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Tooru remembers washing frozen vegetables in his mother’s kitchen.
His father is going to be home from work soon, and he’ll be expecting food to go along with his beer.
Tooru sinks his hand into a bowl of cold water time and time and again. He fishes out handfuls of chilled bean sprouts and gently tugs at their brown, feathery roots, leaving only their pale stems and yellow heads, which he puts into a second bowl.
His left hand is going numb with cold while his right hand grows tired from clipping so many sprouts. The chill sinks into the cracks of his skin, and irritates scrapes he’s accrued over a week’s worth of baseball practices. In a way, it’s nice that his hand is so numb. The tingly feeling that he gets as he moves his fingers while they prepare the sprouts is something new, something unlike the usual aches and pains of a junior high school baseball player. He thinks he might grow to like this, this feeling of lacy ice crystals overlaying his joints.
“Are you done?” his mother asks, and Tooru nods, holding up the full bowl of sprouts, silent and proud.
Tooru is now feeling less charitable towards sinking his limbs into cool water.
He hisses as he lowers himself further into the tub until his legs are fully submerged from ankle to thigh, water sloshing over his knees and toes as he hides a wince. The water closes over him, arctic legwraps, eventually coming up over his belly button, a terrible shock.
This is just another part of the hellish summer training camp, the part where things freeze over.
Kuramochi taps at the stopwatch and tightens his grip on the blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
“How are you feeling, Masuko-senpai?” he asks.
Tooru doesn’t even bother answering, his teeth chatter a few times and he lets that be the statement it is.
“That bad, huh?”
Miyuki let’s out a laugh from across the room. Tooru thinks even Miyuki usual lighthearted laughter sounds strained.
There are four metal tubs filled with ice and water currently situated inside Seidou Spirit Dorm’s communal bathhouse. All are carefully calibrated to nineteen degrees celsius, and all contain one very cold first string baseball player.
Chris is holding onto the stopwatch next to Miyuki’s tub and smiling down beatifically at him, “Five more minutes.”
Tooru looks to Kuramochi who laughs a more subdued version of his two note laugh, a dry chuckle, as he shakes the stopwatch and rattles off, “Four minutes, forty five seconds, and seventeen milliseconds, sixteen, fifteen.”
“Not soon enough,” Tooru grits out through the barrier of his teeth clamped tight to prevent them from chattering even more.
“For glory,” Kuramochi says in a sing song voice. He sniffs once and sneezes into the collar of his shirt, but keeps grinning.
Time has a mind of it’s own, moving too slowly, a steady stream turned into a scattered spray, no trajectory at all. It’s the sprinkler system going haywire, turning on abruptly during afternoon practice to spray droplets of water into the air, the rainbows forming in the wake of such a surprising shower beautiful the way only unexpected things can be.
Tooru watches as mottled red and purple patterns appear under his skin. His toes have become little blocks of ice. He crosses his arms across his chest to try and conserve some body heat, but it’s a futile effort. What he gets instead is the sight of his own own farmer’s tan, clearly cutting across his biceps, a marker: this is power, but don’t forget to follow through in your swing.
“Two minutes!” Kuramochi says loudly.
Tooru nods and tries to visualize his next cup of pudding.
After the intense training camp that Coach Kataoka had arranged for them--one that was as much about training muscle memory as it was strength training and spirit building--ice baths become a necessary evil. This is one more way everyone’s determination is tested. Supposedly, this is to help ease soreness and muscle aches, but Tooru thinks that this is shaping up to be just another test of spiritual fortitude.
How far you willing to go in order to win?
“I think Haruichi should get out early,” Ryousuke says from the other end of the baths.
“I can stay.”
“If you don’t get out, I’m telling Mother about that time with the rubber ducks and the air freshners.”
A pause, and then reluctant splashing. “Aniki, we made a pact.”
“Ever the responsible older brother,” Kuramochi cackles as he shakes his head in wonder. “Thirty seconds now.”
Everyone is supposed to stay down for exactly six minutes, but for Tooru, it’s been an eternity.
“Times up!”
Tooru levers himself up carefully with his arms and then steps out of the tub onto the tiled floor. He towels off and goes to one of the shower stalls to change into track pants and then pulls on a sweater because he’s feeling particularly chilled. He comes back to Sawamura anxiously dancing besides the tub as Kuramochi sticks a thermometer into the water and goes to get more ice.
“How was it Masuko-senpai?”
Tooru shrugs. “Alright.”
+
Kazuya knocks on the door softly at first.
When there’s no answer he considers the possibility of going to someone else’s room for the night, but as he runs through a list of potential people he could crash with, he starts to realize that they’re all already in his room.
The whole point of crashing in someone else’ room in the first place was so he could avoid the rowdy bunch who’ve taken over his room.
Going back is not an option, Kazuya thinks as he raises his hand to knock a second time, a little louder.
Still no answer. “Isn’t this guy supposed to be reliable?” Kazuya mutters as he picks through his pocket for his phone with the free hand not holding onto his pillow. His hand comes up empty and he realizes that he’d forgotten his phone in his room.
No going back, he repeats to himself and knocks again for the third time.
Kazuya waits in a tense silence when he hears footsteps coming up to the door.
“Sorry, I was listening to music pretty loudly,” Chris says by way of greeting as he waves a single earbud around.
“I’m sleeping over,” Kazuya announces, holding up his pillow and waving it around in kind.
“Ah, how could I forget.” Chris steps back and Kazuya finds himself laughing a little helplessly, faced with that golden gaze and that honey-warm smile.
“You can sleep in my bed, since I’m going to be staying up for a while longer.”
“Don’t you need to sleep in your bed?”
Chris gives Kazuya a quizzical look, and then understanding dawns as he looks to Kanemaru’s empty bed guiltily. “I forgot to ask him if it’s okay for someone to sleep in his bed.”
“You’re getting senile in your old age,” Kazuya teases.
It’s not like Kazuya has never slept in a friend’s bed before and vice versa. In fact, Masuko was fast asleep on Kazuya’s bed last time he’d checked, but there was something about sharing Chris’ bed, his personal space, that made Kazuya’s heart give a little squeeze of anticipation.
Ask him about the way Chris played baseball and Kazuya would be able to give you a whole speech, but ask him what Chris’ favorite color was and he’d have to speculate it was probably either yellow or blue. This felt like he was being let into a private sanctuary, something most people wouldn’t even be able to catch a glimpse of.
Kazuya places his pillow on Chris’ bed very carefully and ambles over to his desk in what he hopes is a casual manner.
“What are you working on?”
“Just organizing some information I have on the teams we’re facing this weekend.”
Chris anticipates what Kazuya is about to offer the moment he opens his mouth because he grins and shakes his head. “I’m sure I can manage on my own. Go get some rest.”
“But I want to help,” Kazuya insists.
“Help by being in top condition tomorrow,” Chris suggests. “Tomorrow morning is going to be another tough practice.”
Something mutinous must be obvious in Kazuya’s expression. Maybe it’s the way he’s still walking forwards towards the desk, hell bent on seeing what information Chris has compiled when Chris tells him in an even tone, “I will carry you to the bed if I have to.”
“As if,” Kazuya says dismissively.
Chris steps towards Kazuya, having put down his signature black memo book and reaches forward slowly. Kazuya refuses to move away, calling Chris’ bluff, because there’s no way Chris would--until he does--scoop Kazuya into his arms.
“I told you,” Chris laughs as he takes the necessary steps forward and drops Kazuya into the sheets, previously so neatly made up, hospital corners tucked tightly against the mattress. Kazuya bounces once, and Chris seems to grow closer at the high point of his flight, ready to meet him in the middle, but it must have been a trick of the light because he’s turning back to his desk, broad shoulders facing away from Kazuya.
“Did that strain your shoulder?” Kazuya blurts out.
Chris laughs, and it’s a nice sound, the edges of it blurred by the late hour and the soft glow of the lights in the room, intimate and familiar. Kazuya wishes he could just hit pause to better savor this moment.
“You weigh about as much as I used to bench,” Chris says.
Kazuya snickers into his lucky pillow. “Whatever.”
“Good night,” Chris tells him softly and Kazuya echoes the sentiment before burrowing under the covers that smell like boy and sunscreen and cool ink on fresh paper.
+
Tetsuya sits in his chair and watches captain after captain ascend the stage. It’s nerve-wracking business, the kind that would make a lesser boy fidget, but Tetsuya sits still as a statue and waits.
Koushien, the word on everyone’s lips, swimming through everyone’s eyes as they glance at the board quickly filling up with names and numbers, the bracket piling dream upon dream.
Seidou is a seeded team, but even they don’t know who they will be matched up with first although they can make educated guesses, and there have been many, a list that spans the width of Tetsuya’s outstretched fingers.
“Tanba will still be ace,” Coach Kataoka had told him, and Tetsuya had nodded without comment. It was the right choice, but he wished sincerely and fervently that it could have been the best choice. At this point, Seidou didn’t have a best choice, per se, only a promising pitcher relay with a lot of potential and a solid batting lineup.
Tetsuya is sitting in a chair waiting for his name to be called up on stage.
Tetsuya is laying in Miyuki’s room, Jun sprawled on his back as Tetsuya tries to do push-ups while they wait for Miyuki to return with snacks and drinks. They’re expecting everyone else to trail in any minute now.
“Don’t worry so much,” Jun tells the ceiling, but the ceiling carries the words right back to Tetsuya, so it’s all the same in the end.
“What should I worry about instead?”
“About how you’re going to beat Miyuki at the next round of shogi. About how many selfies you can take until your phone runs out of memory.”
“Jun,” Tetsuya says as he makes a valiant effort to lever both of them up and off the ground. “I’m worried about Tanba. I’m worried about the team and I’m worried that I’m not a good enough.”
His hips don’t even make it a few centimeters, and Jun continues to lay on his back undisturbed as Tetsuya struggles to complete a push-up.
“I know we don’t talk about this,” Jun starts.
Tetsuya stops struggling for a moment and just breathes, bracing himself for Jun’s next words because with a preamble like that anyone would be concerned.
“So I’m only going to say it once,” Jun warns.
“I’m listening,” Tetsuya says quietly.
“You’re an excellent captain.”
Tetsuya feels humbled by Jun’s frank praise. “Thank you.”
Jun jabs him in the kidneys with an elbow and says snidely, “Let me finish. As I was saying, you’re an excellent captain, but don’t forget that baseball is a team sport. You can lead by example and direct us, but this whole team is also behind you, Tetsu. Don’t forget about everyone running behind you!”
“That was very touching, Jun,” Ryosuke says as he opens the door and steps in with his hands tucked neatly into the pockets of his sweats, his usual smile stretched across his lips.
“Ah, shove it.”
“If we were in a shojo manga.”
“Hya-ha!” Kuramochi screeches as he barges in with a video game in hand. “Who wants to golf until they drop?”
“Not me,” Ryosuke says coolly but he’s already turned on the tv and linking up controllers, which is when Masuko comes in and and promptly collapses into Miyuki’s bed. He’s softly snoring by the time Jun gets off of Tetsuya, giving him a friendly jab in the ribs as he rolls away to allow Tetsuya to start setting up the shogi board.
“Here,” Jun says as he holds out Tetsuya’s phone. “Get in close, Tetsu.”
When Jun’s smiling like that, reckless and unafraid--like he knows all the answers, Tetsuya can rarely refuse his requests so he crawls over the to Jun and let’s him squish their faces close together.
“Smile like you mean it,” Jun says and Tetsuya squints into the camera as Jun takes the photo.
On the train ride back to school, Tetsuya texts Tanba: How are you doing?
Determined! Tanba texts back, along with an emoji snorting steam looking ready to bulldoze any and all obstacles in its way.
It’s a very heartening message and Tetsuya grins.
This year, they’ve got team that just won’t quit.
This year, they will definitely make it to Koushien.