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The game had lasted longer than expected, the innings stretching through the slow pivot of late afternoon into evening. It wasn’t a particularly close game- Seido had bested Jima by five runs in the end- but practice games ended up with a few extra switches and impromptu lessons that slowed them down. Miyuki slid his gear off and into a bag, quickly pulling on a hat to cover his sweaty tangle of brown hair.
It was fall already, but the heat of the summer sun still haunted the dry dirt of the baseball diamond. Miyuki swallowed, searching for his water bottle but failing to find it in the dugout. He swiped his glasses with his shirt and looked around.
He spotted it across the field, closer to the other team’s dugout and nowhere near where he’d left it. Huh. Miyuki looked around suspiciously before interrupting Sawamura’s conversation with a kick to his leg. Sawamura turned sharply in surprise.
“Hey-“
“If you’re going to run around during games, at least don’t leave my stuff everywhere.” Miyuki glared at him through slitted eyes behind his glasses.
“I didn’t-“ Sawamura started emphatically into a denial, but thought better of it after seeing that there was, indeed, a lonely water bottle abandoned across the field. He considered it for a moment and then pointed a finger up at his own chin, eyebrows raised in earnest curiosity. “How’d you know it was me?”
Miyuki chuckled, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Sawamura, but the rest of the team stays in the dugout during games.”
Sawamura grinned, looked down, and put a hand behind his neck, digging his thumb into his shoulder. “I get a little… wound up I guess.”
“No shit.” Miyuki retorted. Was that genuine sheepishness on Sawamura’s face?
“-And I didn’t mean to drink the last of it, so I thought I should fill it up.”
“Whole lotta good that did me.”
Sawamura looked out at the field, then smiled suddenly at something that popped into his head. He snapped his fingers, pointing upwards at the end of his gesture. “I got distracted when you drove that slider down the right baseline.” He continued, furrowing his brow as the words rushed out and making eye contact with Miyuki. “Even though you let two perfectly good strikes go by before that because god knows why. Sometimes it’s like you’re trying to make everything as difficult as possible-“
“Hey-” Miyuki snapped, cutting him off, “I got the hit, didn’t I?”
Sawamura clenched a fist. “I would’ve shot those straight over the fence, is all I’m saying.”
“We’d all love to see that.”
Sawamura nodded, determined to deliver on his promise, and Miyuki sighed. Even when delivered as a joke he couldn’t back down from a challenge. He watched Sawamura take a step towards the field.
“Oi,” Miyuki reached out a hand, gathering a fistful of the back of Sawamura’s shirt.
Two golden eyes turned back on him in confusion. “I’m getting your water-“
Miyuki grabbed the strap of his bag, weighted down with his gear, and shoved it into Sawamura’s chest. “Better idea,” he smirked, tilting his head.
Sawamura wrapped his fingers around the strap of Miyuki’s bag, then his own, while rolling his eyes with a half-smile. “I dragged around tires for a year, this is nothing, Miyuki-senpai”
His words were respectful enough, but Miyuki’d be hard-pressed to find another upperclassman that Sawamura would dare to roll his eyes at. From his terrified-sounding strings of nicknames and his weird, ceremonial language, Miyuki seemed to be exempt from Sawamura’s formalities. Well, it was probably for the best. As long as Sawamura still listened to him on the mound, there wasn’t much need for all that fluff. Plus- Miyuki took a second to look Sawamura up and down, smiling crookedly at the criss-crossed straps of their bags over his chest- he still did as he was told.
“That’s the spirit,” Miyuki said, roughly mussing the hair closest to Sawamura’s forehead. He dropped his hand and turned towards the field, speaking over his shoulder as he went. “Near the front of the bus, okay? And don’t jostle it too much and get things all tangled. I’ll know if you do”
Miyuki saw Sawamura wave a dismissive hand at him before he turned his eyes forward. The other dugout was empty, but a few members of the other team were still milling around it. Miyuki frowned, the field suddenly feeling a little lonely without the familiar bustle of his own teammates. He groaned internally at himself, trying to shake it off. When had he gotten so… sentimental?
He tried to make out the other team’s players, but they were still a bit too far away to distinguish. Jima, it turned out, was a somewhat special team for Miyuki to face-off against, even though it was just a practice game. He thought back to earlier in the day, when he had lied, unflinching, saying that no, he didn’t know anyone on Jima’s team, personally or by reputation, so mostly they’d be going in blind.
Chris has frowned at that, because Miyuki always knew someone.
Plus, Jima was the closest high school to Miyuki’s middle school, and the natural landing place for his old classmates. It didn’t take too much detective work to figure out that Jima had three of Miyuki’s former teammates on their roster.
Luckily, he was only surrounded by distractible baseball junkies, and not by detectives, so nobody had called him on his bullshit.
Still, he couldn’t help the twist of anxiety he got from running over into their “territory,” however briefly. During the game, the baseball had kept the other team at a distance, but without all that Miyuki felt strangely intrusive. Maybe he should’ve just let Sawamura over instead.
No, stupid, it’s getting a water bottle, not joining their team again. It had been over a year and a half, two years even? It’d been a while, and how long can someone seriously hold a grudge from a middle school baseball team? Miyuki slowed as he reached the other side of the field, lifting up his hat briefly to push his fingers through his hair. Although- Miyuki tilted his head, reflecting on the blatant aggression in his pitch-calling earlier- he definitely held a grudge himself.
Around the other side of the fence, Miyuki found his water bottle, completely full, and stooped over to pick it up. He raised it to take a drink but stopped halfway when he heard voices nearby.
“-be miserable to play with, honestly, always yelling like an moron-“
Miyuki knew that voice. But more than that, he knew that tone.
“-don’t win as much but thank fuck I don’t have to play with a pitcher like that-“
Miyuki’s stomach turned over as memories from his middle school team dragged themselves to the surface. The insults, the snickering, the many times Miyuki couldn’t keep his mouth shut and the many times the older players followed through by punishing him for it. The time Miyuki got approached by a scout and those jealous shitheads got together after practice and-
Miyuki swallowed, halting his train of thought, and ground his teeth together.
“-his name? Sawamura? Probably can’t even-“
Not needing to hear the rest, Miyuki gripped his water bottle and suddenly his feet were moving ahead of his brain. He had dreaded the abuse in middle school, but regardless of the consequences he couldn’t keep his mouth shut, couldn’t just let it go, like his dad said or work it out, like his coach said. He’d been told, plenty of times, how boys just fight sometimes, or how we all need to try to get along. To hell with that. His vision tunneled with frustration and the words came spilling out before he had a chance to figure out what he was getting himself into.
“Pretty big talk when you still haven’t figured out how to throw over the plate, Riku-kun.”
Miyuki’s voice dropped low and stonily into the atmosphere as he edged around the corner of the dugout. He leaned backwards against the bricks, crossing his arms over his chest and stretching his lips over his teeth into a smile. He kicked his right foot over his left before meeting the eyes of his old teammate in a dead-on stare.
He saw a moment of fluster in their group, surprise at being discovered, before they composed themselves. Miyuki chuckled internally, marveling at his own steel-headedness in these situations. For whatever reason, he never stuttered a step, never exposed a moment of vulnerability, even when he felt it stinging through his bones. He hated feeling caught off-guard, and one of his special skills was never showing it.
There were three of them glaring his way, and they took a few steps forward, gaining speed as it fully registered who was mouthing off to them again. Their eyes read with so much danger that just their presence had a way of making Miyuki feel surrounded, even though they were still ten feet away.
In a few seconds though, it turned out he was exactly that, surrounded, and he took to biting his tongue to avoid cracking his expression.
Riku, forever the ringleader, ran his tongue over his teeth and crowded into Miyuki. “Say that again, you prick.”
Miyuki ignored the challenge, instead pulling his eyes over to the field with a feigned casualty. “I like to hit hard pitches in practice matches, but I guess I’ll have to wait for the next game.”
Miyuki’s eyes snapped back forwards when he felt a hand take a fistful of his jersey and push him back into the brick. “Jesus, your whole team must be rotten, between you and that shit-brain you have for a pitcher.”
Miyuki let out a chuckle that landed humorlessly between them. “Look, you can say what you want about me-“ he looked down for a second, studying the hands tangled into the front of his shirt. Bigger, now, than they used to be. He let his smile drop and drilled his eyes forward, head still stooped low. “-but if you call my pitcher stupid again, I promise this’ll be the last time you set foot on a baseball diamond.”
He saw a flash of fear in Riku’s eyes. Good.
“Fuck you.”
Creative, Miyuki thought as he made an attempt to shrug his shoulders. “Wanna know a secret?” He was grinning again, mean. “I didn’t call the pitch on your last strike. Sawamura did.”
Riku shuffled his feet. “So what?”
Miyuki raised an eyebrow. “My stupid pitcher threw a fastball down the middle, exactly as he meant to. Wanna know why?”
The question was answered with a cold stare.
Riku’s face looked threatening, and Miyuki narrowed his eyes, wondering if he was stupid enough to actually try anything. He saw Riku’s teeth dig into his bottom lip as he shifted his weight. Nope, all talk. Having decided, Miyuki crossed his elbow in front of his chest and shouldered away from Riku’s grip with a half-turn. Riku didn’t make any moves and Miyuki looked him up and down.
“Because he already knew he had you beat.”
Miyuki pushed out of their half-circle, and suddenly he could hear his pulse in his ears and his throat felt thick and tight. But his feet were steady as he walked away towards the bus. He blinked in the dim evening light as he watched a figure approach him, trotting and waving like an escaped toddler. Miyuki smiled, easily this time, betraying a swell of warmth that bloomed in his chest. He let out a breath as Sawamura approached.
“You get lost? Everyone else is on the bus already.”
Miyuki slung a hand over Sawamura’s shoulder, his fingers hanging on the soft warmth of the fabric. Feeling like he was on solid ground again, he snuck a glance over his shoulder at his old teammates, who were still brooding, and wondered how he could avoid ever having that conversation again. He’d figure it out later. He took a step and looked over at Sawamura. “If I ever get lost, there’s not a chance in hell I’m following you for directions.”
Miyuki felt Sawamura’s shoulders raise in indignation. “I’m good with the woods! And fields- it’s just all the city stuff that confuses me. Like big buildings and side streets-“
“Subways-” Miyuki added.
“Anything underground is definitely no good,” Sawamura stated with an odd intensity.
It only took Miyuki a second to read into it. “Don’t like caves, huh?” Sawamura prickled and Miyuki smiled wolfishly. “Is it the bats then? The dark? The small enclosed spaces??”
“All of it!” Sawamura blurted before he could stop himself. “I mean-“ He heaved out a breath. “Please don't use that against me.”
Miyuki tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “We’ll see.” He shrugged noncommittally.
Sawamura groaned as they reached the door of the bus and Miyuki gripped a hand around the railing. He put one foot on a step and then stopped, trailing his eyes behind him to meet Sawamura’s for a second before looking ahead again.
“Hey, Sawamura?”
“Yeah?”
Sawamura’s voice was close as he was waiting to get on the bus, so when Miyuki spoke next he dropped his voice to an almost-whisper. He let out a breath.
“You’re not stupid, okay?”
Miyuki looked over his shoulder again, unsmiling but embarrassingly earnest, his eyebrows in a soft line across his forehead, making sure that Sawamura had really gotten it, which, he had, since Sawamura’s expression gaped with a mixture of shock and excitement. He stayed like that a moment before inhaling deeply into a happy grin.
“You think I’m-“
Miyuki slapped a hand over his mouth to stop him. “Sometimes, Sawamoron, and if you tell anyone I said that I’ll definitely change my mind.”
Sawamura quieted, but Miyuki couldn’t quiet the wide smile that stuck plastered across his face. Miyuki rolled his eyes and stepped onto the bus, settling deeply into the seat next to Sawamura, where he had piled up their stuff.