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“Catch for me, Miyuki Kazuya!” Sawamura’s voice echoed in the dorm room as he burst through the door. He had ambushed the dorm room where Miyuki lived, who was sitting at the desk reading baseball statistics.
“No.” Miyuki didn’t even bother to look up.
“Catch for me, Okumura!”
“No.”
“But I’m your senpai!” Sawamura insisted, staring him down. Okumura shifted in his bed where he was sitting.
“So?”
“So you have to listen to me!”
“I am listening to you. I don’t have to do what you want me to.”
“Y-you!” Sawamura stuttered. “Don’t be mean to me!”
“I am not.” Okumura replied.
“Then, catch for me!”
At that moment, Kuramochi popped his head in through the door.
“What’s going on here?”
When he spotted Sawamura, a frown appeared on his face.
“Oh, it’s you. Stop bothering the others.”
“I’m not!” Sawamura insisted. “I’m just asking if they’ll catch for me!”
“Insisting, more like,” Okumura commented.
“Sawamura I’ll put you in a headlock if you don’t stop insisting.”
“Hmph, fine. I’m going for a run,” Sawamura declared, turning around and heading out of the dorm room.
Kuramochi shook his head. “He’s such a handful.”
“So are you,” Miyuki snorted. “You and Sawamura are more alike than you think, Kuramochi.”
“Shut up! Don’t compare him to me,” Kuramochi glared. Miyuki just laughed in response.
When Sawamura arrived back at his dorm room that evening, Asada was the only one there. He was sitting doing some homework when Sawamura entered the room.
“Good evening, Sawamura-senpai.”
“Good evening, Asada!” Sawamura chirruped. Despite not having found anyone to play catch with, he had had a good evening work out and was feeling content. His hair was still wet from the bath he had taken straight after, and he tossed his dirty laundry in his laundry basket, before throwing himself down on the bottom bunk bed. It was Kuramochi’s bed; Sawamura had the top bunk, but Kuramochi didn't care about who used it and it was easier for Sawamura to chill there rather than to go up and down the ladder to his bed.
“Are you doing homework?” Sawamura asked Asada, while making himself comfortable.
“Um, yes,” Asada replied.
“I should probably do homework too,” Sawamura sighed, taking his phone off the bedside counter where it had been all day.
“Um, Sawamura-senpai?”
“What’s up, Asada?”
“About Okumura..”
“That wolf boy gets on my nerves,” Sawamura interrupted. “I don’t understand him! Why won’t he just catch for me!”
“Well, it’s because he’s insecure,” Asada replied.
“Huh?”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you. Okumura is insecure and he looks up to you, Sawamura-senpai. He doesn’t think he’s good enough. That’s why he doesn’t want to catch for you.”
“Oh,” Sawamura paused for a moment to think. “But that doesn’t matter. If he can catch the ball then that’s fine.”
“I don’t think he sees it that way.” Asada replied.
“Hmm, I’ll talk to him later,” Sawamura replied thoughtfully. “Thanks for telling me, Asada!”
“No problem. But don’t tell Koushu you heard it from me!”
“Why? Are you afraid of him?” Sawamura teased.
“N-no!” Asada stuttered, but Sawamura laughed it off.
“Don’t worry, I won’t tell him.”
“Tell who what?” Kuramochi interrupted them as he entered the dorm room.
“You’re home late!” Sawamura exclaimed. “What have you been out doing Kuramochi?”
“That’s Kuramochi-senpai to you, Sawamura,” Kuramochi grabbed Sawamura and pulled him onto the floor and into a headlock. “And it’s none of your business what I’ve been doing.”
“Let me go!”
“If you say it nicely, I might,” Kuramochi smirked.
“Ah!”
In Okumura’s dorm room, the one he was sharing with Kimura and Miyuki, it had turned quiet after Kuramochi had finally left. Miyuki had played video games with him to please him, while Okumura was sitting quietly and doing his homework along with Kimura.
“Hey, Okumura,” Miyuki called as he turned off the playstation.
“What?” Okumura turned around in his chair.
“Why don’t you catch for Sawamura?”
“Not going to.”
“Next year I’m not going to be here, you know. You’ll have to learn to cope with him yourself. You won’t be able to just leave him to me.”
“I know.”
“So why don’t you catch for him?”
Okumura shrugged but kept quiet.
“From one catcher to another, I would suggest you do it. You’ll learn more about him that way. And maybe he’s not as far away from you as you think.”
“What does that mean?” Okumura asked, but something inside him told him that he already knew the answer.
“You don’t need me to tell you that.” Miyuki turned away and went back to looking at the statistics he had been studying earlier, leaving Okumura to sit and think.
Sawamura didn’t get the opportunity to speak to Okumura until a few days later after a short practice. Practice finished early because the coach had some sort of meeting with the other teachers at the school, and that gave the team extra free time that Thursday afternoon which they didn’t normally have.
“Catch for me, Okumura!” Sawamura seemingly appeared out of nowhere as they were tidying up the field after practice.
“No,” Okumura replied without thinking much about it.
“Catch for me!” Sawamura insisted. “You never do. You even avoid me in practice. I won’t let you avoid my balls any longer, Okumura!”
Okumura let out a sigh. “I’m not going to catch for you.”
“Yes you are! A kouhai told me that you’re just insecure but don’t worry! I know you can do it!”
“Who told you that?”
“I promised not to say!”
“It was probably Asada.”
Sawamura spluttered for a second. “It doesn’t matter! Just catch for me!”
“Why don’t you humour him for once, Okumura?” Miyuki passed by. “He gives us all a headache. It’s your turn to deal with it.”
Okumura didn’t see many other options. If he caught for Sawamura now, he would probably be free from the persistence for a while.
“Fine.”
“Catch for- wait what? You’ll catch for me?!” Sawamura asked excitedly.
“Hurry before I change my mind.”
“Right! Do you need help with getting your gear on?”
“No, just give me a moment to get ready.”
“Okay! I’m ready when you are!”
Okumura and Sawamura headed to the side of the field, alone. Some of the other team members were also still practising, whilst others had tidied up and were heading back to the dorm.
“Give me a few balls straight down the middle to warm your arm up.” Okumura crouched down and shifted into position. He held his mitt out in front of him and a moment later, a ball came flying towards him and landed comfortably in the mitt.
“Nice ball,” Okumura called, throwing the ball back to Sawamura.
Sawamura let out a grin. “See? Catching for me isn’t so bad.”
“You’ve thrown one ball, Sawamura.”
Sawamura laughed. “Prepare yourself, Okumura! Here’s another one!”
The ball soared through the air, landing once again in Okumura’s mitt. They repeated a few more times, Sawamura’s ball consistently landing where Okumura pointed his mitt.
“Aren’t you going to ask for anything other than a ball down the middle?” Sawamura asked.
“What do you want to practise?” Okumura asked.
“Everything! But I can’t pitch every ball at once. So it’s up to you to decide that, Okumura!” Sawamura pointed at him. “You’re the catcher. Where do you want the ball?”
Okumura was taken back by the amount of trust Sawamura seemed to put in him. That was probably thanks to Miyuki, Okumura thought.
“He’s always like that.” The voice behind Okumura made him jump. He turned around to look. Speaking of the devil, Miyuki was standing right behind him, grinning.
“What are you waiting for? Ask him for one of his numbers.”
“Alright.” Okumura looked at Sawamura and gave him the sign for the number four.
Sawamura grinned, adjusted the ball, and pitched. It was more unsteady than the other fastball, but Okumura caught it without a problem.
“How was that, Okumura?!” Sawamura yelled.
“Not bad. Do it again.”
“You got it!”
They kept practising for a while. Miyuki disappeared again after a few more pitches, but not before giving Okumura some pointers to help him handle Sawamura’s pitching more easily. Okumura was the one to call it quits after letting Sawamura pitch about 50 pitches. Sawamura could probably have pitched more, and the look on his face said he definitely wanted to, but he had had practice already and Okumura didn’t want him to wear out.
“Just one more?” Sawamura pleaded.
“No. You’ll keep saying that and then you’ll end up pitching much more than that. You need to rest your arm,” Okumura glared. “And remember to ice your shoulder.”
“I will, I will,” Sawamura sighed. “Look at you, being a real catcher.”
“What does that mean?”
“Like, before you would kind of just let me pitch whenever and wherever during practice. And now you’re setting the pace and making the decisions.”
Okumura looked at him, stunned. He hadn’t expected that to come from Sawamura.
“You’re going to take over after Miyuki is gone, right? Then you’ll need to lead the team and make the decisions. We know you can’t do what he does so no pressure, okay? But you need to lead in the way that you can.”
“Yeah,” Okumura mumbled, not really sure what else to reply.
Sawamura grinned. “Come catch me, Okumura!”
With that, Sawamura jogged off towards the dugout, leaving Okumura standing with his own thoughts. He watched as Sawamura took his shirt off and slipped the ice pack on his shoulder, getting help from Haruichi who was nearby to make sure it was fitted properly.
“I thought you wouldn’t catch for him,” Yui’s words startled Okumura.
Okumura shrugged. “I got roped into it, I guess.”
“Sawamura looks happy,” Yui nudged him. “I think he wants to spend more time with you.”
“He just wants to play baseball.”
“Maybe that’s his way of communicating,” Yui suggested.
“Stop,” Okumura said suddenly, raising his voice slightly. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Alright,” Yui shrugged. “Are you finishing up? I can help you put your stuff away and then we can hit the showers.”
“Sounds good.”
An evening a few days later, after dinner, Okumura was sitting studying English in the cafeteria. Or rather, he was attempting to, for English wasn’t his strongest subject and he struggled a lot with phrasing. Sentences phrased in English were so much different from Japanese that he spent a lot of time trying to understand it. His dorm room was too noisy, after all, it was the assembly point of basically the whole team, and anyone who didn’t have anything to do would turn up there to play games, usually either board games or games on a play station. With the competitive nature of the team, they often ended up being too noisy for Okumura to focus, so he fled out the room and found a corner of the cafeteria that was quieter. It turned completely quiet when the cafeteria staff left, and Okumura welcomed the silence. He found this corner much better to be in than the library. He had tried to go to the library to study, but would often get distracted by people walking by or some of his classmates who would try and get his attention.
Asada stepped into the cafeteria. He had already seen Okumura studying in the cafeteria before but had sworn him to secrecy as long as it wasn’t super important.
“I thought I’d find you here,” Asada commented, his voice quiet.
“Yeah.”
“What are you studying?” Asada asked.
“English. Why are you here?” Okumura shifted in his seat.
“The senpais were looking for you so I said I’d go look.”
“Can’t you tell them I’m busy?”
“I will, but do you need any help?”
“No.” Okumura shook his head.
“Are you sure?” Asada peered over his shoulder. “You don’t look like you’ve gotten very far. You know, Sawamura is really good at English.”
“I bet he is,” Okumura mumbled.
“He is. He’s helped me before. I can go and find him for you.”
Before Okumura could protest, Asada had already fled out of the cafeteria. He let out a sigh. The last thing he wanted was to be disturbed by someone loud and noisy like Sawamura.
But it turned out to be not too bad. Sawamura came in the door a few moments later with that large grin on his face that he always had.
“I hear you need help with English, Okumura!”
“Not really,” Okumura muttered.
“Don’t worry, I’ll help you! I am your senpai after all, haha!”
“No need.” Okumura mumbled, but Sawamura didn’t listen.
“Just let me! English is the only subject I’m good at. Aside from baseball, of course!” Sawamura laughed proudly.
“Why is English the only subject you’re good at?” Okumura asked.
“Because,” Sawamura paused. “If I ever get to play in the minors or even the majors, then I’ll need to be good at English!”
“Is that what you’re going to do?”
“Maybe. Who knows what the future will bring? I’ll be happy wherever I end up, even if I’m just staying in Japan. As long as I can play baseball then that’s good enough for me. But there’s nothing wrong with dreaming big. You should dream big too, Okumura!”
“Yeah,” Okumura mumbled, not really wanting to get into that conversation with Sawamura.
“Right! Let’s look at English,” Sawamura grinned, slipping into the seat next to Okumura. “So, how far are you?”
It took Okumura less than half the time it normally took him to finish his English homework. While he would never admit it out loud, Sawamura was actually a good tutor, and Okumura felt as if he understood things just a little bit better after Sawamura had helped him. Sawamura waited for him while he packed up his things and they left the cafeteria together.
“Thanks Sawamura,” Okumura mumbled as they walked down towards the dorms.
“Don’t worry about it, Okumura! I went through what you’re studying now last year, so if you need any more help then let me know! I can only help with English though,” Sawamura laughed and scratched his head. “Hey, as thanks, why don’t you catch for me? We can go inside.”
“No.”
“Oh, come on!”
A smile formed at the corner of Okumura’s mouth. Perhaps his noisy senpai wasn’t so bad.