Work Text:
Sawamura’s bottom lip was bitten almost red raw, Kazuya noted. He knew his own lips weren’t fairing much better either. It was a habit Kazuya realised early on in their battery that they both shared and which manifested most strongly when leading up to an important game for Seido. Often Kazuya had glanced over towards Sawamura during practice and caught him biting down on the chapped skin, only to realise that he too had been chewing his own lip without noticing.
While Kazuya rarely felt truly nervous before a game, there was always a restlessness that thrummed beneath his skin—a restless excitement that felt ready to burst out of him at any moment unless he did something to quash it down—
Like biting down savagely on his bottom lip.
Although he’d never asked, Kazuya knew it was the same for Sawamura too. Sawamura would bite down on his lip with a smile that was close to feral and with an intensity in his gaze so luminous that it burned in Kazuya’s retinas long after he closed his eyes at night.
So Kazuya was never concerned at the sight of freshly bitten lips on his ace pitcher. It was usually a sign of a good game ahead for their battery. A good omen.
Kazuya held back a small shiver as a thrill of anticipation surged through him upon imagining the sensation of Sawmaura’s pitches hitting his mitt in the game tomorrow. A foolish, greedy part of him wanted to keep catching more of Sawmaura’s pitches right now, late into the night and way past any sensible throwing limit Kazuya would set as a responsible catcher and captain.
But practice was over, Sawamura had just finished clearing up the stray baseballs in the bullpen, and Kazuya still had enough sense left in him not to overwork his pitcher the night before the game. They had already stayed behind longer than intended—the rest of the team having left to bathe, eat and collapse into bed at least an hour ago—so now it was only the two of them left to mull in the odd, quiet energy that so frequently lingered before the incoming storm of clashing teams and ringing bats.
Looking away from Sawamura, Kazuya took off his helmet and made to loosen his chest protector, or at least, he tried to. The straps wouldn’t move. Kazuya clicked his tongue in annoyance and pulled them harder. Nothing. Frowning, he awkwardly tried to feel around his back for where the problem was. It must have gotten twisted somewhere.
“Good night, Cap!” Sawmaura’s voice called out, and Kazuya’s eyes snapped back towards the pitcher. Sawmaura’s too-bright smile so easily betrayed his pre-game excitement, despite his attempt at a casual wave in Kazuya’s direction. He practically bounced his way out of the bullpen without waiting for a reply from Kazuya.
“Wait, Sawamura,” Kazuya called, and Sawamura stepped back into view, blinking curiously at him in question.
“Can you—ah—” Kazuya tugged one last time and sighed before admitting defeat. “Can you give me a hand?”
“Of course!” Grin back on his face and voice at way too loud a volume for this late in the day, Sawamura was by his side in an instant, dropping his bag to the floor unceremoniously. “What do you need?”
Kazuya let out a small huff of laughter. Eijun the eternally eager and earnest.
“I would say save that energy for tomorrow,” Kazuya said, “but maybe it’s best that you let some of it out now so that you’ll actually be able to sleep tonight.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” Kazuya shook his head in amusement. “The straps on my chest protector are jammed, that’s all. I can’t find where it’s twisted—”
“On it!”
Sawamura stepped behind him, and Kazuya felt his fingers begin to slip up and under the straps across his back. Even though everything about Sawamura’s being in this moment radiated with pure, boisterous energy, his hands moved with surprising gentleness. Sawamura was really warm. Kazuya could feel the heat of his fingertips even through the layers of his jersey and undershirt.
“How did you get it so tangled?” Sawamura murmured, a frown of concentration clearly audible in his voice as he tugged and pulled on the straps. His knuckles grazed up Kazuya’s spine and Kazuya fought the urge to shiver, which was odd, as he wasn’t usually ticklish. He shrugged in response to Sawamura’s question without thinking.
Sawamura made an annoyed sound as the straps were pulled out of his grasp with the movement.
“Sorry, sorry,” Kazuya placated him quickly, “I don’t know. It felt fine when I first put it on.” Sawamura exhaled sharply through his nose, and Kazuya was about to apologise a second time for moving without realising, until he heard the undeniable teasing tone in Sawamura’s voice as he spoke again.
“How long have you been wearing catcher’s gear now, senpai?”
“Hey!” Kazuya said, hating himself just a little bit for not even attempting to sound offended, and failing completely to keep the fond smile off his face. “It can happen sometimes, okay? No matter how much practice I’ve had wearing it.”
“Sure, sure…”
Sawamura’s hands brushed Kazuya’s waist as he sought out another tangle. Kazuya wasn’t sure if he had moved a step backwards to give Sawamura easier access, or if Sawamura himself had stepped forward, but either way it felt like the gap between them had gotten smaller. Or maybe Kazuya just wasn’t used to having someone this close and touching him for this long.
Skinship between teammates was frequent, but brief, and more often than not was initiated by Kazuya himself. Mostly towards his pitchers.
Mostly Sawamura.
With Sawamura as Seido’s ace, they were even closer as a battery now, but Sawamura had always been more receptive to Kazuya’s touches than Nori and Furuya anyway. His responding touches did occasionally come in the form of shaking Kazuya by the collar however.
So Sawamura was probably the person who touched him the most, but even those touches didn’t last this long. That had to be why it felt different.
Sawamura was really, really warm.
Kazuya was starting to feel pretty warm too now that he thought about it.
It must be the bullpen.
As Sawamura’s hands brushed up Kazuya’s sides, back, shoulders... Kazuya found himself becoming increasingly aware of his own hands hanging by his sides. They felt clammy. He had been wearing his mitt longer than usual he supposed.
Sawamura’s fingers then skimmed Kazuya’s shoulder blade and this time Kazuya couldn’t hold back a flinch. Sawamura let out a small laugh of surprise and his hot breath hit the back of Kazuya’s neck, making the tiny hairs there stand up on end.
“Are you ticklish, Miyuki-senpai?” he said, and Kazuya could hear the mischievous grin on his face without having to turn around to confirm it. Sawamura’s voice was low and his mouth was much closer to Kazuya’s ear than he had realised.
“No,” Kazuya said truthfully, because he really wasn’t . “You just surprised me.”
“Hmm,” Sawamura didn’t sound convinced at all, “well consider it a revenge tickle—”
“It didn’t tickle.”
“—because the back of your hair has been tickling my hands this whole time!”
“And how is that my fault?”
“It’s too long!”
To emphasise his point, Sawamura then reached out and tugged a strand of Kazuya’s hair, making Kazuya yelp in shock. He reached behind him to slap Sawamura’s hand away, but Sawamura had already let go, cackling.
“It’s not that long,” Kazuya mumbled as Sawamura went back to adjusting the straps near his shoulders, still giggling quietly. The hair tug hadn’t even hurt that much, but Kazuya’s heart was racing, and every nerve in his body had somehow come alive, with each gentle stroke of Sawamura’s fingertips setting his skin alight.
Maybe Sawamura had been right. Maybe Kazuya was ticklish after all. Maybe that was why he was also finding it harder to breathe evenly too.
Maybe.
He closed his eyes and exhaled shakily through his nose.
Why was it taking Sawamura so long to untangle the damn straps?
Fingertips carefully swept across the back of Kazuya’s neck as they brushed aside his hair. Was it really that much in the way? He felt Sawamura’s fingernails catch on the loose strands and graze his bare skin.
Kazuya held his breath.
Sawamura’s hot palms smoothed across Kazuya’s shoulders and down his back, coming to rest on his waist, burning.
And after what felt like an age, Kazuya let the air exit his lungs. Sawamura’s hands were still on his waist, his thumbs hooked under the straps there.
“Turn around, senpai,” Sawamura said, his voice reverberating in Kazuya’s chest. And Kazuya obeyed, turning carefully to face Sawamura as the pitcher’s hands finally released him. Sawamura was much closer than he expected.
Kazuya swallowed. His mouth was dry and his heart rate still hadn’t slowed in the slightest. Sawamura’s eyes were as intense as ever when they met his own. Kazuya tried to ignore how strangely cold he now felt without Sawamura’s touch on him. Then Sawamura reached out towards him—
—and pulled the loosened chest protector off and over Kazuya’s head in one smooth motion.
Kazuya blinked back dumbly at Sawamura’s triumphant, grinning face.
“Aaand you’re free!” Sawamura announced dramatically, holding Kazuya’s chest protector aloft like some sort of bizarre trophy.
Kazuya watched, feeling dazed as Sawamura clutched the chest protector and laughed. Somehow, he had forgotten for a moment the reason why Sawmaura’s hands had been on him in the first place. He tried frantically to force his brain back online, whilst simultaneously trying not to think too hard about why it went offline at all.
“I could have done that part myself, idiot,” Kazuya said after a while, smiling weakly and hoping his voice didn’t sound quite as breathless as it did to his own ears. “What’s next? Are you going to help take off my shin guards for me too?” Kazuya’s mocking smile then faltered as Sawamura’s eyes lit up.
“I can do that!”
“Sawamura, I wasn’t seriou—”
But Sawamura was already down on his knees in front of him and running his hands up the backs of Kazuya’s legs before Kazuya could even finish speaking. Though right now, Kazuya wasn’t sure he could speak even if he wanted to. There were quite a few emotions—in addition to nervousness—that Kazuya wasn’t used to feeling, and currently he was experiencing every single one of them. If Sawamura’s fingers had felt warm to Kazuya before, they might as well be on fire now, burning him, but somehow still so gentle as Sawamura slid them—slow and careful—up Kazuya’s calves and underneath the straps that bound them. Kazuya drew in short, quiet breaths, head swimming from the heat.
It wasn’t the bullpen. It wasn’t the bullpen at all.
The straps on his shin guards weren’t tangled. Not even a little bit. But Sawamura was down there all the same helping him to remove them, and Kazuya’s head swam not just with heat, but with why. There was absolutely nothing abnormal about a teammate helping him out of his gear like this. It had happened time and time before—
And yet.
Why did it feel so different? Why did he feel like he was burning up under Sawamura’s touch and struggling to draw breath? Why couldn’t he bring himself to look down at the pitcher and instead found himself staring resolutely ahead at the wall opposite?
“You don’t have to do that,” Kazuya tried to say, and though his voice came out so low it was barely a whisper, Sawamura heard him anyway. Kazuya forced himself to look down as Sawamura’s hands stilled and he glanced up to meet his eyes. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. Just like when they were on the diamond, Sawamura communicated everything he needed to with a look alone.
But I want to.
Kazuya exhaled slowly and pressed his lips together.
Okay.
Sawamura nodded and Kazuya broke their gaze. Sawamura’s hands started to move again.
Even with the lack of tangles, Sawamura moved slowly, taking his time to loosen the straps, his fingers brushing over Kazuya’s ankles, calves, and the sensitive backs of his knees in what Kazuya could only describe as a caress. So lost as he was in the sensation, he barely registered the sounds of the shin guards finally falling to the ground and Sawamura shuffling to his feet.
“Anything else I can help you with, Cap?” he asked.
It was strange, Kazuya thought—as he took a moment to catch his breath and fully take in the other boy across from him—how Sawamura could both be so painfully honest and still remain such an enigma. The pitcher’s eyes were blazing with absolute sincerity—a sincerity for what, Kazuya didn’t know, but he ached to find out.
Sawamura’s gaze was penetrating.
Maybe Kazuya didn’t know what Sawamura was thinking, but he knew what he felt. He felt Sawamura’s eyes wanting to see through him— right through him— right into his very centre and still keep going. And he would have kept going, taking off as many layers of Miyuki Kazuya as he could, both literal and not, just so that he could see more of him. Sawamura would have kept going, undressing him down to only his goggles if Kazuya gave the word.
And Kazuya would.
The thought had him light-headed.
It was then that it hit him, struck by the realisation that Sawamura would do almost absolutely anything for him. Anything, including tearing through any needless barrier Kazuya could possibly put between them, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, leaving him raw, exposed, vulnerable, but so very—
“Miyuki-senpai?”
Alive.
“Your lip is bleeding.”
“Ah.”
He swiped his tongue across his bottom lip, watching as Sawamura’s gaze followed the path his tongue traced over the stinging skin. Sawamura looked back up at him, and then bit down on his own lip with the wild grin he knew so well. Kazuya grinned back.
A good omen.
He stepped forward.