, if I have it all on the first try. But. This is the thousandth try.” The pitcher scowled at that and then shook his head, suddenly getting agitated. “But I am nowhere near ready to give up of course! I’m going to fight tooth and nail and get that Ace number! And everybody will have to recognize what an amazing pitcher I am! You too, Miyuki Kazuya!”
He chuckled and kept to himself that, really, Sawamura Eijun didn’t really need a number one on his back to be an amazing pitcher. “Well, I thought you looked down and needed a pep talk, but you did that on your own. Furuya better be ready for you.”
“Thanks Cap, but even if he works hard, I’ll just try twice as hard then!”
“You are too much, I swear.” He ignored the indignant noises coming from the brat, thinking about rivalries and challengers, and continued in a lower voice. “But it’s good, I guess. That you can push each other this way. Having to fight for it makes it better; take care of that rivalry.”
Sawamura shut up and appeared to ponder that. He frowned and stared at his face, squinting his eyes in a way Kazuya judged to be a bit ridiculous. His whole body was still turned toward him, one leg propped up on the bench. His green and blue sneaker was digging into Kazuya’s thigh, his eyes digging into Kazuya’s mind, and the light from the indoor practice building cast gold into his irises. Only a few swings could be heard now, most of the team members trickling toward the dorms with the sun dipping behind the horizon.
“I know that, Miyuki Kazuya. I just told you that I knew that, and you’re half blind, not deaf. This isn’t about me and Furuya anymore, is it?” He blinked owlishly as he delivered his weird insight. Kazuya refused to answer, but that didn’t seem to discourage the kid. “You want that. Or wanted, I guess.”
Kazuya tried to hide his surprise behind a scoff. “Right, what would I want that you have? Stupidity?”
“You have plenty of that, jerk! I meant the rival stuff. You were basically the regular catcher as soon as you came to Seidō, but of course an asshole like you would have wanted to crush someone to get there. But Chris-senpai was injured, so—”
“Well, aren’t you all perceptive tonight…” he chuckled humorlessly, avoiding his eyes. The sneaker made itself a little more painful in his upper leg, as if to punish him for looking away.
“Not really; everybody is telling me that I’m a bit dense. I think I could just tell ‘cause you wanted to talk about it. Like, it was really, really obvious that you were thinking about something other than Furuya and me, and you would have just left, or, I don’t know, ignored me or teased me if you wanted to avoid talking about it.”
Both of Kazuya’s eyebrows climbed on his face. He would have expected that kind of observation from Kuramochi, not from this moron who’d been the last to realize about his injury in the fall. “Sawamura… You really are an oddball.”
“Oi! Is that supposed to be a compliment or an insult?!”
“A bit of both, to be honest.”
“You’re never honest, Miyuki Kazuya.”
Kazuya snorted even as his heart felt like lead in his chest. Heavy and loud. He listened to it for a few more beats before turning his head again. Sawamura was is in the exact same position, his complete focus on him. “It’s not a secret or anything, you know,” he finally said. “I came to Seidō because I wanted to be better than Chris-senpai; to beat him and take his spot. There’s no sweeter feeling than emerging victorious when no one expected you to be, crushing those that were thought to be above you and showing that you were good enough. I understand when you say you want recognition and to make everybody acknowledge that you exist, even if they don’t want to.”
“You really are twisted.”
“I know. But, like you said, Chris-senpai was injured, so I never had the chance to show to anybody that I deserved my position, even now…”
“Even now?”
“Why am I telling you this…”
The bench was digging into the underside of his thigh; the point where Sawamura shoe was in contact with his leg would probably leave a bruise tomorrow. His can was lukewarm in his hand, but the chill of the night was still far away, and it felt a bit strange; a bit cozy.
“You started, you have to finish now.”
“You seem to be awfully comfortable ordering your captain around.”
“Yeah well, it’s because—”
“Don’t bother, Sawamura.”
“Just talk to me, asshole! If you stop now, this is the worst cliffhanger. You can’t start like that and then just leave me wondering!”
“I assure you I can.” But he didn’t really want to. Because he was warm and comfortable even if he wasn’t—the bench cold and hard beneath him—and with heavy legs and loose limbs, leaving and moving were too much of a hassle right now. “It’s not your job to listen to me, Sawamura. I’m the one who’s supposed to look after the team.”
“You don’t listen to people because it’s your job!” He was still gazing at him intently, a frown marring his face, his chin on his raised knee and his arms wrapped around it. “So. Even now…?”
The sheer stubbornness of this kid, seriously. He let a long, pained sigh escape his lips, to be sure that Sawamura understood exactly how annoying he was being. Then he started talking.
He was a bit tentative at first, stopping in the middle of his sentences and hesitating between saying too much and not enough. He used every opportunity to jab at Sawamura—to regain a little control—because talking about how unsure he was of all that being the captain entailed: of being the right person for that, of taking care of and making his pitchers grow, of proving that the team was not at a loss for having to replace Chris-senpai with him, of the injury and the fear of not being able to play anymore, of his recovery and having to watch everybody else wake up for practice while he was on the sideline... it made him feel imbalanced and a bit lost.
Sawamura was quiet; no boisterous declarations, no yelling, no interruptions. Just the tip of his shoe against Kazuya’s thigh and his golden eyes fixed on him. Then he started smiling. So big and so bright that Kazuya wondered if the person he was off the field really deserved it.
It was good, he told him, that Kazuya was a human being too. It made him realize that every single person on the baseball team was carrying their own responsibilities and fear. Even someone like Miyuki Kazuya—a guy who seemed so fearless and indestructible, with his bat in hand and a smirk on his lips, gear in place and mitt waiting to crush the opponent—if even that Miyuki Kazuya was scared and unsure, sometimes, then it was alright for Sawamura Eijun too.
They stayed silent after that, for a little while. The school was sleeping now, and someone had turned off the light and closed the indoor practice building. But even so, Sawamura’s eyes didn’t stop glowing.
“Miyuki-senpai. Thank you.”
No, thank you, he could have said, you listened to me more than I could to you when you had the yips. “Oh, so I am a senpai now?” was what left his mouth.
“Don’t get used to it.”
He laughed. He felt weirdly light, and even a little bit giddy. He was still warm, but not tired anymore, and he didn’t know what to do with all this restless energy. His can of coffee was still untouched. He thought about the homework on his desk, the Eigen High scorebook waiting for him, his sore shoulders, the fatigue that would weigh on his limbs the morning after.
“Come on,” he said, getting up, leaving the metal can sitting on the bench. “I suppose that as a reward for being a respectful underclassman for once, I can catch your change up for a little while.” He had barely finished his sentence before Sawamura was standing and jumping excitedly toward the practice field, as if it weren’t already past eleven and they didn’t have morning practice the very next day.
“I didn’t realize I could buy your services that easily, Miyuki-senpai!”
“Please, don’t say it like that.”
“What? Why?”
He tried to sigh, but it became a chuckle midway. “Nothing, you Summer Child.”
“I don’t get it, I wasn’t born in the summer.”
The chuckle evolved into full bloomed laughter under the screaming protests of the pitcher. “Forget it, Sawamoron.”
You do carry the sun, though.
*
It felt a bit strange, Kazuya thought as he glanced up from Nabe’s notes about Ichidaisan High, to have so many people around him. Kuramochi was yelling at Maezono in front of his video game; Furuya and Sawamura were riling each other up, Furuya by ignoring Sawamura, and Sawamura by gesticulating at Furuya and pointing at his latest manga; little Kominato was pretending to be exasperated but barely managing to hide a fond smile (Kazuya could relate); Kanemaru was desperate to make the other second-years realize there was a math test soon; and Okumura was silently brooding in some dark corner with Asada, who was trying and failing to have a conversation with him.
Kazuya had predicted that this strange habit of invading his space after dinner would stop after the previous third-year left, now that he had roommates—but here everybody was, crammed into the small dorm room, bickering and yelling and generally being a nuisance. Sawamura raised his head in the middle of a rant and caught his eyes. He craned his neck to the side, probably curious about the unusual look on Kazuya’s face. Kazuya caught himself smiling, then got back to strategy.
*
“Miyuki Kazuya!”
“That’s still senpai to you.”
“You didn’t catch for me today! Catch for me, Miyuki Kazuya!”
Kazuya snorted and shook his head, ignoring the volume. Pitchers. So demanding.
“I was scheduled with Furuya today, and Okumura and Yui already caught your fastball all afternoon.” He adjusted his bag on his shoulder and took the stairs to his shared dorm room, glancing at the bubbling second-year scrunching his nose.
“Yeah. But it’s not enough! And not the same, I can’t really practice my Numbers with anyone but you.”
He opened his door, letting Sawamura in with him to the otherwise empty room, and watched him take off his sneakers in the genkan: green and blue, the same pair that had dug into his thigh a few nights ago. He had a green and blue bruise.
“I’m flattered, really, but what if I had other plans?”
Sawamura blinked. “Do you?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know~!”
“Well, yeah. I just asked you.”
Kazuya snickered with disbelief, propping his bat against the wall and sitting on the chair at his desk. “Sometimes, you are so stupid that I can’t even tease you properly.”
“JERK!”
“Indoor voice, Sawamoron, I’m less than two meters away from your vocal chords.”
The brat ignored him and just plopped himself on his bed. “So, what was that about? That weird look on your face the other night. When we were all here.”
Maybe he had let him in too many times; that kid was getting way too comfortable in Kazuya’s private space. He should probably tell him to go away—to get out of his room and his mind. “Just because I opened up once doesn’t mean you’re entitled to my every thought.” The disgusted grimace on the boy’s face dragged a chuckle out of his throat.
“I don’t want to know your every thought, Miyuki Kazuya!! Just the ones that make me worried!”
Oh.
His chair was dipping, had to be falling, because the imbalance made something inside him lurch and he caught himself, his knuckles white around the dark wood of his desk. Nothing had moved, just that strange feeling. Sometimes, in the privacy of the night, alone with his thoughts and a scorebook; or crouching behind a batter, the shouts of his team behind him and the determination of a pitcher on the mound—sometimes, he wondered if it was happiness.
“I— You don’t have to be worried, that’s—” He realized how lost he sounded and shook his head. “I am your upperclassman and captain, even if you seem to forget it more often than not. It’s not your responsibility to be worried about me.”
“Hey! You’re the one always prattling on about how everybody’s equal on the baseball field!”
“We’re not on the field now, are we?”
“C’mon, Cap. Guys like us, we’re always a little bit on the field.”
He laughed, the imbalance wavering and squeezing his guts before letting go somewhat, letting him breathe a bit better.
“You’re awfully interested in me recently. Why is an idiot like you paying any attention?” Because it was weird, to have those glowing eyes and that unwavering focus on him, perceptive at the worst of times. It felt like a second Kuramochi, but impossible to shake off.
“Well, yeah. You got injured, remember? And I couldn’t tell. It kept me from sleeping for a few nights; I had to run a lot at that time. Everybody on the team knew, and I— I couldn’t tell! Even though I was so close. So, the only way for me to be sure not to miss anything like that again is to get closer, and look at you. I have to keep my eyes on you now, Miyuki Kazuya!”
There was probably a witty comeback to answer that; a way to deflect and laugh. But nothing would come out of the jumbled mess that was his mind—nothing could get past the knot in his throat. He pressed his finger to his Adam’s apple, trying to get rid of the lump forbidding him to answer.
“What’s going on with your throat? Are you sick?!”
Stop. Stop paying attention to me.
But that lion’s gaze stayed on him, at odds with the fluffy hair and lean limbs and baby face, like an overgrown wild kitten. His hand dropped, and it felt huge: that strange thing that had been growing in his chest since he arrived at Seidō. He shook his head and Sawamura puffed his cheeks.
“If you’re not going to talk about it and you’re not sick, then what are we waiting for?! Catch for me!”
The knot dissolved and laughter spilled. It tumbled from his lips, because this kid was just unbelievable—surprising and predictable in all the best ways.
“Yeah, yeah, give me a minute brat, I have to go get my gear.”
“I’m only six months younger, I’m not a brat!”
“You are, in all the ways that count.”
*
It was the bottom of the seventh: the end of their semi-final match. This was just the Spring Tournament, but his heart beat as loudly as if it were the bottom of the ninth at Summer Kōshien finals; shiver crawling down his spine, Sawamura’s revised cutter safely in his mitt—his palm burning from it just the way he liked—and Ichidaisan’s fifth batter out, his lost expression everything that made Kazuya’s life worth it.
He was so imposing, that lean teenager on his mound. Eyes glowing, wild but so trusting of his every call, exceeding each of his already high expectations. And Kazuya felt so proud, emotion swelling and bursting (how could the batter not hear and touch every feeling leaking out of him?), because he had helped shape that brilliant, beautiful flower from the sprout he had been, and Sawamura Eijun had never looked more like the Ace than he did now.
In the end, they lost. But, Kazuya thought, looking at the boy sitting beside Kominato on the bus, he and all the team had won something infinitely more important.
*
It was another one of those
maybe-a-bit-too-frequent night pitching sessions with Sawamura, between a perfect strike and a failed attempt a number eleven, when he complained with a disinterested expression that having half the first-string in his room three times a week was obnoxious, and kept him from resting, and people had no reason to do that when he wasn’t giving some of his pitch-calling classes.
And since Sawamura had decided he was going to look at him, he saw what he was really trying to say, and replied (with maybe too much yelling, grand gestures and disturbing honesty), that people actually liked being around him, and he didn’t have to be a jerk with himself about enjoying the company.
*
Okumura was crouching beside him in the bullpen, nodding every three words, impatient to learn everything he could about Sawamura’s Numbers. Kazuya-the-catcher was glad for the interest, because, for the sake of the team, other people needed to understand and catch his pitcher’s idiosyncratic balls. Kazuya-the-challenger delighted in the flame in Okumura’s eyes: his desire to be a better catcher—a better catcher than Kazuya—thrilling and stimulating. But a deeper part of Kazuya—the weird and tentative part that sometimes, in the privacy of his mind, dared to call Sawamura his friend—was a bit sad, cold and hot at the same time. The explanations were a reminder of the short few months he had left to play with these guys, his team, and that soon another catcher would have Sawamura’s full attention and devotion from the other side of the plate. The knowledge that Okumura would make damn sure to deserve every second of it barely made it better.
*
“Damn it!” Kimura growled in a rare showing of exasperation, getting back from the bath. “Who’s leaving manga all over the place?! This is the fourth time this week I’ve bumped my toes against one!”
Kazuya shrugged, not looking up from the magazine he was reading. The sweat on his nose made his glasses slide and he pushed them back. “Sawamura. That idiot always forgets to take them back. If you want to complain to him, he’s probably going to be here in a few.”
“Just how many hours is that guy spending in our room?”
Kazuya shrugged again, because, sleep hours notwithstanding, probably as many as Kazuya himself.
*
“Seriously, he got back at like, eleven, and I know he was running even though it was raining. I’m going to kill that moron; he’s gonna taste my octopus hold!” Kuramochi grumbled, his hands on Kazuya’s classroom desk, a scowl on his face and his tie askew. The sun from the window was making his left arm warm.
“Calm your Mom’s instincts ‘Mochi,” he replied, ignoring the ‘You’re the Mom, Miyuki’ that leapt out of his friend’s mouth. “You can still wrestle him into submission, because I like watching him suffer, but he was with me yesterday, babbling about that manga where a girl is dancing, but everybody thinks she’s a guy and she’s doing a duo with the—”
“You know what? If you don’t tell Sawamura I stole Wakana’s number, I won’t tell him you actually listen to him when he’s rambling.”
“… Deal.”
*
“Oi, Sawamura!” His southpaw turned to him, a sunny grin already eating his face, and Kazuya had stopped trying to repress the fondness he felt. “Nice pitching today. I meant it when I said it was thrilling to catch for you. Naruta Technical was a difficult opponent.”
He brightened up so much that Kazuya was glad for the sun-protection of his sports goggles. He looked like Christmas lights suddenly plugged in, sparkling and shining, projecting little specks of dancing light on everybody around.
“I humbly thank thee for the kind words! This Sawamura Eijun will make sure not to disappoint you, Miyuki-senpai!” he yelled at the top of his lungs, bowing too low.
“You know, it actually weirds me out when you’re so polite with me.” All the deference left his pitcher’s posture, but the pleased expression stayed even when he tried to huff. “So,” Kazuya continued, “want to work a bit on your revised cutter before the next match?”
“Aaah, sorry Cap, I’m going to try the Numbers with Wolf Boy tonight.” He offered an apologetic look.
“Oh. Okay then.”
Kuramochi made fun of him for way too long after that.
He swung his bat, sweat pooling in the small of his back and hair sticking to his forehead, the torque of his torso satisfying. He supposed he should be glad that his pitcher was pestering him less, now that he had to make sure Okumura got used to his pitches. It gave him more time for— for batting practice. For scorebook revising. For magazine reading. For sleep. For silence.
The strange thing that had been slowly but surely invading his lungs, stomach and heart these past few months felt prickled and stabbed. And maybe if it wasn’t so big it wouldn’t have gotten hurt, but Kazuya was learning stubbornness from the best, and between night pitching sessions and undrunk coffee cans he had decided it was something worth cultivating.
That evening he heard Sawamura knocking at his door, which was strange because Sawamura never knocked. He opened it, letting the warm air of May and a sweaty southpaw into his dorm.
“Did you come here straight from practice with Okumura?”
“Yeah, I—”
“Go take a bath moron, I don’t want you to borrow my pillow in this state.”
“No, I’m not staying—” Something must have shifted on his face, and since Sawamura was always looking so intently he picked up on it and closed his mouth, running his palms over the dirty legs of his uniform pants. “I mean, you don’t need to order me around, jerk! I’d already planned to take a bath and then come back here to bother you!”
“What makes you think I want to see more of your stupid face?”
“I am awesome, and you know it, Miyuki Kazuya! You even told me so today!”
“I don’t remember that, but you do have awesome vocal chords. So, what brings you to my humble abode now, if I still have to suffer through your presence later?”
“I just— I heard Kuramochi-senpai say that you looked disappointed and— I— I think I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t think weird stuff. Like believing I don’t want you because I asked for Wolf Boy to catch for me instead of you. I always want you to catch for me, Miyuki Kazuya!”
Kazuya wouldn’t fight the useless battle of trying to stop the warmth that bled through him, but for appearances sake he did try to transform his pleased smile into a smirk. “What, did you think I would be crying in a corner because I had some more free time? Is that what you do when I refuse to catch for you?”
At that, Sawamura opened his mouth, closed it and tilted his head to the left, his sweaty hair sticky against his forehead, and then grinned. Still as big and still as bright. Kazuya still thought he didn’t deserve it when he wasn’t catching.
“I don’t remember! It’s been too long since the last time you refused to catch for me!” He waved and skipped toward the stairs. “Well, I’m going to take a bath, don’t get too mean while I’m not here!”
“No risk of that, only idiots make me mean!” Kazuya shouted after his retreating form, just to have the last word.
He closed his door, and the warmth of the late spring still lingered inside. Warm skin, warm guts.
*
He was changing into his practice uniform. Sawamura, for whatever reason, had followed him into his room and was still talking about beetles, and Kazuya, for whatever reason, was still listening to him. He suddenly shut up when Kazuya took his shirt off. With his glasses removed and his vision blurry, he had no idea what kind of expression Sawamura was sporting. “What? Stop staring at me like that.” He hurried and put his blue undershirt on.
“You really have a strong upper body, Cap! Everyone is always talking about your strong shoulder when you throw, but I didn’t think it would look like that. I never paid attention in the locker room.” His southpaw looked under his own jersey at his lanky form, allowing the room to be silent for two seconds before getting loud again. “I guess I really have to work out more!”
Kazuya snorted and hit the flat stomach of his friend with the back of his hand. “Yes, you do. A stronger core will allow for stronger pitches and prevent injury, but don’t overwork yourself. We’re still in high school with a lot of time for our bodies to develop. Just make sure not to lose your flexibility.” Sawamura nodded with too much energy, and Kazuya let a fond breath out of his mouth.
“Wow, Cap! Sometimes you say things that don’t sound completely stupid!”
“I don’t want to hear that from you,” he deadpanned, putting his phone on his desk and stepping out of his school uniform pants before sliding into his practice ones. He then smeared some antibacterial gel on his hands—cold and clean, smelling like chemicals—and put on his contacts in front of the small mirror on his bedside table. When he raised his head, dressed and ready for practice, Sawamura was fiddling with his flip phone, judgement clear on his face.
“Oi, oi, I don’t want to see that expression on you.You’re the one being judged, usually.”
He snatched his phone back, ignoring the pout.
“But really, Cap, why do you still have that thing? You can’t even get LINE on that!”
“Who said I want it anyway. I see most of the people I need to talk to every day, and e-mail is a perfectly viable solution otherwise.”
His pitcher made a humming noise and got his own smartphone out of his pocket. “You know, I don’t even have your number or your e-mail. I think New Year’s was the only time I had to wait more than ten hours before seeing your annoying smirk again.”
“Don’t try and pretend, I know you missed it~.” He got his bag and his bat, and they both left the room, walking toward the fields where shouting could already be heard.
“But—” Sawamura’s fingers clenched around his phone before holding it out to him. “But this is your last year and— after you graduate, I still want to be able to talk to you, even if you don’t deserve it since you’re always a jerk, but—”
If Kazuya’s throat was a bit dry, and his answering ‘yeah’ a bit hoarse, neither of them commented on it when he took Sawamura’s phone and put in his contact info.
*
He opened his room, hot and sweaty and tired, with Sawamura on his heels. He let his baseball bag fall into a corner, his cleats in the genkan, and had no chance to sit before his friend threw himself on his bed, laughing and trying to hide his grin in the pillow. Sawamura used it so often that it was probably more his than Kazuya’s.
“You’re washing my sheets after that.”
He was ignored in favor of a giggle. The sheets creased under him when he sat at the foot of the bed, a few centimeters from his pitcher’s legs.
“I made it! I made it, Miyuki Kazuya!” Another laugh bubbled out of Sawamura’s chest and he looked over at where Kazuya was sitting with so much gold and joy in his eyes that it was impossible not to return his smile.
“Yeah, you did.”
“I’m the Ace… I am. I am the Ace.”
He was tasting the word on his tongue, rolling around in Kazuya’s bed and throwing sparkles of happiness around him. It would have been annoying, had Kazuya not been so fond of the boy. He nudged his foot. “Don’t let it get to your head.”
“I know, I know! I can’t let anyone down now! I have to prove, with each and every pitch, that I deserve this position! I won’t disappoint you, or anybody else!!”
He was too loud for the small room, dirtying his white sheets and invading his space, and Kazuya found himself almost enjoying the exuberant presence and the death of his eardrums. He must have a masochistic streak.
“But— right now, right now I just want to be happy,” he added in a smaller voice, but no less intense—as if he had condensed all the joy he usually screamed at the top of his lungs into those few words, only there for Kazuya to hear. And, since Sawamura was indulging himself, Kazuya supposed it was okay for him, too, to feel so proud. So glad that Sawamura had fought though the yips, through the mountain that was Furuya on his path, through the lack of acknowledgment, and even through Kazuya himself.
“Yeah. You did good. Congratulations, Sawamura.”
And that bright, brilliant boy was clutching his pillow in one hand and the number one jersey in the other. He looked at Kazuya and laughed again, his grin too big for his face, his fluffy hair a halo around his flushed cheeks, and Kazuya had to turn his head. That strange feeling was eating him alive, and he felt proud and happy and full of life, but he wasn’t sure the expression he was wearing was for sharing.
“Hey, Miyuki.”
“Mmh?”
“Let’s win Summer Kōshien. Together. Let’s be the best battery high school baseball has ever seen.”
He glanced at the teenager on his bed and found a lion, grinning ferally with gold specks dancing in his eyes, promising to crush every opponent on their path. He knew his answering smirk was everything; the same desire to fight and win—terrifying and exhilarating—written in the slant of his mouth.
“Of course, we will. Partner.”
*
“So, how are you feeling?”
“Like we are going to crush those batters!”
Kazuya snickered. “Oi, oi, this is Yakushi’s clean-up we are talking about; don’t get cocky.”
“I’m not. But you’re the best catcher, and I trust you. And I’m a damn good pitcher, and you trust me.”
They grinned at each other and he closed his mitt, thumping it against his pitcher’s chest. He swore he could almost feel the beating heart pulse against his glove and reverberate against his bone. As he trotted back to his spot behind the plate, Kazuya eyed the figure on the mound. Sawamura had his back turned, his jersey stretched over his shoulders as he raised his arms and yelled to the fielders.
“Balls will come flying your way! So I’ll be counting on you!!”
Really, the number one on his back had never suited anyone better.
*
It was true, what everybody said. Summer Kōshien was different. It could galvanize or crush, pressure or elevate a team. And on the day of the final, Kazuya had no idea which side his team would fall on. The white jerseys of Komadai Fujimaki in the dugout opposite them were taunting him. He wanted to play already: to feel the rush, to outsmart everybody. To prove to Mei that rejecting Inashiro’s proposition was the best decision he had ever made, by beating those who had beaten Mei last year, at this exact same place.
“OOOOOSHI!!!”
“Shut up, Sawamoron, I lost an eardrum here!”
“Oi, why do you sound as if we’ve won already?”
“I think you’re feeling unwell, I should pitch instead of—”
“Oi, Furuya, don’t try and steal my spot, bastard!!”
“Why do you need to be so loud?”
The dust of the field, the smell of leather, the sun shining over the mound and hitting their shoulders.
Kazuya chuckled and glanced at the other half of his battery. He shouldn’t have worried about his team, obviously. They were going to end up on the right side.
*
It happened too slowly and too quickly at the same time. In one second Sawamura was winding up: leg high, adrenaline running in Kazuya’s veins instead of blood; beating heart and anticipation and trust. In the next second the umpire was yelling, there was a sting in his palm, the word ‘STRIKE,’ the furious face of Hongou above him, and the number one on Sawamura’s back was being eaten away from his eyes by over-enthusiastic teammates. He got up and began walking toward the mound, jogging, then running, the grin splitting his face maybe too big for him, and in the middle of the ruckus, of congratulations, of bawling and shouting, Sawamura caught him and threw his arm around his shoulder, laughing and crying and sobbing a jumbled mess of ‘we did it’ and ‘partner’. And it felt a bit strange, that emotion that was spilling and bursting out of him, as his hand closed on his battery partner’s jersey, creasing the number one on his back and his team so, so close. But it felt good, too. And Kazuya decided to hold onto it, with all he had.