Chapter Text
Pitch. Hear the smash of the ball with the catcher’s mitt. Raise my gloved hand. Wait for the signal. Get in position. Pitch again. That was the routine that wouldn’t look out of place to any outsiders that came to see the practice, but all of our teammates were smart enough not to interrupt us. They had spent enough time with both Miyuki and me to know that what was going on was by no means ordinary. No feedback, no comments, no anything that wasn’t strictly what was needed to do our job was a big red alert for anyone that even thought about talking to us.
When we were done, he simply got up and left without uttering a sound. I simply turned to get my bottle and drank it all in one go. Today had been one of the most tiring practices I’d had in a while. Not having even a 15-second break to give either positive or negative feedback really took a toll on my body. Not that I would ever tell that to Miyuki. It was bad enough that he had that fucking training that allowed him to read even the slightest change in body language, I wasn’t about to give him a single reason for him to believe I couldn’t take whatever he threw my way.
“Furuya-san?” I heard Satou-san, our backup catcher, ask in almost a whisper. “Is…uh…is everything fine with Miyuki-san?” I looked at him and he almost looked scared.
“Yes, everything’s fine.” I took my bottle and my towel and left to the locker room. Of course, everything was far from fine between Miyuki and I, but we had to be professional. We couldn’t bring our personal problems to the field and especially not to the mound. We had to go on with our jobs as if nothing had happened. But we were baseball players, not actors, so of course we wouldn’t be able to fool everyone on the team.
As I got my stuff to shower, I couldn’t help thinking about it. Everything had been going just fine. We had gone to Sawamura’s house and dinner had been…interesting, to say the least. Well, dinner itself hadn’t been as bad. Not considering what happened afterwards, anyway. I mean, there was the odd awkward moment here and there, but, all in all, Miyuki played it off or Nanami saved the night changing the subject of conversation, completely oblivious to the awkwardness surrounding her. But after dinner was over, Nanami was tucked in in bed and Sawamura’s parents had left to leave us some “time to catch up”, things had taken a turn for the worse.
“So, what are you doing these days?” Miyuki started. “Besides coaching kids and taking care of the little one.”
Sawamura laughed a nervous laugh and scratched the back of his head. “That’s pretty much it. Sometimes I help at the farm – Nanami likes to help every now and then and my folks can’t handle all that energy by themselves, so I help out when she decides to.”
“Nothing else?” I wanted to kill Miyuki on the spot when he said that, but I tried to keep a calm look.
“Well, I don’t really have the time to do anything else. And, even if I did, after spending all day coaching kids and then taking care and playing with Nanami, I don’t really have much energy to do anything else.” He was getting tense and what he said sounded forced. There was a hint of something else that I couldn’t quite identify, but I had no doubt that Miyuki had heard it, analyzed it and found a way to toy with it until Sawamura broke down.
“Oh, so you’ve given up?” He was dead.
“No, I have not given up!”
“What do you call it, then? You are living happily in your house in Nagano, coaching elementary-school children and helping your parents with their farm while you take care of your daughter. You’re not playing baseball professionally and you’re not going after your Plan B, which I think Furuya mentioned some time ago…Literature, was it? I call that giving up if you ask me.” Nobody asked you.
“I have not given up!”
“Then what have you done?” Sawamura was quiet for a couple of seconds in which I was thinking of all the different ways I could hit Miyuki with one of my fastballs and make it look like an accident. Time seemed to stop and to speed up and the same time and all I could do was look at them. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t want to worsen the situation, so I just stayed quiet and looked at both of them.
“Taking a break.” He glared at Miyuki like he could convince him simply by staring at him until his eyes hurt. I watched their starting match until I grew tired and realized that there probably wasn’t going to be a winner.
“We should probably go back to the hotel,” I said looking at Miyuki.
“Yeah,” he said, but didn’t take his eyes off of Sawamura. “We should go back to the hotel with our team. See you later, Sawamura.”
“Bye. Good luck on your match. We’ll be cheering for you.” He didn’t sound half as happy and energetic as he normally did, and it was almost painful to have his loud screams and big smile back only to have it taken away in less than two minutes.
“Bye, Sawamura.” He looked my way and he looked like he was surprised I was still there. He smiled weakly my way.
“Bye, Furuya. Thanks again for the plushie. You really didn’t have to.”
“It really was nothing.”
“Yeah, spending an hour looking for the best one sure sounds like nothing to me.” He was a dead man. I was going to murder him in his sleep. I looked at Sawamura, thinking of all the ways I could explain what Miyuki had said but kept my mouth shut when I saw a hint of a blush on his cheeks.
“We should probably get going, Miyuki.”
“Yeah. Let’s go.” We put our shoes on, bowed and left. And didn’t speak a word to each other besides hello and goodbye since then.
Until now, that is. I entered the locker room and there he was. There was nobody else in the room. Either we were lucky or the tension that had been surrounding us was so big that our teammates had decided not to be anywhere near us if we were together in a room. I nodded my head his way as a greeting, and then opened my locker. I could feel his presence in the room, but I didn’t turn around to acknowledge it. It had been over a week since we had come back from Nagano, and we hadn’t talked to each other besides what was absolutely necessary to keep our jobs. I got my shampoo and my soap out of the locker, grabbed a clean towel and started heading towards the showers when I felt a hand grabbing my arm.
“What do you want?”
“I think we need to talk. Don’t you?” I looked at his hand before shanking it away from my arm.
“No, I don’t think there’s anything for us to talk about.”
“I was a jerk, okay? I said it.” I glared at him and turned around without saying a thing. “I’m sorry I said that to Sawamura. I’m sorry I told him about you spending so long looking for the stupid gift for the brat.” He sighed. “It’s not easy for me to say this, so don’t ignore me!” I didn’t move after that. I didn’t walk towards the showers but I didn’t turn around, either.
“You had no right to say what you said.”
“I know.”
“You were an asshole.”
“I was.”
“He probably thinks I wanted to bribe his daughter now.”
“Didn’t you?” I turned around at that.
“I didn’t.” He looked at me like I was the stupidest person on Earth.
“You want to use Nanami to get to Sawamura and you know it,” he said matter-of-factly.
“I do not.”
“Let’s pretend I believe you. It’s not like he’d get the wrong idea if he thought you want to get closer to him.”
“So what if I want to get closer to him? It’s not like that’s a bad thing.”
“It’s not a bad thing. But both of us know you don’t want to stay just friends with the guy.” There was a short silence for a couple of seconds where everything we could hear was the sound of bats hitting balls in the field. “I don’t regret saying what I said though.” Was he serious? “Hey, hey, put away that aura and let me explain.” I didn’t say anything, but he must’ve taken it as an invitation to go on. “He had to hear somebody said it. His family would never tell him, but they aren’t that happy of seeing him doing what he’s doing. They don’t judge him or anything, but…while you were looking for fruit with Sawamura, we talked for a little bit and…they sounded sad. Not disappointed or anything, but they were really looking forward to seeing his son either playing professionally or giving lectures in big university classes, so when his girlfriend got pregnant and he gave up on both of those things, they were sad. Sawamura is content in his life because he thinks that’s what he’s supposed to be doing. He’s living this calm life because nobody dares call him off. And he knows it.”
“He has a daughter, Miyuki. He can’t exactly go back to university, work and take care of his daughter. Not to mention he’d have to study to pass the entrance exams.” Everybody at Seido knows that Miyuki had barely studied for his entrance exams and had still passed with flying colors, but Sawamura had probably studied as hard as he could to enter when he was in high school. It couldn’t possibly be easy for his to pass the exam now that he had spent some 5 years without touching a lecture book.
“He could always ask for help.” I opened my mouth to object, but he beat me to it. “His family is barely any help. But I would bet my right hand you’d let him and his daughter stay at your place for free if he decided to come study to Tokyo.” We had a staring contest in which I was looking for a way to tell him he was wrong, but I couldn’t find any argument. “Am I wrong?”
I didn’t say anything. I just turned around and headed for the showers. While I was there, I couldn’t help but think about what Miyuki had just told me. If Sawamura were to tell me he wanted to come to Tokyo to study, would I offer him a place to stay for him and his daughter? It was a crazy assumption. There was no way Sawamura would leave his family and his job in Nagano to come study in Tokyo, no matter what Miyuki thought. I had been talking to Sawamura for a couple of months already and he seemed more than content with his life, he seemed happy. Why would he leave that easy, settled life he had found to come back to Tokyo? He had a job he liked – there was no reason for him to go back to university.
I left the showers and started getting dressed. I could see the way some of my teammates were staring at me, but they were probably too scared to ask what had happened between Miyuki and I. I paid no attention to them, anyway, just like I always did and checked my phone. I smiled internally just like I always did whenever I got a message notification from Sawamura. I opened the text and I almost dropped my phone as I read its content.
Miyuki really should’ve gone to work with the police.