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Abe huffs when he puts the present into the pile, forcing his emotions straight even while his heartbeat is thundering in his ears. In front of him Tajima smiles at him knowingly, because of course he knows, Hanai is the one in charge of the Christmas exchange. He never thought Hanai would be the type to match make, but there he is, in their second year and giving Mihashi a present.
Now it wasn’t like Abe already prepared it, really. It wasn’t like it was a gift that had been sitting with him since Mihashi’s birthday. Abe really isn’t nervous about giving Mihashi anything, he swears.
Tajima gives him the most unsubtle wink anyone could make.
God Abe hopes his ears weren’t burning as intensely as he felt.
He nearly flinched when Mihashi murmured a quiet “sorry, Abe-kun” to place his gift on the table. Abe kept his gaze at eye level, refusing to look down on the delicate, well wrapped (albeit definitely home wrapped) gift.
Damn, now his chest hurt.
Abe wasn’t stupid, he had long figured out that the warm feelings he felt and the electric jolt that went through his hand when he would brush against Mihashi wasn’t exactly typical. He for one didn’t react the same when Sakaeguchi would take his hand at the most precarious of matches - like during the switch to batting after Abe would mess up on reading the batter and make Mihashi throw the wrong pitch. Even if it made his chest swell, the same way it does when Nishihiro asks him for advice, or when Oki invites him to play games, or when he actually feels like he has friends in his teammates, it was never the same when it came to Mihashi.
He liked Mihashi. Romantically. Desperately.
He’s always tried to temper it down, but when the Christmas season came around, Tajima started dropping hints to Abe, “sowing seeds” as Hanai would put it. He’d mention having sleepovers with the pitcher, about the pitcher’s favourite food, how Mihashi really liked that one doll at the crane game near the station, how he seemed stressed about their test recently.
(Abe managed to talk Mihashi about that, a feat that would have been impossible a year before when he was more impatient, and the answering smile - while small - had made any and all doubt about his feelings shrivel up into nothingness in Abe’s chest.)
And all of it culminated in this, a seniors’ Christmas party.
He sighs and feels it go from his lungs to his feet. Mihashi looks at him again, before glancing straight down.
“You okay, Takaya-kun?” Shinooka pats Mihashi on the back, smiling in greeting, before looking back at Abe. “You’re looking dour.”
The manager is clearly hinting something, but Abe couldn’t exactly figure out what. Beside him Mihashi makes a croaking sound.
“Does Abe-kun want some juice?”
His voice comes out a squeak, and a fond feeling envelopes Abe.
“Yeah, some juice will be great, thanks Ren.”
Mihashi preened and wandered off to find the juice. Shinooka shakes her head slowly at him.
“If you wanted juice, I could have gotten it for the two of you.”
Abe raises his eyebrow at her.
“So you two can talk, don’t look at me like that.”
“We’ve been playing together for nearly two years now... you would think he’d stop being scared of me.”
Shinooka laughs, “if you think he’s acting like that because he’s still scared of you, you’re as oblivious as he is.”
Abe frowns. “He’s not-,“
“I know, you’ve said what you believe.“ Shinooka leans against the clubroom’s window. “You know sometimes you just have to try right? Sometimes it doesn’t go right. Sometimes it does. That’s why I confessed to you last year, even when you were already all eyes for Ren-kun.”
“But,”
“It’s a leap of faith. Didn’t you say you wanted to do it? This is a chance.” They both spot Mihashi as he walks towards them. “He’s back, talk to him. Stop finding things out through Yuuichirou-kun. You’re not the same person you were a year ago.”
She wanders off, leaning in to whisper something to Mihashi before going to find Mizutani, Abe presumes.
Mihashi hands him a cup, the contents of which definitely contained some amount of protein powder, courtesy of Momokan.
Mihashi stands next to him quietly, eyes steadily watching the club room. The 10 of them had all grown to depend on each other, in such a way that Abe himself never really experienced before. It was probably how they built the club themselves from root up. They really only had each other to share this experience. Mihashi himself seems the most centred Abe has ever seen him, and it fills Abe with pride and joy. He’d long changed from the skittish tentative player when they first met, even if he still got startled easily.
“Abe-kun,” Mihashi starts, hands holding his cup carefully. “Thank you.”
“Hmm?”
“Playing with the team, I really like it.” Mihashi smiles, heads still ducked down and face tinged red. “The pitcher I became with the help of Abe-kun and the rest... I like him. Thank you.”
The words are loaded with meaning, a pain Mihashi still doesn’t know quite how to present but Abe gets. He tucks his head down himself, feeling a burn build from his nose to his ears and even the back of his neck. He scratches it awkwardly, but nods. “Thank you,” he says in return, but wondered what he should follow up with, the many experiences that Mihashi had given him on his tongue, “for trusting me the past two years,” he settles.
Mihashi grins at him, all chirpy and bird like and Abe’s heart melts even more than it already has. He thinks maybe he should say it now, but the loud chatter of the team makes him hesitate. Turns out he didn’t have the choice, since Hanai calls them together for the gift unboxing.
It turns out that Mihashi’s gift was for Nishihiro, who pulls out the KT tape with wide eyes. The two look at each other and grin, something shared between them. It doesn’t make Abe jealous per se. He’s happy to see Nishihiro open up since his first year, and he has the injuries to prove for it. But there’s an ugly weight that settles in his stomach, one that reminds him that Mihashi always has an undercurrent or discomfort talking to him. A stiffness is his back and smile. It comes easy for the others.
He pushes it down and forces a smile, but a stray thought crosses his mind before it does.
Why should he hope that Mihashi likes him anyway?
He glances up at Mihashi, who’s oblivious as always. The pitcher pulls open the wrapping of the gift Abe packed, which doesn’t exactly sink in until Mihashi pulls the gift out.
Abe found the chick pillow while walking along the shopping plaza a week or so before Mihashi’s birthday. He remembers stopping and staring at it and thinking that it wasn’t a gift he’d usually give. But the pillow reminded him of Mihashi so distinctly that he finds himself buying it almost immediately. And then he never gave it to Mihashi, because apparently he could face big burly 3rd years straight on but not his own pitcher.
But it’s here now. And it’s with its rightful owner. Unless Mihashi hates it- oh god what if-
“Oh it looks like you!”
Tajima’s voice breaks through his thoughts deeply. Mihashi’s eyes are shining and he’s looking at Abe, words failing to come out of his mouth. Tajima grins, putting up two thumbs up from behind Mihashi’s head. Abe’s ears are burning, and he forces himself to not look down.
Mihashi’s smile is the biggest it’s been the whole day. Abe’s breath rushes out at the sight of it. Tajima pushes Mihashi towards Abe, a conspiring look in his eye. Mihashi looks back, more nervous than he usually was. Abe’s about to become scared himself.
“Abe-kun,” Mihashi starts, grabbing Abe’s wrist, voice shaky and soft, barely audible over the rest of the room. “L-let’s go to the field.”
Abe blinked, but followed the pitcher out.
With most of the school being at home, the only light in the field came from their clubroom. It lit Mihashi dimly, and Abe could only really catch the most prominent of his features. His eyes were shining, the way Abe remembers him right before they head out to play offence during a game. His hand is shaking where he’s still clinging to Abe’s. It’s warm... focus Takaya.
“Abe-kun,” Abe’s muscles tightened, and he feels his back go ramrod straight.
“Yeah?”
Mihashi pulls out a ball, twisting it and rolling it in his palm, one that Abe knows he keeps on him. “Do you remember what you told me when I first joined the team?”
Abe flushes, the embarrassment hot on his face. He remembers it, remembers being an absolute asshole, remembers forcing Mihashi to never say no to him and making stupid promises because of his own unresolved conflict from his days with Haruna (who didn’t even consider it anything? So much anger for absolutely no reason). He started to apologise, but Mihashi shook his head. Chewing on his lip, Mihashi’s grip on the ball tightened.
“Abe-kun doesn’t know it, but you saved me. You made me love baseball again.” Abe frowns at that, Mihashi’s love for baseball never went away, but his guilt had festered into something ugly, something that made Abe never forgive Mihoshi.
“It wasn’t just me,” he says, “you are an amazing pitcher.”
Mihashi’s smile is brittle, and for a moment he’s transported back to the past.
He wasn’t expecting to the one to bring it back.
“Abe-kun helped me realise that. For that,” Mihashi turned Abe’s palm over and pressed the ball into his hand, “is it okay for me to ask Abe-kun to catch for me even when we’re old?”
Abe started at the ball in his hand, warm from Mihashi’s grip. The words catch up to him just a moment after, and his head whips up in realisation.
It sounded like a...
“Is that a proposal?” He asks laughingly, even as his heart soars in hope.
Mihashi looks at him, and even in the dim lighting, Abe sees the red flush that spreads from his nose to his ears.
He feels it mirrored on his face, feels where their hands are practically intertwined, feels so overwhelmed that his brain almost shorts from the cycles of adrenaline that pumps through his body.
“Yes,” he says, so fast that the word almost comes out jumbled.
Mihashi’s smile widens.
His hands are warm.
“But maybe for now, boyfriends?”
Mihashi nods, so quickly his head is nearly a blur.
Abe’s cheeks ache.
He almost doesn’t realise that practically all of their friends are in on this, but the quietness of the room when they come back is telling. Tajima bounds up to Abe’s boyfriend (holy crap) and pulls him away. Hanai pats him on his back.
“Congrats,” the captain said.
“Does everyone know?”
Hanai looked at him dryly. “You’re smiling, Takaya. If anyone suspected otherwise, they’re not gonna doubt it now.”
Abe scowled at him, but could barely keep it up when he catches Mihashi’s eye.
Mizutani gags in the background. “My god are they going to be like this even during practice?”
“Okay for one, it’s not like you and Chiyo were any different.”
“Well it’s more you than Chiyo.”
“Wasn’t that always the case?”
The burst of laughter that followed (and Mizutani’s indignant yell) started up the conversations again. Abe sunk into the atmosphere, warm and safe and welcoming. He doesn’t stop smiling.
And if later Mihashi comes back and laces his fingers through Abe’s the way he does every game except different, who is he to object?