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It’s Mark-hyung’s last summer, and Donghyuck’s going to win him Koshien.

“Stop talking about me like I’m dying,” Mark calls from across the batting cage, where he’s fussing with the pitching machine. “I’m just graduating.”

That's almost as bad as dying in Donghyuck’s book, but he doesn't say so out loud. What’s the team gonna do without its ace pitcher? 

What’s Donghyuck gonna do, without the familiar warmth of Mark by his side? 

“You’re up, dumbass,” Renjun says, poking Donghyuck with the tip of his bat. “I know you rely on those long legs of yours to get on base, but you know you actually have to hit the ball first, right?”

“Have you been looking at my legs, Renjun-ssi?” Donghyuck bats his lashes at Renjun just to be obnoxious.

“When they're holding up the line, Donghyuck-ssi,” Renjun cooes back, bodily pushing Donghyuck up to the plate.

Donghyuck doesn't stop thinking about it, even hours later when he’s freshly bathed and heading home, damp hair curling at the back of his neck. They're going to win Koshien. They're going to win Koshien. Donghyuck will accept nothing less, not this summer.

“Donghyuck!” There are feet coming his way now, rapid strides accompanied by the distinctive rustle of a sports bag. Mark, then.

Donghyuck turns to wait for him, lips curling into a wan smile. “Meeting with Coach end early?”

“Yeah, it was nothing, really,” Mark says, waving his hand dismissively as he falls into step with Donghyuck. His hair is gold-tinged under the streetlight, the orange puddle of light throwing the gentle curve of his nose into sharp relief. “Just talking about training menus for the first years.”

Donghyuck doesn't envy Mark’s captain responsibilities. Death by a thousand meetings isn’t his style. 

“Chenle still begging to pitch?” 

“Yeah,” Mark says wryly. “He’s got a pretty good arm, you know. He won't be satisfied at third base forever.”

Donghyuck scoffs. “He’s not satisfied at third base now.”

“He’s our best shot to pitch after this summer, and you know it.”

Donghyuck knows.

Mark pauses, steps slowing to a halt. “You should start catching for him more.”

That Donghyuck does not know. He whirls around to face Mark, bag thumping against his side with the movement. “Absolutely not. We need to focus on Koshien. That means catching for you.”

Mark’s almost painfully gentle when he speaks, round owl eyes soft with sympathy. “Donghyuck, we’ll give it our best shot, but we’re not making it to Koshien this year. We have to start preparing for the future.”

“Like hell we do,” Donghyuck spits, suddenly incandescent with rage. “What do you mean we’re not making it to Koshien? We’re going to win. We promised we’d win. At least once, together.”

Mark sighs, reaches out and links his fingers through Donghyuck's. His hands are rough, hours of practice wearing their way into his fingers. “Hyuck, you're the realist here. Now that Yukhei’s injured, I’m our only pitcher. I’m not Saito Yuki, you know? I can’t pitch nine innings by myself every single day.”

It’s true, Donghyuck thinks. Mark’s the idealist between the two of them. So why is he calling their season quits before it’s even really started? This summer might be the last time they ever play together, the last time they ever form a real battery, and all of a sudden Mark’s a realist? 

“I’ll keep your pitch count low,” he says. 

Mark gives him a look. 

Right, not Saito Yuki. Brute-forcing his way through an entire tournament alone would be an easy way to cut short Mark’s dreams of college, or even professional, baseball.

“Jeno will fill in,” Donghyuck tries next.

Mark raises a single brow. 

Okay, so they don't have another shortstop—not anyone nearly as good as Jeno, anyways. Jeno could pitch and then run out to his customary spot to catch anything coming that way, right? He'd do it for the team.

Donghyuck almost laughs at the ridiculousness of his inner monologue before resigning himself to the only real option they've got if they want to have a prayer of making it to Koshien this year.

“...I’ll focus on training Chenle. Not for the future, for this tournament. I can speed up his fastball, maybe teach him a breaking ball or two. If we can stick him in for a couple of innings, I can keep you to less than ninety pitches per game, easy.”

Mark’s dark eyes narrow with interest. “You think he can get up to speed that quickly? There's only two months before qualifiers.”

Donghyuck smiles, a sharp edge hovering around the corners. “You said it yourself—he’s got a pretty good arm already. Once I get my hands on him… those fancy baseball schools won't know what hit them.”

* * *

TEN YEARS AGO — 

Donghyuck met Mark the summer before he started school. It had been an especially sticky day, and Donghyuck spent the morning anxiously peering out the window, afraid that at any minute the rain would come crashing in. Yet by lunchtime the rain hadn’t materialized, and when his mother turned to put his younger siblings down for their nap, he saw his chance.

He slunk towards the front door, pausing only to collect his brand-new glove and his favorite rubber ball from the basket in the genkan. Turning the squeaky old doorknob without alerting his mother was its own art form, one Donghyuck had already perfected during his six short years on Earth. But when he got to the park, ruddy-faced and excited, none of his friends were there. Instead, he had to content himself with throwing the ball up and down by himself, a game that became less and less interesting with every progressive toss. 

He’d just begun contemplating trying to hit the light at the top of the lamppost when the new boy arrived.

When he saw the unfamiliar boy peeking around his mother’s legs with the largest eyes Donghyuck had ever seen and—more importantly—a Little League jersey on, it felt like fate. Donghyuck bounced up immediately to introduce himself, but every word he said seemed to make the other boy shrink even further behind his mother, until only one eye and a wisp of his bangs remained visible.

“I’m sorry,” the mother said, placing a gentle hand on her son’s head. “He doesn’t speak Japanese yet.”

Something about the lilt of her voice reminded Donghyuck of the way his grandmother talked, when he’d go to visit her in Yokohama. He tilted his head, eyeing the other boy with renewed interest, then switched languages. “Do you speak Korean?”

What he could see of the other boy’s eye lit up immediately, round eyebrows made even rounder with excitement. “Yes! You too?”

“I’m Lee Donghyuck! Did you just move?”

“Yes, from Vancouver.” The boy wormed his way around so that he was holding onto his mother’s legs from the front, sticking his hand out in a gesture Donghyuck had only ever seen on TV. “I’m Mark, Mark Lee.”

It wasn’t until months later that Donghyuck figured out where Vancouver was, but by then he and Mark were already best friends, even though Mark was a year older and was scheduled to go to school as soon as it resumed in September. 

They played catch nearly every clear day that summer, Donghyuck sneaking out so often that his mother eventually gave up on keeping him home. She’d just roll her eyes when she caught him halfway out the door, pressing two packets of Manna biscuits into his sweaty palm before sending him off to the park. On rainy days, one of them would inevitably show up on the other’s doorstep to play indoors, though their parents quickly banned baseball-adjacent activities inside after Donghyuck accidentally dented a wall at Mark’s place.

When Koshien rolled around, they curled up on the brand new couch at Mark’s to watch, sharing a soda popsicle as Donghyuck murmured rapidfire translations of the important bits into Mark’s eager ears. Donghyuck had been enraptured by the catchers even then, attempting to relay the commentators’ explanations of their strategic decisions with a level of detail that challenged both his and Mark’s grasp of the Korean language.

It was a heated battle that year, a tournament that ultimately came down to the strength of two pitchers—Waseda’s Handkerchief Prince versus Komadai’s tank. They watched the final game with rapt attention, barely blinking until at long last the Handkerchief Prince struck his rival out at the plate, Waseda erupting with elation as the final 144-km/h fastball landed in the catcher’s mitt.

Mark sat up stick-straight as Waseda’s team poured onto the mound, the movement jostling Donghyuck from his comfortable place on Mark’s shoulder. When Donghyuck turned to look at his friend, mouth already open to complain, Mark’s seagull eyebrows were furrowed, eyes blazing as he stared at the television. 

In that moment, Donghyuck thought Mark was the coolest kid he’d ever seen.

“When I grow up, I’m going there,” Mark said, determined. “Hyuck, we’re going to go together, you and me.”

Donghyuck nodded with all the force his six-year-old body could muster. “We’re going to win! Together.”

“Promise?” Mark finally broke eye contact with the television to look at Donghyuck, holding his pinky out.

Donghyuck linked their pinkies together without hesitation, tapping Mark’s thumb with his own to seal the deal. “Promise.”

* * *

81 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS — 

When Donghyuck delivers the news, Chenle is predictably ecstatic. The frenetic energy pouring off him is palpable, and Donghyuck has to put him in a headlock to get him to stop bouncing around the bullpen.

“We’re not pitching yet,” Donghyuck says sternly. 

Chenle deflates in his grasp, messy bangs framing the puppy dog eyes he immediately turns on Donghyuck.

Donghyuck ignores him. “We’re starting with exercises. Coach wrote you a training menu, right? Today we’re just going to be doing some light throwing, so start with your warm-up and lower body exercises, and then we’ll take a look at your fastball.”

“I’ve been practicing a two-seamer!” Chenle says, bolting upright. “I can almost control it, even!”

“Four-seam fastball first,” Donghyuck says, tightening his grip on Chenle’s collar as he begins to drag the younger boy out to the field for a warm-up jog. “Then we’ll take a look at the two-seamer.”

The two-seamer is… surprisingly good, for someone who’s never had formal pitching training. It breaks sharply, swerving down and out over the plate, though it only lands in the strike zone a third of the time. Not enough to be used in an actual game yet, Donghyuck thinks, or the batters will know not to swing when they see it coming, but he can work with it. 

His mind races as they cool down. If they can get a changeup in the mix, Chenle will be more than able to hold his own. Solid fastballs as a base, a two-seamer with a decent break to get batters to misjudge the position of the ball, a changeup to get batters to misjudge the timing of the ball… Donghyuck is already planning the pitch combinations they’ll use—less elaborate than those he uses with Mark, of course, but more than enough to hold off the opposition for a couple of innings.

“Alright, kid,” he says, meandering his way over to Chenle after their cooldown. 

“I’m only a year younger than you,” Chenle points out.

“I’m a big senpai when it comes to baseball, and that’s what matters,” Donghyuck says, sticking his nose in the air jokingly as he begins shedding his gear. “Anyways, I know you want to pitch, but don’t neglect your training menus, okay? Strengthening your arm and lower body will speed up your fastball and make it easier for you to control your pitches. And then… then we might be able to pull this off after all.”

Chenle looks at him, youthful exuberance abruptly filed down to steadfast resolution. “You want to make it to Koshien this year, right, senpai? You and Mark-senpai?”

Donghyuck stills. 

“Yes,” he says, after a moment. The afternoon sun hangs low in the sky, forcing him to squint at Chenle’s unusually serious face. Chenle’s tanned and freckled now from hours of outdoor practice, a far cry from the pale boy who’d rolled up to practice just a month and a half earlier yelling about becoming the team’s ace even though he’d never even been allowed to pitch before. He’s made a lot of progress on third base in that time—his fielding is good, and his throws are sharp and whip-fast. Donghyuck only hopes that two more months are enough to make him a pitcher, too.

Chenle breaks into a more familiar cocky smile, tossing his baseball up and down in one hand before pointing it at Donghyuck. “Then I’ll take you there. You and Mark-senpai, both.”

* * *

TWO YEARS AGO — 

Donghyuck hadn’t always been afraid. 

Growing up, he’d launched himself off of playground structures without hesitation, revelled in opportunities to speak to the masses, and led exploration missions into even the darkest forests, confident in his own boundless ability.

It was different now, though, now that Mark had gone to high school and left Donghyuck in Senior League catching for Choi Yeonjun for an entire year. The ten months separating them had never seemed very significant before, but all of a sudden Donghyuck was slapped with the realization that Mark was just going to keep leaving him behind. Mark was going to go to university first, become eligible for the pros first, do so many other things first, and there wasn’t a single thing Donghyuck could do to stop it.

He could only take comfort in the fact that for now, at least, Mark was suffering too. 

“Come to Kokusai, Donghyuckie,” he said, reaching over to poke Donghyuck in the stomach as they lounged on the floor of Mark’s room during one of their overlapping free periods. “We need a catcher like you.”

Mark’s high school had a pretty decent baseball reputation for a school that wasn’t a Baseball School, but their main catcher had just graduated and his replacement was… well… Mark’s mournful face said it all. 

Donghyuck didn’t bother telling him that he’d already been contacted by the school’s baseball team. He’d been planning on applying anyways if he hadn't been recruited, given its proximity to his house and its excellent Korean language curriculum, but the opportunity to catch for Mark again made his attendance certain. 

Instead, he rolled over to face Mark, putting on his most infuriating smile. “Missed me that much, huh?”

“Yes,” Mark said instantly. “I just want to use my curveball once, oh my god, I’ve been holding it back for so long—”

So it came back to baseball after all, just where they’d started all those years ago. Mark was right, though—his team sorely needed a catcher like Donghyuck, and Donghyuck always loved being needed. He spared Mark another lingering glance before rolling onto his back again, fixing his eyes on the ceiling. “I’ll consider it.”

Apparently, that wasn’t enough for Mark, because he sat up, forcing himself and his owl eyes into Donghyuck’s line of vision before dropping his trump card. “C’mon, Hyuck. We said we’d win Koshien together, didn’t we?”

Donghyuck shook his head, biting back a smile. “Wow, way to pull out the guilt trip.” 

“I learned from the best,” Mark said, beaming. His whole face scrunched up when he smiled like that. “So. You coming?”

Donghyuck let out an exaggerated sigh. “Well, when the great Mark Lee personally requests my presence, how can I say no?”

The truth, of course, was that he’d never say no, not when Mark looked at him like that, all hopeful and pleading. Not when it guaranteed that for the next two years, Mark would be solidly within reach, just like he’d always been.

* * *

81 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS — 

“So what’s it like working one-on-one with Chenle?” The laughter in Mark’s voice is evident as they walk home from practice, baseball bags slung over their shoulders. 

It’s an unseasonably warm evening, more reminiscent of August than May. They’d both foregone jackets after their baths, even though it meant having one more thing to carry home.

“It’s like looking into a tiny, overly excitable mirror, but less handsome and less good at baseball,” Donghyuck says grumpily. “He had the audacity to tell me he was going to take me to Koshien.”

Mark shakes his head, takes a sip from his Pocari Sweat. “Man, at least you’re self-aware.”

Donghyuck chooses to take that as an endorsement of both his stunning good looks and his finely-tuned baseball acumen, rather than any comment on his personality.

“It’s not like he’s wrong, anyways,” Mark continues. “We can’t do this without him.”

Donghyuck sighs, dropping his gaze to the pavement. “Yeah. We need a new pitcher sooner or later. Sucks that our recruits keep getting poached, but at least Chenle’s a quick study. Open to learning, too.”

Mark shoots him a crooked smile. “You just like that he actually listens to you.”

“Because I’m right,” Donghyuck says emphatically, not for the first time. 

“Of course you are.” The fondness in Mark’s voice is unmistakable, and Donghyuck basks in it like a lizard in the sun.

This is the type of casual affection he’ll miss the most, when Mark leaves. The playful gibes, the wordless understanding, the warmth of being known. 

How many moments like this is he going to get? How many moments does he have left, before Mark leaves him behind for good?

He’s distracted from his thoughts by Mark throwing an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close as they continue down the street. He’s humming a song, one it takes Donghyuck a moment to place before he joins in, replacing all the English words he doesn’t know with the most absurd alternative lyrics he can think of.

And so they carry on like that, two boys walking together as close as can be, laughter fading into the night.

* * *

80 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS — 

The next morning brings with it a heavy dose of reality as Donghyuck confronts the bane of his existence: midterms.

“You may be wondering why I’ve gathered you all here today,” Donghyuck begins ominously, staring his companions down one by one from his position at the head of the library table.

Renjun rolls his eyes. “No one’s wondering. We’re here to bully Jeno into teaching us math.”

Donghyuck closes his eyes in a mock prayer for patience. “Injun-ah. You're screwing with my vibes.”

“Your vibes? Your vibes? Will it screw with your vibes if I do this?” Jaemin starts making faces, doing arm waves while rolling his eyes back into his head and sticking his front teeth out like a rabbit.

“Can we please study for this math test,” Jeno says, to no one in particular. 

“Yeah, Jaemin.” Donghyuck sticks his tongue out at Jaemin, who’s moved on to doing the robot, gleeful smile plastered on his face. “How’re you going to become a surgeon if you can’t even do math?”

Jaemin returns the childish gesture, pulling his lower left eyelid down with a finger for good measure. “I can do math just fine, thank you very much! Worry about yourself, hmm, Mr. I-Think-About-Baseball-During-Every-Moment-of-Every-Day!”

“Hey, me thinking about baseball is what’s going to get us—”

“To Koshien, we know,” his friends chorus in unison. 

Donghyuck deflates back into his chair, abruptly put out. He knows his acting isn’t quite good enough to mask it, the chagrin worming its way into the furrow of his brows and the set of his mouth.

Renjun reaches over to pat Donghyuck’s forearm, smiling at him reassuringly. “We’ll work on getting there together, okay? We have a whole month to practice, after midterms.”

Donghyuck physically restrains himself from saying that the big baseball schools are practicing nonstop for the next month, too, and those schools have fancy facilities and multiple coaches who actually have time to coach, rather than one little field without an outfield and one little man being pulled in a billion directions at once by his academic and administrative responsibilities. 

Failing midterms and being forced to take makeup classes is a surefire way to cut even further into their practice time, though, so he lets it go, just sits back and forces himself to pay attention as Jeno begins droning on about trigonometry. 

* * *

66 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS —  

Exams pass by like the flocks of egrets that sweep through Kyoto in late spring, there one day and gone the next. Like always, Donghyuck had crammed just enough to pass, and he’s looking forward to an uninterrupted month of baseball before term-end exams rear their ugly heads. 

The fact that he’s looking forward to the baseball doesn’t make it not exhausting, though. For all of Chenle’s bravado, learning—let alone refining—new pitches simply doesn’t happen overnight, and much of their practices together involve Donghyuck scrambling to catch rogue pitches gone wide. It takes hours of practice before they get the two-seamer down, and even more before the changeup begins taking shape. 

“Don’t try to guide the ball so much!” Donghyuck says, exasperated. “Just throw it like a normal fastball, or it’s going to keep hitting the ground before it gets to the plate.”

Chenle makes a face, scrubbing the sweat off his forehead with his arm. The motion leaves his team cap askew, perched precariously atop his damp mop of hair. “Now I can’t remember how to throw a normal fastball!”

Donghyuck takes his catcher’s mask off with a sigh. He walks over, jamming Chenle’s cap back on his head before launching into his explanation, complete with full body pantomiming. 

“When your arm swings up, you’re pointing your chest to the ground, yeah? Try keeping your chin and chest up more, so that your upper body is pointed straight at the batter, and that should help the ball roll off your fingertips more naturally. It helps if you keep your eyes up, too.”

At this last bit, Donghyuck snaps his head up to complete his ridiculous demonstration pose—left leg curled up, his left hand splayed across his chest and his right hand clutching an imaginary ball at the top of a pitch—only to lock eyes with Mark, who’s watching from the shade of the trees. 

There’s a moment where they’re both just staring at each other, Donghyuck with his mouth still frozen around the last word and Mark with the beginnings of laughter trapped between the tight press of his lips, before Mark cracks and lets out a signature Mark Lee cackle, head thrown back and nose scrunched up. He’s almost falling over himself with how hard he’s laughing, leaving Donghyuck to unwind himself sheepishly. 

Donghyuck sticks his tongue into the side of his mouth and shakes his head in feigned annoyance, but it’s impossible to keep the smile from creeping through. “Ya, Lee Mark, are you going to help or are you just going to stand there and laugh at me, huh?”

“Sure, sure.” Mark’s chuckles are dying down gradually, and he makes his way over without complaint. He’s clearly come from batting practice, batting gloves still hanging from the back pocket of his white baseball pants. “Let’s see how it’s looking, Chenle.”

The first couple of tries land in Donghyuck’s mitt, at least, but they’re still missing the spark of a good changeup. Mark frowns and heads over to Chenle, bending over to examine his grip. Donghyuck’s too far away to hear their murmured conversation, but Chenle straightens a couple of moments later, shoots Mark a sharp nod. 

The next pitch is it. 

The initial delivery looks just like his regular fastball, but the ball comes spinning slowly, almost lazily towards the plate, sinking slightly to the inside. Chenle whoops as soon as it lands in Donghyuck’s mitt, abandoning the mound to land a running jump on Mark’s back. Mark reaches up to thump Chenle’s head, grinning up at him with unabashed fondness.

“Guess you know something about pitching after all, Oh Mighty Ace,” Donghyuck calls. He can feel himself smiling despite himself, a spark of hope lighting in his chest. 

Chenle untangles himself from Mark, his face lighter than it’s been in days. “You see that, Donghyuck-senpai? It was perfect!”

“Nice pitch, Chenle,” Donghyuck says, unwilling to concede any more than that to Chenle’s face. “Let’s do it five more times.”

“I’ll show you the best changeups the world has ever seen,” Chenle promises, getting back into position. “Just you wait!”

For once, Donghyuck believes him.

* * *

SIX YEARS AGO —

Mark hadn't always been an ace. No, as a kid he'd been decent, but he hadn't stood out on the field. It had been Donghyuck who’d garnered most of the attention, then, when they’d played Little League together.

“Fast legs, good game sense, excellent throwing speed,” their coach would say, humming approvingly at his clipboard. “You sure you don’t want to pitch?”

Donghyuck was sure, though this decision always surprised everyone but Donghyuck himself. After all, pitchers got most of the spotlight, and boy, did Donghyuck like the spotlight. 

The thing about being a pitcher, though, is that you spent a lot of time taking strategic cues from someone else, and there was no one Donghyuck trusted to make strategic decisions better than himself.

No, his proper role was behind home plate, surveying his kingdom with the eye of a (mostly) benevolent monarch. His proper role was framing pitches to appease the umpire, keeping an eye on the state of his pitcher, scheming to keep his opponent’s score as close to zero as humanly possible. That was his proper role, and he was a natural.

Mark, on the other hand, was not a natural. 

What he was was incredibly persistent.

“Hyung,” Donghyuck whined, hands on his hips.“We’ve been here for hours.”

“Go home then,” Mark said good-naturedly, swinging his bat back up for another practice swing. 

Donghyuck scowled at the older boy’s back. “You know I’m not supposed to walk home without you. C’mon, practice is over, I wanna play MapleStory.”

Computer games were a relatively recent discovery, but they were quickly catapulting their way up Donghyuck’s list of favorite things. Baseball still held the top spot, of course, but Donghyuck had just spent four whole hours playing baseball. It was MapleStory time.

Mark’s bat whizzed through the air for approximately the billionth time that night. “Since when do you listen to your mom? If you want to go home, go home.”

Well, when he said it like that. Donghyuck’s glower cemented itself on his face, but he picked his own bat back up, brought it whistling down past his right ear. Would’ve been a grounder to second, he thought sourly. Not quite good enough.

He raised his bat again, swinging at an imaginary ball once, twice, three times. They stayed for another hour, beating the feeling of the perfect swing into their muscle memory until at last even Mark agreed to call it a night.

No, Mark hadn't been born an ace. He became one through sheer force of will, nurturing the seeds of potential into towering behemoths of skill one monotonous drill at a time. 

Donghyuck didn't fully appreciate all that back then, though, so he just grumbled and tugged Mark’s hand to go faster as they made their way back home.

* * *

63 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS —  

They have endless fielding practice today, and the whole team’s exhausted. Jaemin’s looking increasingly wild-eyed on first base, hair sticking up in the back from how much he’s run his fingers through it. Xiaojun’s panting can be heard all the way from center field, his handsome features blurred by the sweat dripping down them. Even Mark is visibly trying to keep himself together, though he’s still running and throwing at a decent pace. Trying to lead by example, Donghyuck guesses.

It’s not enough, though, to keep the team going for the half hour they have left, not when the sun’s been down for ages and the snack they’d eaten partway through practice has become a distant memory. Donghyuck rifles through all the motivational strategies he knows, finally settling on a time-honored tactic.

“Next person to mess up buys sushi!” he yells, making use of his long-neglected vocal training to project his voice as far as possible.

A collective groan issues across the field. Despite that, though, everyone begins looking more alert, shaking out their limbs and blinking the fatigue from their eyes. Donghyuck hides his grin behind his mask. Never underestimate a broke high schooler’s desire to avoid having to buy sushi for all his friends, he muses.

He’s so mired in his musings that he almost misses the ball Renjun slings his way from second. Almost—his mitt reacts faster than his mind can, shooting up to catch the ball at the last moment. 

Renjun still laughs at him, amusement overwriting the exhaustion on his elfin features. “Looks like it might be you buying the sushi this time, Lee Donghyuck! Pay attention!”

“Yes, coach! I’m on it, coach!” Donghyuck bobs his head in a series of mock bows as he tosses the ball back to the mound.

Renjun mimes hurling a ball at Donghyuck’s face, and practice goes on from there, mood restored.

Jeno approaches him in the locker room afterwards, yawning into his towel. “Battlegrounds tomorrow, Hyuck? We have the afternoon free.”

“Ah, I can’t.” Usually Donghyuck would accept a gaming invitation in a heartbeat, but these aren’t usual times. “I’m going to watch the practice game at Ritsumei tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Jeno pauses, tilting his head. He looks like a puppy when he does that, all soft hair and inquisitive eyes. “Want me to come with? It’ll take a while to get there by train.”

Donghyuck waves him off, tells him to invite Chenle to play Battlegrounds instead. The kid could use another upperclassman friend who isn’t Mark or Donghyuck himself, after all. 

Jeno agrees easily, but he sends Donghyuck a searching look before turning away.

* * *

57 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS —  

The flurry of practice games they play throughout the month of June are mostly trial runs for Chenle, though no one says so out loud. Donghyuck has orders to put him through his paces, to see how long he can last on the mound and what he can do against experienced opponents. 

There are a few hiccups, of course—an absurd number of walks in the first game, a couple of out-of-control inside pitches that come precariously close to hitting the batter in the second—but once Donghyuck reminds him that it’s okay to let the batters hit, confident as the team is in its defense, Chenle settles into his new role relatively quickly. He still fumbles the changeup on occasion and literally never remembers to check for steals despite Donghyuck’s best efforts to drill the habit into him, but otherwise he’s doing just fine.

“You’ve done a good job with him,” Mark says as they walk back to the team bus, sweaty and exhausted.

Well, Donghyuck is sweaty and exhausted, at least. Mark has spent most of the practice games watching from the dugout, coming in only for the last couple of innings to relieve Chenle and strike some fear into the hearts of the batters. It’s almost comical how batters react to sweet, unassuming Mark, but Donghyuck can’t really blame them. Mark’s eyes change when he steps onto the mound, narrowed and focused in a way they rarely are elsewhere, and his slider has become borderline untouchable after all the time he and Donghyuck had spent perfecting it in the spring.

Donghyuck misses it, the wicked pitch combinations they’ve come up with together, the easy rapport they have on the field, the ridiculous handshake they do to start off every game. Chenle’s doing just fine, but he’s not Mark.

He doesn’t say any of that though, just lifts his chin and sniffs, jokingly haughty. “Of course I’ve done a good job. As if he’d turn out badly, with me teaching him!”

“I never thought you’d do a bad job,” Mark says, and it’s so sincere Donghyuck can’t look at him. “You’re annoying about it, but you always find a way to make things work.”

Donghyuck gasps. “Ya, who’re you calling annoying! Take that back!” 

“Don’t lie, you’re proud of being annoying, why would I have to take that back—”

And then they’re bickering all the way to the bus, moment safely defused.

* * *

46 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS — 

As the qualifying tournament nears, Donghyuck begins spending more and more of his time alone. He still practices with the team, of course, and he and Chenle spend hours and hours refining Chenle’s control, making sure as many pitches as possible come out just the way Donghyuck requests them. But he declines invitation after invitation to grab a snack with Jaemin or watch a music video with Renjun or decompress with some video games with Jeno, until finally the invitations stop coming. Instead, he huddles in the darkness of the clubroom reading stats, reviewing every video he can get his hands on of the teams they’re likely to face.

He doesn’t even walk home with Mark anymore, having shooed the other boy away the first couple of times Mark had tried to keep him company. 

“You need your beauty rest, Markgeolli,” he’d said. “An ace should sleep well. You concentrate on your job, and I’ll do mine.”

Mark had protested, of course, but not even Mark’s round eyes could convince Donghyuck once he’d made up his mind, and they both knew it.

It’s his job to be the strategist of the team, after all. Always has been. The fielders do their fielding and Mark contributes ideas, but at the end of the day he’s never, ever shaken off one of Donghyuck’s calls, not even in Senior League when Donghyuck had been at his most reckless. 

It’s Donghyuck’s job to know the other teams’ batters backwards and forwards, to spot the opposing pitchers’ weaknesses and tells, to make sure he knows how his team will annihilate each and every one of them. He can do it, he knows. He just has to put in the work.

He misses Mark now, though. It’s eleven p.m., the chair he’d chosen to be purposely uncomfortable has been digging into his back for the past three hours, and he could really use one of Mark’s recycled jokes or painfully earnest observations about something objectively mundane right about now. He thinks about calling it a night and calling him, just to see if Mark wants to meet up at the Lawson in between their houses for a bit.

Maybe they could split a soda popsicle, like they used to.

In the end he doesn’t, though. He readjusts his posture, flicks the school’s ancient television on again, and keeps at it. Koshien isn’t going to win itself, after all. 

He doesn’t know when he falls asleep, but one moment he’s peering at his notes, trying to decipher his own handwriting, and the next he’s being shaken awake, cheek mashed against his scorebooks. 

He squints up at the person shaking him. They’re standing in between Donghyuck and the TV, so there’s little light to illuminate their face, but something about their presence feels like Mark. Did Donghyuck summon him just by thinking of him?

“Mark-hyung?” Donghyuck asks, trying to suppress a yawn through sheer force of will.

“Not even close.” It’s Jaemin’s laconic voice that cuts through the darkness, squashing Donghyuck’s erstwhile thoughts in an instant. “He did send me to find you, though. Have you checked your phone?”

“What time’s it?”

“Almost one. Come on, let’s get you home.” Jaemin punctuates this statement with an insistent tug on Donghyuck’s collar. “It’s too late to be thinking about baseball.” 

Donghyuck finally loses the battle against the yawn, allowing it to take over his face until it feels like his jaw is about to split open. “It’s never too late to be thinking about baseball.”

“You baseball-obsessed nerds.” Donghyuck feels, rather than sees, Jaemin’s head shake. “Come on! Up! Out! Mae-sensei will kill you if you fall asleep in Chemistry again tomorrow!”

“Thank you for your concern with my academic performance, Jaemin-ah,” Donghyuck coos, finally awake enough to tease. 

“Anything for my Donghyuckie,” Jaemin sings, pulling out the saccharine tone he usually reserves for antagonizing Jeno and doting on Jisung. The effect is rather lessened by the fact that he’s dragging Donghyuck out of the clubroom by the scruff, but Donghyuck can’t help but feel the warm fondness seeping through his chest anyways.

Jaemin finally lets him go at the school entrance, at the mouth of the little mountain road that’ll take Donghyuck back down to his house. He cuts an unimposing figure in his tousled hair and Ryan pajamas, even with his hands firmly planted on his hips. He must have come straight from bed—the benefits of living in the dorms, Donghyuck supposes. “Go to sleep, okay? You’ll think better tomorrow.”

Donghyuck waves lazily as he begins to make his way down the hill, team bag slung over his shoulder in the way his mom always says makes him look like a delinquent. “See you tomorrow. Try not to think of me too much while we’re apart!”

The last thing he hears is Jaemin’s snort before the shuffling of his sandals recedes into the distance.

* * *

40 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS — 

Maybe Donghyuck should have borrowed some of Jaemin’s concern about his academic performance, because before he knows it the semester is almost over and exam season is once again upon them. He studies alone this time, holing himself up in his bedroom after coming home from his nightly tape-watching sessions. 

It’s less fun than studying in a group, sure, less fun than pressuring Jeno to recap an entire semester’s worth of material from his painstakingly neat notes (“The best way to know whether you’ve really learned something is to teach it to someone else!”) or panic-texting Shotaro and Yangyang to see whether the teacher had taught the concept in a clearer way to the other class. Donghyuck reminds himself that it’s all worth it, that studying by himself is more efficient, that it’s freeing up precious time he’s using for more important purposes.

It’s hard, though. He goes from practice to school to practice to tournament research to studying to sleep and then to practice again, with no time to spare for useless chatter or breaks or any of the little things that used to make an already-packed schedule bearable, even fun. Every move is calculated for efficiency, every conversation curt. Donghyuck can feel his extroverted self withering, finds himself placing outsized importance on the couple of words he exchanges with his mother in the morning as he dashes to morning practice, toast in mouth like the world’s most athletically-minded shoujo manga protagonist.

“Aren’t you stretching yourself a bit thin, baby?” she asks one morning, as Donghyuck’s haphazardly throwing things into his backpack. “I know Koshien is important to you, but surely someone else could help you out a little! Where are all those little gremlin friends of yours when you need them?”

“It’s fine, Mom,” he says absently, trying to remember where he put his English notebook. In his history textbook, maybe? “I have to do this by myself.”

She huffs, crosses the room to unearth his notebook from its place underneath yesterday’s school uniform shirt. “Have to or choose to? It’s okay to ask for help, you know.”

He looks up at that, raises his eyebrows in mock offense. “Hey, do you really have so little faith in your son? I’ve got this covered!”

“I know you do, but just because you can do it all by yourself doesn’t mean you should,” she says, like it’s obvious. 

And maybe it is. It’s not like he’s forgotten that baseball is a team sport. But there are some things that only he can do, some responsibilities that only he’s committed to, some motivations that only he holds dear. In order to achieve everything he wants, it’s going to be him who has to make some sacrifices.

He’s about to be late, though, so he just tells his mother he’ll be back late again, kisses her on the cheek, and runs out the door.

* * *

22 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS — 

Following on the heels of yet another successfully BS-ed set of exams, the first couple of games of the qualifying tournament go even better than Donghyuck had allowed himself to hope. Mark starts, finally, and they decimate the first two teams in seven innings, first 10–2 and then 7–0. Donghyuck even allows himself to be dragged out to the team dinner after their second victory, though he spends most of the walk there thinking about the team they’ll face next, just a couple of days from now.

“And he finally makes an appearance!” Jaemin crows, as Donghyuck pushes open the door of their local yakiniku restaurant.

Donghyuck rolls his eyes, bows in the most theatrical manner he can muster. “Lo, it is I, come from afar to grace this gathering with my presence!”

“This is a celebration!” Renjun pushes a melon soda into his hands as Donghyuck and Mark take their seats. “Where’s the Donghyuck who got us kicked out of that Big Echo in Kyoto Tower, huh?”

“Sleeping until after Koshien,” Donghyuck replies blithely. “Leave a message for fun Donghyuck after the beep.”

He does take a sip of the soda, though—that’s not something he’s passing up, fun Donghyuck or unfun Donghyuck.

Jaemin throws an arm around his shoulder, jostling Donghyuck’s soda in the process. “Man, if you won’t relax for yourself, relax a bit for Mark-hyung, okay? He threw a no-hitter today!”

“That was almost more them than me,” Mark says from Donghyuck’s other side, though his wide grin betrays him. The other team hadn’t played well, sure, but Mark himself had, every pitch slamming into Donghyuck’s mitt with the force of a tsunami, just where Donghyuck had requested it. 

“Don’t undersell yourself, Mark-senpai!” Chenle chirps from across the table. “That was amazing! When you struck that last guy out swinging, it was just! Gwah!! You know?”

Donghyuck makes eye contact with Renjun.

“No,” they chorus in unison.

Chenle continues undeterred. “And that's when I realized—if I were to have a son, I’d want him to be exactly like Mark-senpai.”

Jeno snorts. “Why don’t you try to be more like Mark-hyung first, huh? Quit worrying about your hypothetical children.”

His critical tone is undercut by the fact that he’s currently cutting up the pork belly and dropping the best pieces onto Chenle’s plate, before doling out the remainder to the rest of the table. Typical Jeno, Donghyuck thinks, amused. All bark, no bite. He reaches out with his chopsticks to steal one of Chenle’s prime pork belly slices, ignoring Jeno’s sidelong look.

“Well, I’m going to be amazing in my own way, but I can’t be Mark-senpai,” Chenle says as if it’s obvious, seemingly unaware of the pork belly kerfuffle happening under his nose. “My personality is much cooler!”

“Look, even the firsties can tell you’re a dork,” Donghyuck tells Mark, jabbing him in the ribs with his elbow. He wraps his ill-gotten piece of pork belly into a massive ssam, dipping it into a healthy amount of ssamjang before shoving the whole thing into his mouth in one glorious, if slightly uncomfortable, bite. It’s not often that they eat like this, after all, especially during a tournament.

Mark stares mournfully into his bowl of rice. “No one around here respects me.” 

“I think you’re cool, Mark-hyung,” says Jisung.

Everyone at the table turns to give him a skeptical stare, even Mark. Jisung fidgets under the attention, eyes flicking up every so often to check whether people are still looking at him. When it seems like no one’s letting up, he finally bursts into explanation. “Mark-hyung is super cool! During games, but also during practice! He always helps me with my batting even though he’s the ace and like super busy and he always makes conversations feel comfortable even when I don’t know what to say and he always waves at me when we see each other at school!”

Chenle’s nodding. “And that’s why I want him to be my son!”

“That’s why he’s cool,” Jisung insists, smacking an open palm gently but emphatically on the table. 

“I think we have different definitions of the word cool,” Donghyuck says drily. He glances at Mark, who’s got his eyes fixed onto his rice again. He’s blushing this time, lips quirked in a bashful smile. Donghyuck allows his own smile to go soft at the corners, just a little. 

As dweeby as Mark can be, he has a way of inspiring affection in others. 

That’s why Donghyuck is going to win him Koshien—it’s the only gesture big enough to express everything Donghyuck has stored up inside. He’d be the first to admit that he’s usually a talker, but something about the magnitude of the tangled mess inside of him, the sheer depth of his emotions, makes it impossible for him to put things into words even in the privacy of his own brain. No, the only way through is action.

All he can do is throw himself wholly into the task of bringing Mark the ultimate victory, and maybe then Mark will see his heart.

* * *

21 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS —

Their third game is the day after next, and the team-wide strategy meeting had run about an hour over. Donghyuck finds himself glowering at a vending machine afterwards, silently cursing the school’s propensity to spend money on things like books and teacher salaries while neglecting the most important requirement of any high school education: ensuring that students can get a desperately needed energy drink from functional vending machines. 

Mark’s voice startles him out of his internal tirade. “Can’t decide?”

“I already decided,” Donghyuck says without turning to look. He doesn't need to, not when he can feel Mark standing close behind him, warmth seeping into Donghyuck’s shoulder even through the centimeters separating them. “It just ate my money.”

Mark hums in understanding, reaches around Donghyuck to pound the front of the machine with a fist.

“I tried that too,” Donghyuck says with a sigh, turning away. He feels cold, all of a sudden. “Never mind. I have to go, I’ll see you later.”

“Leaving so soon?”

Donghyuck makes the mistake of glancing back, of seeing Mark’s big round eyes directed at him, as open and honest as ever. It’s almost enough to sway him, to convince him to stay and bask in Mark’s warmth for just a moment longer, but then he remembers the agility ladder he’d already set up, the drills he’d alloted for today. He shrugs instead, tearing his gaze away. “Progress waits for no man.”

“Surely you could, though,” Mark calls after him, but it's too late—Donghyuck’s already halfway down the hall.

It’s a fairly productive solo practice session, all things considered, but Donghyuck keeps getting distracted thinking back to that moment by the vending machines, wondering what irrelevant, probably baseball-related topic they would have chatted about before inevitably both turning back to their practice. They used to steal moments like that all the time, even when Mark was in his most workaholic phase in Senior League. It was mostly Donghyuck instigating then, of course, chattering on about this and that during their water breaks. 

Donghyuck shakes himself out of it as he begins his cooldown. There's no use filling his head with such useless thoughts when they have a game coming up. He and Mark will have all the time in the world to talk about irrelevant things after Koshien, after Mark leaves the team for good.

When he finally wraps up and turns to put the equipment away, he finds a can of his favorite energy drink sitting by his bag, topped with a sticky note in a familiar scrawl.

Don't drink this tonight, you’ll sleep badly. See you at practice tomorrow :D — M

* * *

16 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS — 

They make it through their third and fourth games relatively unscathed. So far, they’ve managed to avoid the prefecture’s biggest players, but by the fifth game, the semifinals, their luck has run out. 

Standing between them and the prefectural finals is the same team that knocked them out in the quarterfinals last year, a team that’s gone to Koshien a staggering thirty-four times since the tournament’s inception. Donghyuck hadn’t been good enough last year, had made a catastrophically bad call in the fifth inning because he hadn’t been paying enough attention to one of their batters. It’s even worse this time around because, while Heian’s not generally known for its offense, this year they have a firecracker of a fourth batter and a center fielder who’s almost as fast of a base runner as Donghyuck himself. 

Honestly, Donghyuck would be lying if he said he isn't worried.

He’s especially worried because no amount of strategizing can change the fact that in this game, they’ll have to rely heavily on Chenle. The finals are the day after the semis, so playing Mark the entire time simply isn’t an option if they want to remain competitive. Yet despite hours of practice, Chenle’s still not great at picking off runners—essential for dissuading fast runners from trying to steal bases—and every base given up is a chance for the other team to create a lead that will be hard to wrest back, especially from a top-notch defensive team like Heian. 

That’s why they're here, at 8 p.m. the day before the semifinals, running endless last-minute pickoff drills with Chenle and the infielders.

“Talk to each other!” Donghyuck yells across the field. “Make sure you're communicating with your infielders!”

“Hyuck, we’ve been at this for hours.” Jaemin’s crouched on first, blank expression tinged with a sour edge. “We have a game tomorrow. Let's call it a night.”

“We have to get this right,” Donghyuck insists. 

“You’re obsessing,” Jaemin shoots back. “One stolen base isn't worth us going into the game tired tomorrow. You know this.”

“I’m not tired!” Chenle pipes up from the mound.

They both ignore him. Donghyuck can feel the frustration bubbling up inside, the accumulated annoyance and exhaustion of the past two months about to spill over. 

“Maybe you should obsess more!” he snaps. “I know you don't give a shit about winning, but at least pretend to put in the effort! I bet you'd be happy if that second year steals all the way home tomorrow—that way you wouldn't have to be here anymore!”

Jaemin’s eyes harden, but before he can say anything Renjun cuts him off.

“Donghyuck, get your head out of your ass.”

“Me? Are you fucking with me? We could be out of the competition tomorrow if we don't sort this out, and you're yelling at me?”

“You're the only one yelling.” Renjun looks tired, suddenly. He yanks his glove off, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. “Look, Chenle doesn’t even need to be the one doing the pickoff. He already has a pretty quick delivery, and you have one of the best shoulders in the prefecture. Just call for a pitchout, and together the two of you can hold off any baserunner. I’m going back to the dorm.”

“You’re just quitting?” Donghyuck’s definitely yelling now, but he’s too mad to care.

Renjun whirls back around. “You think this is quitting?”

“What the fuck else is it then, huh?” 

“Donghyuck, I know my limits, unlike you. Staying here isn't going to improve our chances of winning tomorrow.” Renjun’s eyes are narrowed into slits, a far cry from his usual open features. “You know, we’ve been watching you make yourself miserable for months and said nothing, because we know what this means to you. But this is too much, okay? You’re not the only one who wants to win Koshien.”

He stalks off the field. Donghyuck drops his gaze to the dirt beneath his feet, unwilling to watch as the rest of his team follows suit. 

Mark finds him still on the field half an hour later, lying on his back with his head pillowed on home plate.

“Are you here to yell at me too?” Donghyuck asks bitterly.

Mark sighs. Donghyuck closes his eyes to avoid seeing the expression on Mark’s face. There's a rustle by Donghyuck’s side, and when Mark speaks next his voice is much closer to Donghyuck’s left ear.

“You know, when we first met, I thought you were the coolest kid in the world,” Mark says conversationally. Donghyuck turns his head to see Mark laying right next to him, staring up at the rapidly darkening sky. “You were wearing that Michael Jackson t-shirt you always used to wear, and you always did exactly what you wanted.”

“That's right, Michael Jackson’s the best,” Donghyuck mutters, turning his head back up towards the sky. “I think my mom still has that shirt somewhere.”

Mark continues like he hadn't spoken. “I still think you're one of the coolest people I know, even if you do love being irritating on purpose. You’re so smart, so good at everything you put your mind to. You always make me laugh, no matter how hard things are.”

It’s not hard to make Mark laugh, and Donghyuck almost says so, but the words don't feel quite right in his mouth.

“Why are you telling me this,” Donghyuck says flatly. He’d usually be openly gloating by now, eager to deflect attention from how genuinely touched he is by responding as obnoxiously as possible. His usual song and dance would take too much energy right now, though, so he doesn’t bother.

Mark turns his head to look at Donghyuck. He smiles, just a little, when they make eye contact. “I’m telling you because I think you need to be reminded that people love you. On the field and off the field, win or lose. We love you not because of what you do, but who you are, okay? Even when you’re grumpy, which is a lot nowadays.”

“Did you write this speech down?” Donghyuck says, after a moment.

“I may have drafted some bullet points in the Notes app,” Mark admits. 

Donghyuck huffs a laugh. He spends a moment tracing every constellation he knows (not many) with his eyes, squinting up through the last vestiges of twilight and the light pollution of the city.

“I just don't understand why everyone’s so mad at me when I’m trying my best,” he says at last. “I want to win. I know other people want to win too, Renjun doesn't need to tell me, but then why are they acting like this? Like I’m doing something wrong by working hard for once?”

There's another rustle by his ear, like Mark’s turning his head towards him. “You've always worked hard, Donghyuck, when it really mattered.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Mark sighs again, deep and slow. “Look, it’s just… I can't speak for everyone else, but for me, it just feels like…”

He trails off, voice hesitant in a way Donghyuck hasn't heard in years.

“What is it?”

There's a long moment of silence before Mark starts up again. “Donghyuck, I’ve wanted to win Koshien since I was seven. And now… I’m closer to Koshien than I’ve ever been before.”

He pauses again.

“But the closer I get to Koshien, the more I start questioning all those dreams,” Mark says finally. “Because it feels like I'm getting closer and closer to Koshien and farther and farther from you.”

Donghyuck lays frozen in place. When he finally chances a glance over at Mark, the other boy has his forearm tossed over his eyes, the navy of their team jacket covering his face.

“I’m right here,” Donghyuck says, voice small.

The nylon rustles as Mark shakes his head. “Doesn't feel like it, not lately.”

“Won’t it all be worth it at the end, when we win it all together?” He’s almost pleading now, despite his best efforts to reign it in.

Mark uncovers one eye at that, levels it at Donghyuck with a frown. “Donghyuck, I want to win with you together. I don’t want to be pushed out of the room while you hole yourself up with your stats and your tape. I want to watch it with you and practice with you and carry it all together with you—we’re a team, Hyuck. We always have been. I don't want you to have to do it all alone.”

Donghyuck’s silent for a second. The ground is beginning to feel hard and uncomfortable, a small rock making its presence known under his right shoulder blade.

“I just wanted to give you this,” he says finally. “One childhood dream, delivered on a platter. Express mailed to Mark Lee.”

Mark reaches out between them, brushing Donghyuck’s hand with almost unbearable gentleness before taking it in his own. “I love baseball, Donghyuck. You know I do. But… you know already, right? If I had to choose between you and baseball, I’d choose you every time.”

Donghyuck did not in fact know that. He’s distracted from that revelation, though, by another part of that sentence. 

“I’d never ask you to choose,” Donghyuck says, aghast at the thought of it.

The corners of Mark’s lips quirk up. “I know. Even so, though. I would choose you.” 

“Really?” 

“Donghyuck,” Mark says, tugging gently at Donghyuck’s hand. He waits until Donghyuck finally caves, rolling over on his side to look Mark fully in the face. “Donghyuck, it’s always been you for me. Okay?”

“Okay,” Donghyuck says quietly.

They lay there in comfortable silence for a bit, hands still intertwined between them.

“I should apologize to Jaemin,” Donghyuck says at last. “And Renjun.”

“Yeah,” Mark says, nodding.

Donghyuck doesn't mention apologizing to Mark, but he thinks it as he looks into Mark’s warm brown eyes. From the way Mark squeezes his hand, Donghyuck knows he understands.

* * *

He knocks on the door of Jaemin’s shared dorm room, the familiar rhythm of the Sailor Moon theme under his knuckles. When the door opens, though, it's Jeno, not Jaemin, staring impassively back at him. 

“He’s on the roof, probably,” Jeno says at last.

“Oh,” says Donghyuck, feeling out of place in Jeno’s presence for perhaps the first time ever.

Jeno regards him for another moment, then sighs, stepping fully into the doorway. He wraps his arms around Donghyuck, pulling Donghyuck into his chest. Donghyuck rests his cheek on Jeno’s shoulder, bringing his arms up around Jeno’s waist after a moment of consideration. It feels nice, the warm comfort of closeness seeping into Donghyuck’s chest.

“I know you have your reasons,” Jeno murmurs into Donghyuck’s hair, after a minute or two of silence. “And I’m okay with the extra practice, myself. But you hurt Jaemin, Hyuck.”

And that's something Jeno’s not okay with. Donghyuck can fill in the gaps just fine, knows all too well how close the roommates are.

Donghyuck closes his eyes, lets himself lean into Jeno’s broad chest for another moment before pulling away to look him in the eyes. “I’m going to go make it right.”

Jeno’s eyes curve into half moons with the force of his smile. “Renjun’s going to be the ultimate judge of that, you know.”

Donghyuck’s shudder is only slightly exaggerated. “How does he pack so much pettiness into such a tiny body?”

“I could say the same about you,” Jeno says, dodging Donghyuck’s punch with ease. He’s laughing as he retreats back into his room, sending Donghyuck a little wave in farewell. “Don’t stay up too late!”

Donghyuck waves halfheartedly in return before trudging back over to the stairs. 

Jaemin’s exactly where Jeno said he'd be, huddled morosely on the roof in his favorite mint green hoodie. He doesn't look up when Donghyuck sits next to him.

“I’m sorry,” Donghyuck offers, after a moment. 

Jaemin remains silent. He’s always had a hell of a poker face, blank and disinterested even through the apocalypse.

Donghyuck stares down at his feet. He’s not used to feeling so out of sorts. Usually, he has the right thing to say on the tip of his tongue, deliberately chosen for maximum effect, but today has just been one disaster after another. Maybe he’s gotten out of practice, after the relative solitude of the last few months.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “I know you don't care about winning, but I also know you work just as hard as the rest of us, and I know you'd never sabotage a game. I shouldn't have said all of that to you.”

Jaemin hums in response, low and quiet. Donghyuck waits, taking the opportunity to gaze down at the twinkle of city lights laid out beneath them. 

“I do like baseball, you know,” Jaemin says at last. The dim light of the rooftop paints his hoodie a dull yellow, the mint half-swallowed by the darkness. “It’s fun, and I like that I get to play with friends.”

“I know.”

“You're right that I don't really care about winning, but I know you all do, so of course I try for you.”

Donghyuck swallows, chastised. “I know.”

“Plus,” Jaemin says, looking at Donghyuck for the first time since his arrival, “someone's gotta pay for my med school, and it may as well be the school.”

Donghyuck snorts. It’s just like Jaemin to catch him off guard with a nonsensical statement like that. “If you’re looking for an athletic scholarship, move to the United States.”

“My English is too bad.” Jaemin smiles crookedly at him. 

Donghyuck returns the smile, relief bleeding into his limbs. He allows his arm to press up against Jaemin’s, further reassured when Jaemin leans in rather than away.

“Are we okay?” he asks, uncharacteristically quiet.

Jaemin turns back to the landscape with an air of finality. “I know you didn't mean it, Donghyuckie. You should worry more about Renjun than me.”

“So I've heard,” Donghyuck says, dry as the Gobi Desert.

* * *

Renjun lets him off easy, all things considered. “You better not bring any bad vibes in here. I’m destressing.”

Donghyuck eyes Renjun’s assortment of lit candles with trepidation. He usually only lights one at a time, so the sight of them all together is a little concerning. Must be a lot of stress Renjun’s trying to get rid of, though after the day they’d all had Donghyuck supposes he can’t blame him. “Where’s Jisung?”

Renjun shrugs, settling himself back at his desk as Donghyuck sits gingerly on his bed. “Probably watching some movie with Chenle, if I had to guess. I think they just finished Spider-Man 2 last week.”

“With Tobey Maguire?” Donghyuck makes a face.

“I guess,” Renjun says, disinterested. He’s clearly in the middle of something, busy pulling out a billion little tubes of paint from a drawer. 

Donghyuck watches in silence as Renjun arranges the tubes on his desk, lining them up neatly beside a thick sheet of paper. The candles are creating an odd mix of smells, though not a wholly unpleasant one. 

Renjun closes his eyes and waves his hand around, landing on a tube at random. He unscrews the cap with a little difficulty, frowning down at the dried paint that’s crusted around the opening. “Wanna fingerpaint?”

Donghyuck raises his eyebrows in consideration. “I guess.”

There's a weird satisfaction in smearing cold, sticky paint all over the paper Renjun drops in his lap, in swirling colors together without regard for beauty or realism or any artistic sensibilities whatsoever. He starts with a haphazard streak of yellow, before moving on to dotting red around the page with his fingertips. When he squints, it kind of looks like Donald McDonald.

“Feeling better?” Renjun asks, after a couple minutes of silent painting. 

“Yeah.” Donghyuck’s surprised to realize it himself, but he does feel better. He snags the wet towel Renjun had clearly prepared for his own use from the desk, using it to wipe off his fingers.

“Wanna talk about those feelings?”

“Not really.” He feels like he's already gone through like, six years’ worth of talking about feelings in a single evening. 

There is one thing he has to say, though, before he leaves. 

Donghyuck clears his throat. It makes an overly loud sound in the tranquility of Renjun’s candlelit room, and he almost does it again just to see whether the second time would be less awkward. 

“I’m sorry. I’ve been kind of a jerk lately. And you were right about the pitchouts.”

“I know.” Renjun squints at him, considering. “You apologize to Jaemin yet?”

Donghyuck nods. He doesn't trust himself to speak, not right now, but he makes sure to maintain steady eye contact to convey his sincerity. Renjun’s the type of guy to value eye contact.

Whatever Renjun sees in Donghyuck’s eyes must satisfy him, because he nods sharply before turning back to his painting. “It’s not really me you have to talk about your feelings with, but you should probably talk about them at some point.”

“Which feelings?”

Renjun rolls his eyes. “All of them! But mostly the ones about Mark-hyung.”

“Oh,” Donghyuck says. He’s not sure how much Renjun knows, but his friend is certainly perceptive enough to have picked up on something.

As if to prove his errant thought correct, Renjun glances back up at him, then does a double-take. He points at Donghyuck accusingly, though the gesture is rather less intimidating given that his hands are still covered in blue paint. “Wait. Did you already talk about it?”

“About what?” Donghyuck can't quite keep the tiny smile from creeping onto his face, his brain replaying the way Mark had curled his fingers around Donghyuck’s on loop, the way he’d said it’s always been you for me.

Renjun throws up his hands, accidentally smearing paint across his desk lamp in the process. “About your big complex feelings for each other! About your fear of being left behind! About this stupid noble drive to win Koshien for him as some sort of grand gesture without realizing that he cares more about the journey!”

Donghyuck raises an eyebrow, impressed despite himself. He’d taken ages to process all of that—hell, some of it he'd just learned like, two hours ago—and here Renjun was talking like he'd known all along. He probably had, knowing Renjun. “We talked about some of it.”

Renjun studies him again. “That’s good. You should really communicate more, you know.”

“I talk all the time!” Donghyuck says, jabbing a finger at Renjun incredulously. “You tell me I talk too much!”

“You talk all the time, but you don't say anything.” 

Renjun breaks into laughter at Donghyuck’s resulting pout, pushes himself out of his desk chair to wrap his arms around Donghyuck gingerly, this time taking care not to get paint everywhere.

“I missed you,” he says into Donghyuck’s sweatshirt. “Don't leave us like that again, okay?”

Donghyuck swallows, suddenly overcome with a swell of affection. “I’ll do my best.”

* * *

15 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS —

Donghyuck finds himself behind Chenle in line to pack their gear into the bus the next morning. He hadn't sought the other boy out last night, both because he was emotionally exhausted by the end of it and because he really didn't want to be roped into watching The Amazing Spider-Man. He drops a hand onto Chenle’s shoulder now, though. “Chenle-yah! You’re gonna kill it out there today.”

Chenle turns to beam at him. “I know! We're going to do great, Donghyuck-senpai!”

Donghyuck nods at him, amused by his characteristic optimism. He didn't think Chenle would be upset, but the reaction is reassuring nevertheless.

Chenle’s beam relaxes into a smaller smile, his eyes growing considering. “You sorted it out, right? I need my catcher to have his head in the game!”

“Your catch—?” There’s a sudden weight on his shoulder before Donghyuck can finish his incredulous reply, and before he knows it Jaemin’s dropping a sloppy kiss on his cheek, loud and wet. Donghyuck pushes him away, grimacing, before turning around and pursing his lips in retaliation. It’s too late, though—Jaemin’s already fled into the bus, cackling maniacally as he goes.

“...I guess you did,” Chenle says, laughing his squeaky laugh.

“I guess I did,” Donghyuck echoes, smiling up at the bus. He turns back to Chenle, mischievousness activated. “Ah, but since Jaemin’s not here anymore… I guess you’ll have to substitute for him.”

He makes a kissy face again, extending his arms out towards Chenle, who immediately drops his bag and bolts, shrieking at a volume entirely inappropriate for 7 a.m. Donghyuck chases him, laughing, until Chenle finally takes refuge behind a bewildered Mark, who’s just started towards the bus, evidently having finally finished his conversation with the coach.

Donghyuck sizes them both up from a couple of feet away, grinning widely. “Your catcher demands a kiss!”

“I offer Mark-senpai as a sacrifice!” Chenle exclaims, peeking out from behind Mark’s shoulder.

“Hey!” says Mark, whirling on him.

Chenle successfully fends off Mark’s halfhearted attempts at pulling Chenle out from behind him, hugging Mark from behind to keep him in place. “Here, Hyuck-senpai! For you!”

Donghyuck sighs as dramatically as possible. “I guess he’ll do.”

He puckers up again, grabbing Mark’s face with more care than he’d initially intended. Mark’s face is screwed up in token protest, but his eyes are warm and amused as Donghyuck smacks a wet kiss on his forehead.

“Gross,” Renjun calls from the bus. He’s smiling down at them through the open window, though, so Donghyuck ignores him in favor of peppering more kisses around Mark’s face, each louder and more exaggerated than the last.

Mark puts Donghyuck in a headlock as soon as Chenle lets go of his arms, dragging Donghyuck back over to where he and Chenle had abandoned their bags. “Now that you've gotten that out of your system... We’re gonna be late, c’mon, pack it up!”

Donghyuck yelps, scrabbling at Mark’s arm to no avail. Mark’s much stronger than he looks, of course, thousands of hours of practice etching themselves into corded muscle. “Alright, alright, I give! Zhong Chenle, get your ass over here!”

“I would've put my stuff away already if you hadn't attacked me,” Chenle mutters, pouting, though he trudges over obligingly.

Mark slings his arm around Donghyuck’s shoulder as they finally settle onto the bus, sitting in their customary spot three rows from the back. He pokes Donghyuck in the cheek with his other hand, smiling. “You’re in a good mood today.”

“Yeah, because we’re gonna smash Heian.” Donghyuck reaches across the aisle to prod Jisung, who’s feigning sleep on Jaemin’s shoulder. “Right, Jisungie? We’ve got the power of love and friendship on our side!”

Jisung cracks one eye open a sliver, doing the tiniest fistpump possible. “Yeah, friendship!”

“Friendship!” Donghyuck hoots, fistpumping energetically enough to account for the both of them.

“Ya,” Jeno says grumpily, twisting around in his seat to peer at Donghyuck through the gap in the headrests. “I’m happy you're back to normal, but you're about to have a lot less friendship if you keep being this loud this early.”

Donghyuck collapses against Mark as if he's been shot, draping the back of his hand across his forehead. “Jeno-yah… how could you threaten to leave me like this… you promised that you’d stay with me forever! You promised that you’d love me just the way I was, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health—”

“Let him sleep, dumbass,” Mark says, whacking Donghyuck on the head with his free hand. “It’s too early for your dramatics.”

Mark’s still smiling down at him, though, and Donghyuck can't help but smile back. 

“You guys are sickening,” Jeno yawns, turning back around. “Wake me up when we get there.”

* * *

The game is as difficult as Donghyuck had thought it would be. Heian’s defense is as impeccable as ever, and it takes every bit of information he’d gathered to wrest a pair of runs from them. Chenle allows two runs in the third inning, the unfortunate result of Heian’s fourth batter hitting Chenle’s two-seamer out of the park, but other than that he holds his own admirably, switching out at the bottom of the fifth so that Mark can close out the game. 

They're tied at two now, at the bottom of the ninth, and Donghyuck watches mournfully from second base as Shotaro is struck out swinging. One out, then. They can’t afford more if they want to end this game here.

Donghyuck crouches a couple of meters off second, preparing to edge even closer to third as soon as the pitcher turns his full attention to home plate. Heian is clearly wary of Donghyuck’s speed—their starting pitcher had almost managed to pick him off in the second inning. This pitcher, however, is much more predictable, only ever checking twice for steals before turning his attention back to the plate.

Jaemin’s swaggering up to bat, the brass band booming and the crowd obligingly belting out Jaemin’s walk-up song, Ariana Grande’s Sweetener. Donghyuck has to admit that it's a little funny to see a crowd of baseball fans bellowing “Get it, get it, get it, get it, hit it, hit it, hit it, hit it!” in unison, and Jaemin soaks it all up, sending the adoring crowd a wink and salute. 

Come on, give me a chance, Donghyuck thinks, eyes narrowing in concentration.

Back in the batter’s box, Jaemin settles into his batting stance, abruptly serious. The pitcher shoots a glance at Donghyuck before turning back to look at his catcher. Donghyuck begins shuffling closer to third, keeping his eyes and ears open for the shortstop hovering a couple of steps away. He stops when the pitcher shoots him a second look, but the look is over almost as quickly as it began, and Donghyuck’s golden. 

He quickens his pace until he’s a full seven steps towards third, watching the pitcher like a hawk. 

The second the pitcher’s left foot comes off the rubber, Donghyuck’s off. His feet pound the dirt faster than they’ve ever gone in practice, the adrenaline rushing through his veins, and then he’s ten meters away, five meters away, one meter away, diving neatly under the third baseman's mitt to slap the cool rubber of the base. He doesn't even need to look up at the third-base umpire to know he's safe, the judgment confirmed by the sudden roar of the crowd.

“That’s our teddy bear senpai!” Chenle yells from his spot in the dugout. “Round and cuddly but deadly fast!”

Donghyuck clambers back onto his feet, pointing a finger across the field in faux indignation. “Ya, who’re you calling round, huh?!”

Chenle laughs, fakes a full-body shudder. “Ooh, so scary! Someone save me!”

Donghyuck’s saved from having to reply to that nonsense by the pitcher coming set again. The pitcher looks on edge now that Donghyuck’s so close to home—he’s a second year, Donghyuck remembers, a new member of Heian’s first string, and this is only the second time he's ever been brought in to close a game.

Pitch #2 goes wide. Jaemin fouls the next one, pulling it too far to the left. Pitch #4 is a change-up, and Donghyuck knows it even before the pitcher steps onto the rubber by the way he flares his glove as he adjusts his grip. It looks like Jaemin knows it too, because he hits the ball with a satisfying crack, and suddenly it’s slipping right past the first baseman into the outfield. 

Donghyuck doesn't wait to see more. He’s already running, eyes fixed on home plate. He can see the catcher standing, yelling, but he doesn't hear any of it, focusing entirely on the rubber pentagon at the catcher’s feet. Out of the corner of the eye he sees the right fielder bringing his hand up to throw, the movement smooth and practiced. 

It’s too late, though. Donghyuck barrels across home plate to thunderous applause, and just like that they’re through to the prefectural finals.

He looks back out at Jaemin, who’s beaming at him as he jogs back from second. Donghyuck runs out to meet him, enveloping him in a crushing hug. “Did you see—”

“The glove?” Jaemin says, grinning down at him. “Hell yeah I did.”

Donghyuck sags in relief in Jaemin’s arms as the rest of the team piles on around them, thumping their backs and ruffling their hair. He closes his eyes for a long, blessed moment, reveling in their warmth and excitement. They’re one game away. They’re one game away, and Donghyuck is starting to feel like they could really do this thing.

This year, the team going to Koshien could be theirs.

* * *

14 DAYS UNTIL KOSHIEN BEGINS —

“This year, we’re going to be the ones going to Koshien,” Mark says in the team’s pre-game huddle the next afternoon. “We’ve all worked so hard, and I know your hard work is going to show on the field today.”

He looks around the circle, making eye contact with each individual player. 

“I’ve had the honor of practicing with each and every one of you, and I’ve seen just how much each of you has grown over the past few months. Sungchan, your switch hitting has gotten top notch. Jisung, all those tires you’ve been dragging around have really helped—”

“I sure hope you’re not planning on explaining how every single player has improved,” Donghyuck interrupts, letting the fondness permeate his voice so everyone knows he’s just teasing. “We have two minutes, not two hours.”

Mark rolls his eyes at him from across the circle. “So I guess you don’t want to hear about how I think your framing has really improved and your game-calling is better than ever, then—”

Donghyuck disentangles his arm from where it’s slung over Jisung’s shoulder to reach his hand out dramatically. “I take it back! Please, Mark-hyung, continue to extoll my virtues so that the world may know just how legendary Lee Donghyuck truly is!”

“Moving on,” Renjun says loudly, kicking Donghyuck in the shin.

“What I mean to say,” Mark continues, acting like he can’t see Donghyuck and Renjun scuffling in the corner, “is that we started out good, and together, we’ve become even better. We’ve been practicing to face teams like this for the past three months. We can beat them. I know we can.”

He pauses, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he sweeps his gaze around their little circle of players. “Now let’s get out there and prove it.”

* * *

The ball slams into Donghyuck's mitt.

There's a moment when none of them have quite realized what's happened yet. The crowd is silent, and Donghyuck crouches motionless behind home plate, eyes wide as he stares down at his hand. 

Then Chenle lets out a shrill whoop from the dugout, and the moment is broken. Donghyuck clambers out of his crouch, tosses his catcher's mask into the dirt, and sprints to the mound. He crashes into Mark with the force of a tidal wave, bowling them both over into the packed dirt. Mark's laughing, hat askew, squeezing Donghyuck’s waist so tight Donghyuck’s not sure whether he’s about to pass out from happiness or suffocation. 

The feeling of imminent suffocation is compounded by Jeno and Jaemin piling on top of them, then someone smaller with Chenle’s telltale dolphin laugh. From under Jeno’s arm, Donghyuck spots Jisung crying off to the side and Renjun patting his shoulder, looking suspiciously wobbly-mouthed. 

He lets their friends crush them for another couple of seconds before wiggling free, cheeks beginning to ache from the breadth of his grin. 

6–1, Kyoto Kokusai.

For the first time in their school’s history, they’re going to Koshien. 

* * *

Mark’s the last one to enter the locker room, having been pulled aside to talk to the press right after the team had finished their final bows. Donghyuck packs up slowly, keeping an eye on Mark at the other end of the row. Once the last straggler—Jaemin, as usual—leaves, he makes his way over. 

Extremely casually, of course. No one’s ever been as casual as he’s being right now.

“So, uh…” He’s making a concerted effort to keep his voice light, but even he can hear the nerves. He coughs a little, to cover it. “What are we?”

Mark laughs, the sound muffled a bit by the compression shirt he's pulling off over his head. When he turns to look at Donghyuck he’s smiling, eyes bright. “Seriously? Right now?”

“If not now, then when?” Donghyuck can feel the flush spreading across his face, the telltale heat creeping up to his ears. He forces himself to maintain eye contact, though. He’s cool! He’s casual! This is fine!

“Alright, alright,” Mark concedes easily. He takes a moment to wrap an ice pack around his shoulder, shrugging his uniform shirt back on over it.

“I told you already,” Mark says at last, eyes fixed on his bag. “It’s always been you for me.”

Donghyuck stands stock still, barely daring to take a breath. 

When it becomes clear that's it, that Mark’s finished talking, he moves swiftly, repeatedly whacking Mark’s non-pitching shoulder in the most irritating manner he can muster. “What does that mean! Answer the question!”

“Hey!” Mark fends him off with both hands. “How was that not clear! I totally answered the question!”

“What are we?” Donghyuck exclaims, punctuating each word with a poke to the chest.

Mark’s laughing again, grabbing each of Donghyuck’s hands in one of his own to get him to stop. “Look, I just—I’m yours, okay? In whatever way you want me.”

Donghyuck stares at him, gauging the sincerity in those bright owl eyes. Mark gazes back steadily, smile lingering at the corners. He’s so handsome, Donghyuck thinks despairingly. How did the popsicle-covered kid from down the street grow up like this?

“Do you like me?” Donghyuck says at last.

“Of course I do.”

“Do you want to hold my hand?”

“I’m already holding your hands.”

“Will you kiss me?”

“If you want me to.”

“Do you want to?”

Mark’s quiet for a second, gaze dropping to the ground. When he looks back up his cheeks are tinged pink. “Of course I want to.”

Donghyuck wastes no more time. He breaks free of Mark’s loose grasp, takes hold of Mark’s shirt, and reels his boy in.

On their way out, clothes straightened and hair smoothed to the best of their ability, Donghyuck elbows Mark roughly. “Hey, let's be one of those couples that wears matching clothes.”

“Absolutely not,” Mark says immediately.

“Matching phone cases?”

“No!”

“Matching keychains.”

Mark sighs gustily. “Fine, but I get to pick the keychains.”

Donghyuck almost dislocates his elbow with the force of his celebratory dance.

* * *

1 DAY AFTER KOSHIEN BEGINS — 

Most of them have been to Hanshin Koshien Stadium before, of course, given its proximity to Kyoto. Donghyuck’s gone to see the Tigers more times than he can count, and as he and his friends have gotten older, it’s become a summertime tradition to go watch Koshien in person, too. It's different being down on the field, though, the atmosphere approximately a billion times more imposing than it had seemed in years past. 

“Anyone else feel like they're gonna pass out?” Jeno mutters from beside Donghyuck as they look out over Koshien’s famous black dirt, casually warming up as they wait their turn to run their infield/outfield routine.

“Me,” Jisung says, looking steadily greener by the second.

“Wow, so many people!” Chenle’s unabashedly gawking at the sea of spectators, ball abandoned on the ground next to him. “Look, it’s our cheering section!”

It is indeed their cheering section, the familiar cluster of scarlet jackets and navy hats sitting along the first baseline, noisemakers in hand. What’s not so familiar, however, is just how big the cluster is this time around. Their school is small, with only 131 students, and Donghyuck has gotten used to the motley crew of students and parents who show up to their games. 

This crew looks far from motley. There’s current students and parents, as expected, as well as teachers and alumni. He spots Jungwoo-hyung right at the front, brandishing a pair of red and blue cheerleader poms with aplomb. But there's also hundreds, if not thousands, of people he doesn't recognize, all waving Kokusai’s red noisemakers. Donghyuck squints up at the stands, perplexed. Where had all these people come from?

“Look at their banners,” Mark says lowly, from over Donghyuck’s shoulder.

“They're in Korean,” Donghyuck realizes. Let’s be dope, says one. Fighting!!, says another.

“How much do you wanna bet all the ahjummas in the country banded together to organize this?”Jaemin looks impressed, draping himself over Jisung’s shoulder to get a closer look.

“God, we’re going to have to nail the singing of the school song after we win this game,” Donghyuck says, half-joking, “or the ahjummas will riot.”

Chenle snaps his head around, wide-eyed. “Donghyuck-senpai! Run it through with me one more time! It’s hard for me to remember the words in Korean!”

“Cute,” Donghyuck coos, pinching Chenle’s cheeks with both hands until Chenle pulls away, pouting. Donghyuck laughs at his disgruntled expression before finally acquiescing. “Okay, baby pitcher, throw me the ball and we’ll take it from the top! Across the East Sea, the land of Yamado… ”

* * *

9 DAYS AFTER KOSHIEN BEGINS — 

Donghyuck stares out at the ocean, unseeing. Suma is crowded today, kids running everywhere and muffled music pumping from the beach house fifty meters back. He barely notices, though, mind full of white noise and hands fiddling with a rock he’d picked up outside the JR station. 

The rock is smaller than a baseball, but it’s heavier, rough around the edges in a way baseballs never are. He wonders absently whether it would dent his bat if he tried to hit it (almost certainly), tossing it up and down in his hand a couple of times to gauge the feeling. It’s dense and hard, without any of the bouncy give of a baseball. 

Usually, Donghyuck feels like he could fly through the air like a baseball, if he put his mind to it. Today, he feels like the rock.

He draws his arm back and hurls it out over the tepid waves.

“Fuck,” he says. He and Mark watch as the rock soars ten, twenty, thirty meters, before dropping into the water with an unsatisfying plop.

“Fuck!” He says it with feeling this time, just to see if it feels any better the second time around.

“We did better than anyone expected,” Mark says hoarsely, chin in hand. “We went to Koshien for the first time in our school’s history. We sang our school song in the language of our people in one of the most hallowed places in this country.”

“Once,” Donghyuck says. His upper lip twists despite himself. “We were able to sing it once.”

They’d only made it to the second round. In their second Koshien game, the opponent’s ace had been a monster of a pitcher, and despite Jeno’s homer in the sixth inning, they'd been otherwise unable to land good hits. And that was that, their Koshien run over, down 1–3 at the hands of one of the Tokyo powerhouses.

Beside him, Mark drops his forehead to his knees. “I wanted that number to be six. I wanted to sing it in the final, before we raised the championship flag.”

“Feels like shit,” Donghyuck agrees. 

He scrunches his nose in a vain attempt to suppress the sniffle, but after a minute it forces its way out anyway. He dimly registers Mark shuffling closer, snaking an arm around him, pulling him close. He closes his eyes, lets himself rest his head on Mark’s shoulder. It’s warm there, like it always is. Almost too warm under the late afternoon sun, but Donghyuck can’t bring himself to pull away.

They sit in silence for another ten minutes before Mark speaks up, voice thin and nasally. “I got scouted.”

Donghyuck bolts upright, turns to face Mark, eyes wide. “What? By who?”

Mark’s eyes are red around the edges, but he smiles at Donghyuck’s reaction. “Waseda.”

“Waseda?”

“And Hosei.” He says it nonchalantly, like it's no big deal that he's been scouted by the two most successful universities in Tokyo’s Big 6.

“And Hosei?”

“And Hosei,” Mark echoes, smile widening slightly. “There are others, but I thought you'd want to know about those two first.”

“Hell yeah I do.” 

Donghyuck’s a little overwhelmed by the emotional whiplash. He’d already been upset about Koshien, and he’d braced himself for the additional wave of despondence that would inevitably follow the revelation of Mark being scouted, of Mark leaving to attend some school hundreds of kilometers away. Yet to his surprise, the emotion fluttering through his chest isn't despondence at all—it’s joy. 

Mark, playing with the big guys, living out the dreams they've had since they were children… It’s exciting. It’s exciting for both of them. 

“You can come visit whenever,” Mark offers after a moment. “Whenever you have free time… which I guess you won't until at least this time next year.”

“We’re going to Koshien again if it kills us,” Donghyuck agrees, frowning down at the sand with sudden vehemence.

Mark’s lips quirk up at that. “I’ll come watch you guys. You and Chenle are gonna tear up the league, you know that?”

“Yeah, I know.” Donghyuck’s already thinking about the drills they’ll run when they go back to practice tomorrow, about just how much more Chenle will improve in a year. He cracks a grin. “Hey, maybe this time I’ll sit back, relax, and let him take me to Koshien for real.”

“You? Sit back?” Mark snorts.

“I can sit back!”

“You absolutely cannot.”

They bicker about it for a while until Mark finally rolls his eyes.

“Anyways, I’ll come watch you guys at Koshien, and you can come visit, and then after you graduate you can come to Tokyo, too.”

“Or I could get scouted by the pros, and then who knows where I’ll end up,” Donghyuck says, frowning at Mark with faux indignation. “Don't you dare underestimate me, Mark Lee!” 

Mark laughs at that, tugs on Donghyuck’s ear with his free hand. “I would never, Donghyuckie.”

He sounds so fond that Donghyuck finds himself leaning further into Mark without thinking. He worms his fingers through Mark's, runs his thumb over the coarse calluses on Mark’s palm. There’s a short lifetime of hard work worn into those hands, he knows. How much rougher will Mark’s hands be when he comes back for the new year next year, after he’s spent a whole year on his university team?

When Mark speaks next, his voice is quiet and serious. “Even if we end up in different places for a while, we’ll find our way back to each other. We’ll always be a battery, okay? You won't be able to get rid of me.” 

“I’m counting on it,” Donghyuck says, and finds that he means it. 

Mark squeezes his hand, gentle as always. Then they go back to watching the waves lap against the sand, hand in hand as the sun sets on Mark’s last summer.