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As someone in a position that demands him to make choices within seconds, Chris understands there will always be consequences for each one, but he doesn’t even need a millisecond to understand the sign in front of his face.
“Mm, I don’t think so,” Chris says, turning to face Eijun with his hands in his pockets. “It seems pretty clear from this chained-up, locked gate we can’t go past this point.”
Eijun makes a noise of disagreement, something that rumbles in his chest, while he peers in between the bars of the tall gate with narrowed eyes.
“Trespassing, Chris-senpai,” Eijun replies, craning his neck to look farther into the campus as he rubs his hands together and blows into them, “is only a concept when someone is around. We made it this far, haven’t we? Would be a shame to stop here.”
“It took thirty minutes for us to get here by train. Hardly somewhere far.”
“And?” Eijun frowns, but it lasts for only a moment before he settles for a playful smile. He bounces on his toes. “Thirty minutes is a long time! We could’ve slept in. We could’ve made fancy breakfast! But we’re here now which means the only valid option is to go inside. Don’t you love to say ‘every minute counts’?”
“They do, but it counts even when you do the right thing,” Chris says, tugging Eijun’s hand as he takes a step backward. “It was worth the shot, but we can get some coffee and call it a day. I’ll even entice you with some croissants.”
Eijun hums, shaking his head, jerking Chris back towards him that Chris almost steps on his toes. “Croissants are tempting but the day has barely begun! Which means — time is of the essence and the early bird gets the worm and then we get the croissants after the worm.”
Chris sighs, but it sounds too fond to be of an exasperated sound, “What worm are we referring to now?”
“Nostalgia,” Eijun answers, meeting Chris’s eyes, reaching up to brush his fingers against Chris’s jaw. He squeezes Chris’s hand before he lets go, then wiggles in between the bars of the gate until he makes it to the other side with a stumble. He turns to face Chris, spreading his arms wide and offers Chris a smile that makes Chris’s chest tighten. “Come fly with me!”
Chris shakes his head and returns his smile, placing his fingertips where Eijun touched him. “Take your time to get those worms!"
Eijun groans, tossing his head back, flailing his arms behind him. “Don’t be boring.”
“Safe isn’t boring.”
“How can you do so well as a catcher and then decide sneaking into our old high school is risky?” Eijun asks, stalking back towards the gate. “That’s boring.”
"Catching for you doesn't have a trespassing sign."
“I think that’s debatable.”
“Debate as much as you’d like,” Chris says with a close-lipped smile that doesn’t meet his eyes. He crosses his arms. “I’m staying right here.”
“It’s only trespassing if you get caught,” Eijun insists with a whine, sticking his hands out between the bars to grab Chris’s own. Chris dodges him by stepping back. Eijun scowls. “Do you think anyone comes here during this time? It’s a holiday, too.”
“Security guards,” Chris points out.
“Right.” Eijun rolls his eyes, pressing his cheek into the metal as he waves his hands, then drops them with another whine when Chris doesn’t take them. “But that still brings up my point that something bad will only happen if we get caught. The worst thing they can do is kick us out. Plus, I brought this,” he straightens up and pulls something out of his wallet from his back pocket. “Found it during our spring cleaning.”
He brandishes his old school ID between his fingers and hands it over to Chris who peers down at it, laughing softly at what he sees.
Leave it to first-year Sawamura Eijun to almost blink in his high school photo with eyes halfway shut and an awkward, stretched smile that takes up most of his face in his crisp Seidou uniform. This isn’t even the Eijun that Chris was first acquainted with. The Eijun he met was stubborn and brash, always willing to talk out of place, a person Chris found much too unpleasant.
Chris judged quickly, based on his initial impression upon their meeting and Eijun aptly expressed his own, stuffing up their practices with generous scowls and glares. Yet it lasted just for a moment, before Eijun opened up his heart so suddenly that it took Chris by surprise as he stared down at Eijun who bowed in front of him with a careful trepidation so many years ago.
Afterward, Chris began to see the Eijun in this photo routinely and he never knew his vision could expand to encompass all of Sawamura Eijun for a long time.
It’s a new, always different sight with each passing year. The Eijun that stands before him, with his hair cut short so it doesn’t get into his eyes or plaster on his forehead with sweat during games, with his chin held up high in pride from years of hard work, with eyes brighter than before is just one of the sights. But even with his slight differences, like the school they stand in front of with its fresh paint and clean windows, everything feels natural, like when Chris slipped on his batting gloves during their spring cleaning — well-worn, just right, and comfortable. The feeling Chris has with Eijun is the same, especially since Eijun is a person who has always stood true to who he is. Even the supposed deterioration of age has not shifted a thing in Eijun’s character.
“Also, if this doesn’t work,” Eijun adds, slipping his past self back into his front pocket, “and they do try to kick us out, I’ll try using my current face.”
Chris exhales shortly through his nose and says, “You only have one face, Eijun.”
“No, no,” Eijun says, closing his eyes as he lifts his chin. He points a thumb at his face. “This can also be a pitcher of the Yomiuri Giants.” He points at Chris and a grin spreads across his face when he opens his eyes. “The starting catcher of the Yomiuri Giants can be used just in case. I think that’s enough to convince them we can stay.”
“You’re going to bribe them with our status within society?”
“Not a bribe,” Eijun makes a face when he catches Chris’s look of disapproval. He waves it away. “Persuasion. Have I persuaded you enough?”
“Not at all,” Chris says, walking towards the gate to slip one of his legs in between two of the bars, sucking in his stomach to painfully squeeze through them, shoulders scraping the dew-slicked gate. Eijun watches him and lets out a whoop with his fists pumped up, then he falters when Chris walks towards him, cupping his face to kiss him.
When Chris parts from him, Eijun turns his head aside, and mumbles, lips brushing the corners of Chris’s mouth, “What’s that for?”
Chris pulls back to smile at Eijun, smoothing his thumbs over Eijun’s flush. “I felt like giving you a goodbye before we meet our inevitable end in the hands of a security guard.”
Eijun blinks owlishly at him, then knocks his forehead into Chris’s chest when he bends down to cackle. “Don’t be so dramatic.”
“Where do you think I get that from?” Chris laughs, taking Eijun’s hand.
“Not me,” Eijun says, rounding the perimeter of the school until they’re near the back entrance. "I've grown from that."
"Have you?" Chris asks. "It's only been a few hours since I woke up to you crying over that drama you've been marathoning."
Eijun walks up the entrance steps and freezes at Chris’s words, shooting a look from his shoulder. "If you understood why that last episode hurt me so much — betrayal after ten episodes of loyalty, by the way — then you would get that it's not being dramatic."
"All right," Chris says, holding out his hands, amused as he remembers waking up to Eijun with a wad of tissues crumpled up to his mouth as tears rolled down his face in front of his laptop, "I will rest my case."
"Thanks," Eijun grumbles, stomping up towards the door. "Someone who doesn't have the time to watch historical dramas with me because they’re too busy with whatever they’re too busy with shouldn't argue against me."
Chris hangs his head, chuckling, and repeats, "I’ll rest my case."
“One hour of a drama isn’t the same as studying scorebooks for hours,” Eijun says, peering into the frosted glass of the back entrance doors as Chris walks up beside him.
Eijun grasps the doorknob and jiggles it, sticking his tongue out of the corner of his mouth. “Would be sad if this didn’t open up but I — aha!”
The door swings open without much effort, revealing a dark hallway with a few cabinets and boxes against one of the walls. Chris stays silent, waiting for the jingle of keys or the echoing of footsteps, but he hears nothing.
“Perhaps the security guard is on their break?” Chris asks.
“Perhaps the security guards don’t care,” Eijun shoots back, but he's smug when he faces Chris. “Let’s go.”
He takes Chris’s hand and looks around for school slippers. They find some near the cabinet closest to them. Chris pulls his shoes off and slips them on, straightening up to look down the hallway again.
Seidou hasn’t changed one bit. The linoleum floors still have a slip beneath his slippers as he walks with Eijun through the hallway. The paint is still a flat ivory, bouncing off the dawn light that streams through the windows behind them. He feels surprisingly a little out of place in a school he was in for three important years. It could be the thick sweater he wears without any semblance of a Seidou emblem on his chest or the pitcher he yearned for holding his hand like it was always the right fit. It’s as if walking into a place of the past uncovers and amplifies his true and real self, and it feels slightly unsettling. His skin prickles, an odd tingling running down his arms, and every step they take feels slow, deliberate.
“Weird,” Eijun says quietly. “Nothing really has changed.”
They find a staircase to their left. Eijun pulls out his phone and turns on his flashlight onto them so they don’t misstep.
“Scared, Chris-senpai?” he whispers, briefly shining the flashlight on his face, spreading unflattering stripes of shadows across his eyes and underneath his nose. “Don’t worry, I got you.”
“I am, surprisingly, not as reassured as I should be,” Chris replies. “Unless that is your intention.”
“Are you saying I’m not prepared to protect you?”
“I’m saying you don’t have enough on your person to protect the both of us. I’m including myself because—”
They hear footsteps from above them. Eijun inhales sharply.
Chris chuckles. “It’s your time, Eijun—”
Eijun presses his palm on his mouth and Chris laughs, muffled beneath it, before wrapping his fingers around Eijun’s wrist to pull his hand off gently. “You have your ID?”
He watches Eijun nod curtly, patting the front of his jeans with shaky hands to pull his card out of his pocket.
“Do you think the light would give us awa—”
Eijun scrambles with his phone to turn off his flashlight then claps his hand on Chris’s mouth again, card clattering on the steps before them, and hisses, “How are we supposed to be sneaky if you keep talking, Chris-senpai?”
“I thought,” Chris says, beneath Eijun’s palm, “we were going to be celebrities and use that?”
The footsteps grow louder and Eijun clamps down farther on Chris’s mouth. Chris grunts, prying Eijun’s hand off his face, then presses his lips together to hold in a laugh. Eijun breathes too heavily and loudly that if the footsteps were a vengeful ghost, they’d be pretty much dead. He rests his hand on the small of Eijun’s back to steady him as the footsteps begin to fade. Eijun presses a hand to his own chest then steps backward, pressing into Chris’s touch.
“Was that Plan B?” Chris asks.
“Maybe I should’ve just said we have plans but it depends on what we come across,” Eijun mutters, glancing at him as he turns on the phone flashlight again.
“So Plan A is…?”
“Walk away from the footsteps.”
Chris laughs, quietly, so that it doesn’t bounce in an echo. Eijun glares at the sound before his eyes soften when Chris reaches a hand around to run his fingers lightly over Eijun’s hair at the nape of his neck. “You’re working hard for someone who was so confident this morning.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Eijun replies, bending down to take back his ID. He begins to walk up the staircase two steps at a time. “Don’t discredit me. I’m still as confident as I’ve always been.”
“Of course,” Chris says. They walk up each floor in silence, with Eijun pausing intermittently to listen in on any footsteps. Chris reassures him, bumping his shoulder into Eijun’s as they walk, and they, fortunately, at least to Eijun’s relief, manage to walk up all the way to the door for the rooftop.
When Eijun opens the door, he gasps, loud enough with a gust of cold wind hitting them that whoever they were trying to avoid would’ve heard his voice travel five floors down. Chris can’t blame him. The sun is just barely inching over the horizon, a beautiful sliver of light over a sky in hazy orange. Eijun runs towards the chain link fence closest to the sun and he fits right in, his cream sweater reflecting all of the warm colors back, like he’s part of the sun that floods the floors. A sunspot against other sunspots.
It must be that they’re technically breaking into their old high school together, motivated only by the grand idea that Eijun wants to feel something again like he told Chris over breakfast of buttered toast and eggs. It must be that the feeling of standing somewhere, on a rooftop of a school he never really explored because he was so preoccupied with baseball makes him understand the nostalgia Eijun is talking about. He’s not really flying, like Eijun wants, because Chris has flown with Eijun many times before. It’s not a new feeling at all.
But he’s prompted to keep indulging the nostalgia of being here with Eijun. He walks towards him and wraps his arm around Eijun’s waist as Eijun’s teeth begin to clack as he shivers with the wind.
“Cold?” Chris asks, rubbing his hand up and down Eijun’s waist to add some warmth.
“Nah, I’m fine,” Eijun says, stepping closer to suck up any heat Chris has.
“Eijun,” Chris says after a moment, wrapping his fingers through the cold fence, feeling the metal bite into the tender parts of his hand, “if you could do anything again, would you do it?”
“Like, deciding to sneak into Seidou more often?” Eijun grins at him. “You’re okay with that?”
Chris nudges him with an elbow. “I really mean anything.”
Eijun looks at him and his eyes crinkle at the corners, bumping his head into Chris’s. “Nothing.”
Chris is convinced in his words, matching him with his own smile, but still asks, “Really?”
“Do you want me to say something to just satisfy you?”
“Of course not. That’s never needed.”
Eijun shakes his head. “There’s nothing that I’d change because I’ve got everything I need. If I changed something, that means something would change that led me here, right? What was that we were talking about?” He looks down and curls his fingers to his mouth, muttering, “You went on a whole spiel about it when I was trying to sleep... Parallel—”
“Universes.”
“That!” Eijun snaps his fingers. “If I took a step away from you five years ago, would this have happened?”
Chris shrugs, his shoulder grazing against Eijun’s. “We wouldn’t know.”
“So, why would I regret anything now?” Eijun tilts his head, biting his lip. “Clearly, it’s the choice that was supposed to be made. Creating this path, choosing the door on the left instead of the right, choosing Seidou instead of any other team,” he gestures around them, to the rooftop and beyond. “Each path led me to you. What if I did choose another door? What if I turned back? Made a right? Would I still have the chance to be part of the same team?”
Chris knows Eijun also thinks of his choices, but he’s much more into considering the consequences after them, but he gets what Eijun means. Eijun is a person who will only ever decide to do something and know that something will shift, change outside and inside of the spaces that he’s around. In these spaces, thankfully, is Chris.
“But, honestly,” Eijun adds, reaching up to cup Chris’s face and run his thumb over his cheekbone. He lowers his gaze, then clears his throat. A sign that he’s feeling a little embarrassed but he doesn’t want to show it off too much. He looks back up, eyes gleaming. “I think in any parallel universe you’d probably be there so any choice would have worked.”
Chris pinches Eijun’s red, cold-nipped nose lightly. “A little cheesy.”
“It took a lot to even get us together. I can afford cheesy,” Eijun says, scrunching up his nose. “So, maybe it’s not parallel universes, just fate.”
Fate sounds a little silly to Chris, but in the world of baseball, it might not just be hard work that leads a team. Baseball sometimes relies on fate to turn the tides. Teammates rely on that fate when there is no more hope to hold onto. Chris understands it’s difficult to hold onto something like hope when you’re looking up at a scoreboard that displays the opposite of it. Sometimes fate is merciful, and a team unlikely to win does appeal to it.
Wouldn’t that be luck? Chris wonders. Chris wouldn’t say luck is what brought him to where he’s standing. He’d say it was the opposite of it. A slate wiped dry, with regret holding it up, but baseball brought Eijun to him, so perhaps fate really exists.
Chris continues to ask for more, “And no regrets?”
Eijun's hand slips from Chris’s face and he frowns, a small downturned pout. “I think we both know there’s a lot of those.” He turns back to the warmth, an offering to the sun. His skin always tans easily, and Chris longs to kiss each freckle for the moments he’s had in the sun because they’re moments they’ve had with each other on the field. “And yours?”
“I can count a few of my own, but I could say none of them have you.”
Eijun nods and doesn’t pry Chris about them.
They’ve spoken of those moments before, quietly in the dark or in the earliest of mornings, most of them from times before Chris met Eijun. After seeing Eijun after Chris retired from Seidou baseball, fading, with dark circles underneath his eyes, he understood regret would be inevitable if also the catalyst for something bigger. Even if they’re standing in a place where most of Chris’s regrets manifested and bloomed, Chris knows it isn’t something he feels a need to run from anymore because he watched Eijun fall, then rise up exactly the way Chris expected.
Eijun then taught Chris to let go, to fall, to dig up something new, of a perspective unseen. Eijun made him understand there were people that existed who didn’t allow regret to guide them into a darkness, but farther, much farther into a blinding light. And for Chris, that blinding light was Eijun.
“Now that we’re prompted to walk down memory lane on this fine morning,” Eijun begins, tapping him on the head to refocus Chris’s eyes to him, “Do you remember what you told me when you graduated?”
Chris presses his lips together. “Not exactly.”
Time weathers some memories naturally, but not everything, so he remembers some moments, like Eijun’s eyes swimming with tears, and his smile as his sobs thundered through the courtyard, plucking at each heartstring he wove into Chris’s chest.
“I only remember you crying,” Chris continues, “And everyone laughing about it.”
“No reason for them to laugh,” Eijun says, turning away for a moment, “It’s like they don’t know who I am.”
“You make it very difficult for people to not know who you are, Eijun.”
“Besides the point,” Eijun says, waving him off. “I remember everything. I’ve got the memory of an elephant.”
“Do you now? What did I say?”
Chris could only say at his graduation what he thought would help Eijun. Most of his feelings then were entangled with how to help Eijun face his aspirations, his drive to become the ace. Like anything for Chris, it took time for him to discover those feelings weren’t just duty or loyalty he strove to be part of as Eijun’s teammate, but of a love, one that was fragile and new.
Eijun clears his throat, then tips his chin down and tries to emulate Chris’s usual, soft gaze.
“Sawamura,” he begins, low. “Soon, you’ll find out what you’ve worked for will reward you in ways you won’t even see coming.”
Chris bites back a smile. “That’s an excellent impression of me.”
“It’d be a shame if I couldn’t do it. Been years,” Eijun says, raising his eyebrows.
“Do you think you found your rewards?”
Eijun shrugs, but he’s grinning. “A little bit.”
“And your discoveries?”
“Soon, to a high schooler, feels like it should happen the next day,” Eijun says, straightening up with his lips pursed and his arms crossed. “And it did. A year felt like a week, but then I made it, got the ace number, shared it with Furuya, went to Koshien, and got here. And now, time still feels like what my gramps always says it is."
Chris understands. “A blink of an eye.”
Eijun nods, closes his eyes, and places his hands on his hips. “Yup. Which means we should value every single moment. Seize the day.”
“So, valuing your slight criminal offense of sneaking into our old high school should be valued? Like that?”
“Like that?” Eijun repeats, eyes flying open, voice hitched high in disbelief. He blows a raspberry. “Wasn’t your birthday like a month ago? Why does it feel like it was yesterday? Blink right now, Chris-senpai, and tell me what you see.”
“Don’t be silly—”
Eijun presses his chilly palms into Chris’s cheeks, drawing his eyebrows together. “Blink.”
Chris blinks and opens his eyes to Eijun looking at him expectantly. “Now what do you see?”
“I see you."
“Correct,” Eijun says, patting his cheeks. “Absolutely correct.”
“I’m unsure…” Chris says slowly, holding Eijun’s wrists loosely to pull them off his face, “as to where you’re going with this.”
Eijun opts to grip Chris’s chin now between his fingers to demand his attention, tilting his face down so he can meet Eijun's eyes.
He says, “Time comes in a blink of an eye, Chris-senpai. But every time I open them, every time another day comes by and I blink, I see you. You’re there. Every time.”
Chris feels his face heat and he tries to duck his head to hide it, but Eijun holds him firmly.
“That makes us even,” Chris replies, after a moment when he finally calms himself.
Eijun lets go of Chris. “With what?”
“I’ve been rewarded as well. What I told you at graduation was about your moment, your time to shine, your ‘soon,’ but I have been pleasantly surprised that your moments had a place for me.”
It’s Eijun’s turn to blush now. He’s always gladly eaten up compliments, but he reacts like he’s never received one before each time, face turning red, eyes shining, but he doesn’t hide like Chris, he always presses himself as close as possible to Chris before he places kisses on every inch of available skin in gratitude.
He doesn’t do it this time. He instead takes a step back and inhales, chest puffed out, before he says, “All right, that’s it. If you’re gonna be like this, then I just gotta keep going with the memory lane stuff. Step back.”
Chris feels himself smiling, and obeys, taking a few steps away from Eijun. “What dubious plan do you have now? Plan D?”
“Kinda,” Eijun says, pinching the hem of his sweater in between his fingers while he licks his lips. “Do you remember what I said during the graduation?”
“No, how would I ever forget?”
Eijun stares at him, mouth slack. “And you forgot what you said? We only have one elephant up here today, huh?”
“You said,” Chris says, without answering him, “Even though you’re gone, I'll keep working hard.”
"Think that still stands?"
"My faith is unwavering. Always has.”
“Would’ve been nice if you said that during graduation,” Eijun says, cheeks turning pink. “But it’s fine now. No reason to cry over that. Probably would’ve lost it more and Kuramochi-senpai would tease me for days. But that is also besides the point! Let’s not change the subject! Look at this." He paints his open palms around them and points at the clouds above. “Look at that pretty sky, look at that new sun, look at this space, empty and just for us, and now,” he pats his chest, “look at me.”
“Eijun,” Chris huffs a laugh. “What are you doing?”
“What I actually wanted to do when I was in graduation. This is the perfect shoujo setting.”
He chews at his lip, bobs his head, then rocks forward before he takes a knee.
Chris’s eyes grow wide. He feels his stomach twist painfully, the hard cement beneath him dizzyingly unstable. He takes another step back and just stares silently. Eijun stares back, face still red but he does not back down. His eyes are hardened, determined, a look he always wears on his face without shame.
“You wanted to ask me to marry you in high school?” Chris asks, voice quiet, trembling. He raises a hand to press it to his lips. “Which shoujo were you reading recently?”
“Well, no, there was no shoujo. You saw what I read this morning,” Eijun flubs, stammering out each word. “I was reading— about our last match— Well, kind of?”
“Eijun,” Chris says. “Are you asking me to marry you or are you reenacting something?”
“Kind of?” Eijun repeats, with a slight frown. He barks out a laugh, but it comes out too shaky, choked out. He holds out his hands after, and puffs out his cheeks. “Okay, let me explain. When I was in high school reading shoujo, it felt like couples were confessing like they were getting married. During your graduation, I think I liked you so much and didn’t know where my respect landed and where my love began and I probably felt a confession coming on. But I didn't do anything.” He laughs sheepishly, scratching his cheek with a finger. “So, consider this a re-do. I’m going to let you know I don’t have a ring or a speech or anything if you were expecting that. I wasn't really expecting to do this either—"
"How long were you planning this?”
This isn’t unlike Eijun, to suddenly do something out of the blue. He likes to take Chris by surprise because it’s the one way, as he insists, to unearth faces of Chris that no one else has the pleasure of seeing. But Eijun’s acting like he doesn’t know what he’s just done.
“You see… I’m kinda going with the flow here,” Eijun begins, rubbing the back of his neck. “All I wanted to do was tell you how much I cared about you but now I just want you to marry me. It seems like… the right choice?”
“No bad choices?” Chris asks, swaying a little where he stands. His hands shake as he attempts to breathe, heart beating unsteadily in his chest. “Even asking on this rooftop?”
“Never any bad choices. Only good ones when I’m with you.”
Chris presses a hand to his forehead. “What will the team think of this?”
Eijun splutters, “Am I mentioning the team? This is about us.”
“Have you thought about the wedding?" Chris says as he drops his hand at his side. "Who we’d invite?”
“You’re way too ahead of me,” Eijun sighs, hanging his head. “Don't think about those things. All I’m thinking about right now is that I love you. And you know that’s not a bad choice.”
There are consequences to every choice, but every choice Chris takes with Eijun doesn’t seem to have one.
Before meeting Eijun, Seidou was a void, an in-between, where the promise of what would come after graduation was bright. He didn’t expect his future to come into light as a person, of a golden hour that he could only see if he turned to face it before he even left Seidou. Eijun was a breakthrough, bringing the sun in his hands to place streams of it into the darkest corners of Chris's mind that Chris tried desperately to turn away from. He chose to face them all because Eijun was there.
Here is Eijun, making a choice for them and what their relationship means to him. If Chris can choose with Eijun by his side forever, he would do just that. Eijun is giving him the chance to.
“Are you sure?” Chris asks, because even if they’ve been together for so long and Chris wakes up and sees Eijun, sleeping by his side, warm and real, Chris likes to be comforted by the idea that what he knows is something Eijun can say aloud. “Marriage is a big step.”
“Does it look like I want to marry anyone else?” Eijun raises his voice, frowning. “You make it sound like you’re objecting.”
“Would you want to consider your options?”
Chris doesn’t need to consider his own options. He knows what he wants. He stands right here in front of him. He has an idea of what Eijun wants too, but he supposes he’s also looking for a kind of nostalgia. He wants the flash in Eijun’s eyes that shows off his brazen determination to pull through with something because there’s no other choice but to keep running.
Eijun exhales loudly, nostrils flaring, as he lowers his eyes. He grips his knee and looks up and there it is. He stares at Chris, and his eyes glow with the incoming sunlight. Chris feels the tie at his neck, the starchy, thick blazer on his body, the case of his degree held at his fingers, and the eyes of the boy Chris fell in love with years ago.
“But I want to do this with you,” Eijun says once the sun finally crests from the horizon, an emblem for how Chris’s heart feels looking at Eijun. Eijun’s eyes shine as he looks up at him, and his lip trembles a little, but he continues, “I love weddings. I love going to them, and even if you don’t want the grand, big wedding because you don’t like being in front of crowds even though you stand in front of them every day, we can at least have each other. That’s the point, isn’t it? Of marriage? Of a belief that we can keep doing this?”
Eijun has only ever followed his own system of beliefs. He believes in Chris to take a chance to understand him, with a willfulness unlike other pitchers, in a place that proved things wouldn't crumble if Chris touched them.
"Of course,” Chris replies.
“And trust?”
“I trust you everyday.”
“And will you — will you every other day after this?” Eijun asks, tears finally falling. He looks at Chris menacingly despite them when he says, “You know I’m not talking about our games.”
“I know that.”
“Then what is it? Will you?”
When Chris was eighteen, he saw Eijun as an ace for the first time. It was unlike him to feel compelled to yell his lungs out until his voice broke, but seeing Eijun turn with the ace number on his back made him feel like he had no control over his body. Seeing the number with his own eyes was something that made him tremble and it dawned on him that he wanted to be there with Eijun.
It wasn’t enough to watch Eijun, bend at the waist before nodding at Miyuki, pull up his mitt, grip the ball hard and throw it with all intentions to bore a hole through the batter’s chest. It wasn’t enough to stand there, watching him strikeout after strikeout with others in awe over a performance he knew Eijun always possessed. It already wasn’t enough to have only three innings with him when they worked together.
So, he had to move forward, and believe something could happen, just as he and Eijun had happened in Seidou.
He gathered Eijun’s grit and shoved it into his own will to keep going until that time came. He wasn’t one to pray, but it felt like the only option. To pray that the knowledge he kept would appease his shoulder. To pray that each time he’d walk on a baseball field during college, he would be fine, every single day, until Eijun graduated and they had their new chances with baseball. He was honestly praying for what Eijun would say was fate.
And then that time did come, and the relief that filled him with the draft announcements sent him reeling.
The feeling of seeing Eijun stand in front of him on the mound was a feeling Chris couldn’t define. Indescribable, pounding through his heart, cemented into his bones, so deep-rooted that Chris believed in destiny when he looked at Eijun from across the field.
He looks at Eijun now, and still can’t define it. There isn’t a word that is stronger than love and Chris wishes there was. But if he were to create one, it could not be encompassed into a lone word.
He walks towards Eijun and holds his hand out to pull him up. He only ever wants to see Eijun eye-to-eye the same way Eijun does. After Eijun rises, Chris wipes Eijun's tears with the hem of his sleeve and kisses him. He tries to pour that exact sentiment from his body into Eijun’s.
When he pulls away, he rests his forehead against Eijun’s and says, “Yes.”
“Yes, what?” Eijun says, softly, breath at Chris's lips.
“Yes, I'll be with you."
“Good,” Eijun says, leaning forward to brush his lips over Chris's jaw, then to his mouth. “Because that’s what I would choose too.”
Eijun kisses him again, as the sun begins to illuminate beneath Chris's eyelids into a white, blinding light, and it makes Chris wonder — what’s it like to stare into the sun for a long period of time? There’s the simple answer and there’s a more complex one, each one with its own consequence that Chris can recite in his sleep. The simple answer is that staring into the sun burns the eyes, imprints onto the retinas, pops of light flashing with every blink for an uncomfortable amount of time. The more complex one, as Eijun’s lips move against Chris’s own, is one that is harder to find, but within the core of it, within the intricacies of the answer, Chris will always find Eijun.