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i. seed
Miyuki Kazuya comes into the world with the first rays of the morning sun, which wrap around his tiny figure as the midwife holds him out in the open for the very first time.
His father watches as the midwife’s eyes widen, but before he can panic she smiles, and is the first to say the words that Kazuya will hear time and time again as he grows up.
“Look,” She whispers as she hands the child into his mother’s arms for the first time. “He was born under the sun’s light, and it blessed him with it’s mark.”
Now Kazuya, of course, doesn’t know how to do anything but cry and swing his little fists around, and he does so with earnest. His parents are crying along with him just this once, as they brush their fingers gently over the clear image of a black and white seed emblazoned above Kazuya’s heart.
ii. sprout
Kazuya takes stumbling steps across their backyard, his mother keeping a hawk’s eye on him from where she sits on the porch, nursing a cup of coffee. The sun is setting: a sign that Miyuki Toku will be heading home soon to sweep up his family in a big hug.
For now it’s just Kazuya, his mother, and the fireflies that start to blink as they sense the night falling. He chases after them on his wobbly feet despite failing to catch a single one.
Just as he gets the closest he’s ever been to one, close enough to see the warm light the bug emits on the inside of his closing fist, he falls back on his butt and watches it successfully fly away.
A younger Kazuya’s eyes would’ve welled up with tears in an instant before sobbing for his mother, but he’s old enough now to just blink at his mother in shock, sending her into peals of laughter.
That’s the sight that greets his father when he comes through the back gate, of his son pouting adorably at his laughing mother while she dusts off the back of his pants.
Miyuki Toku laughs too, as he holds up an expensive looking bag that they definitely can’t afford. “We’ll have to get used to him dirtying his pants, Nagusa-chan,” he says, even as Miyuki Ayame sends him a glare that demands an explanation.
Kazuya wriggles out of his mother’s grasp and walks over to the new shiny thing with an excited squeal, his mother’s hushed inquiry of, “Where exactly did you get this from, Bara-san?” going right over his head.
“Tou-san, what is it?” he asks, running his small hands over the smooth surface of the bag once his father places it down to use both hands to appease his mother’s wrath. Something about this bag makes it feel important , even though he has no way of knowing that for sure. His heart is racing too much for it to be because of the fireflies, and Kazuya needs to know.
“—giveaway at work, I promise—” his father says before he and Kazuya’s mother, now held firmly in her husband’s embrace, look down at their son.
His mother sends one last heatless glare at his father, as she answers him. “It’s a baseball bag, Kazu-chan. A very fancy one, so say thank you to your Tou-san.”
Baseball bag? Kazuya repeats the words over and over in his head as he goes back to investigating the bag. He grabs the zipper and tugs it open, heart racing even faster as he stares at the oddly shaped and colored equipment. But even back then he only had eyes for one of them.
“Kazu-chan, I told you to thank your—”
Kazuya reaches out for the big yellow thing, and as he hugs it to his chest he finds it eases the odd burning he feels there. But his shirt’s in the way, isn’t it? So he stuffs it right under his shirt and hugs it tight and—ahh the relief is immediate.
“Kazuya?” He hears his father’s voice, feels a hand on either shoulder—one rough, one soft—and opens his eyes to find the concerned faces of his parents in front of him, both crouched on the ground with the baseball bag pushed away.
“Kazu-chan, will you let us look at what’s bothering you?” His mother asks, like Kazuya would ever refuse her anything she asks for with that love in her gaze. He lets go of the yellow thing, and watches it drop to the dirt from under his shirt. His mother sets it atop the open bag while his father tells Kazuya to hold his arms straight up before lifting Kazuya's shirt up. He hears them both gasp, but not say a word.
Kazuya squirms, curiosity burning him more than his chest did, but he can’t see anything through the half-removed shirt that keeps his arms held up and face covered. “What is it?” he asks again, and his parents quickly tug his shirt back down and usher him inside.
He’s a little too big to stand atop the bathroom sink, but they make it work, and Kazuya can only stare at his parents in confusion as they lift his shirt up just enough to reveal the black and white seed on his chest now broken, sending the smallest green shoot upwards.
“Congrats on your sprouting, Kazu-chan,” His mother says with a big kiss to the side of Kazuya's head, as his father mirrors her on the other side. “I’ll make osekihan tonight just for you.”
Kazuya is impressed, sure, but what he really wants is that yellow thing again. When he says as much, his parents chuckle like they expected that answer. Kazuya can’t even be that annoyed when he likes making them happy more.
His father pulls him into a hug, and then his mother wraps all of them up into a Miyuki family sandwich with Kazuya in the middle.
“Baseball then, Nagusa-chan?” His father says, amused.
“You better start saving up Bara-chan, those fees aren’t cheap.” His mother replies. They set themselves off into another round of laughter as Kazuya simply drifts off to sleep in their embrace, worn out from all the excitement, his chest still tingling.
iii. plant
Kazuya tastes dirt in his mouth and feels it all over the side of his face and clothes after he’s pushed to the ground. His glasses, thankfully, aren’t broken but that just means he can clearly see the faces of the so-called-'senpai' as they crowd around his prone figure to see the fruits of their labor.
“That’s what you get for talking to me like that, bastard.” The second-string outfielder looks so damn smug, like he didn’t need an entire gang of his friends with him in order to lay a hand on Kazuya. What a fucking coward.
Kazuya slowly sits up, dusting off his pants and hiding his wince when he discovers scrapes on his elbow and knee. He uses his tongue to gather all the dirt in his mouth and spits it out in front of him, right by the feet of that bully. He bites back his laughter as the outfielder and the rest of his buddies all recoil, like that was worse than shoving Kazuya into the ground.
“Hey!” Someone else raises his voice this time, eyes wide with anger and disgust. “Did you just spit at us?!” And Kazuya thought he was the one with shitty eyesight.
“Don’t worry senpai,” Kazuya drawls, the corner of his mouth rising. “I was just getting rid of the dirt you so caringly fed me.” He grins at their angry faces, and starts to say something else when a third coward decides to participate in the truly scintillating conversation.
“Hah! Don’t make me laugh.” Kazuya wasn’t exactly trying to, but ok. “You should’ve shown some consideration for that weed on your chest and just swallowed it, anyways.”
Third senpai chuckles like a smug bastard—completely contradicting his first words—at the way Kazuya’s face falls flat. “What, you thought you had a flower ?” The asshole sneers. “A disrespectful brat like you?—”
“‘Don’t make me laugh’?” Kazuya guesses. He gets to his feet, picking up his cap and putting it back on his head at a slight angle, the way it was before it got knocked off. “You already did that. And said it.”
“Why you—” The outfielder who started the whole mess tries to finish it with his fists. Kazuya clenches his own as he waits for the first blow so he can return it twice as hard and not be the instigator.
At that moment, the assistant coach’s shout rings out from the practice field well in the distance from wherever these cowards dragged Kazuya to 'teach him a lesson'. The second-string senpai—now that has a nice ring to it — makes a big show of being disappointed, like he could’ve actually hurt Kazuya with his pansy punches. Bet that’s his flower , Kazuya muses as they all tell him to fuck off from the team and never come back.
Kazuya makes it a point to be the first one at practice the next day, and he practices his swings as his mother coolly requests an explanation for Kazuya returning home all scuffed up from the flustered coaches.
When the senpais come into practice and are immediately met with three angry coaches staring them down, Kazuya offers them a radiant grin from his spot on the pitch, and swings even harder.
‘What kind of place is Seido?’ is not the best thought to be having when someone’s confessing to you, but Kazuya can’t help reliving that moment again and again. That scout lady—Rei-chan, he reminds himself—thought he was a third year? Considering how terribly the seniors on his team played that makes sense, but it was still so flattering that someone was that impressed by his skills as a catcher. Especially when he was playing against Takigawa Chris’ team.
“—Miyuki-kun? What do you say?” Ah, the girl. Kazuya makes a flippant gesture in the air.
“I’m busy with baseball practice, and I'm waiting for my flower.” The girl’s face falls, but she backs off with a shy ‘alright’ that makes Kazuya suspect she doesn’t actually think she’s been rejected. Well, whatever—if she needs to spit some flowers up herself to believe he doesn’t like her, that’s all on her now.
He hears the bell ring and curses—he really does have to get to practice now.
Kazuya stalks off to the field with his baseball bag in one hand, and the other pressed to his heart, where his flower grows. It feels like he wakes up with another leaf on it every day, and as it grows with no sign of slowing down, so does the nervous feeling in Kazuya's belly.
His parents assure him that it’s perfectly normal, and that it’s a good thing because he’ll meet them soon. Kazuya’s sure it’ll be a lot better than just a good thing, but he’s just...worried.
that weed on your chest?....thought you had a flower?..like you?
In the end, it was that third senpai—currently suspended from the team for two weeks (a fancy way for the coaches to say they made the senpais have a punishment so they should be forgiven)—who was the only one who really managed to hit Kazuya where it hurt, despite not actually laying a hand on him.
Kazuya uses his ring finger to trace over a spot on his shirt that hides his latest leafy acquisition and lets out a deep breath. There’s no way his flower is a fake—there’s enough baby pictures of Kazuya and his mark to fill several albums—which means there's someone out there on the other side of this bond. All Kazuya can wish for is that the ‘passionate love’ they have for him is also genuine .
Going to Seido was the best decision Kazuya’s ever made in his life, and it’s probably the best one he’ll ever make too.
Transplanting teams only made his plant grow at even scarier speeds. Every doctor he saw reiterated that this kind of growth was completely normal, but that didn’t completely ease Kazuya’s concerns.
Luckily he had a perfect distraction: baseball.
For the first time in his life, Kazuya met people that actually played at his level, and challenged him to do better. Kazuya’s growth on the field that year kept pace with his plant, as he easily outstripped the third years and landed himself a place on the first string faster than any first-year had ever done before.
Even after they couldn’t go to Koshien after losing to Inashiro, Kazuya’s confident Seido wouldn’t make the same mistake twice. Next time, victory would be theirs.
And so they practiced, and practiced and practiced some more—until Seido’s batting lineup turned into one that stuck fear into the hearts of their opponents and not one that struck out.
Yet, there was one thing holding them back from being a perfect team: their lack of an ace.
Tanba-san stepped up to fill that role, but Kazuya always felt he was more of a placeholder than anything else. He just didn’t have the same presence on the field that the Captain or Chris-senpai had.
Then whatever presence he did have was washed away in two strikes instead of three: half with his injury, and the other half along with Chris-senpai’s departure from the team.
(There were whispers that Tanba-san and Chris-senpai bloomed for each other, and that’s why Chris-senpai’s injury sent Tanba-san over the edge. But as long as they remained whispers Kazuya could only give them the same weight whispers had—which wasn’t much at all.)
Kazuya couldn’t help but hold it against Tanba-san, because in one fell swoop Seido lost both its ace and best catcher. The pitcher never got along well with him on the best of days, and now he avoided Kazuya everywhere but the stadiums they played official matches in. How was Kazuya supposed to do anything when his pitcher behaved like that?
He clutches at his chest, feeling it burn more often than not as of late, and prays for a change to come. And for once in his life, the universe hears him loud and clear, sending a loudmouth pitcher with the most piercing golden eyes on the autumn winds.
iv. bud
“Oi, first-years! Stop hogging all the potato chips and pass them over here already,” Kuramochi yells as he makes a grabbing motion in the air, his excruciatingly loud voice somehow getting lost in the din of what’s supposed to be Kazuya’s quiet dorm room.
Kazuya peers over the edge of his book as he watches his fellow third years descend upon the chips bag like a pack of starving animals. The way they’re acting, no one would think they’d all had dinner an hour ago. He rolls his eyes and goes back to his book, content to wait until it gets late enough to kick them out so he can sleep.
“Miyuki Kazuya!” The loudest voice of them all is calling his name, and Kazuya knows he isn’t getting away from this one. Sawamura’s waving his hand in the air like he genuinely believes his yelling wasn’t enough to grab Kazuya’s attention. “You can read that book later—tell us about your sprouting!”
Kazuya ignores Sawamura’s highly invasive personal question and returns his attention to his book, which is promptly snatched out of his arms by a smug Kuramochi.
“Give it back,” Kazuya makes a futile grab for it, but Kuramochi just tosses it to Ryou-san, and Kazuya knows he isn’t seeing that book again until he does what the second-baseman wants.
“Ah ah ah,” Ryou-san has the gall to wag his finger at Kazuya from his perch on the second rung of the bunkbed’s ladder. “Sawamura-kun asked a very reasonable—” in what fucking world? “—question just now, and maybe you should get around to answering that if you want this back,” He flaunts the stolen book, and Kazuya calculates if he has enough pocket money to just buy another copy.
“Just tell us about your sprouting already!” Sawamura leans into Kazuya’s personal space, somehow having moved to the spot right next to Kazuya’s chair while he was being bullied by Ryou-san. “We all heard everyone else’s so now it’s your turn to tell us!” Oh? Is this what they call ‘team bonding’? Kazuya’s suddenly thankful for his shitty relationship with all his other senpais.
He reaches over to poke Sawamura’s right shoulder hard, making the first-year yelp and sit back down with an indignant pout. “But I didn’t hear anyone else’s,” Kazuya replies, teasing Sawamura in a way he knows the pitcher will be offended by. “So why should I tell you?”
His words provoke the response he wants. He can practically see Sawamura’s hackles raise as the first-year tries to retort, but unfortunately for Kazuya, Sawamura doesn’t even have to because Jun-san roars, “Because your senpais want to know, Miyuki, you bastard! You’re not just telling Sawamura!”
He ignores the fiery glare and finger pointed his way from Jun-san and turns the dramatics up another notch, leaning back onto his chair. He hides his snicker behind an artfully placed arm that covers his eyes, and whines, “That’s not fair at all~ Besides, how do I know you all aren’t pranking me right now?”
Kazuya laughs as his words cause a wave of conversation. He’s still chuckling when Nori—ever the angel—volunteers to retell his story.
“So, um, my sprouting only happened in primary school,” Nori quails a little under the weight of everyone’s attention on him, but he pulls through and continues. “I was chosen by the teacher to pick a book for her to read to the class before naptime, and when I went over to the bookshelf I was just drawn to this one book with a blue cover but it was on a high shelf so I couldn't reach it. Then the teacher came over and handed it to me and that’s when my shoulder hurt and she saw the sprout and made everyone clap for me... ” He trails off to raucous applause from Tetsu-san and Jun-san.
“What a solid tale.” Tetsu-san solemnly declares as he continues to clap. Jun-san wipes what Kazuya wants to believe are fake tears away from his eyes as he nods.
Between Kusunoki-san and Ryou-san they get the two to pipe down before the spotlight turns to Kazuya once more. He feels sweat at the back of his neck as they all stare at him expectantly. No wonder Nori was so nervous—this felt like playing in a match, and Kazuya didn’t want to strike out.
“What brought this topic up anyways?” he asks, running a hand through his hair as he tries to distract them. Ryou-san’s quiet chuckle lets him know he fails spectacularly.
Kanemaru answers him, buying Kazuya some time. “Maezono-senpai and Masuko-senpai were talking about this movie they watched, and then Jun-san said the way the leads met was unrealistic so people started giving examples of their sproutings since none of us—” he gestures around the circle,“—have bloomed yet.”
Quick and to the point with no extra fluff. Kazuya nods appreciatively. Maybe he could talk Kanemaru into being vice president down the line. The current vice president, however, is enraged once more. “That’s not what I said—”
“It’s close enough,” Kusunoki-san says with a nonchalant shrug. “Besides,” Kazuya slowly sips at his tea. He really doesn’t want to do this. “Miyuki-kun was about to share with the class, so let’s get back to that.”
Kazuya narrows his eyes but doesn’t protest. The way everyone’s watching him—Sawamura and Jun-san with vivid interest, Ryou-san slightly intrigued, Furuya completely asleep in the most uncomfortable position as Kominato tries to rouse him—it was exactly like presenting a project to the class. Kazuya could just do what he did for those.
He sighs and pushes his glasses up on his nose, looking at no-one in particular when he says, “It’s not really that interesting, but since you all want to know so bad…”
“We do!” Sawamura interjects. Kuramochi’s quick to jab his unsuspecting roommate in the gut.
“Shut up and let the asshole talk! I’m not letting you ruin this fucking miracle, alright?” Kuramochi barks at Sawamura, who’s bent in half by the pain. Kazuya is not offended by what Kuramochi just said, and he tries to remember what had happened that day.
“My parents told me that my dad brought home a bag of baseball gear he won in a raffle at work, and I apparently took the mitt and shoved it under my shirt because my chest was burning. The end.” He finishes the story as concisely as possible, not wanting to give any more details to this gossip-hungry group.
“You couldn’t have made your story any more...” Kuramochi searches for the right words to insult Kazuya as Sawamura grumbles.
“That’s it? That’s way too short, tell us more!” The idiot actually puts his hands on Kazuya’s knee and rests his face on top of them, pleading with Kazuya like he’s some kind of actual child.
“That is it, stupid,” Kazuya takes the opportunity to flick Sawamura’s forehead, only making the pitcher pout more. Kazuya reaches a hand out in Ryou-san’s direction. “Can I have my book back now?”
Ryou-san merely smiles. “Miyuki-kun, you haven’t answered all of Sawamura’s questions, which, I remind you, are very reasonable.” Kazuya groans as Sawamura leans back and cheers in delight.
“It really is the whole thing, though. I can’t make up a part of the story that never actually happened!” He throws his arms up, helpless, and in his frustration points over to the yellow mitt resting on top of his dresser. “That’s the same mitt right there. Is that proof enough for you?”
Ryou-san’s eyes actually widen in surprise, and Kazuya hears more than a few gasps as Kuramochi fires questions at him with his brows furrowed in disbelief, “You’re using the mitt that caused your sprouting? Why didn’t you use it earlier? Why even bother to use it at all? Shouldn’t you put it away for safekeeping?”
“That’s what I was about to ask,” Nori agrees, as Kazuya seriously wonders how they all got passing grades in class.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but that glove is a bit too fucking big for a six-year-old. And it’s an expensive mitt, so why would I buy another when I’ve got a perfectly good one for free?” Sawamura’s being suspiciously quiet, but before Kazuya can look down to see what he’s doing, Tetsu-san hums, chin pressed into his fist like that statue of the Thinker.
“What if it gets worn out, and you have to throw it away?” Kazuya doesn’t want to call the Captain stupid, but it’s a close call.
“I wouldn’t throw it away, I’d just keep it.” Why are they asking questions with such obvious answers? Kazuya decides to volunteer a bit more information as bait to keep them at bay. “Besides, what if it’s the mitt itself that has something to do with my flower?” His question makes Tetsu-san nod in understanding, and he feels the hands that returned to his knee tighten their grip. He looks down to see Sawamura staring into nothing, an unreadable look on his normally expressive face.
“I see,” Tetsu-san says. “That makes perfect sense.”
“Hah?” Jun-san looks lost as his eyes dart between Tetsu-san and Kazuya. “The mitt itself? What does that mean?”
Tetsu-san answers for Kazuya. “He means that maybe he’ll be using that mitt when he meets his Flower, or perhaps even when he himself blooms.” Kazuya nods, confirming Tetsu-san’s words, when he’s hit in the face by his own book.
He curses at the impact, and scrambles to pick it up as Sawamura rears back, startled out of his thoughts. Ryou-san’s not the only one laughing, and Kazuya just rolls his eyes as he finds the page where he left off.
“You’re more of a romantic than I thought, Miyuki-senpai.” Kominato says between giggles. His brother’s never looked prouder of Kominato, and Kazuya just wants to know how ‘maliciousness’ is a genetic trait.
“R-romantic?” Sawamura squawks, something clearly still on his mind.
“Extremely romantic,” Kusunoki-san confirms with a smirk. Kazuya flips to the next page of his book. Why did he let Rei-chan convince him to attend this school again? “Maybe it runs in the family.”
This is where Kazuya fucks up. He snorts, still reading as he mutters, “It probably does.”
“Oh?” Kuramochi says, and Kazuya looks up only to instantly regret seeing Kuramochi’s shit-eating grin. “Maybe you can explain that to us to make up for the two sentences you called a ‘story’.”
Zono tries to speak up in Kazuya’s defense, laying a placating hand on Kuramochi’s shoulder. “There’s no need for that, leave him alone.”
But it’s too late—the senpais have already bitten Kuramochi’s bait.
“He’s right! Tell us a proper story this time, Miyuki!” Jun-san’s doing the pointing and yelling again but Kazuya isn’t fazed in the slightest.
“What are you, a baby?” He asks, not bothering to wait for a response. “I’m not telling you a bedtime story, leave me alone.”
“But Miyuki-senpai~” Sawamura’s back to that pleading posture again, whining as he looks up at Kazuya with wide eyes. “Can you just tell me instead?”
His request makes no sense no matter how Kazuya wraps his head around it. The worst part is that Kazuya’s somehow convinced by it, and Sawamura jumps at the opening Kazuya’s hesitation gives him.
“Pretty please? I won’t even ask you to catch for me tomorrow!” Kazuya can’t refuse such an amazing offer. He sighs in defeat as Sawamura recognizes his victory and smiles at him, not bothering to move.
Kazuya recalls how he sat squished in between his parents on an armchair meant for one, their wedding photo album spread across three laps, and starts speaking in a low voice only meant for Sawamura’s ears.
“Kaa-san was on her lunch break, between classes while she was at university for her Botany PhD,” Kazuya says, acutely aware that the room is the quietest it’s been all night. He fidgets with the half-empty bottle of tea on his desk.“She had plans to meet up with a friend for lunch somewhere around Shibuya, and she was running late."
“She stops to ask someone for directions, and when she turns there’s this guy waiting to talk to her,” It isn’t even his own story, or the worst part of the story, but Kazuya’s stomach churns in embarrassment all the same. He keeps his gaze fixed on one of the books on his shelf. If he looks at anyone right now he’ll have to run outside.
“He asks if a lady like her is really going to eat at that place,” Kazuya can feel the whole room hanging onto his every word, and the sound effects some of them keep making aren’t helping Kazuya pretend to ignore them. But he's said this much. He can finish the job. Maybe.
“She asks what’s wrong with the restaurant, because her friend's been there before and likes it. So he tells her that he knows a much better place to eat at, and that he lives there himself—” Kazuya can’t continue over the loud gasps and shrieks that follow. He can’t blame them: a younger Kazuya ran away screaming that it was gross when he heard this for the first time.
“Let him finish!” It’s Nori who quiets the rest. Kazuya doesn’t know whether to feel betrayed or thankful.
“Then she wants to know why he thinks a lady like her would eat there,” More exclamations, but Kazuya ignores them and pushes on, determined to finish this quickly and kick all of them out.
“And Tou-san says that there’s nowhere else in the city where she could get a meal and a man to marry at the same time—” All of Tokyo could probably hear his classmates yelling their heads off at Miyuki Toku’s best pickup line. Kazuya just wants to go to bed and never think of this again.
“So!” he shouts over the ruckus, and locks eyes with an elated Sawamura who has the most awed expression on his face Kazuya’s ever seen. The burning sensation he was ignoring in his ears bleeds down to his chest as he maintains eye contact and wraps it up. “My mom calls her friend and cancels their lunch date on the spot and goes with him. They both swear to me that their blooming happened during that lunch. And that’s how my parents met. The end.”
Winter training felt less tiring than this. Kazuya closes his eyes in exhaustion, as Jun-san is absolutely losing it.
“You’re making this up, Miyuki!” he points an accusatory finger yet again at a confused Kazuya. “There’s no way—what movie script did you copy? Or is it a manga?” Jun-san turns to Sawamura, who’s moved away to another corner of the room when Kazuya wasn’t looking. The pitcher's ears are bright red, for some reason, and he hides into a pillow held up to his face. “Oi, Sawamura! Have you read this anywhere?”
Sawamura just shakes his head. Jun-san waves him off and tries again. “You had to have gotten this from somewhere, Miyuki! It can’t be real! What’s next, are you going to tell me they call each other by their flower names?”
Kazuya can only blink in response, because they do . Kuramochi picks up on this fast, and laughs his hyena laugh. “They do, Jun-san! See, there are couples that keep it classic!” Kazuya can’t tell what’s so funny about that, but it makes more than a few people giggle.
Kusunoki-san raises his hand, which reminds Kazuya of the senpai’s earlier joke about ‘sharing to the class’, as he asks, “So what are their nicknames for each other?” Ryou-san sends him a particularly...encouraging look from across the room.
“It’s Nagusa-chan and Bara-chan, for Kaa-san and Tou-san respectively.” he mumbles, hoping people were distracted enough to not hear. Ryou-san smiles like a cat that got the cream as Jun-san actually wails in despair.
“See, Jun? That could happen in real life if Miyuki-kun’s parents are like this in real life.” The sound of a smug Ryou-san sends shivers down Kazuya’s spine. Boy would he not want to be on the receiving end of that .
Kazuya’s suffering is put to an end when Tetsu-san abruptly stands up, drawing everyone’s attention.
“It’s getting late. We need to rest before practice tomorrow.” Kazuya almost sheds a tear. How beautifully to the point. And effective too, because everyone clears the room before Kazuya can even sit back in his chair. He lets out a deep breath after he finishes watching Kominato lug Furuya's still sleeping body out the door, and closes his eyes for a blissful second.
Just for a second.
“Miyuki Kazuya! You have to catch for me now! Before we go to sleep! Because—”
The door slams shut.
“I got him Miyuki! Shut up Bakamura! It’s too late for that!”
Kazuya sighs. Some things never change.
Kazuya doesn’t expect last night’s topic of discussion to ever come up again. Which is why when a red-faced Kominato is pushed into the seat right across from him at dinner by Sawamura, he’s more than a little confused.
“Miyuki Kazuya! Harucchi had some questions for you!” Sawamura announces with a bright grin as Kominato elbows him and hurriedly corrects his friend.
“That’s-It’s not specifically for you, Miyuki-senpai, but Eijun-kun said—” Kazuya holds up a hand to stop their chatter and savors the bite of his dinner he’s taking, because he knows it’s the last one he’ll have for a while. He places his chopsticks down and gestures for Sawamura to explain whatever the fuck is going on.
“So! Harucchi here had some questions about Marks and Blooming,” Sawamura says, hands on either side of Kominato's shoulders like a parent showing off their child. “And you mentioned your Okaa-san had a PhD in botany, so I thought you’d know about it pretty well!”
Kazuya’s kind of impressed the idiot actually remembers that much of what he’d said last night, but then again Sawamura had been the one who asked about that in the first place. Kazuya also knows he himself wasn’t that comfortable with his senpais—aside from the current third-years, though nights like yesterday’s make him seriously doubt—but he never thought he’d be a person that his own kouhais would come to like this.
The thought is almost...uncomfortably sweet. But there’s an obvious contradiction in what Sawamura just said.
“Sawamura, I’d understand if you came to me with your questions, but Kominato—” Kazuya turns to the boy as he asks, “Why don't you ask your brother about this? Shouldn’t he be the one you should go to for this kind of talk?”
Kominato’s shaking his head even as Kazuya’s talking, the nervous blush still on his face as he replies, “It’s hard to talk to him about this kind of thing. He’s always changed the subject when I asked. But then Eijun-kun mentioned that you might know so he dragged me here.”
Well this is news to him. He didn’t know siblings could be this distant with one another, but it makes sense when he considers how Ryou-san is as a person. Being more approachable than Ryou-san isn’t that high of a bar to climb, but Kazuya’s still oddly proud he has.
“Go on then,” He gestures with a wave of his hand. “What did you wanna know?”
Sawamura and Kominato look at each other like they don’t know where to start. Kazuya sneaks in a couple more bites of rice and fish while they have some silent conversation. He swallows down a grimace with one of his bites as his chest starts stinging out of the blue. It’s been a good few months since the worst of the pain subsided, but here it is, back again for two nights in a row. He makes a note to go talk to the school nurse when the first-years face him again.
“Miyuki-senpai,” Kominato asks, determination written all over his face and posture. “What does a flower mean?”
Kazuya almost gapes at the boy before he collects himself. He snorts. Leave it to Kominato to ask such a complicated question out of the gate. It does explain why he couldn’t ask his brother though. Luckily for them, Kazuya was an inquisitive child with an indulgent mother.
Out of the corner of his eye, he notices more than just this pair paying attention to what’s going on. Furuya brazenly comes and sits to Kazuya’s left, right across from Sawamura, and sips on his milk. Ryou-san sends a curious look their way, but then his senpai merely turns away and follows Jun-san outside the dining hall. Odd.
“You couldn’t open with an easier question?” Kazuya decides to just go with the flow. Who cares who’s listening. They can all listen and never ask him about it again.“To give you the simple answer: There is no definite meaning for any flower.”
Sawamura’s jaw drops as Kominato asks, brows furrowed. “What do you mean by that?”
Kazuya holds up a placating hand. “Wait, let me do all the explaining and gather your questions for the end.” He ignores Sawamura’s teasing ‘Yes, Miyuki-sensei’ and continues.
“If you think about it, there’s nothing about the flower that actually tells you anything significant outright, aside from it growing during significant events in your life that tie to your Flower and, obviously, the Blooming that happens at the moment you fall in love. So I can't tell you exactly what it means.” Kominato and Sawamura look like a pair of kicked puppies. They perk right back up when Kazuya adds, “I can tell you what they typically mean though.”
“Why didn’t you say that from the start, Miyuki Kazuya?” Sawamura grumbles.
Kazuya ignores him, and the feeling of his own mark burning again. “Officially, a flower represents your Flower, or soulmate, however you want to call them. The meaning of the flower represents their love for you. So if you have, like, lavender as your flower, something about that flower’s appearance is tied to your soulmate, and the meaning of it is tied to how they love you. Which in this example would be ‘devotion’: so their love for this person is devoted.
“The flower itself, the appearance of it—it represents how the soulmate views the person with the mark. I’ll use a white rose as an example,” Sawamura straightens up and watches Kazuya with even more focus, the same heat in his gaze as the night before, trying to pull Kazuya’s attention his way. Kazuya keeps his eyes resolutely fixed on Kominato.
“It’s Kaa-san’s flower, the one on her body that she's the Bearer of, and Tou-san’s her soulmate, just to establish things. We all know what roses mean right?” The first-year trio all nod.
“Good. So they’re often associated with romance, and white is a color often associated with innocence and purity. If you go to a flower Reader like my parents did, they would tell you that my dad is a romantic, and quite innocent. Clearly, from how my parents met you know that second part is bullshit—” Sawamura and Kominato choke on sudden laughter, and Furuya huffs in amusement.
“—but then the Reader would continue and say that the presence of thorns means my dad is a bit of a prickly person, but there’s a way to get past that prickliness and get closer to him. They would also say that roses are a very traditional sign of love, so either he’s a traditional person, or he approaches love in a traditional way, which again is bullshit. I could keep going but you all get the point by now, I hope.” More nodding follows his words.
“But then there’s a lot of overlap with everything they just said about the appearance of the flower and with the official meaning of a white rose, which is innocence, devotion or purity. This happens a lot with a lot of flowers, which kind of muddles the two meanings of the flower, in this example at least, regarding my parents.”
There’s a long silence as Kazuya’s new students digest what they’ve just been taught. He monitors their expressions as he finishes the last of his dinner, and they all—understandably— look like they still have loads of questions.
“It does,” Kominato agrees. “But I feel like that’s not what Miyuki-senpai himself believes.” Kazuya raises an eyebrow. First Kuramochi, now Kominato—is everyone on this team a psychic now? Or is he just an easy read? Kominato folds his hands on the table in front of him. “If you don’t mind, can you tell us what you think?”
“I can,” Kazuya concedes, “But I'm warning you right now that I have my own biases towards…” he waves a hand in the air, unable to find the right words. “All of this. But I'll try my best.” How the hell does he say what he thinks without confusing them too much?
“I think,” he hesitantly starts. “The meaning of the flower could be what your soulmate loves about you, or how they feel about you at the moment their own flower blooms, so during their Blooming.”
To Kazuya’s surprise, it’s Furuya who first responds. “I like the second one. It’s romantic. Just like you, Miyuki-senpai.”
Kazuya can’t help but laugh in defeat, his reputation ruined. “Thanks Furuya. That’s my own personal theory. The first one is Kaa-san’s, and some of her scholar friends’ theory. I just don’t think it makes sense that the meaning of a flower describes love, as a concept, itself when the actual flower apparently represents the person and not also the person’s love.” Kominato pulls a notepad out of nowhere and is jotting things down furiously fast.
Sawamura looks deep in thought for once. His hand is on his chin, a light frown on his face when he says, “That does make a lot of sense, especially when Blooming happens at the moment the mark Bearer falls in love and not when the person the Mark represents does…” he trails off, muttering to himself.
Kazuya’s more impressed than he should be by the point Sawamura just made, along with the official terminology he used. He really shouldn’t be though, considering Sawamura’s obsession with all things romance related. The first-year’s even watched enough rom coms by this point to give Jun-san a run for his money.
Furuya walks around the table to sit beside Kominato and peer at the notes he’s been writing this entire time. Kazuya gets up and stretches his arms, grabbing the trio’s attention. “I’ll put my tray away and come back, take your time.”
He does just that, and slides back into his seat. Kominato and Furuya are talking to each other, but Sawamura's still lost in thought. He perks up when he notices Kazuya's return, and nudges the other two to alert them to it too.
“Miyuki-senpai, I was just thinking—” Sawamura’s barely said two words but Kazuya can’t resist the opportunity that’s been handed to him on a silver platter.
“Eh? You know how to do that?” He laughs as anger flashes across Sawamura’s face and the pitcher reaches across the table to smack Kazuya’s arm.
“Shut up! Don’t interrupt!” Now that sounds more like the Sawamura he knows. “As I was saying,” the first-year has the audacity to glare at him before he says, “I was thinking that your Okaa-san’s Flower’s description sounds a lot like you, Miyuki Kazuya. I guess you’re a lot like your Otou-san.”
Kazuya’s been shocked so many times tonight he checks to make sure he isn’t sitting on an electric chair. The chair is, unfortunately, just plastic and metal, but Kazuya’s still reeling from Sawamura of all people making such an astute observation. He makes another mental note to not underestimate the first-year on matters like this.
For now he smiles, trying not to show his surprise. “It’s funny you mention that, because Kaa-san swears that my own Flower’s flower is a rose of any color.”
Before he can properly see the expression on Sawamura’s face he winces, and pretends to duck down under the table to search for a chopstick to blame. Because why the fuck does it feel like he’s being stabbed in the chest right now? Luck is on his side, and he sits up, brandishing a dirty chopstick and smoothly lies, “I just stepped on this, that’s all. No need to look at me like that.”
Sawamura—now frowning—yanks the chopstick from his hand and hits it against the table before going to return it. It reminds him of his parents hitting any random surface that Kazuya bumped against to punish it for daring to hurt their child. His chest is already twisting enough without his heart being added into the mix. Maybe tonight’s about making him feel certain feelings again and again, because watching his teammates be so openly concerned he’s been hurt instead of being the ones hurting him is…rather nice.
He walks them out of the dining hall, offering to lend Kominato some textbooks on the topic if he’s interested. The sound of pitches being hit in the batting cages seems to awaken something in Furuya and Sawamura, because the two start bickering about who gets to pitch to Kazuya tonight.
“Miyuki Kazuya, you didn’t even pitch for me yesterday!” Sawamura’s got him by the front of his shirt again, and Furuya’s tugging on his arm like a little kid. In the commotion, he almost misses Ryou-san walking by and pulling Kominato along with him.
Kazuya is manhandled towards the indoor practice gym, the two rivals standing on either side of him now arguing about who gets to go first, and he doesn’t bother to refuse them, or remind Sawamura of the deal he’d made last night. As the cold night air soothes what he’ll later find out is the newly formed image of a bud on the end of his plant, he thinks it’s nice to be wanted.
iv. unfurling flower
The months go by in the blink of an eye. It feels like just yesterday when Kazuya first arrived at Seido. Now all of a sudden he’s one of the third years, and Captain to boot.
The former third-years left the team, and it feels like they took all of Seido’s power with them. Kazuya spends night after night trying to come up with a way to make them bat harder, pitch better, be better—but it seems like the current team can never match up to their senpais’ strength in the batter’s box.
He remembers how it felt to watch Inashiro climb so high after winning a match he was sure Seido would win. It was a special kind of pain. Yet he forced himself to analyze every inning of every one of Inashiro’s matches at that Summer Koshien. He needs to know what tipped the scales in Inashiro’s favor, and find some sort of flaw that could give Seido an advantage.
All he learns is that Narumiya Mei is as perfect a pitcher as they come, and no one on the team internalizes that message better than Sawamura Eijun.
There was a part of him that didn’t realize a person like Sawamura—with seemingly limitless optimism and drive, running into everything headfirst with excitement—could ever have an off day, let alone get the yips. Pity never helps anyone though, so Kazuya doesn't show him any and trusts that Sawamura’s love for baseball would pull him out of it eventually.
He doesn’t need Kuramochi to tell him Sawamura’s important to the team’s victory when Kazuya’s always known that was a fact. He also knows that if a single player was all a team needed to secure the victory, Inashiro would have won the Summer Koshien easily both times they went.
Besides, what use is it to have a pitcher work so hard to not give up runs when the batting lineup can’t keep the pressure off the pitcher by keeping the score high? Even a perfect pitcher might have to sacrifice a few runs, but they need to be able to count on their team to have their back—and Seido is simply unable to do that with their current team.
(He knows all too well that he’s to blame for this. For taking the nagging a touch too far, for not saying anything to him before he crumbled against Yakushi, for not taking a break in that fateful inning against Inashiro. He knows.)
That’s why Sawamura has to pick himself up this time from where he’s fallen so far. He needs to claw his way back onto the mound with his own two hands, with his own effort and skill—not with Kazuya meddling and coddling and dragging him there. Sawamura just has to prove that Kazuya’s faith in him isn’t misplaced, and become a partner Kazuya can rely on to carry the team to the top.
He does try to help on the pitcher from afar in his own way, by sending Chris-senpai over when things look really dire, and directs his focus on what he can do for the team as a whole, as well as their suddenly faltering ace who’s facing a mental block of his own.
It's for the good of the team to do it like this.
He tells himself that’s why his gaze just flickers over to whatever corner Sawamura's practicing instead of walking over to him and asking what’s wrong, and why he feels a pang in his chest when he sees how soulless those once bright eyes are after every failed inside pitch.
Kazuya forces himself to look away, and just as he hoped Sawamura barrels into his sight again. He pitches perfectly controlled outside strikes in the middle of the pouring rain, throwing Teito off to secure a Seido victory, and Kazuya tries to manage his expectations.
He should’ve known Sawamura would randomly pitch an inside course right before their next match against Nanamori. He’s always learned things at lightning speed, putting them into practice easily. Kazuya can’t stop the bubbling excitement inside him at the possibilities ahead of them: for controlled outside pitches followed by an inside pitch when the batter least expects it.
Kazuya keeps himself cool—it won’t do them any good to have him be off his game when Sawamura needs his support on the field the most. As he expects, Sawamura’s pitching is all over the place. He’s pitching some good strikes, but without the variation provided by the inside pitches and Sawamura’s own nerves—which Kazuya blames on him being the starting pitcher and the yips equally—he racks up more walks than outs. The team is keeping the score zero for now, but Kazuya wants to try something.
He holds his mitt up for an inside pitch. Kazuya’s aware this might be a bad call, but Sawamura has to pitch this in a game for it to really matter. Sawamura himself clearly knows what needs to be done—he just needs to stop thinking about it so much and throw the ball into Kazuya’s mitt.
As soon as the pitch is thrown, Kazuya feels a wave of deja-vu. He watches the ball fly by and hit the batter. His heart sinks. He’s done it again hasn’t he? Rushing Sawamura, pressuring him to do something he can’t yet—something that he didn’t need to do right then and could’ve put off for later. Fuck.
It’s a sign of Sawamura's growth that he doesn’t completely fall apart on the mound again, but his pitching still misses the mark. Kazuya runs through pitching sequences in his mind, trying to find one that could work with what Sawamura has when the cleanup steps up to bat.
Kazuya’s eyes widen in horror as the cleanup brazenly steps forward to hit the first pitch and hits it. Zono dives to catch it and misses, Kazuya’s head swims, and it’s a foul. He exhales deeply. The batter clearly knows Sawamura won’t pitch inside. But is Sawamura really ready to pitch there right now? There’s still time—it’s early enough in the match, and their batters can definitely get a few runs—but he keeps replaying the pitch that was just hit in his mind.
They have to play it safe. He reluctantly signs for an outside pitch, his heart crying out for him to do otherwise.
Then Sawamura, the idiot first-year that spent the first few months blindly throwing where Kazuya asked and paid the price for it when they played against Inashiro—that absolute idiot shakes Kazuya’s sign.
Kazuya knows he’s not the only one gaping at Sawamura right now. He can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, and it feels like time is suspended between them as he looks into a pair of eyes that glimmer with understanding. Sawamura knows Kazuya wants an inside pitch.
Sawamura grins, and Kazuya doesn't know how much he missed that sight until he sees it again. Geez. Everytime he thinks he knows Sawamura well enough, he throws one of those moving fastballs Kazuya’s way, and he has to scramble to catch it once more.
He glances at the dugout to get Coach Kataoka’s approval, and the man doesn’t hesitate to nod. He grins, still in disbelief. It feels like their roles are reversed, to have Sawamura be the one to let Kazuya play how he truly wants. There’s a warm feeling in his chest that he’s afraid to name as he shuffles to hold his mitt for an inside pitch, but for a moment he swears it feels like pride.
The pitch itself is a blur, but he feels it come home to his mitt with a satisfying smack that reverberates down his arm and into his chest. The batter is reeling away in shock, the umpire behind him declares the strike—but Kazuya only has eyes for the quiet astonishment on Sawamura’s face.
He tries not to gloat at the cleanup—who’s clearly trying to figure out why that wasn’t an outside pitch like he expected—and gets to his feet. Kazuya’s chest is burning again, but he ignores it to throw the ball back to an oddly silent Sawamura.
“Nice pitch, Sawamura!” he yells, and he means it. The stands roar as all of Seido cheers Sawamura’s strike, and that’s what snaps Sawamura out of it and makes his grin return.
True to form, Sawamura slips up and the cleanup hits the pitch to the outfield, where a newly-invigorated Furuya flings it back to home. Kazuya’s not disappointed though. The fire’s returned to Sawamura’s eyes, and that’s what matters—for the team, of course.
He smiles softly at the scene on the mound when the inning ends, the fielders just as excited about that pitch as Kazuya is. The memory of the Miyuki family garden one spring comes to mind at the sight—when a plant that failed to grow the previous year suddenly sent up a healthy shoot, growing into a rose bush that gives them pristine white flowers each year.
Kazuya knows Sawamura will take some time to grow, just like that rosebush did, but there’ll come a time when Sawamura can reap the rewards. The selfish part of him wants to see it while he’s at Seido. The greedy part of him wants to see it at the Summer Koshien.
Kazuya takes his catcher’s gear off in the dugout, and sneaks off to put a cold patch over his heart before he goes to bat. When he looks closely at his Mark after a long soak in the bath that night, he might catch the slightest hints of yellow peeking between the green of the bud’s sepals.
Kazuya stands on the path atop the small hill, his bat resting on his shoulder as he watches the sun set behind the school, turning the once-blue skies into a medley of pinks, purples and oranges.
The match against Ichidai is a revelation in many ways. He thought he knew how hard Sawamura’s been working all these months, but seeing his demeanor on the mound today shattered the image he’s held of the pitcher all this time. He pitched as close to perfect as it gets in the pinch situation he was dropped into. Every call Kazuya made was answered with a pitch exactly like he asked for.
Had Kazuya ever imagined Sawamura would look ready to wear the ace number this soon?
He reminisces about how far both Sawamura and Furuya have made it since their first day here—just two boys with dreams and without the skill to make them a reality—and it's bittersweet to want them to grow yet be unable to play with them in only three months’ time. But that’s life, isn’t it?
Kazuya sighs, the cold patch plastered on his chest reminding him of another timer about to go off. If he didn’t know what his flower was until now, he would’ve easily put the pieces together. The petals are an unmistakable shade of gold, restrained by the remnants of the bud barely keeping it pushed together.
It's hard to guess when it’ll actually bloom, but Kazuya just needs it to not get in the way of their journey to Koshien. For now, he pushes it aside to worry about on another day and gets into position, swinging at the sinking sun and hoping to see it above the Koshien stadium in the summer to come.
vi. full bloom
As Kazuya prepares for their departure to the stadium for their game against Ichidai, the skies are clear, the sun is blazing, and a warm breeze gently rustles the curtains. The heat reminds him of the summer, and of those hallowed grounds. It’s all perfect. A bit too perfect.
The journey to get to this match was much the same. Kazuya wants to go back in time to when he first became captain, and tell that boy that none of the things he was worrying about would be a concern in a few months’ time.
They now call Seido the ‘land of pitchers’, with a batting order strong enough to send ball after ball to the back screen. It says a lot about Seido’s growth as a team that they can play matches without their ace taking the mound and win by a comfortably large margin, and Kazuya feels like a fool for ever thinking they needed their senpais to stay on the team because their batting order was weak.
And who can forget their new ace, who might actually be the one to lead them to Koshien after all.
Sawamura’s never stopped surprising Kazuya since they first met, and Kazuya was stupid to think that would stop once the number one adorned the pitcher’s back. Today, Sawamura’s come full circle from their last match against Ichidai—one that ended with so much regret. Kazuya has entertained the thought of what could’ve happened that day if Coach Kataoka had switched Sawamura in earlier, but what-ifs were a dangerous game to start playing.
Seido only has the present, and looks forward to the future. That’s the kind of team Kazuya leads.
Knowing all this makes the way his stomach churns and heart pounds seem completely unnecessary. He’s not nervous, nor unsure of their victory. But the air seems charged, like it’s waiting for a spark to set everything ablaze, and Kazuya’s not interested to find out what happens when it does. He just wants a victory, then another victory against Inashiro, then as many as he can to stretch his last summer out as far as it can go with this team.
Kazuya’s seriously wondering if he made a deal with the devil and forgot about it, because there’s no way he won the rock-paper-scissors today too. If luck chooses today to be on his side, he’s gonna milk it for all it’s worth.
With that in mind he slips into his catcher’s gear, checking to make sure the straps are all tightened before he steps onto the pitch. His heart pounds as Sawamura cleanly uses his repertoire of pitches to take out Ichidai’s batters before they can even blink. The custom splitter is more effective than he thought, and he tries not to show Sawamura how impressed he is that the pitcher managed to work on something like this while being under so much pressure.
He’s too focused on his own team to remember there are other monstrous pitchers out there, but Amahisa makes sure to remind him by showing his dominant pitching, making quick work of the top of Seido’s lineup. Maybe that dread he felt earlier was because he somehow knew this was coming.
If Kazuya glares at Amahisa a bit more than necessary when he comes up to bat, it’s no one’s business but his own.
The pitchers trade blows, the batters remain unable to secure any runs. Sawamura even breaks the 140kmph barrier but victory isn’t favoring either side. When the fielding errors start to occur, Kazuya lets himself be afraid, just the slightest bit. In a game that’s this close when playing at full strength, they can’t afford to mess up like this.
Kazuya hopes Sawamura doesn’t let this get to him. He knows the pitcher’s habit of shouldering responsibilities he doesn’t have to could mean the end for them, especially with Nori confined to the sidelines. Thankfully, Sawamura's pitching is steady. It even feels like he’s rousing the team to follow his lead, and utterly crush Ichidai.
“Nice pitch!” Kazuya says, offering his fist to Sawamura as they return to the dugout at the end of the seventh.
Sawamura meets him halfway with his own fist, as he shouts, “Thanks! I just threw it into your mitt, that’s all!” Kazuya hides his smile at the familiar words, with a world of change between when he first heard them and now. As his reliable senpai, Kazuya and the others now have to respond in kind with their bats.
Clearly Kazuya spoke too quickly, because his chest starts to fucking itch like he doesn’t have enough to deal with already when Kanemaru’s out makes them change innings once more.
By now he expects Sawamura’s speech that cuts through the depressing atmosphere. “It’s far from over after all!” The pitcher shouts encouragingly, and Kazuya agrees.
He doesn’t expect Nori to walk over to the practice bullpen, his shadow pitching sending out a quiet, yet clear message that he’ll be fighting right alongside them.
It seems to be the spark that Sawamura and Kazuya both need to be kicked into overdrive, and the charged air he felt back at Seido seems to have travelled with them here. Kazuya feels like their battery has power to spare as he watches Sawamura hold out for 8 pitches during his at-bat before finally being struck out.
The nervousness in his stomach turns into hunger, and when Shirasu finally connects it to him, bringing Kuramochi back home, he doesn’t feel sated at all. Tetsu-san’s walkup song echoing throughout the stadium is what makes him snap, and he can’t help the feral grin that crawls across his face.
Sawamura’s performance today is his personal best, and now Kazuya, as his partner, wants to respond in kind. His blood is rushing through his ears, heart about to pop out of his chest, mark prickling like there’s a flickering flame dancing on it—but he’s never felt more focused.
He swings, the ball soars and Kazuya smiles wide.
“Captain! Captain Seido!” Sawamura’s excited cheering makes him look over to find the pitcher grinning at him like he’s just won the lottery. Kazuya clenches his fist, and hopes the message of ‘sorry for keeping you waiting’ gets to his partner from here.
He can tell it does when that grin becomes impossibly wider, and Kazuya’s chest heats up impossibly hotter as Sawamura shouts to the crowd, “Now this is the Miyuki Kazuya we all know and love! Our Cap!” Kazuya doesn’t even care that the inning closes without another run, his ears oddly hot under his batting helmet.
When Sawamura looks back at the team with a grin after being confirmed to close the game out, and says, “My Seido soul’s been set on fire like you wouldn’t believe!” Kazuya finds himself wanting for the first time, to have that fire be the same one he’s felt all along above his heart.
But there’s no time to waste on thoughts like these when winning is so close. Coach Kataoka tells him not to worry about tying the game, but Kazuya had no plans to ever let that happen. It feels like he’s watching a tape of the very match he’s playing in, like everything’s happening in double-speed, the only constant being Sawamura’s unerring focus.
The deadball is unexpected, but it gives Kazuya an excuse to go talk to Sawamura as Hoshida’s about to bat. He tells Sawamura the obvious (no home run here, don’t throw high), but something in Sawamura’s expression gives him pause, then makes him keep talking.
He places his bare fist, the one that he bumped against Sawamura’s at the end of the seventh, right in the middle of Sawamura’s chest. “Everyone’s here for you. If you just pitch the way you have been until now, that’s all I could ask for.”
Sawamura’s expression now reminds him of that autumn day they first crossed paths, and maybe it’s his sudden sentimentality at the memory that makes him say it again, but as he’s leaving the mound he turns back, the words falling out of his mouth before he can stop them.
“Let’s go slay some monsters, shall we?” Kazuya sees a spark of recognition in those wide, golden eyes as he grins and he’s never meant anything more than when he says, “I’m counting on you, partner.”
It feels a bit presumptuous to assume Sawamura’s invigorated pitching is in response to Kazuya’s words, but that’s what he wants to believe. Because that rowdy boy from some no-name school in Nagano is now a pitcher good enough to be his equal, his partner, one he can rely on to keep the opponents at bay long enough for Kazuya to keep up his end of the deal and keep the score in their favor.
Sawamura’s so confident, both in his own abilities and in Kazuya—there’s a fluttering in him at the very thought—and it’s a sight Kazuya can’t believe he gets to see up close. Sawamura’s staring down one of the best cleanups in the nation like its nothing to get him out if it’s Kazuya’s mitt he’s pitching into, and Kazuya feels a heat all over his body that has nothing to do with his stupid chest for once.
As soon as Sawamura releases the ball, the same certainty he’d had when he faced Amahisa in the batters box floods his veins.
Kazuya knows.
It’s all over now—this is the winning shot.
His thoughts wander in the eternity between the ball and Kazuya’s mitt, the rapid-fire pace of the game—no doubt set by Sawamura himself—slowing down enough for him to process a lot of things he’s tried to ignore today.
He watches, transfixed by the sight of Sawamura’s radiant smile breaking through the stadium’s oppressive air like the sun breaking through the clouds, and the pieces of a puzzle he didn’t know he was solving all fell neatly into place.
His yellow mitt, baseball, battery, partner, the oddly focused gazes Sawamura started to send his way in Kazuya’s second year, the way Kazuya couldn’t look away, the timing of his chest hurting and Mark changing: all of it coming together in this moment, to paint this scene.
Kazuya knows.
He’s never been more thankful for his catcher’s helmet before today, but the pink flush he can feel covering his heated face probably still shines through the cracks of the mask he’s always made sure to wear.
Now that Kazuya’s started thinking he can’t stop, mind racing like a train speeding off the rails, about a future beyond his wildest dreams, about a home, about playing baseball for the rest of his life under the sweltering sun, staring into Sawamura’s passionately loving eyes.
And Kazuya’s flower blooms across his skin at the very thought, staining it shades of yellow and brown, as the ball ricochets across the field to secure Seido’s rematch with Inashiro, just like it was always meant to be, and Kazuya basks in it—in the victory, in the light, and in the heat of that triumphant golden gaze sent his way—
like a sunflower to the sun.