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“Whatcha got there, Sawamura?”
Sawamura, sitting cross-legged on the floor, looks up to see Kuramochi leaning over him. In response to the question, he holds up the item in his hands and beams with pride.
“It’s a polaroid camera!” he announces. “I got it for Christmas! My mom wanted me to take more photos of my life here at Seidou since she ‘can’t be here to do it herself.’”
Kuramochi lifts an eyebrow. “So you brought it here?”
‘Here,’ meaning room 203.
It’s the first night where everyone on the team is back from winter break, so naturally, they’re all crowded in Miyuki’s room for a mini holiday party. It’s their one last night of fun before they’re forced to go back to class.
(Though school does little to deter regular game nights and bonding sessions — especially during the off-season, when baseball practice is more relaxed.)
“Yeah.” Sawamura shrugs his shoulders and answers Kuramochi’s question. “I mean, this is part of my life too, right?”
Kuramochi snorts. “Guess we should all get ready, huh? Need me to pose for a photo or anything?”
“No!” Sawamura shouts. He waves a hand around. “Just be normal! I want this to be genuine.”
“… Genuine,” Kuramochi says, skeptical.
“Yeah! How can I properly capture my life here if everyone’s always posing? It has to be natural.”
“You know everyone’s gonna want to have their picture taken.”
“Well, we can do that, too,” Sawamura decides. He looks down at the camera. “I still want to take some candid photos, I think. I don’t want to remember your smiling face, I want to remember that face you make when you get blue-shelled in Mario Kart — oi!”
Sawamura grasps at his throat as Kuramochi pulls him into a headlock. The camera slips out of his hands and falls to the floor with a clatter.
“Don’t take purposely ugly photos of me! What the hell!”
“It’s candid photography,” Sawamura protests, trying to wriggle out of Kuramochi’s arms. “It’s not my fault you look ugly when playing video games!”
Kuramochi tightens his grip. “You take that back!”
“Can’t run from the truth, Mochi-senpai!”
Kuramochi attempts to twist him into a pretzel, and Sawamura complains as loudly as he can. It’s a common occurrence at this point — nobody in the room bats an eye. Eventually, Kuramochi grows bored and wanders back to the rest of the party, leaving Sawamura lying on the ground, gasping for breath. He stares up at the ceiling and pants.
Within seconds, a face appears in his vision, hovering above with an amused smile.
“Riling up your roommate again?” Miyuki asks, smirking down at him.
Sawamura scrunches his nose and sticks his tongue out.
Miyuki chuckles and lifts up a very familiar object. Sawamura’s eyes widen.
“Hey — ah!”
Click.
There's a flash of light and a high-pitched hiss. Sawamura yelps and tries to blink away the spots. When he finally regains his vision, Miyuki’s shaking out a polaroid printout, amusement written all over his lips.
Sawamura shoves himself up into a sitting position. “What the hell! That’s mine!”
Miyuki doesn’t answer. Instead, he takes one look at the photo and laughs.
“You crack me up, Sawamura.”
“The film for this thing is expensive, you know!”
“Thought your mom wanted photos of you,” Miyuki comments, still laughing at the picture he’d taken. “I think this one is a pretty good start.”
“Give me that!” Sawamura snatches the photo out of Miyuki’s hands and looks at it.
He’s messily sprawled out on the floor, making the dumbest face of all time. His cheeks burn with embarrassment, and he shoves the photo into his pocket. Scowling, he points an accusatory finger in Miyuki's direction. “You can’t just take people’s stuff!”
Miyuki snickers. “Don’t leave it lying around, then.”
“I was being strangled!”
“That’s no excuse.” Still, Miyuki holds out his camera as a peace offering.
Sawamura rolls his eyes, making sure Miyuki knows exactly how he feels about that. He takes his camera back, anyway.
Miyuki grins. He turns away and lifts a hand for a farewell. “Have fun being a paparazzo.”
“Don’t call it that, you bastard!” Sawamura shouts after him, but by then, Miyuki’s already being roped into a video game tournament in front of the TV.
Sawamura shakes his head, pouting the whole while. Miyuki’s annoying like that — swooping in out of nowhere and making Sawamura embarrass himself before vanishing into thin air. It’s like he has nothing better to do!
Well, I’ll get my revenge, Sawamura decides. Miyuki’s definitely going to show up in some of his photos tonight, and there’s no way he’s going to look calm and collected in all of them. He’ll get a polaroid of Miyuki looking just as stupid as he looked. Maybe even stupider.
And with that thought, Sawamura gets to work on documenting the party.
“What the hell?!” he shrieks as he goes through all the photos.
Beside him, at the breakfast table, Haruichi flinches at the volume. “Er, what?”
“Look at this,” Sawamura hisses, shoving a handful of last night’s polaroids into Haruichi’s hands.
Haruichi shuffles through the pictures one-by-one. “These are nice?”
“Thank you!” Sawamura huffs in pride — and then remembers why he’s so pissed, and goes back to scowling. “But that’s not what I’m talking about! Look at Miyuki!”
He takes back the photos and spreads them out across the table. There are a dozen shots from the party: Zono beating Shirasu in an arm-wrestling contest, Furuya napping in the corner of the room, Nori and Kanemaru holding back Kuramochi from attacking Toujou with his controller. Out of those dozen, there are four that feature Miyuki Kazuya.
And he’s looking at the camera in every single one.
“What’s wrong with it?” Haruichi asks.
“What’s wrong?” Sawamura exclaims. “This was supposed to be candid! That bastard ruined it! Can you believe this?”
He waves around one of the pictures. It’s from one of the Mario Kart races, and Zono is literally reaching across Miyuki to grab Nori by the shirt collar. Despite this, Miyuki is looking straight at the camera. And waving.
“That’s kind of impressive,” Haruichi comments. “How did he pose for a photo while he was playing Mario Kart?”
“I don’t know!” Sawamura says. “I was even trying to be sneaky! I can’t believe he spotted me every time!”
Haruichi shrugs. “You’re not the most subtle person, Eijun.”
“Fair point,” he concedes. “But still! It’s about the principle, here!”
“What principle?”
“I’m trying to capture memories! And he’s altering them!” Scowling, Sawamura gathers up his polaroids and lines up the edges. He tucks the photos into his pocket. “He’s censoring history!”
“Censorship is a pretty strong word for this, don’t you think?”
“Well, it’s fitting!” Sawamura makes a fist with his hand and pounds it against his open palm like a gavel. “Gahh! That four-eyed bastard just declared war!”
“War?”
“War!” he repeats. “Write this one down, Harucchi! I, Sawamura Eijun, swear on my honor: I’m gonna get a candid photo of that asshole if it’s the last thing I do!”
His first attempt at accomplishing his mission happens later that same day. That evening, to be exact.
Sawamura comes to dinner early and chooses his seat. It’s near the edge of the cafeteria, positioned so that he’ll have a perfect view of the second-years’ table. He wears a baggy jacket, with the fabric draped to disguise the camera he has hidden close to his chest. And he purposely paces his meal, maximizing the amount of time spent eating. That way, he’ll have a good amount of time to steal photos of Miyuki Kazuya when he arrives.
“Aren’t you overthinking this?” Haruichi asks him, sliding into the space next to him. “You can just hang out in the cafeteria, you know.”
“But then he’ll be onto me,” Sawamura insists. “If I sit here all creepy-like, he might think that I’m up to something. But if I’m eating, he’ll just think, ‘oh, he’s eating dinner! Nothing to worry about!’”
“Yeah, you’re definitely overthinking this.”
“Don’t underestimate the lengths a photographer will go to get their photo,” Sawamura says. “You know, some nature photographers will camp out in the wild for weeks at a time, waiting for the perfect shot!”
“So he’s a ‘wild animal’ now? What is this, a nature documentary?”
“We’re watching a nature documentary?” Furuya sets his dinner tray down, next to Haruichi, and looks up: half-curious, half-hopeful.
“No, we’re watching Miyuki Kazuya!”
“Oh. Okay, then.”
With that, Furuya turns his attention to his food and zones out.
The three first-years eat their dinner. Sawamura carefully keeps an eye on the entrance to the cafeteria. A few minutes pass, and then his target walks in through the door.
“Everyone shut up,” Sawamura hisses, deliberately keeping his voice low. “He’s here!”
Furuya shoots Sawamura a confused look. “I didn’t say anything?”
Haruichi sighs and continues to eat.
Miyuki and Kuramochi load up on food before taking a seat — at their usual spot, too, thank god. Sawamura pulls his arms up through his jacket sleeves and tries to maneuver his camera around so that the lens is pointed in Miyuki’s direction.
Once he thinks he's in position, he hits the button.
This clandestine process continues throughout the rest of dinner. His food goes cold, his stomach grumbles, and Haruichi and Furuya manage to get through several rounds of tic-tac-toe, but that isn’t his main concern. His main concern is trying to get a clear candid of Miyuki Kazuya — bonus points if Miyuki’s making a stupid face in the photo.
After Miyuki leaves the cafeteria, Sawamura shovels down the rest of his dinner and finally examines his next batch of photos.
Unfortunately, most of them are a blurry waste. It’s hard to aim a camera when you’re not looking through the viewfinder, after all. And the photos that are clear aren’t aimed in the right direction. He can see the top of Kuramochi’s head, Nori’s cut-off elbow, and other various out-of-context body parts.
But there is one salvageable image. Somehow, he’d managed to get a clear shot of Kuramochi arguing with Zono. Sawamura smiles at the sight because, as often as Kuramochi and Zono butt heads, he knows that they both secretly enjoy the arguments. His eyes wander over the photo.
And then he stiffens.
Miyuki’s slightly in the background, sitting next to the irate Kuramochi, and his hand is raised in a half-wave. Sawamura would write it off as a coincidence, but unfortunately, Miyuki is staring at the camera directly.
And winking.
In his hand, he grips his chopsticks so tight that they snap in half, and Haruichi yelps at the sudden sound of splintering wood.
His next attempt takes a bit more time to put into action.
(More accurately, it involves Kuramochi losing it and yelling at Sawamura to ‘finally do your laundry, or I’ll kick your ass into next year.’)
Sawamura is normally pretty good about this — he only has so many clothes, and he tends to think better when his stuff doesn’t smell like sweat and teenage boy — but his procrastination this week is intentional.
Because Miyuki does his laundry on Monday nights, and who expects a photoshoot while doing laundry?
Whistling, Sawamura carries his hamper over to the laundry room. Hidden within his pile of clothes is his trusty polaroid camera, loaded up with a fresh cartridge of film. He bumps open the door with his hip and steps into the room.
“Hello!”
Miyuki, who is sitting on top of one of the washing machines, casually glances up from his book. “Hey, Sawa — what are you wearing?”
Sawamura blinks and looks down. He didn’t plan for that conversation starter.
“… Boxers?” He answers, after taking a quick inventory of his outfit.
Miyuki stares at him. “What happened to your shirt?”
“Well, I put off my laundry for a few days!” Sawamura announces, leaving out the fact that it was an intentional decision. “So I have no more clothes!”
Miyuki snorts. “That explains why you’re here. This place is usually empty Monday night.”
Sawamura carries his stuff to the machine next to Miyuki’s. He starts loading his laundry, taking care to keep his camera hidden, tossing in his clothes one at a time, waiting for the perfect moment to whip out his camera and capture Miyuki Kazuya in the middle of reading —
“… Aren’t you cold?” Miyuki asks, after a beat of silence.
“Huh?”
Sawamura looks up from his task to see Miyuki still staring at him, with an unreadable expression on his face.
“It’s winter,” Miyuki points out. He’s wearing a jacket, along with warm-looking sweatpants. “Did you walk here from your room like that?”
“My room is four doors down. It’s not that far,” he answers with a shrug. “And I’m a hot guy!”
The sentence echoes around the near-empty laundry room. Miyuki starts laughing, and then the words hit Sawamura, and his face begins to burn.
“I mean — that’s — I don’t get cold easily!” Sawamura yells. “You know what I meant! Stop laughing, you bastard!”
“You think you’re ‘hot?’” Miyuki manages to say, in between his obnoxious guffaws. “Wow! So full of yourself!”
“You’re one to talk!” Sawamura shouts, and he scrambles for a decent insult. “You — you smug jerk!”
Miyuki smirks and makes a show of putting his hand on his chest. “Aww, that’s sweet. I’m touched.”
“Not a compliment,” Sawamura hisses, “and that joke isn’t funny! It never has been!”
“No,” Miyuki agrees.
Sawamura blinks at the concession. “… You don’t think it’s funny?”
“Yeah, it’s not very clever,” Miyuki says.
Sawamura frowns. If that’s what Miyuki really thinks, then why does he keep using it all the time?
Miyuki chuckles at him. “You know what is funny, though?”
“What?”
Miyuki waves him over. After a moment’s consideration, Sawamura stands up and moves closer.
Miyuki leans forward, close enough so his hair is brushing Sawamura’s cheek, and he whispers right into Sawamura’s ear. “How mad everyone gets about it.”
Sawamura shouts and shoves a cackling Miyuki away. “You’re the worst!”
“Thanks!” comes the reply, and ugh — Sawamura walked into that one, didn’t he.
He goes back to shoving his laundry into the washer, grumbling the whole while. As he does so, his hand brushes the hard form of his camera, hidden beneath one of his sweaters.
Quietly, sneakily, he glances up at Miyuki. The catcher seems to have gone back to reading his book. His eyes trail across the pages, and he absent-mindedly reaches up to adjust his glasses. His face is at resting-neutral, and when Sawamura coughs, he doesn’t look up.
Oh my god! Sawamura’s heart pounds wildly in his chest. Now is my chance!
He can’t mess this up. He has to be quick. There’s no room for blurry photos or bad angles here. Once he pulls out his camera, he’s only going to get one shot.
He reaches underneath his sweater and wraps his hands around his camera, nonchalant. Secure grip. Finger on the shutter button.
Then, as quick as lightning, he yanks it out, aims, and fires.
“Ah!”
He sprints out of the laundry room with his heartbeat booming in his ears. The door swings shut behind him, and he nearly rips the picture in his race to view it properly.
It feels like it takes forever, but finally, the image begins to appear on the film. Sawamura eagerly holds it up —
And is greeted with the sight of Miyuki making a peace sign at the camera.
“What the hell!”
He kicks open the laundry room door. Miyuki, the unrepentant evil tanuki bastard, is laughing so hard that he’s about to fall off the washing machine.
“How did you know?!”
“I didn’t,” Miyuki says.
“Lies!” Sawamura storms up and jabs a finger into Miyuki’s chest. “Tell me the truth!”
Miyuki grins at him, wide and confident and entirely annoying. “Maybe my reflexes are just that good.”
“You were reading your book! You were distracted! You shouldn’t have seen me get ready to do anything!”
“Maybe,” Miyuki says, enjoying this way too much, “I wasn’t reading. Maybe I was focusing on the ‘shirtless hot guy’ in the laundry room —”
“Quit making fun of me! I’m gonna kill you!”
The threat does nothing to slow down Miyuki’s laughter. Embarrassed beyond belief, Sawamura whirls around and makes for the door.
“Oi, Sawamura.”
“What?!”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Sawamura turns around. Miyuki is pointing at his washing machine, with the door still open and his laundry undone.
His face burns even more as he stomps back and dumps the appropriate amount of detergent in. He slams it shut and hits the button, and a whir begins to sound around the room. Then he leaves, ignoring Miyuki’s soft chuckles, and he heads back to his room to wait for his load to be finished.
The next time he sees Miyuki is for their scheduled off-season practice session.
Sawamura's in the indoor practice halls, lying on a bench and re-reading his messages while waiting for his catcher to show up. A soft knock on the door draws him out of his mindless scrolling, and he looks up to see the captain of the baseball team stepping inside.
“You’re early,” Miyuki says, upon seeing him.
Sawamura sits up and puts his phone away. “I wasn’t waiting long.”
“Wait.” Miyuki looks around the room. He makes a show of checking corners. “You didn't set up a secret hidden camera, did you?”
Sawamura blinks, and then curses himself for forgetting. That would have been a good idea.
If there was one thing that could distract Miyuki long enough for him to get a candid shot, it was baseball.
“Unfortunately, no,” he admits. “So don’t go winking at corners! It’ll just make you look stupid!”
Miyuki grins and rummages through his sports bag. “Did you stretch already?”
“Yep!” Sawamura says, brightly. “And I thought of more grips we could try out!”
“Add ‘em to the list.” Miyuki pulls out a battered notebook and a pen, and he tosses them over. Sawamura catches both items out of the air. He writes down his thoughts while Miyuki pulls on his catching gear.
Once he’s done, he comes over and joins Sawamura in going over their list of pitches. There’s a long line of crossed-out options and an even longer line of potential grips to try. The only ones they have finalized are the three changeup grips that they’d tried out on a whim — it’s what started this whole quest to try out every single baseball grip possible.
“How about this one?” Miyuki says, pointing at another bullet point.
“Alternate cutter grip,” Sawamura reads aloud. He fiddles with the baseball for a moment before holding it up. “Like this?”
“Yep,” Miyuki says. “We can try it with and without the cross-step.”
Sawamura beams. “Sounds good!”
Decision made, they start their warm-up tosses: loosening their limbs, building up a good rhythm. After a few minutes, Miyuki nods, signalling that he's ready to begin. Sawamura backs up, a mound’s distance away, and fiddles with his grip.
Miyuki adjusts his faceguard and sends him a thumbs up. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Sawamura exhales, dropping his shoulders and forcing his muscles to loosen up. And then he begins his windup.
“Oh, crap,” Miyuki hisses, as the ball misses his mitt by a mile.
Sawamura anxiously bounces on the balls of his feet. “Ah! Was that good?”
“The break on that was insane,” Miyuki complains, but there’s a light in his eyes — that same excited gleam he gets when they’re about to do something aggressive in a match. He picks up the ball from the ground and tosses it back. “Try it again!”
Sawamura catches the ball and deliberately adjusts his grip. Then he pulls his arm back.
Right arm wall, lift your leg, cross-step, and follow-through —
Smack!
This time, Miyuki gets it into his mitt.
“Hell yeah!” Sawamura shouts, punching the air. “That was the same movement, right? Consistency!”
“Yeah.” Miyuki looks at the ball in his hand. “Would’ve nailed the batter in the balls, but yeah, consistency.”
Sawamura flinches in sympathetic pain. “Oh my god, don’t even joke about that.”
Miyuki smirks. “Wasn’t a joke. Do it again. And try to control it, this time.”
At Miyuki’s request, Sawamura throws the new pitch at least a dozen more times. It’s not entirely perfect — sometimes he messes it up and sends it wild, and sometimes the break is too sharp for Miyuki to catch — but at least it’s regularly following the same path. With every pitch, Miyuki seems to say less and less. But Sawamura can feel his excitement grow.
Finally, Miyuki calls it a night, and Sawamura reluctantly eases out of his pitching stance.
“I wanted to pitch more,” he complains.
“Don’t push it,” Miyuki says. “Coach will kill me if you get hurt in the off-season. Never mind what Chris will do. Come here, I’ll help you stretch.”
Sawamura walks over and holds out his arms. He dutifully lets Miyuki push and pull out his limbs for a cool-down, and then returns the favor once his shoulders are properly relaxed.
“What does it look like?” Sawamura asks, pressing on Miyuki’s back as the catcher reaches for his toes. “From your end, I mean?”
“It’s nearly indistinguishable from your fastball,” Miyuki says. “Same speed. Technically, it’s a cutter, but it breaks really late — practically right over the plate.”
“That’s good, right?”
A pause.
Sawamura anxiously awaits Miyuki’s verdict. It comes a full heartbeat later than he would have expected, but the wait is worth it.
“It’s amazing.”
Sawamura glows with the compliment. It’s so rare to receive straightforward praise from Miyuki, and this particular moment is going to keep him sustained for at least another week.
“Ahh, I’m so excited!” he says. “Man, I can’t wait to use this in a match.”
“Oh, we’re not even close,” Miyuki tells him. “Like I said — this is going to nail so many people in the balls.”
“We’ll get it down!” Sawamura declares. “That’s what this off-season practice is for, right?”
Miyuki chuckles to himself.
“Have I thanked you for this, by the way?” Sawamura asks.
Beneath his fingertips, Miyuki tenses up.
“Thanked me for what?”
“I know you’re like, busy with being captain,” Sawamura says. “And being a second-year, and being the main catcher. You didn’t have to help me try out every possible pitching grip in the world. Especially since I’m, uh, you know. Since I’m just relief.”
Miyuki remains tense under his grip. Hesitant, Sawamura removes his hands, and Miyuki slowly eases out of the stretch.
“I feel kind of selfish monopolizing your time like this!” Sawamura blurts out. “So, uh, thank you! For the generous gift of your time and effort!”
It seems like a long time before Miyuki answers.
“Trust me, Sawamura,” he murmurs, still facing away. “You’re not the selfish one, here.”
“Huh?”
Miyuki finally turns around. There’s a weird look on his face: something honest and genuine and distant all at once, and Sawamura is suddenly struck with the stupid thought that this would make a very pretty picture.
And then Miyuki’s expression shifts into that familiar shit-eating grin. “I can never let my guard down around you, can I?”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Sawamura splutters, still stuck on that weird moment. He frowns as the words register in his mind. “‘Never let your guard down?’ What, don’t you trust me?”
“‘Trust you?’” Miyuki echoes, and then cackles. “Why would I trust the guy who’s been stalking me for photos?”
“Oi! I told you I didn’t bring my camera with me tonight!”
“Sure you didn’t,” Miyuki says, and he gets to his feet, laughing the whole time. “Nice pitching, Sawamura. Don’t think too hard, or you’ll injure yourself.”
“Shut up, asshole!”
Miyuki lifts his hand in a casual wave and winks before he grabs his sports bag. Then he walks out of the practice hall and disappears, as quickly as he came.
Standing, abandoned, in an empty practice hall, Sawamura frowns.
That whole interaction felt oddly sad, and he’s not sure why.
Going back to school after winter break sucks, but what sucks even more is Miyuki Kazuya's uncanny ability to spot Sawamura and his camera. Despite his best efforts, Sawamura simply can’t get a candid shot. Trying to catch him on a run, trying to get him on his way to class — somehow, Miyuki always seems to know where he is, ruining Sawamura’s dreams of being a candid photographer.
“You’re still keeping this up?” Haruichi asks.
Sawamura has all his photos of Miyuki spread out across his bedroom floor. Haruichi is sitting at Sawamura’s desk, absently playing a game on his 3DS.
“I cannot believe,” Sawamura hisses. “One week and twenty-one photos, and not a single candid shot? What kind of bullshit is this?!”
Haruichi sighs and pauses his game.
“What?!”
“Eijun,” Haruichi says. “Do you hear yourself?”
Sawamura tilts his head and blinks.
“Twenty-one,” Haruichi says, articulating each syllable.
“That’s what I’m saying,” Sawamura insists. “Statistically, there’s gotta be a candid shot in there somewhere, right?”
Haruichi shakes his head. “You’re not getting it. Eijun, you have twenty-one photos of Miyuki-senpai.”
“I have pictures of everyone else, too!” Sawamura argues. He crosses his arms, defensive, and ignores how his face is beginning to burn.
“Yeah, like one or two,” Haruichi points out. “Twenty-one is excessive. Why are you trying so hard for a candid?”
Sawamura falls silent.
I can never let my guard down around you.
He stares down at his photos and clears his throat. “Do you think Miyuki is lonely?”
“What?”
“I just think, I’ve known him for a while now,” he says. “I’ve been pitching to him for nearly a year. But I don’t think I know him at all.”
Haruichi tilts his head and considers the question.
“Some people are more private than others,” he says, after a pause. “I don’t think it’s anything personal if that’s what you’re worried about.”
Of course it’s not personal, Sawamura thinks to himself. That’s the problem.
Miyuki’s a good teammate and — despite his numerous, annoying flaws — Sawamura doesn’t really hate him. He likes how Miyuki laughs at his own jokes, how he smiles when he thinks no one is looking. He likes hanging out with him. And until recently, he might have even gone so far as to call Miyuki his friend.
But ever since that catching session, he’s been plagued with a horrifying thought.
What if it’s only one-sided?
It’s simpler on the field. Miyuki calls for his pitches, and Sawamura delivers, and they’re partners. After a shaky start, after the roadblocks and pitfalls and the yips, Sawamura can confidently say that Miyuki trusts him on the field. Full stop.
But off the field is a different story.
It was just a cheeky joke at first. But the idea that he can’t get a candid photo of Miyuki Kazuya is… kind of sad, actually. Is every interaction between them scripted? Is every conversation a game?
Growing up in the Sawamura household, teasing and banter had always been a sign of affection. It never occurred to him that someone else would use it as a shield.
He stares down at the photos before him. Cheeky winks, brazen poses, and smug grins. So different from that moment in the practice halls, that enigmatic smile that was open and sincere and tragic all at once.
“I’m gonna do it,” Sawamura decides.
“Do what?”
“I’m gonna get a candid of Miyuki Kazuya.”
Haruichi snorts. He turns his attention back to his 3DS and unpauses his game. “You’re going to need to buy a lot more film.”
That’s probably true. But the game has changed now. The stakes are higher.
He’s gonna befriend that lonely asshole if it’s the last thing he does.
During morning break, Sawamura bursts out of his classroom and races down the hall, nearly knocking other people out of the way. He takes the stairs two steps at a time, swings around a corner, and almost slips on the floor as he skids to a stop in front of Miyuki’s classroom.
“Miyuki Kazuya!”
The entire class of second-years jumps at his shout and Kuramochi tiredly slams his face onto his desk. But Sawamura only has eyes for one person.
Miyuki, already looking at him, lifts an eyebrow. He glances at Sawamura's hands, which are not holding his camera, and then looks back up, confused. “Did you need something?”
Sawamura takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and then he opens his mouth. “What’s your favorite color?”
Silence.
“Is this happening to me?” Kuramochi mutters, his voice muffled from where his face shoved into his desk. “Am I awake? What have I done to deserve this?”
“It’s red,” Miyuki says. “Why?”
“Red!” Sawamura shouts, and he grins wide. “The color of strength and passion! Good choice, cap!”
“… Okay?”
Sawamura fires off a quick salute and then runs back to his classroom, taking care to keep the answer stored in his mind.
This is only the first of several icebreaker questions. Whenever he sees Miyuki — in the hallway, at game night, in the bathroom, Sawamura fires off an inconsequential personal question at Miyuki, and the catcher answers it.
Favorite movie: Tokyo Drifter (Ah! A classic). Favorite snack: anything salty (should have seen that one coming). Favorite subject: math (what is wrong with you?).
Sawamura starts talking about non-baseball related things during their catching sessions, and Miyuki joins in — awkward at first, maybe, but, as it turns out, he’s a talkative person when he really gets going.
(Who knew that Miyuki Kazuya had opinions on soy sauce brands? Also, who knew Miyuki Kazuya could cook? What the hell?)
Sawamura still tries getting candids of Miyuki, and Miyuki still manages to catch the camera every time. But for Sawamura, at least, it’s less of a planned ambush than it is an opportunity. They’ll be hanging out somewhere around campus, arguing about something stupid like salad toppings or bad movies or condiments, and then Miyuki will go off on a tangent and Sawamura will watch him talk, with his arms waving around and his face lit up with a passion Sawamura’s only ever seen on the baseball field. And then, out of nowhere, he’ll feel compelled to take a picture.
“You’d probably be more successful if you didn’t whip your camera out right in front of me,” Miyuki comments, as Sawamura frustratedly waves a photo of Miyuki making an overexaggerated ‘thinking pose’ through the air.
“How are you doing this?” Sawamura complains. It’s a funny picture that looks nice. Easily one of his top ten Miyuki Kazuya photos.
But seriously, a candid should not be this difficult to get.
“If you want a candid shot, you could just ask?” Miyuki says, amused. “I could sit on this bench while you hide in those bushes and take pictures.”
“Asking you defeats the purpose, dumbass!” Sawamura fires back. “And —”
It’s not about the photo.
Even after speedrunning bonding activities with Miyuki Kazuya, even after reading his favorite books and sharing snacks and stories with him and visiting his classroom during break, he can still feel it. The distance.
He can feel it in the weight of Miyuki’s words, in the way Miyuki tenses up when Sawamura helps him stretch. Sometimes, when Sawamura is rambling, he’ll look up and there’ll be a flash of something in Miyuki’s eyes, and before he could even begin to process it, Miyuki hides it away. It’s intoxicating. It’s infuriating.
Miyuki is holding something back, and Sawamura desperately wants to know what it is.
“And… what?” Miyuki prompts, drawing Sawamura back into the conversation.
“And —” Sawamura panics and blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. “— Have you seen Kimi ni Todoke?”
Miyuki looks at him, unimpressed. “I told you, I don’t watch anime.”
Sawamura flushes. “Well — I read your horror novel! Which was really scary, by the way! So you owe me!”
“I never asked you to read it?”
“Relationships go two ways, Miyuki Kazuya!” Sawamura says. “You have to put in the effort! Which you’d know if you ever read any of the shoujo manga I recommend to you. In fact, let me refresh your memory!”
Sawamura reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone, where he keeps a running list of his favorite manga so that he’ll have something to share with his friends in class. He opens up the note app and starts listing off manga. “Here. Sawamura Eijun’s essential manga reading list: Dengeki Daisy! Kamisama Kiss! Amaama to Inazuma — what are you grinning about, you bastard?!”
Miyuki’s looking at him with that dumb grin of his, leaning back into the bench and resting his cheek on his hand.
“Which one of those is the least fluffy?”
Sawamura blinks. “What?”
Miyuki looks at him expectantly. “I don’t like sweet things, Sawamura. If I’m gonna do this, I don’t want to suffer.”
“You’re a salty bastard,” Sawamura grumbles, but he goes down the list, looking for something he thinks Miyuki would enjoy. Finally, his eyes land upon a title.
“Hyouka,” Sawamura declares triumphantly. “You’ll love this one, I guarantee it! This one isn’t too sweet, it’s a slice-of-life mystery series, and it has an anime adaptation too — though you’d probably be more comfortable reading the light novels, now that I think about it —”
“We can watch the anime,” Miyuki says, and Sawamura looks at him, wide-eyed.
“Really?” He asks, surprised at the easy concession. “Thought you didn’t watch anime.”
“‘Relationships go two ways,’ right?” Miyuki asks him, and even though it’s such a little thing, something swells in Sawamura’s chest. “We can watch it before our catching session on Saturday. Or after? Both are cool with me.”
“After!” Sawamura says, smiling brightly. “It’s the weekend, we can binge it all night!”
“How many episodes is this?”
“Twenty-two!”
Miyuki makes a face.
Sawamura backpedals. “Uh, we don’t have to binge the whole thing. We can just watch the first episode, dip your toes in the pool! Don’t feel pressured, you can change your mind at any time —”
“Pfft, don’t worry so much,” Miyuki says, laughing at Sawamura’s stammered offers. He flicks Sawamura in the forehead. “I already said I’d give it a shot.”
“Well, I don’t want to force you into anything…”
“Sawamura.” Miyuki looks him directly in the eye. “I don’t do things I don’t want to do.”
“Oh,” Sawamura says, lamely. “Okay.”
“Also, it’s getting kind of late,” Miyuki says. He flips open his phone and checks the time. “Didn’t you say you had an essay due tomorrow?”
“Oh, shit!” Sawamura yelps. “Crap, you’re right, I have to go finish that!” He jumps up to his feet and prepares to run —
And a hand wraps around his wrist.
His eyes drop to his arm. Miyuki’s gripping him, warm and tight, and his skin feels like it’s burning.
“Aren’t you forgetting something?” Miyuki asks, laughing. He waves the polaroid camera around in the air.
“Oops,” Sawamura says, feeling his face heat up. He grabs it with his free hand. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Miyuki says. He lets go of Sawamura’s arm and smirks. “Have fun essay writing.”
“Have fun with your damn math,” Sawamura fires back. And then, just because he can, he lifts his camera and snaps a photo.
In it, Miyuki’s saluting the camera.
Sawamura rolls his eyes, but it makes him smile, anyway.
Saturday can’t come quickly enough. Sawamura spends all week bouncing and whistling, and then suddenly it’s here and he’s gonna watch anime with Miyuki all night, hell yeah!
“What’s got you all wound up?” Kuramochi asks, as Sawamura vigorously dries his hair with his towel.
He’s just come back from the showers, after a very productive catching session with Miyuki, and he’s rushing through getting himself ready. His most comfortable pair of sweatpants, a pajama shirt without holes, his warmest jacket — okay, so it doesn’t actually take that long for him to get ready, but the energy is there.
He removes his towel from his head and shakes his hair out. Kuramochi chucks a pillow at him as water sprays around the room.
“Miyuki and I are watching Hyouka!” Sawamura blurts out, vibrating with excitement. He barely even notices the pillow.
Kuramochi blinks. He narrows his eyes. “Hyouka? As in the anime?”
“Yeah! Have you seen it?”
“Yeah, the animation is nice — wait, how did you get that bastard to agree to watching anime?”
“I asked!”
“You ‘asked,’” Kuramochi says, disbelieving. He shakes his head. “You asked. Of course. You asked.”
“Have you ever asked him before?” Sawamura wonders, blinking owlishly.
“It doesn’t matter.” Kuramochi pulls out his phone and starts to type, rapidly firing off texts. “Make good choices. If you come back after I fall asleep and you wake me up on your way in, I’ve got a new wrestling move I’ve been dying to try out.”
Sawamura pouts. “Maybe I’ll just sleep over at Miyuki’s and avoid that issue!”
“Sleep over — no.” He pauses in his texting to look up at the ceiling with a pained expression. “Never mind. We shouldn’t have had this conversation.”
“Is something wrong with that?” Sawamura asks, bewildered.
“Get out of here,” Kuramochi says, shoving him out the door.
“Wait, I need to grab something —!”
Kuramochi tosses his camera outside. Sawamura fumbles for it, barely managing to catch it before it can hit the ground. The door slams shut.
“ — I meant the HDMI cord,” Sawamura finishes, but it’s too late. He sighs.
Luckily, he manages to wheedle a cable out of Haruichi two doors down. His friend holds out the cord — and stares at the camera in his hands until he squirms.
“Bringing this wasn’t my idea,” Sawamura protests, taking the wire. “I’m probably not even gonna use it!”
“Sure,” Haruichi says, though it’s obvious he’s being sarcastic. “Let me know how it goes. Have fun.”
“Thanks, Harucchi!”
Haruichi waves and gently shuts the door. And with that, he’s finally set for hanging out with Miyuki Kazuya.
Sawamura takes the stairs two steps at a time. He jogs down the hall and — without knocking — bursts into Miyuki’s unlocked room.
“I’m here!” He announces, triumphantly waving the wire around. “I brought the HDMI cord! You have your laptop, right?”
“Yeah, it’s by the TV,” Miyuki says, pointing in that general direction. He’s sitting at his desk, feet up on the table and phone in hand. He leans back in his chair to grin at Sawamura, upside-down, and his eyes focus in on something. “Seriously?”
Sawamura follows his gaze. “What — oh.” He tightens his grip on the camera, and he looks away, blushing. “Well, you never know!”
“We’ll see about that,” Miyuki laughs. He straightens up, tosses his phone onto his desk, and fluidly hops to his feet. “Hyouka, right?”
“Are you — are you gonna answer that?” Sawamura asks, looking at Miyuki’s phone buzzing away on his desk.
“It’s just Mochi.” Miyuki opens up a drawer and knocks his phone into it, ignoring the rapid-fire notifications.
Sawamura shrugs. He bounces over to the TV and sets his camera down. Then he gets to work: connecting Miyuki’s laptop to the TV and logging into the streaming account he shares with Wakana. As he does so, Miyuki drops some pillows down on the floor, prepping the room for their anime binge session. There’s a soft rustling sound, and then something that sounds like a plastic bag being shifted around.
“Sawamura, catch!”
Sawamura automatically stretches out his hand, and a cold bottle slaps into his palm. He looks at it, and then his eyes widen in surprise.
“Where’d you get this?” He asks, looking up from the strawberry-flavored Calpis. “They don’t have these at the vending machine!”
“There’s a convenience store a couple blocks from campus.” Miyuki shrugs, nonchalant. “I had to grab some stuff, and they had it in stock. Your favorite, right?”
“Yes! Thank you!” Sawamura beams at Miyuki for a second, until a sudden thought makes him frown. “I didn’t get you anything…”
“You didn’t have to,” Miyuki tells him. He drops onto the floor next to him and then leans over his shoulder, close enough that Sawamura can feel the warmth radiating from his body.
Sawamura stiffens. “Um?”
“I’m not gonna steal Wakana’s password or anything, don’t worry,” Miyuki says. “Just seeing if there’s anything else we can watch if Hyouka doesn’t work out.”
“Oh!” Sawamura says, laughing nervously. “That makes sense!”
He scrolls through the list of shows and finds the one that he’s looking for. Then he hits play and hugs one of Miyuki’s pillows.
“Get ready to fall in love,” Sawamura says, seriously.
Miyuki rolls his eyes and smiles, and they lean back to watch the show.
Two-and-a-quarter episodes and one strawberry Calpis later, Sawamura is suddenly struck with the need to go to the bathroom.
“I can pause it,” Miyuki says, and he reaches for the laptop.
“No! It’s fine!” Sawamura slaps away Miyuki’s arm and gets to his feet. “I’ve seen it before! You have to experience this in its full, continuous glory! Don’t look away!”
“Okay.”
“And don’t pause it while I’m gone!” Sawamura says, bouncing up and down. “Keep watching!”
“Okay.”
“Seriously!” Sawamura says. “I will be fine! Continue your visual journey —”
Miyuki tosses a pillow at him, grinning. “Sawamura, go.”
“Be right back!”
He sprints out of Miyuki’s room and down the hall to relieve himself. After washing his hands, he runs back to room 203 and nearly kicks open the door, but he manages to catch himself.
I can't interrupt his viewing experience, he decides, and instead of bursting into Miyuki's room like he usually does, he opens it as quietly as he can.
Even before the door is fully open, Miyuki turns around. “Oh, you’re back.”
Sawamura frowns. "How did you know I was back?"
Miyuki winks, and Sawamura rolls his eyes.
“What part are we at?” Sawamura asks. He plops down onto the floor and goes back to hugging Miyuki’s pillow.
“She’s asking him to help her remember her uncle,” Miyuki tells him. “This is pretty intriguing, I’m not gonna lie.”
Sawamura grins.
They continue watching in silence. Sawamura’s seen this show before, so his attention wanders a bit. He shifts his position so he’s lying on his stomach. Then he stretches out his arms — and bumps his hand into something hard.
It’s his camera.
The object in question is within reach, carelessly left on the floor beside him, and he grabs it.
He looks over at Miyuki with a thoughtful frown.
Miyuki’s lying on his stomach, too, propped up on his elbows and resting his cheek in one of his hands. His eyes are fixed upon the screen, glasses knocked slightly askew, and there’s a small smile on his lips, one so faint that Sawamura almost doesn’t catch it.
He raises his camera — right as Miyuki turns his head.
“Ah!”
Miyuki recoils with the flash of light, and Sawamura yelps.
“Oh, shit, are you okay? Sorry!”
“No, no, it’s fine,” Miyuki says, blinking rapidly. He looks at the camera, then back at Sawamura, and there’s a flash of that same mysterious something in his eyes. But then it’s wiped away, replaced by his infuriating smirk. “Ha, that flash was brighter than I expected. You almost got me that time.”
“How the hell did you see that coming?!” Sawamura exclaims. “You were watching the show! And you’re invested, too — don’t lie to me.”
“You’re never gonna catch me,” Miyuki singsongs. Sawamura swats him in the arm. Miyuki grins.
“Can I see?”
“No.” Sawamura takes the photo and shoves it into his jacket pocket without looking, and he fights to keep the hurt from showing on his face. “You should be paying attention to the show! I told you not to look away!”
“Sorry, sorry,” he says, laughing. He makes a big show of widening his eyes and staring at the screen. “Don’t worry, I’m watching!”
“Sure, you are.”
It’s banter, maybe, but there’s something acidic slipping into Sawamura’s tone. He puts his camera back down, and that excited feeling from earlier turns to churning in his gut.
The episode ends.
“Shall we go for another one?” Miyuki reaches for his laptop.
“Actually, I’m kind of tired,” Sawamura says. It sounds like someone else is speaking when he talks, and he knows that he’s frowning, but he can’t help it. “I think I’ll head back.”
“Okay,” Miyuki says. He gets to his feet and starts unplugging wires with an easy grace. Mechanically, Sawamura follows suit, and before he knows it, he’s standing at the door with a camera and an HDMI cable in his hand.
Miyuki reaches out and ruffles his hair. “Get some rest,” he says. “You look dead on your feet.”
Shaking his head, Sawamura calls up a smile and tries not to let anything leak out. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”
“See you around.”
“Good night.”
And with that, he shuffles down the stairs and returns to his own room.
“Hey, you’re back early,” Kuramochi says when he opens the door.
“Guess so.” Sawamura shrugs off his jacket and hangs it over the back of his chair, staring at the pocket holding his latest failed candid. He knows he probably should look at it. Label it. Add it to the collection.
But the thought of looking at it makes him feel sick.
“Aw, did he not like the show?” Kuramochi asks. “Hyouka is good, but it might be too slow for him. I bet he’d like Akira. Or Ghost in the Shell.”
“Yeah, sure,” Sawamura says. “Sorry, I’m kind of tired. I’m gonna go to bed.”
Kuramochi squints at him.
“… Okay,” he says, after a moment.
Sawamura climbs into his bed and pulls the covers up. He lies on his side so he’s staring at the wall, and he doesn’t fall asleep.
Kuramochi spends a few more minutes shuffling around before he turns off the light. He starts climbing up the ladder to get to the top bunk, but then pauses halfway up.
“Don’t take it too hard, Sawamura. Miyuki’s a tough nut to crack.”
Don’t I know it, Sawamura thinks, but he doesn’t respond.
“Hey,” Miyuki says, slipping into the seat next to him at breakfast the next day. “We didn’t finish the show.”
Sawamura yelps in surprise, nearly knocking over his drink, and Miyuki snorts in amusement.
“Oh, you liked it?” Sawamura manages to stammer out in a voice too forced to sound natural. Against his will, his voice starts rising in pitch. “Haha! I knew you would! This Sawamura Eijun has impeccable taste —”
“Oof, my ears.” Miyuki grins, teasing, and Sawamura tears his gaze away, trying not to frown.
“So anyway,” Miyuki continues, “I was thinking we could finish the rest this Saturday. Maybe after our catching session?”
Sawamura nods.
“Cool,” Miyuki says. He stands up, fires off a cheeky salute, and then heads over to the food station to grab breakfast. “See you later, Sawamura.”
“See you,” he says, but his heart isn’t really in it.
Miyuki walks away, and Sawamura looks down at his breakfast with a heavy sigh.
“What was that?”
This time, Sawamura really does knock over his drink, and Haruichi yelps as ice water starts dripping onto his lap.
“Eijun!”
“Harucchi,” he says, desperately. “Harucchi, I have sixty-three photos of Miyuki Kazuya.”
“Oh?” Haruichi says. “Are you finally admitting you have a problem?”
“And none of them are candid shots,” he says.
Haruichi groans.
“I’m serious! Look.”
“Eijun —”
Sawamura pulls out the photo from last night. “We were watching a show,” he says, miserably. “I thought — I thought I could get a candid, but I guess not.”
Haruichi picks up the polaroid and stares at it for a moment.
“Do you think I’m too much?” Sawamura mumbles. “Maybe I should just give up. He’s never gonna let his guard down around me.”
“Eijun,” Haruichi says, slowly. “Do you trust me?”
Sawamura blinks. “What?”
“Do you trust me?” Haruichi repeats, still looking at the polaroid.
“Uh, yeah. Why?”
“Then trust me when I tell you to take a break,” Haruichi says. He hands back the photo. Sawamura shoves it into his pocket without looking and scowls.
“So you think I should give up, too?”
Haruichi shakes his head. “Don’t give up. Just take a break. I think your vision is tunneling.” He stands up. “I’m gonna go grab a napkin and clean up this spill.”
“… Thanks.”
Haruichi pats him on the shoulder. “No problem, Eijun.”
The next week is an excruciating exercise in self-restraint. He does his laundry early. He doesn’t visit Miyuki’s classroom during break. He doesn’t barge into room 203 unannounced. Even though he’s returning to the regularly scheduled programming of ‘life before the polaroid camera’, it’s kind of difficult to do.
But he does it.
Furuya and Haruichi keep him company at mealtimes. Outside of practice, he hangs out with his peers instead of bothering Miyuki. Most importantly, his camera sits in his desk drawer for the whole week. No ambushes, no convoluted plans. It’s kind of freeing, almost, to not feel like he needs to sneak around all the time. Haruichi was right: he needed a break.
But four days in, he cracks and takes a peek at his collection of not-candids. Miyuki, winking and waving; Miyuki, making a silly face; Miyuki, pointing a finger gun at the camera. Just to be sure, he counts them again: sixty-two pictures and not a single candid shot.
The sixty-third photo is still burning a hole in his jacket pocket. He can’t bring himself to look at it, to look at the final proof of his failure to befriend Miyuki Kazuya. And he was so certain of that one, too.
“Ugh!” He drops onto his bed, face-first. “Why is he so irritating?”
But even as he says it, he knows that’s not what he should be asking. Miyuki’s irritating, sure, but so is Kuramochi, and Furuya, and even Haruichi at times. Sawamura himself can be irritating. That’s not the issue here.
The question he wants to ask is: why won’t he let me in?
Friday finds him sitting on the bleachers next to the baseball field. The wind stings his cheeks, his fingertips go numb from the cold — but the thought of sitting indoors feels so much worse. So he persists, bundled up in his warmest jacket, with his leg bouncing up and down and his camera in his hand. He’s on his last pack of film. He doesn’t think he’ll be buying more — he’s already spent an embarrassing amount of holiday money on funding this stupid quest of his.
There’s no point, anyway. Miyuki Kazuya is a guarded bastard who only takes down his walls when he plays baseball.
I suppose I should be lucky to get even that much, Sawamura thinks. Better to be batterymates than nothing at all.
Sighing, he lifts his camera and snaps a photo of the empty baseball field. There’s a soft whir, and the printout appears in his hand. He shakes out the photo and watches as shapes begin to form out of the black. The field lights, the diamond, the dugout: a familiar setting made unfamiliar. He doesn’t normally view the field from the bleachers.
“Hey.”
“Ah!”
Sawamura yelps and drops his camera. A hand reaches out and catches it before it can hit the ground, and Sawamura looks up.
Miyuki straightens up and holds out the camera.
“Thanks,” Sawamura says, taking it out of his hands.
“No problem,” Miyuki shrugs. He sits down next to him. “You doing okay?”
“Huh? Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Really?” Miyuki asks, and he looks at him from the corner of his eye. “Because I haven’t seen you in a while.”
“You caught for me in practice this morning.”
“In practice,” Miyuki says, poking him in the shoulder. “Where were you the rest of the time?”
“Around?” The word is more hesitant than Sawamura wants it to be.
Miyuki frowns. “When did you do your laundry?”
“Sunday. Why?”
“Oh, so you are avoiding me.” Miyuki leans back into the bleachers and narrows his eyes.
“What? How did you —”
“You left me all alone in the laundry room on Monday night,” Miyuki says with a fake pout. “I can’t believe you did your laundry early just to avoid seeing me! That hurts, you know.”
“I can do my laundry whenever I want!” Sawamura protests. “Maybe I had other plans Monday night, did you think of that?”
“But you didn’t.”
“You’re so annoying,” Sawamura groans. Miyuki opens his mouth, and Sawamura shoots him a sharp look before he can complete the joke.
Silence settles over them like cold snow. For the first time in weeks, Sawamura struggles with what to say to Miyuki. Suddenly, starting a conversation seems impossible.
He looks down at his camera and keeps quiet.
“Is something wrong?” Miyuki asks him, softer this time.
Sawamura blows out of his mouth and frowns, still looking at his camera. “Are we friends?” he asks.
Miyuki blinks. “What kind of question is that?”
“Just answer it, you damn tanuki!”
One heartbeat. Two heartbeats.
“Yes.”
“Ugh!” He ducks down and groans. “You hesitated!”
“Excuse me?”
“I thought we were going somewhere,” Sawamura mumbles. “I thought —”
I thought I made it through your walls. I thought you were letting me in.
“Sawamura…”
He lifts his head and stares Miyuki down. “Why can’t you let your guard down around me?”
Miyuki closes his mouth, and then opens it, and then closes it again. He bites his lip.
Sawamura feels like he’s about to cry. “See, you’re not even denying it!”
Miyuki breaks eye-contact. “… What makes you think I don’t?”
“I have proof.”
“Proof?”
“I’ve never gotten a candid shot of you,” Sawamura says. “Sixty-three photos, and not once were you relaxed enough to just be yourself! In the middle of Mario Kart, when I try to catch you in class, even while we were watching anime — you never let your guard down. I mean, look at this!”
He reaches into his jacket pocket, pulls out that stupid polaroid from their anime night, and shoves it into Miyuki’s face.
Miyuki takes it with trembling fingers. He stares at the photo, and words start spilling out of Sawamura’s mouth.
“Do you know why I wanted to take candid shots?” he asks. “I don’t want to remember your stupid jokester persona. I want to remember the face you make when you’re focusing on homework. I want to remember how you look when you’re ranting about soy sauce. I want to remember you.”
Miyuki is still staring at the picture. His face is smoothed over, expressionless.
“Well?” Sawamura demands. “What do you have to say?”
“… Did you look at this?” Miyuki asks him.
“I didn’t have to,” Sawamura grumbles. “You were so smug afterward. You were probably making a stupid face, you damn bastard.”
“God, you don’t even —” Miyuki shakes his head. “Sawamura, do you know why I always catch you before you take a picture?”
He scoffs. “Why? Because I’m loud and obvious and obnoxious?”
“No, you idiot,” comes the reply, and he holds out the polaroid, crumpled after sitting in Sawamura’s pocket for a week. “Just… look.”
Sawamura stares at the photo for the first time. Miyuki’s looking at the camera, as usual, and he’s smiling, as usual. But it’s not the smug grin that Sawamura is used to seeing on film.
It’s a soft smile. The same one Miyuki gets when Sawamura throws a particularly nice pitch. The same one he has when Sawamura rambles on about manga, or mayonnaise, or video games.
Miyuki huffs and turns his head, refusing to meet Sawamura’s eyes. “This sounds kind of weird, but I can, uh, recognize your footsteps. So I usually know when you’re in the vicinity.”
“Uh, what?”
“You’re… distinctive,” Miyuki explains. He reaches up to rub the back of his neck. “And you always scrunch your eyebrows together when you’re about to pull out your camera, so it’s pretty obvious when you’re gonna take a photo.”
There’s a lump in Sawamura’s throat when he speaks. “How would you know that?”
“Because I pay attention,” Miyuki says.
“Um?”
“Are you really going to make me say it?” Miyuki rolls his eyes, but the tips of his ears are red. “Sawamura, I like you.”
Sawamura’s brain breaks.
I like you. I like you. I like you.
“You don’t have to respond, it’s fine,” Miyuki continues. “I’m sorry you picked up on my awkwardness. I just didn’t want to make you uncomfortable. And I know you only see me as a friend, so you don’t have to force yourself to —”
“Are you kidding me?” Sawamura shrieks.
Miyuki winces and runs a hand over his face. “Look, I know I’m a bit of an asshole, but I wouldn’t joke about this —”
“Not that, you dumbass!” Sawamura says. “I came to this school for you, you repressed disaster!”
“Uh, what?”
“Oh my god, and I thought I was being annoying about it!” Sawamura says, groaning. “Miyuki Kazuya, I’ve literally always liked you.”
Miyuki blinks. He opens his mouth, and then closes it, and then opens it again. “… Are we talking about the same thing?” He asks, after a long pause.
Sawamura takes a deep breath.
Because here’s the thing: it’s never been a question, in his mind. From the very first time they formed a battery all the way up to their off-season sessions, Sawamura has always loved Miyuki Kazuya.
Miyuki was the first person who chose to catch for him. To choose him. He might joke about his shitty personality, but at the end of the day, they’re partners. It’s one of the relationships he treasures most in the entire world. Two people, working together to create a work of art.
He thinks of the way Miyuki always knows exactly how to push his buttons, how to fire him up on and off the field. The way he’s grown into a captain, commanding respect. The way he refuses to double-knot his shoelaces, the way he can talk for what seems like hours when he really gets going, how he smiles when Sawamura throws a particularly nice pitch: bright and sharp and full of challenge, a portrait of a perfect storm.
“If you’re talking about the romantic sense, then yeah, we’re talking about the same thing,” Sawamura says. “I just never said anything because you keep teasing me and I knew I’d never live it down.”
Miyuki’s face is slack with shock. He blinks once, then twice, and then a third time. And then he throws back his head and laughs.
“Shut up, you dick!” Sawamura punches him in the arm. “I pour out my heart and this is how you repay me?”
“Hey, I poured out my heart, too!” Miyuki protests, but he’s still laughing. Sawamura rolls his eyes and waits for him to calm down.
It takes a while.
“We sure are a mess, aren’t we?” Miyuki says, shoulders shaking. He’s still choking on his own obnoxious guffaws because Miyuki Kazuya has the shittiest sense of humor in the entire world.
“Keep laughing,” Sawamura says. “I’ll take a picture of you falling off the bleachers. It’ll go down in history as your first shitty photo.”
“I have a better idea, actually,” Miyuki says, and he steals the camera out of Sawamura’s hands.
“Hey — ahh?!”
Click.
A flash of light. A high-pitched hiss. Miyuki shakes out the polaroid printout while Sawamura tries to remember how to breathe.
Miyuki leans into him, holding out the printout, and they both watch as the photo develops.
“… I think this one is my favorite,” Sawamura says, after a short pause. “Ten out of ten.”
Miyuki grins and sends him a sly smile.
“What?”
“‘Ten out of ten?’” He echoes. “Do you rate your pictures of me?”
“Yeah — wait, no! Ugh! You’re literally the worst!”
“Thanks!”
“Shut up,” Sawamura says, but he’s smiling, and he goes in for a proper kiss.
