Work Text:
❧
[but if you try sometime]
Up until the moment Miyuki rounds the corner, Tanba hasn't been sure he'd actually come.
To be fair, he wasn't sure he'd come himself. There are other ways to do this, including not doing it at all—but that isn't a real option. Given that it has to be done, face-to-face is the best way to do it.
Miyuki leans against the wall as he comes to a stop, one foot up behind him to brace against it, thumbs hooked into his front pockets. "So what's this secret midnight meeting all about?" he says without even a greeting. He grins then. "Or is it, perhaps, a secret practice? You don't want to let anyone know you're finally warming up to me, is that it?"
Tanba doesn't return the grin, since he's doing his best to ignore it. "It's nothing like that." He can't blame Miyuki for the presumption, but right now he has a purpose other than baseball: "I want to know if there's someone you like."
Miyuki's slouch straightens a fraction, as if his posture has been tugged upward by the arch of his eyebrows. "Oh~! So you called me here to confess?" His grin curves up even more.
"No." Tanba doesn't know if Miyuki is having him on right now or if he somehow really doesn't see it himself, but Tanba has been watching people fall for him for over a year now. With the addition of Furuya this year, the current total stands at three. Furuya is obvious about it but his single mindedness towards Miyuki is so bound up with baseball, Tanba can see how it could be misinterpreted and thereby missed. At the other end of the spectrum, Chris is quiet about his feelings and Tetsu is even quieter.
"But if there's someone you like," he continues, "you should do something about it." He's pretty sure there is someone and he's pretty sure he knows who it is; he's pretty sure everyone on Seidou does, although not everyone knows the counterpart: "Because he likes you too."
Miyuki gets a funny look on his face, like he thinks Tanba is making a joke but not the kind to laugh at.
Tanba hesitates. He wasn't planning to say this next part unless it seemed necessary. It does seem necessary in the moment, but if he's wrong about Miyuki's feelings—
No, he's not wrong. He's sure of that. "He even turned down someone else because of you."
Realization dawns across Miyuki's face, widening his eyes; his foot comes down off the wall and his arms fold across his chest as he studies Tanba now. Tanba wills himself not to blush and mostly succeeds, leaving it to the night to cover what surfaces.
"And you know that because—he told his best friend about it?"
Tanba feels his face color with the heat of the intensified blush. He pushes on as one does after giving up a home run, holding Miyuki's gaze evenly. He is Chris's best friend but—"No," he says.
It's Miyuki who breaks the gaze, turning his head as he looks at the ground. He's serious in a way Tanba has never seen him off the field. That seriousness, the best Tanba could have hoped for, lets him breathe easier.
"Are you really okay with this?" Miyuki finally says, returning his gaze to Tanba. "With telling me this—with what I might do with the information?"
The only thing Tanba wouldn't be okay with is Chris getting hurt. He doesn't think Miyuki will do that, at least not straight off or intentionally. Truthfully, Tanba thinks it's even odds as to which of them will wind up hurting the other, but it should be a while before that eventuality. Long enough, probably, for what will come before it to be worth the heartbreak. He nods.
Miyuki looks at him a moment longer before pushing himself off the wall and pocketing his hands. He doesn't say anything.
Tanba leaves him to his thoughts, taking his own with him wordlessly.
It takes Miyuki a few days but then one night, on his way back from an evening of throwing forkballs into the net, Tanba sees them talking. He's not close enough to hear anything or read their expressions but he knows this is it. He watches Chris step closer and take off Miyuki's glasses; he watches them kiss.
He doesn't have to see their expressions to know how they're smiling, how they're looking at each other when the kiss breaks. He continues on his way, leaving the next kiss and everything subsequent to them alone.
[you just might find]
When Tanba says, "If there's someone you like, you should do something about it—because he likes you too," Miyuki has two concurrent thoughts.
One is that that's impossible, because Tanba just said he's not confessing.
The other is that it didn't take Kuramochi long to turn traitor after the other night.
"You like him even though—no." Sitting back, Kuramochi had pointed at him with a finger both triumphant and accusatory. "You like him because he doesn't like you. That's messed up." He'd shaken his head, grinning. "You're a pretty fucked up guy, Miyuki, you know that?"
Miyuki hadn't responded. It's obvious he knows he's fucked up. But even though Kuramochi figured out Miyuki has a thing for Tanba, he's wrong about the reason why. Or at least he's not entirely right.
Now Tanba says, "He even turned down someone else because of you," and it hits Miyuki:
Tanba isn't talking about himself.
Or he is, but he's not the someone of the first sentence—he's the someone else of the second sentence.
Tanba likes Chris too. It makes Miyuki like Tanba even more.
And then he hears what Tanba is telling him.
With anyone else it might be surprising, but not coming from Tanba. Although he may not have the raw talent of Furuya or Sawamura, he's definitely the ace. He's always doing what he thinks is right, regardless of how it might impact him personally. For the sake of the team, he's been offering genuine advice to the pitchers gunning for his number. And now this.
Miyuki wants to tell him he's a man among men.
He doesn't say anything as Tanba walks off and neither does Tanba.
Miyuki takes a few days to think. He didn't think he had a chance with Chris. Honestly, he thought he'd never have one, so even though he can't stop himself from liking Chris, he's done his best to put those feelings where they can't be touched (even if they can be seen by those with enough motive, however pure or immoral, to look for them).
If Kuramochi had told him to go for it—if anyone else had, even Tetsu—Miyuki would have suspected he was being messed with.
But it wasn't anyone else; it was Tanba.
So Miyuki thinks for a few days and then he asks Chris to meet him at midnight.
"I heard you like someone," he says straight off, before he accidentally starts talking about strategies for upcoming games or how to handle the first year pitchers or anything else. "If it's true—that someone likes you too." He takes a breath, takes a chance: "He's in love with your baseball and he always will be. But he likes you even apart from baseball."
Chris is looking at him. Just looking at him. It's not easy but Miyuki looks back.
Then Chris steps closer, takes off Miyuki's glasses, takes a half step back. Miyuki can tell Chris is still looking at him; that gaze is quickening his pulse. "I can't see well without my glasses, you know."
Chris steps in again. "How's this?"
"Not bad." Miyuki grins. "But knowing you, Chris, you can do even better."
The faint smile fades from Chris's mouth but it's still in his eyes as he leans close, closer.
All Miyuki can see are Chris's eyes.
He feels Chris's breath against his lips and his eyes fall shut and they're kissing.
And Miyuki never thought anything would thrill like baseball, but oh this kiss~
[you get what you need]
When Miyuki asked to speak with him alone, Chris had a pretty good idea what it was about but he didn't know how to feel. Standing here facing Miyuki, he still doesn't know, even when Miyuki says, "I heard you like someone. If it's true—that someone likes you too."
Chris doesn't have to wonder where Miyuki heard it. Tanba is not the only one who knows how Chris feels, but there'd been something in his eyes when Chris had said, as gently and honestly as he could, that while he values Tanba beyond words, there's someone else. "Miyuki," Tanba had said with an expression Chris hadn't been able to read. Now he understands that in that moment, Tanba—out of personal integrity as well as for their friendship, even though Chris had assured him the bond between them was as strong as ever—meant to make this happen.
It's not that Chris is blind to the way Miyuki looks at him and always has. And here it is now: "He's in love with your baseball," Miyuki says about himself. Chris knows it's true and he hopes Miyuki knows it's mutual.
But still he doesn't know how to feel about all this.
And then Miyuki says, "He likes you even apart from baseball."
Chris looks at Miyuki; takes a breath and looks at him. Now he doesn't know how to feel or what to think. He's never thought of himself apart from baseball. As far as he knows, no one ever has. He doesn't know if it's even possible—but there's something in the way Miyuki is looking at him now. Maybe it's only a shimmer of starlight reflecting off his glasses, though.
Chris takes the glasses off Miyuki.
The shimmer is still there in his eyes.
Chris has never thought of himself apart from baseball...but maybe it wouldn't be bad to have something of himself outside it...something not for the team but for himself...
He steps closer when Miyuki asks him to.
When Miyuki calls for the kiss, Chris leans in, sends his breath to Miyuki, receives Miyuki's in turn. Miyuki's eyes flutter shut and as the gaze breaks and the kiss goes on, his own eyes closing too, Chris lets himself fall, lets himself be caught.