Work Text:
---sion---
Neo Culture Tech’s baseball team has been a top contender in their prefecture for the last ten years, but this year, they’ll be ranked dead last.
For Oh Sion, the newly appointed team captain, this is a very big concern.
A little under a month ago, at the start of Saturday practice, Yushi had shuddered and dropped the baseball before he even got on the mound. The ball hit the pavement with a sticky thunk, not even rolling on the cement. He made some quick excuse about feeling unwell, and disappeared from that day’s practice. Since then, he’s just never played right.
When Sion asked about it a week later, Yushi had pulled him into the equipment room, kept his voice low, and whispered that something was wrong with him. Whenever he stood on the mound, he could feel something behind him-- someone maybe-- cold breath tickling the back of his neck. The touch of the ball sent shivers down his spine. When he threw, the feeling of something sticky and viscous inched and spiraled its way up his arm, and an electric sensation tore straight through the bone with each release. When he wound up, a ringing in his ears reached a fever pitch, and until the crack of the ball against a bat, all he could see was a murky green haze.
Magic, Yushi insisted. There was no other explanation.
It’s not that Sion doesn’t want to believe him, but he’s a realist. There’s no such thing as magic. But that makes it even worse.
The sincerity in Yushi’s eyes was so genuine, Sion was terrified. At the time, he had run a reassuring hand down Yushi’s back, and urged him to take things easy with the softest tone he could manage, steeling the tremble out of his voice. Meanwhile, his mind had whirred with the possibilities, spiraling with worry.
Every day, the same questions ring in Sion’s mind. What if there’s really something wrong with him? Is he sick? This summer has been particularly hot and humid. Maybe it’s an unusually nasty virus, one he’s never heard of. Or maybe this is something mental rather than physical? He watches and worries and with each practice, the blankness behind Yushi’s eyes grows more and more haunting.
---riku---
Sion is a great leader and a kind teammate, but he is so spread thin nowadays that he is perhaps not the most observant. He’s the type to tackle his problems one at a time and becomes laser focused when doing so.
Riku takes advantage of this-- folds up his worries, and tucks them where Sion can’t find them.
NCT is a great baseball school. They even have professional scouters to sniff out the best talent for each incoming class. Riku has been playing with the team for almost three years now, and he had had to fight tooth and nail to cinch the position of starting catcher. He knows for a fact that he’s played with and against dozens of high school baseball players in the region.
So why can’t he seem to remember any of their names?
He only just started noticing this a couple of weeks ago. Vice captains for the sports teams are in charge of paperwork that gets handed into the student council or administration. Every year they need to provide a list of club members. For Riku, he simply needs to hand in the list given to him by their coaches. This year, it was so long it required two extra pages to be stapled to the original form.
As he waited to turn it in, he had skimmed the list and found that his mind would start swimming the further he read. Turning to the third page, all the ink swirled together, globular patterns slithering across the paper. The more he looked, the dizzier he felt, the circular patterns stamped in a bright green glow when he closed his eyes. He was freezing. He could barely feel the burst of warm air from the fans by the window and wondered faintly if he was going to pass out, but when the student council secretary took his paperwork, it all instantly disappeared.
Since then, he’s been thinking about the team headcount more and more, but every time it feels like he’s about to grasp onto something, he finds himself distracted, thinking about something else entirely. He racks his brain for memories of his seniors who had graduated, but everything he can draw upon is so murky that his head begins to pound.
Sometimes, at practice, he hears the sound of many high school boys doing laps around the field, or the whistling and cheers from teammates during a practice game, but when he turns his head to look out the dugout, there’s nothing there but dust.
Baseball needs at least a team of nine to even legally play, and as the season progresses, they keep being allowed in official games. Yet, whenever Riku squints out into the glaring sun, he can only ever count to five.
He’s constantly distracted during plays, operating off instinct and muscle memory. With a pitcher that isn’t throwing right and a catcher that can’t seem to pay attention, their performance has been abysmal.
Riku knows he should ask for help, but Sion seems so stressed all the time, balancing so many responsibilities, that Riku just can’t bring up the possibility that he may be going insane. So instead, he keeps it to himself.
---sakuya---
Before-school practice begins at 7 AM sharp. The walk, train, and walk to school takes about twenty minutes-- maybe fifteen if he runs the last ten minute walk to make it five. So naturally, on this sweltering Tuesday, Sakuya has just hopped off of the train at 6:55. He doesn’t sprint, but keeps a nice, socially-acceptable bounce to his speed-walk as he scurries through the tunnel towards their school grounds.
As he trots along, he wonders if Riku would be mad if he skipped practice today. Probably, he thinks, Sakuya had gotten a stern look when he was late last week. He forever mourns the freedom of sleeping in.
It’s not that Sakuya doesn’t take practice seriously, he does, he does all the drills and all the laps, and although he complains, he always finishes.
Baseball is fun, but Sakuya isn’t so sure why he’s playing it. He’s also not sure what made him special enough to recruit.
Last year, when he was out playing a neighborhood round of baseball with his friends, a man in a pressed trousers and the sleeves rolled up on his button down shirt had come up to him and offered him a scholarship to Neo Culture Tech, on the condition that he joined their baseball team. Sakuya thought it was a pretty good deal, catch a ball or two, and skip the entrance exam to one of the better schools in the area. His mom would be so proud.
It still confuses him though. He likes baseball, but Neo Culture Tech is a top school, and he knows that there’s a chasm between him and people like Yushi and Riku, who are single-mindedly sprinting towards going pro.
The man in the button down shirt said that he had been watching Sakuya for a long time. Frankly, Sakuya had thought that was a little creepy, but the man’s smile was earnest, and his handshake was warm. “I’ve never seen a boy catch every single ball like you, have you ever missed one?” Sakuya had paused to think, he couldn’t really remember. He has always been more of a live in the moment type. He ended up shrugging in response, which the man seemed to take as a satisfactory answer.
In the train station, as Sakuya rounds the corner, he catches sight of a familiar uniform, a familiar set of headphones, and a familiar backpack. He picks up his pace.
When he’s caught up, he reaches out his hand for a friendly smack on the back, startling his friend into looking up. Then, Sakuya takes off, abandoning his polite speed-walk pace, with Ryo at his heels.
---ryo---
It had rained a couple of days ago, so the air in the corridor out of the subway station is even stickier than usual. It’s so hot that the air is swimming and it might be making Ryo hallucinate. Back in the station, he could have sworn he saw a sign with Yushi’s name on it. He had even doubled back to check it again. He’s sweating in his school jacket. The smack of Sakuya’s hand on his back makes his shirt stick to his skin.
“Hey!” he calls out good-naturedly, but Sakuya has already overtaken him.
His earphones slip a little as he begins to chase after Sakuya, the squeaky voice of his radio show becoming more distant the further the headphones slip.
When he catches up, Sakuya grins at him, “You’re never late to practice.”
“I’m not late to practice.”
Sakuya’s brow furrows as he checks the time on his phone. “Unless you can run there in three minutes--”
“We’re starting at 7:30 today.”
“Oh.”
“I was thinking that it was unusual for you to be this early.”
Sakuya shrugs, “Well, it’s okay, I guess I don’t need to run today then.” Sakuya adjusts the straps on his backpack, “What’d you hear on the podcast today?”
Ryo had all but abandoned the show in his chase, “Just the stats from last week’s games, the usual.”
“You still winning in your fantasy baseball league?”
“You know it.”
Sakuya does a little bounce to adjust his bag back up his shoulders, it makes one of his keychains on his beltloop slip slightly off its hook. “I still can’t believe people do baseball math.”
“I mean, that’s not the best part about baseball,” Ryo protests, “But it makes it extra fun. You get this bonus game out of the sport itself.”
“Maybe for you,” Sakuya shrugs.
“I mean, clearly not for you,” Ryo smirks.
"What does that mean?!”
“I know what grade you got on the math quiz last week.” Ryo sings all-knowingly. He watches the little plush animal on Sakuya’s belt loop hang precariously.
Sakuya splutters, but can’t deny the truth.
“It’s okay, in fact, if you were good at math too, maybe you’d be too overpowered.”
Sakuya makes a sound of confusion, “What do you mean?”
Ryo squints, he can’t tell if Sakuya’s joking or not. He looks so bewildered that it reminds Ryo of just how oblivious he is. This boy is almost single-handedly keeping their team’s fielding percentage afloat and he doesn’t even know it.
“I’ll never understand your mind,” Sakuya shakes his head. The fluffy animal plush on his hip is hanging on a thread.
“And I’ll never understand yours,” Ryo agrees solemnly.
He snatches the keychain plush from off of Sakuya’s belt loop and sprints towards the school building.
“Hey!” Sakuya shouts in protest, already left in Ryo’s dust.
---daeyoung---
Daeyoung has already been in the club room for half an hour. He’s currently lying on a bench, spine stretched out against the wood, face towards the ceiling, but eyes following the boy pacing about in his peripheral.
Yushi walks around in tight figure eights, both lost in thought and muttering to himself. They’ve been like this for almost fifteen minutes.
“Would it help if I try tossing it to you?” Daeyoung suggests.
Yushi looks at him but doesn’t stop his circling, “Huh?”
“Maybe it’s different if you’re catching it instead of throwing it.”
“Oh.” Yushi stops, abandoning the thumb he’s been chewing on. He holds Daeyoung’s gaze expectantly, and Daeyoung takes the hint to scramble up off the bench in search of a baseball.
In his haste, he drops the ball twice. He can feel the embarrassed flush crawling up his neck as Yushi looks at him, clearly holding back a laugh.
“Are you sure you know how to throw?” Yushi teases.
Daeyoung scrunches his nose and gives a lazy underhand toss. It’s a little short, but Yushi’s hand darts out naturally to snatch it out of the air.
Yushi had told him this morning, both of them in the practice room a little too early to keep secrets, words spilling out like water. He said that when he threw a ball, it felt like an electric shock up his arm, vibrations lingering for minutes after. He had described a swirling slimy sensation creeping across his skin, an inescapable shiver up his spine, a haze and an icky feeling. Daeyoung had listened earnestly, and wondered how Yushi had kept it to himself for so long. He must have felt so alone.
As soon as Yushi’s fingertips touch the ball, Daeyoung’s jaw falls open because he can see it.
There are curls of swampy green racing up Yushi’s arm. He doesn’t even grasp the ball, it only just bounces off the fingertips of his extended hand, but just that bit of contact calls a flash of electric green light. Yushi yelps as the ball hits the floor, sticking to the ground with the sound of a scoop of ice cream hitting the pavement.
The two of them stare at the ball on the ground, all they can hear is their own breathing.
“Guess I’m not meant to be a catcher,” Yushi offers, but the joke is delivered so weakly that neither of even pretend to laugh.
They’re interrupted by the sound of people running in the hallway, undoubtedly the two rowdy first years arriving for practice. The two of them try to shake off their shock as the younger boys grow closer.
“You can’t tell anybody,” Yushi begs, his voice barely above a whisper. He cradles his hand to his chest.
Daeyoung doesn’t answer. After a beat, he glances at Yushi’s unreadable expression, “Does it still hurt?"
Yushi doesn’t get to answer before the double doors swing open. The conversation is over. After not even a millisecond, Ryo launches his entire body into the air and Yushi catches him as always. Daeyoung watches the way he holds his arm back, carefully avoiding strain or contact.
Daeyoung knows that Yushi won’t want him to broach the topic in front of the rest of the team, quiet and prideful, so he busies himself with gathering the towels to bring out to practice. Ryo and Sakuya are putting their things into their lockers, distracted by a bout of play fighting. Ryo is dangling a keychain out of Sakuya’s reach, retracting his arm every time Sakuya’s fingers brush against the fur.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spots the last two members to arrive. Sion has his head bent over a clipboard of paperwork, walking smoothly through the doors before they close, making a beeline for his locker. He doesn’t need to look up as he weaves his way around the bench and the equipment cart in the corner, moving out of pure muscle memory.
Riku is just one or two steps behind Sion and turns the corner before the doors swing shut, but just barely, one bumping his shoulder as he narrowly makes it through the doorway. Daeyoung is used to Sion and Riku coming in at the same time, both making their way to their lockers with the same practiced dexterity, almost as if intentionally coordinated. In the last four days, Riku has tripped over a shoe twice, a water bottle once, and nearly smacked his head into an open locker door.
Today, Daeyoung can only catch a glimpse of his bottom eyelashes. Riku’s face is partially obscured in a green fog. It hovers around his head, like a beanie pulled down a touch too far, concealing his eyes. When Riku bumps into the wall, Daeyoung can faintly see shocks of lightning in the swamp colored cloud, the sparks the same bright color as the ones crackling down Yushi’s arm just moments ago.
Daeyoung spins his head, looking to see if Yushi sees the same thing, but Yushi is preoccupied with something Ryo is showing him on his phone and Sion is already calling the team to head out to the field. Daeyoung goes through the motions of grabbing his equipment and falls back behind the rest of the team, keeping a steady, even view of all of them at once. His eyes hunt for other traces of mysterious green.
It isn’t until they’re outside in the humid summer air that Yushi glances his way, just as they’re about to emerge from the shade of the batter’s box. Daeyoung holds eye contact with Yushi, the prolonged stare stretching like a rubber band.
Yushi looks away and steps out into the blazing sun.
---yushi---
Daeyoung had been right. Every time that Yushi picks up the ball, it hurts, and it lasts for a while. The first time, it had been just a buzzing feeling, an uncomfortable vibration. But since then, it’s almost as if a switch had been flipped from vibration mode to electricity mode. This time, as he picks up to pitch, its a shock straight up his arm.
He tenses up, and it takes everything to not make a sound. The whole team is waiting for him to throw. He can feel Daeyoung’s eyes on him. Ryo is ready to bat, and he’s staring too.
Shit. Yushi closes his fingers around the baseball tighter, the crackling intensifying. He grits his teeth and gets ready to throw. Maybe if he can pull this off, no one will notice.
He throws a fastball, but it’s impossibly slow. Ryo hits it easily and Yushi watches as the baseball goes soaring beyond where even Sakuya could possibly catch it.
Ryo’s making the round through the bases at a light jog, exerting very little effort for the run. Yushi can feel all of his energy redirected to scanning Yushi from head to toe. Yushi refuses to look at him, but he already knows it’s a lost cause. Ryo is too observant for Yushi to play it off and too persistent to drop it.
As they play, what was initially shocks up the bone during each throw begin to leave individual imprints. The sensations in his arm seem to aggregate. One by one, each shock leaves a vibrating, chilling shadow. After ten throws, he can’t keep back a rapid tremor.
He is granted solace when they switch to batting practice, but by then his fingers have already gone numb. When he presses his palm against the bench, it leaves invisible bruises against his skin.
Sion doesn’t say anything, but they stay on hitting drills until it’s time to go to class.
Ryo’s eyes are on him like a hawk. He’s two paces behind him as Yushi heads to the changing rooms. Daeyoung is also hovering since practice ended, albeit, more cautiously far away than Ryo is.
When they’re out of the sun, dropping off their equipment. Ryo ambushes him, Daeyoung hot on his heels.
“What was that?” Ryo has always been direct.
“What do you mean?” Yushi doubts playing dumb will get him out of this, but it’s worth a shot.
Ryo squints at him. It feels like an accusation.
Yushi reaches a hand out to Daeyoung. Daeyoung shakes his head, not helping.
Ryo is standing on his toes to lean in even closer to Yushi, inspecting him. Yushi has to physically bend back to look away.
“I’m having some trouble throwing.”
“No, duh,” Ryo leans in even closer.
Yushi grimaces, “It might be… Like, a ghost or something.”
Ryo squints even harder.
Yushi shies away at all of the attention. He keeps his lips sealed.
Ryo has always had a very expressive face. His glare right now makes it clear that he’s not about to give up.
“When he throws, he gets pain up his arm, like lightning” Daeyoung helps him out, “but it’s not just that, there’s a… slimy feeling?”
“It’s like, something sticky swirling up my arm, and something cold breathing down my neck,” Yushi clarifies, still leaning away from Ryo’s analytical stare.
“And it hurts now?” Ryo asks.
“Yeah,” Yushi says softly.
“What’s going on?” Sakuya pokes his head into the circle. He’s already changed out of his practice gear.
“Yushi says something’s haunting him,” Ryo responds.
“Oh, cool,” Sakuya wiggles his way in between Ryo and Daeyoung, “Well, I mean, not cool.”
“When did it start?” Ryo continues his line of questioning.
“Three weeks ago?”
“The day you left practice early?” Sakuya asks.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a really long time,” Daeyoung says. Yushi realizes he hadn’t told him how long this had been happening for.
“Seriously, way too long. You can’t do things like that, if it causes damage it could be career ending.” Ryo scolds.
Yushi glares at him, “I know that.”
“If you know that, why did you keep playing?” Sakuya’s question is said so genuinely that it breaks some of the tension.
“I can tell it’s not physical.” Yushi says firmly.
“How do you know?” Daeyoung asks.
“I just know.”
There’s a long pause.
Ryo relents, rolling back onto his heels. Yushi expects him to push back, but he just says, “Okay, that’s good.”
“You believe me?” Yushi asks in disbelief.
Ryo looks at him bewildered, “If you know you know. It wouldn’t be like you to give up on going pro. If you had any doubt you would have told us.”
Sakuya nods in agreement. Daeyoung puts a steady hand on Yushi’s shoulder. Yushi’s chest fills with something warm.
“Why don’t you talk to Sion?” Daeyoung suggests.
“I did,” Yushi replies quietly.
Daeyoung quirks his head to the side, a question mark.
“I don’t know what he’s thinking,” Yushi sighs.
“Riku?” Daeyoung follows.
“I don’t want to tell him.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want him to think I’m making up excuses.”
“He wouldn’t think that.” Daeyoung is sure of it, “Riku taught me everything I know about baseball. A catcher trusts their pitcher. Always.” Daeyoung says it with such a specific lilt, everyone can practically hear it in Riku’s voice.
Yushi isn’t so sure. Riku loves baseball, maybe even more than he does. Although he never says it directly, Riku is fiercely protective of the baseball they play together. The last thing Yushi wants to do is disappoint him.
“He really wouldn’t,” Ryo agrees.
“If Riku knew, he’d help,” Sakuya says it like he’s stating a fact.
---Friday September 15th, 2023. 13:22---
Time is dragging on forever.
Sion and Riku have their desks pulled together to share their English textbook, but neither of him have turned the page in fifteen minutes.
The fact that the two of them are in the same class has probably not been kind to their grades. In the subjects they like least, they always end up whispering about baseball the whole time. Usually, they talk strategy, potential plays they cook up to take them a step ahead as a team. Today, Sion has placed a piece of lined paper in the center of their shared textbook with “Yushi” written in big letters at the top, centered and underlined.
“We need to figure out what’s going on with Yushi,” Sion says, just a little too loud. The girl sitting next to them shushes them urgently.
Riku gives her a sheepish smile in apology. Sion doesn’t even spare her a look.
Sion has massive shoes to fill, and has been juggling his captain responsibilities as well as trying to glue together the club members that remain after last year’s seniors’ graduation. First, they were evaluating new recruits, then, he and Riku had to negotiate with other sports teams for resources, all while trying to develop this year’s team into winners. It had almost felt like the worst had passed, and they could finally focus on earning his team’s trust and forming a cohesive unit. But this week, Sion has been talking Riku’s ear off about Yushi’s throwing problem as if it’s a type of evasive, incurable disease.
“I think there’s a couple possibilities. It’s either mental or physical, or a combination of both,” Sion writes these down as major bullet points on their shared paper.
“And you want me to help.” Not a question, an assumption.
“Of course,” Sion doesn’t look up as he finishes up writing the last bullet point. He taps the end of his pen against the page in a steady beat.
Riku sighs but gives in and sits up to lean his head in closer, “If it’s physical he needs to see a doctor, and if it’s mental he also needs to see a doctor.”
“You know he would never.”
Sion’s right, Riku thinks. Yushi would never, at least unless Sion and Riku made an excellent case for it.
“That’s why we need this list,” Sion taps his pen twice against Yushi’s name on the page.
“Okay, well what evidence do you have that it’s physical or mental?” Riku prompts.
Sion holds his tongue for a minute, “Well… He told me that whenever he throws he has a pain that shoots up his arm.”
“Okay, so it’s physical.”
“He also says that he feels something cold crawling up his arm.”
“Sometimes nerve damage can cause weird sensations. I think.” Riku is not a doctor.
“He also says he can feel someone breathing on the back of his neck.”
Riku stares at Sion, waiting for him to say he’s joking. Sion has never been more dead serious in his life.
“Okay, so it’s mental.”
“He thinks it’s some sort of magic.”
“I mean,” Riku tries to put himself in Yushi’s shoes, “If that’s what he feels like, I understand why he would think that. Maybe aliens.”
Sion squints at him, “There’s no such thing as aliens.”
“Says you.” Riku shrugs, “Anyways, I don’t think it’s a mental problem that Yushi is creeped out and thinks that there might be something otherworldly. That just means he has a normal, functioning imagination.”
The dig goes over Sion’s head, “That’s true, I guess. But the feeling of someone breathing…”
“I feel like that can also be explained as a physical phenomenon.”
Sion hums.
“I think we would need more information, if we are going to ask a doctor,” Riku suggests, “I mean, the challenge here is really getting Yushi to try stuff out and tell us things.”
“You’re right. Where do you think we should start?”
“I mean, I guess the standard? See if he has a fever, see if he has feeling in his hands. Maybe ask if he’s had any vision changes?”
“Muscle strain?” Sion suggests.
“Yeah, could be a rotator cuff injury,” Riku shudders.
Sion is scribbling down these possibilities on the page.
“Do you know if it’s mostly shoulder, hand, or elbow pain?” Riku asks.
“He said the pain shoots up his arm, but I’m not sure if it’s concentrated in one place.”
“Either way, he shouldn’t be playing in games,” Riku frowns. How had he not noticed Yushi was in pain for the last couple weeks? He’s the only other member of the battery. They should be working together, in sync.
“We need to tell him right after class then. If he gets in practice gear before we tell him he’s going to throw a fit.”
Riku balks and imagines the sour look that Yushi would give them.
Sion has filled out his page with bullet points.
Time crawls by. Riku and Sion distract themselves by actually paying attention to their classwork, minute after minute dragging on and on.
When classes are over, Riku and Sion speed out into the hall and down a floor to Yushi’s classroom. He’s still there, standing at his desk and scowling at what Riku guesses is a returned test, all marked up. Sion pops his head through the window from the hallway and Yushi startles.
“We need to talk to you,” Sion gestures for Yushi to follow them. Yushi quickly stuffs his supplies into his bag and comes out of the classroom door.
“What’s going on?” Yushi asks. The three of them walk quickly down the hallway and down the stairs.
“Riku and I have been talking…” Sion starts.
“About what?” Yushi squints at him, suspicious.
“We have been brainstorming different ways to approach the throwing problem. We think you should go to a doctor,” Sion is rambling, “But we know that you probably don’t want to, so it makes sense for us to try some things out first.”
Riku glances at Yushi’s face and gulps at his expression.
“So we were thinking, that we could start by testing, see what drills--” Sion doesn’t immediately notice Yushi glowering at him.
“You told him?” Yushi interrupts.
Sion freezes.
“We are just trying to help, Yushi,” Riku tries to placate.
Yushi is furious.
“What did you tell him?” Yushi hisses.
Sion is speechless, the silence growing more tense by the second. The longer they wait the angrier Yushi will get. Riku jumps in, “He said you haven’t been feeling well, and that you’re imagining--”
“Imagining?” Yushi scoffs, “Are you telling Riku I’m losing my mind?”
“No!” Sion insists, “We just want to help you work through whatever is going on.”
“Drills aren’t going to help me,” Yushi snaps, “I told you, there’s something following me, it’s like there’s something gross and slimy in my bones.”
Sion hesitates, unable to formulate the most appropriate response.
“You don’t trust me,” Yushi accuses.
Man, does Riku not want to be here.
Riku’s never seen Yushi and Sion disagree on anything before. He butts heads with Yushi all the time, and he does disagree with Sion once in a blue moon, but Yushi and Sion? Never. This is uncharted territory.
“I’m telling you, I can feel it, I can breathe it. The slime and the sparks are there. The hazy foggy feeling is real.”
“And I’m sure there’s a reason for it!” Sion interjects, “I just want to help figure out why--”
Oh no. “Hazy foggy?” Riku pokes into the conversation weakly. His headache is back.
Yushi spins to look at Riku. He’s already given up on keeping it a secret. “There’s something, like, maybe a ghost? Maybe an alien? It feels like it’s breathing down my neck and it leaves this murky feeling.”
Riku raises an eyebrow.
“It’s like, just-- Every time I throw, or even touch a ball, there’s this dreadful sensation. It’s like something slimy is crawling up my skin, and there are shocks up my arm, and I have this awful foggy feeling, I get dizzy too,” Yushi is talking at breakneck speed, and the words begin to blur together in Riku’s head.
Riku can feel the color draining from his face the more Yushi goes on, already too familiar with the unescapable dizziness that Yushi is describing; The disgusting feeling of his focus dripping away, the incurable pounding of his head.
“I wouldn’t lie about this, I’m serious."
“I know.”
“What?” Sion’s jaw drops, suddenly his voice is back.
Riku shrugs, “I mean, crazy stuff happens all the time, and Yushi doesn’t have that great of an imagination. He couldn’t come up with something like this on his own.”
Yushi ignores the jab, but Riku can see the the side of his mouth twitch. Yushi bumps his hand against his, almost in a thank you, and stares pointedly at Sion as if to say “See?”
“Look, it’s not fair that you won’t even consider the possibility that this is something not worldly. Daeyoung believes me, Ryo and Sakuya too. Even Riku trusts me--”
“Why wouldn’t I?” Riku interrupts, “Did you think I wouldn’t?”
Yushi hesitates, but Riku doesn’t give him time to answer. They can work through this later. He jumps to the more pressing matter at hand. “Besides, I know exactly what you’re talking about.”
Now, both Sion and Yushi have their full attention on him.
“I mean,” Riku pulls at his collar. Has the stairwell always been this stuffy? “I’m not so sure about the shocks up the arm, but I get that foggy feeling and the sticky slimy sensation too, but I also get some headaches.”
“Is it when you catch my throws?”
“No,” Riku hesitates, “It happens for me when I think too hard about the team.” There’s a sudden sharp pain in his head, straight through one ear and out the other.
“What do you mean?"
Riku takes a long moment to think about how to phrase it, fighting off the haze threatening to take over. What is he even trying to think about? The more he pushes himself to search his memories, the worse it gets.
“I have trouble remembering the members of our team.” He can feel something cold and viscous dripping down his neck and off his shoulders, so much of it that it must be pooling on the floor. He glances down. His uniform is dry.
“What do you mean?” Sion’s voice is low, dead serious.
The words won’t come out, something blocking his throat. He tries again, but it’s as if his mouth is stuffed with a soaking wet rag. He chokes against it. What’s stopping him? Yushi is looking at him knowingly. Riku’s sure now, that what the two of them are feeling is the same.
“What’s the name of our right fielder?” Riku tries, a sentence finally squeezing out. He feels his stomach filling in punishment with the feeling of cold liquid, something heavy and something dark.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Yushi is puzzled.
“Just-- what’s the name of our right fielder.” Riku repeats, firm. He is so dizzy. He thinks he’s about to be sick.
“Sakuya is our left fielder,” Sion says, an obvious fact.
“That’s not what I asked. Right fielder.” Riku’s vision is swimming.
Sion and Yushi have nothing to say. The cold feeling is spiraling up his throat at a terrifying pace.
“I don’t know,” Sion whispers.
Yushi stares at Riku.
“I don’t feel so good,” Riku musters out, his knees buckle. He can distantly feel Yushi’s hand on his arm, then the only thing he can see is a swirling, iridescent, inescapable green.
--- Saturday September 16th, 2023. 9:04---
Riku had come to almost immediately, a couple of seconds out, then he was awake, spine ramrod straight, eyes wide in horror. After he regained consciousness, he wouldn’t talk about their lack of a right fielder again.
Sion kept trying, kindly, persistently, but Yushi knew that Riku wouldn’t say a word.
After they had brought Riku to the nurse’s office, only to be told that there was nothing wrong with him. Sion canceled Friday practice.
Since then, it seems that Riku has been ignoring all of Sion’s texts, but it’s not like Yushi responds either.
Yushi isn’t sure how he should act around Sion. On the one hand, he is feels a gap between them-- betrayed by Sion telling Riku without his permission, and not taking him seriously. On the other hand, Sion had looked so horrified, so shell-shocked, when he wasn’t able to answer Riku’s question. His hands had been shaking while he had helped support Riku down the hall. Yushi thinks it might be a little petty to hold a grudge when Sion is so scared. After all, his intentions were not malicious in the first place.
Today is a Saturday, and they’ve arranged a practice match with the school from across town. Their team will arrive via bus and they’ll play as many innings as can fit in before lunch. It might look bad if the team isn’t listening to their leader, so Yushi won’t give Sion the cold shoulder today.
When he arrives, Daeyoung is already there, all set up with the pitching machine, sending ball after ball soaring into the sky. Yushi raises a weak hand and Daeyoung gives him a nod and a smile in return. Sion, behind him, won’t make eye contact. Right, okay.
Yushi hurries to get changed and join them on the field to warm up. Sakuya is on his way out as Yushi heads in and offers him half of his cream bun and a bag of sour, cola flavored gummies.
By the time he’s at the dugout, he’s finished the bun and the bag is half empty.
Sion is hovering by the fence. It’s clear he’s been waiting for Yushi, awkward, still unable to make eye contact. Yushi would almost enjoy watching him squirm, except Sion’s hair is a mess and he has dark shadows under his eyes.
“Try wearing this,” Sion holds out a glove, thin and transparent, for Yushi’s right hand.
He holds it open for him and Yushi wiggles his fingers into it without a word.
“I’m sorry,” Sion speaks quietly so the others can’t hear him.
Yushi can feel himself folding, gaze turning soft. He holds his gloved hand out and Sion hesitantly places a baseball in his palm.
Sion is holding his breath as Yushi curls and flexes his fingers around the leather. The lack of skin contact is going to affect his pitching, but there’s no shock, no pain. Sion lets out a sigh. Yushi bumps their shoulders together.
“Let’s play.” Yushi tightens his fist.
--- Saturday September 16th, 2023. 10:15---
The other school’s team is just hopping off their bus as Ryo finishes filling the drink cooler. With just him and Sakuya, the jug is half dragging across the turf. Daeyoung hurries over to help Sakuya lift his side and the trio quickly set the container on the opposing team’s bench. Sakuya then scuttles off before returning with a stack of clean towels.
Sion has largely left Riku to his own devices, but Riku can feel eyes on him when his back is turned. He focuses on peering out to the other team trickling towards them. He’s counting them like sheep, and the line never seems to end. This team has at least twenty people. Their coaches shake hands and have a chat in the distance. Riku keeps looking back and forth between the dugout and the field. Six of them total, only six. His head screams in pain.
Yushi is rolling his wrist out with his toes propped up against a pillar, pushing to stretch out his calves. He gingerly taps the dust off of his shoe before walking out to the field. The rest of the boys split up into their positions, Sakuya backwards jogging out far into the outfield. Sion stretches his arm over his head and squints under the beating sun, his eyes sweep out over his team. He frowns. There’s no one on second base.
In fact, there’s no one on second base or third. Not even the outfielders are fully loaded. Nonetheless, the coaches signal to start the game. Sion has half a mind to interrupt and ask about the lack of players, but everyone else is operating as normal. There really is something strange going on. The worst is that he knows he wouldn’t have noticed it if Riku hadn’t said so.
Riku is crouched behind home plate, and the other team’s batter prepares to swing.
Yushi in his element is a sight to see. The morning sun aligns perfectly with the line of his arm, each bend a clean angle. Each sweep of motion seems to command the air with him. It’s as if he’s moving in slow motion, completely centered, completely at peace.
The fastball rips past the batter and Riku feels it in his palm before he can even blink. A strike.
Riku whips the ball back to Yushi.
The opposing team encourages their batter for the next shot.
Yushi is backlit by the sun. Riku can’t see, but he knows that Yushi is looking at him. He scans the batter from head to toe, his position, the way he’s angled, the way he holds his hands. Riku crouches again, and holds up a single finger close to his right thigh. The sun ducks behind a cloud for just a fraction of a second, enough to see the smile flash across Yushi’s face.
The batter shifts his weight in the last moment, bat sweeping down horizontally for a bunt.
Shit, this ball’s going to be in play. Riku’s eyes dart out towards the infield. He sees Sion propelling himself off shortstop into a sprint. Riku’s swings his gaze to second and is blinded by a searing pain straight through his right eyesocket like a javelin. The batter makes it safely to first before Riku gets his vision back.
Who is on second? Who is on third? Daeyoung looks as confused on first base as Riku feels. Lord, his head is spinning.
The next batter is up, Yushi is waiting for Riku’s signal, but all Riku can see is shadows of green, human silhouettes on second an third, an outline far out in right field.
Yushi throws. Is the pitch clock already up? The ball curves and Riku is not ready.
The ball slams into Riku’s chest and he loses his balance. The batter is running to first, the previous one is already sprinting from second to third. Ryo is bolting to beat him, limbs stretched out to make contact third base. But the runner beats him. He’s declared as safe.
Everyone re-calibrates. Riku signals for a splitter, but he knows it’s doomed before it even starts. Yushi is on fire and Riku is extinguished. He has no finger on the pulse of the team. He can’t see the game. It’s sweltering outside, but Riku is shivering.
Yushi wants to stop. It looks almost like Riku is trembling behind home plate. He looks like he’s going to pass out, but he still signals for the next pitch. Yushi wants to refuse. This is not the baseball that they play. This is torture. But Riku signals again, with more emphasis.
The opposing team gets three runs.
The next play is worse than the first, and there’s a sinking stone in the pit of Yushi’s stomach.
Yushi can see the faces of the boys on the other team as their runners leisurely jog home. He can imagine what they’re whispering to each other. It’s true, Neo Culture isn’t what it used to be. There’s something wrong with their catcher. They’re nothing without last year’s seniors. This new team isn’t even good.
Riku looks up to meet his eyes. Even through the defender mask, Riku’s face is pale and Yushi wants to cry.
But Sion is shouting steady encouragements that keep his head above the water. He can hear Daeyoung whooping along with their leader, and Sakuya’s cheering off from deep in left field. Ryo has learned to whistle loudly with both hands in his mouth and the sound is clear, even from far away.
Yushi steadies his shoulders and clenches his jaw. If they’re going to lose, it won’t be because they give up.
This game is a nightmare. Yushi is pulsing with adrenaline. Riku is holding on.
Yushi pitches what he sees fit, seeing Riku’s signals as suggestions, and Riku follows his lead. Even in this state, Riku trains too hard to not keep up. At his rock bottom, he still holds the other team up at 3 runs in the first inning, 2 in the second, 1 in the third.
With the hits that the other team manage to get out, Ryo and Sakuya are working double time. Sakuya is like a lightning strike, sprinting across the turf to snatch ball after ball out of the air. Ryo and Daeyoung send the ball back and forth between them to tag runners out between second and third.
Riku is crawling just to keep the game going, his nationally ranked top ten pop time nowhere in sight. But he keeps tossing the ball back and sending signals to the pitch. The rest of the team keeps picking up the slack.
By the seventh inning, the sun is now at its highest point in the sky. The scores aren’t close, but their batting is holding up. Through the innings, Daeyoung had managed three home runs and Ryo had strategically bunted himself on base to double those points. Sion had snatched base after base, narrowly skidding safely to home two times.
Yushi straightens himself into a starting stance and throws a glance behind is shoulder to the scoreboard. They’re not using it for this practice game, but it looms over them like a giant shadow.
Behind the board, Yushi swears he can see something. A massive shapeless creature, bright green and glowing. Its outline squirms horrifically and its insides jerk and thrash with shocks of light.
Yushi turns his head back for another look, but it’s gone.
He refocuses his attention, dread like a hot stone in his stomach, and throws the ball one last time. The other team gets their final run.
The game is over. The opposing team cheers, tumbling on top of each other in celebration. Sion gathers them up quickly to shake hands and graciously thank the other team for coming all this way. It’s been an excellent learning experience, Sion says. He bids the other team’s coach goodbye with a bow.
Without a word, the team reconvenes in the empty dugout. Sion joins them last, after bidding their coach goodbye.
As he approaches, he wonders what to say, how to bring the team together, but when he arrives, he realizes there’s nothing he needs to do. Ryo holds Riku up with an arm around his shoulder as Sakuya offers a towel. Daeyoung helps carefully remove his mask. Yushi is already there with a water bottle.
Everyone is fussing over Riku, moving him to a bench and Sakuya propping up his legs.
“Is it… that?” Yushi asks quietly.
Riku nods. Daeyoung, Ryo and Sakuya pick up the meaning with no further explanation.
“I think I saw something out there,” Yushi clears his throat, “It was this massive blob behind the scoreboard.”
“Blob?” Sion questions.
“This massive goopy slime-- I don’t know,” Yushi hesitates, “But I think that’s what was breathing down my neck.”
“Ugh. This keeps getting worse,” Riku says breathlessly from where he’s hunched over on the bench.
Sion is not sure what to do.
“I have a theory,” Ryo pipes up, everyone pays attention.
“In baseball, the pitcher and catcher see the most action, and have the most contact with the ball. If Yushi feels it starting from the ball itself, it would make sense that the ball is the trigger.”
Riku thinks distantly that Ryo is probably right.
“Wouldn’t that mean the next person to feel effects would probably be first baseman?” Sion’s mind is flipping through all of the plays this season. They had just gotten a new first baseman recently. A newbie to baseball, still a little awkward with the team, really comfortable only with the classmate from his year.
Everyone looks at Daeyoung. He makes a subtle, shy shift closer to the pitcher.
He clears his throat, “I can see some of it. It started the other day.”
“See some of it?!” Yushi is shocked.
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Daeyoung mutters under his breath, “But you ignored me.”
“I wasn’t ignoring you--”
“Focus guys,” Sion barks. Yushi and Daeyoung snap back to attention.
“What do you see?” Riku is patient.
“For Yushi it looks like swirls up his arm, and lightning, sort of like sparks, and for Riku he has this cloud over his head. Like, I can’t really see your eyes right now. There is also lightning sometimes I think, but I can’t see it very clearly. It’s foggy.”
Sakuya pats around Riku’s head as if he can feel it, nodding his head seriously.
Sion scoops Yushi’s equipment from off the bench and gestures for the team to start back inside. “Let’s get out of the heat.”
Riku wordlessly passes Yushi a water bottle as the boys grab their things and follow behind their captain. Yushi takes a swig. Ryo swings his arm comfortably around Sakuya’s shoulders.
“We need to get to the bottom of this,” Sion leads the pack, “We can’t have Yushi and Riku constantly at risk of getting hurt, and Daeyoung has only just started seeing the stuff, what if it gets worse for you?”
Daeyoung blinks back at Sion, it hadn’t occurred to him that his condition might evolve.
“It would help if we knew what we were dealing with,” Ryo sighs, “But only Daeyoung can see it, only Yushi can feel it, and Riku…”
“I lose consciousness if I think about it,” Riku supplies.
“… and we shouldn’t have Riku think about it to much.” Ryo grimaces.
“Do you think it’s magic? Or an alien?” Sakuya whispers.
Ryo rolls his eyes, “Yeah, and it’s probably multiple parallel universes intersecting, of course.”
“That would make sense!” Sakuya agrees, missing the sarcasm entirely.
“Maybe this is all just a dream,” Ryo scoffs.
Sion rests his hand on Ryo’s shoulder, “I think in this situation we might be dealing with something that doesn’t logically make sense.”
Ryo looks up at him in surprise, “You actually think this is magic?”
“Maybe?” Sion can feel Yushi and Riku’s eyes boring into his skull, “I don’t really know what magic entails, but it feels kind of-- cursed?”
Riku blanches, “Cursed?” Riku does not want to live a horror movie out in real life.
“We could destroy the baseball? Since it’s hitting the people who touch it the most?” Yushi asks.
“Sure, but it’s not like you’ve been throwing the same ball all season or anything,” Ryo points out.
“Definitely not,” Daeyoung agrees. He’s the person on baseball replenishing duty, “We have hundreds.”
“I mean there’s a very small chance that we are always using the same baseball,” Ryo says hesitantly.
“I think we have to go to the club room and look,” Yushi suggests. The team slowly rounds the corner past the bike racks.
Sion walks backwards to face the group as he speaks, Riku and Yushi follow suit so they are walking in a circle, “It’s possible that all of the baseballs have some problem--”
Daeyoung, Sakuya and Ryo stop in their tracks.
“What is that?” Sakuya interrupts the conversation. He’s pointing just behind Sion’s head. Everyone’s gaze turns to follow his finger.
Just up the incline, there’s a green, amorphous sphere in the sky. A nebulous entity with shimmering, ephemeral edges. It would almost be pretty, but it’s filled with a murky green cloud, familiar flashes of green light creating illusions of glitter cradled inside.
They stand still, awestruck. All of six of them feel that they have suddenly been drenched in liquid, a cold, sticky syrup.
Riku knows what the feeling means.
“We need to go, NOW!” He shouts, startling the rest of the boys out of their trances.
Just as he says the words, the blob starts to change form, pulsing and stretching in size. Hurtling down the incline towards them. The boys take off, momentum building as they speed down the hill.
“Get to the club room!” Sion falls back, putting himself between the team and the monster.
“We should split!” Ryo yells, “Battery and shortstop turn left up ahead and loop back to the incline, outfield and basemen go right and take the back road to the building!”
“Different entrances?” Sion clarifies. Ryo makes great plans, he always has something up his sleeve. They’re quickly approaching the intersection.
“You take the back, we’ll go through the front! We’ll meet on the second floor!” Ryo shouts back and takes a sharp right around the corner.
Sion, Riku, and Yushi peel off to the left, Riku launching himself over a flower bed in the way. The older members have the shorter route. Sion somehow has the brain power leftover to wonder if Ryo had done that intentionally. The outfielders are much faster runners.
Riku spares a glance behind his shoulder, there’s nothing behind them. He whips his head back to face forward and catches Yushi doing the same out of the corner of his eye. The monster must be following the younger boys. Sion is meters ahead of them, racing to rejoin with the rest of the team. Riku puts all his power in his legs, hamstrings screaming as they tear around another corner.
Sion is at the door first, he throws it open, leaving enough breadth that all of them sprint in before it’s even reached its widest point.
Meanwhile, Sakuya has never been more grateful that he took drills at practice so seriously. He can feel his feet hitting the pavement at twice the pace of his own heartbeat. Daeyoung’s long legs are propelling him down the road, Sakuya and Ryo barely managing to keep up. Sakuya doesn’t look back. He knows the monster is right behind them; he can feel the cold chill, a slimy sensation threatening to choke him if he slows down even a little bit.
Right before they hit the stairs leading up to the school building, Ryo shifts his weight, as if intending to turn left, only readjusting at the very last second. It fakes out the monster, for just a moment, buying Daeyoung the time to lock the door behind them.
They fly up the stairs, two steps at a time. Ryo thinks to himself that he will be so sore tomorrow, if he doesn’t get eaten by the massive slime first.
The two halves of the team are powering towards each other from opposite ends of a hallway They weave together seamlessly when turning into the last corridor towards the club room. There’s a final angle into the last stretch and Sion is going too fast for the turn. He angles his heel and puts strength into his ankle, sliding into the hallway bend as if it were home plate.
Sion forces himself back up, one knee at a time, picking up his speed as if he hadn’t gone down at all. Yushi sticks his back to the wall, letting the rest of the members pass him. He glances around the corner only to see that the blobs have multiplied, their goo sticking to the ceilings and walls as they race towards the team.
His breath catches in his chest and he scrambles towards the club room. Ryo and Sakuya pull open the double doors and the whole team tumbles in. The two of them pull the door shut with urgency.
There’s a moment of quiet where all of them are just gasping for air, absolutely winded. Ryo sinks to the floor, back to the door.
“What was that?!” Sion breaks the silence.
“That’s what I saw!” Yushi uses his hands to gesture a massive round object, “I saw one this big behind the scoreboard!”
He thinks about the feeling of freezing cold that had drenched them when they all saw it for the first time. He shudders.
“Kinda sparkly,” Sakuya pipes up.
Riku’s brow furrows, “Sparkly? It looked more foggy to me.”
“It looked both sparkly and foggy, I think,” Daeyoung supposes, “I didn’t get a long enough look.”
“Yeah, sparkly and foggy… Spoggy,” Sakuya nods seriously.
“Can we stay focused?” Ryo groans.
“I don’t want a long enough look. I don’t want to focus on it. I don’t even want to think about it,” Sion says weakly.
“Scaredy cat,” Riku and Yushi say at the same time. They share a fist bump. Very rude of them to gang up on him only at times like this, Sion thinks.
“Not knowing is the worst part!” Sakuya complains.
“No,” Yushi returns dryly, “The worst part is the physical pain I think… Passing out is also up there.”
Riku cackles.
“But maybe third worst,” Yushi allows, tapping his chin, mocking being in deep thought.
“What if we just smack them?” Sakuya proposes.
Riku was thinking the same thing.
“That is a very stupid idea,” Ryo counters without missing a beat.
Oops, Riku bites his tongue and glances away, only to make eye contact with Yushi, who is already staring him down. You were totally about to suggest that his look says. Riku sniffs in response and hopes that his ears aren’t as red as they feel.
“Firstly, we have no idea how aggressive they are in a fight,” Ryo holds up his index finger then quickly adds a second, “Secondly, what if they’re poisonous? It could be like an acid that burns your skin on contact!”
“Can we try touching one? Like, with some other kind of object?” Sion proposes.
“With a bat!” Sakuya grabs one leaning against the bench nearest him and holds it to the light as if holding Simba to the sun. Ryo thinks, and doesn’t reject the notion.
“We should try it,” Riku decides.
“I don’t want to go out there,” Sion whines at him.
“We’re going to have to,” Sakuya says sagely.
Daeyoung thinks. If he’s confident in anything, it’s that he sure knows how to swing a bat.
“I can go first,” Daeyoung volunteers.
“I’ll do it,” Riku says at the same time.
“No, I’ll do it,” Sakuya argues.
“I’ll do it.”
“No, I’ll do it.”
“I said I’ll do it.”
The two go back and forth, speaking over each other. Yushi throws his hands in the air, exasperated.
“It doesn’t matter who goes fi-” Sion begins, pinching between his eyebrows.
Suddenly, Ryo bangs into a locker, a dozen water bottles tumbling to the floor.
“Oh my god!” Ryo yelps, leaping up from his place on the ground. There is neon green goo oozing under the door.
Sakuya’s bat clatters to the floor.
“Hit it! Hit it! Hit it!” Someone screeches, with incredible likeness to a bird.
It feels like time slows down as Sion snatches a bat and surges forward to take a swing. The rest of the team falls back, unable to do anything but watch on in horror as their leader takes on the monster on his own.
He balances his feet, and shifts his weight to load, charging up the momentum. Then, in one clean arc, the barrel of the bat smacks right through the center of the glowing, green slime.
It bursts, shards of neon light erupting into the air.
They’re quiet as the sparkling lights fade away to nothing.
“Gear up,” is all Sion says.
The boys pull out their equipment, lacing up shoes, tying up knots, and wrapping protective tape. They are entirely focused. They don’t say a word.
Sakuya finishes first, quick with his hands. He waits and passes a ball between his right palm and his glove. He looks out the window. There are countless monsters in the sky. He leans back against the lockers and thinks that it reminds him of something he learned about in science class.
Amoebas are able to alter their shape. They move and feed by pushing out a membrane to engulf their food. Some are predatory. Many can kill.
Sakuya does not share this information with the team.
Just as Ryo finishes tying his shoes, there are screams in the hallway and Sion knows it’s time.
He pushes open the doors and walks out, the rest of the team with him. Around the bend, the creatures are everywhere, glued to walls, to windows, to the ceiling. First years run past them, screaming in terror.
Sion can feel his heart beating in his chest as he takes on the first blob in the hallway. He can see Daeyoung surge ahead from the back of the pack, their best new batter taking out three in a crisp swing. He doesn’t waste time recharging for another go, instead moving two steps forward to take out two more as he draws the bat back for another shot.
Riku has shaken off his sickness from before, a glint in his eyes that Sion has only ever seen on him during a game. He holds his bat out like a spear, charging through slime after slime with steeled ferocity. Like the catcher he is, he’s watching the others, constantly in full view of the field. He gently pushes Ryo to the left, keeping him out of a blob’s way as Sakuya crushes it with the handle of his bat.
Sion leads down the hallway, taking on the largest monsters first, protecting the boys behind him. Yushi is by his side, gingerly picking off the little ones that clamber on the floor by their feet. By accident, Sion elbows one concealed in a doorway. It gloms onto his arm and the chill shoots straight up his bones. The electric horror Yushi described weeks ago shoots through his whole body. Riku lunges forward to slice through it with the side of his catcher’s mitt.
Ryo uses the length of his shin guard to slide right through a blob slithering towards them. Sakuya leaps over Ryo’s shoulders and brings his bat down from over his head, crushing two at once. Each hit bursts the creatures into a cloud of green dust and sparkles of light. The dust doesn’t dissipate immediately, so a green smoke begins to cloud the hallway.
“Up the stairs,” Sion shouts to the rest of the team, they clamber after him, popping their heads above the hazy swamp one by one.
They take on the second floor much like the first. Sion takes on the big ones, Yushi the ones at their feet, and Daeyoung is a force of nature, taking out dozens of monsters per wide swing. Ryo and Sakuya have created a system where Ryo lures slimes out into the hallway from each classroom, and Sakuya sneaks up on them from behind. Riku backs them all up, picking off strays and stepping in to pull them out of harm’s way when he spots a monster squirming too close for comfort. By the time Sion reaches the second stairwell, he’s completely out of breath. The rest of the team congregate with him, one by one, each desperately heaving air into their lungs.
Yushi reaches them last, broken out in a cold sweat. His leg is entirely engulfed by two monsters at once. He drags himself up the stairs as if his limb is dead weight. Sion stamps them out with his cleat and Yushi leans against him for a moment as the numbness fades away.
Only three or four more creatures emerge out of the mist to chase after them. Riku punts each of them with the toe of his cleats.
Once they’ve gathered themselves, they head up to the third floor. At the end of the hallway, there is a half stairwell that leads to the roof. If they make it there, they’ve cleared the building.
They’ve reached an equilibrium, an airtight strategy. Sion idly thinks it feels the same as when a baseball play works out perfectly. He has always loved to see the grin that a pitcher and catcher share when everything goes as planned. Right now, the same twin smile is spread on Yushi and Riku’s faces. The whole team races forward, fighting demons along the way.
Daeyoung is the one to throw open the door to the roof. It’s even worse than what Sakuya had seen out the window. The blobs pepper the sky as far as the eye can see. Ryo’s arms fall to his sides in horror.
This challenge seems insurmountable. Sion is frozen, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of monsters hovering over the city.
Riku and Yushi don’t give him the time to give up. They clap him on the shoulder, with one holding a bat and one holding a ball, one on the left and one on the right.
They catch the attention of a dozen monsters. The blobs still in the air, rotating as if turning their faces towards them after registering them as threats. Sion almost feels gazes on him like lasers. The creatures bullet towards them.
Riku hits the first one, pivoting hard and shattering a massive one in single shot. They take to the monsters just like the ones in the hallway, their focus now above their heads rather than at their feet. Daeyoung even lifts Riku up once for him to poke his bat through one that’s suspended just out of his reach.
It’s exhausting, and its as if they will never stop coming. He stops counting how many they’ve killed once they’ve hit well over a hundred.
Yushi and Daeyoung have established a new strategy. Yushi will throw a ball and Daeyoung will hit it into the sky, taking the trajectory that maximizes the number of monsters they hit. Yushi pulls ball after ball out of his pocket but it’s only a matter of time until they run out.
“Try to hit the ball against something!” Yushi shouts to Daeyoung over the din of the slimes exploding. “We need them to bounce back! This is my last one.”
Daeyoung shouts back something unintelligible, but successfully smacks the next ball against a wall. It rolls to Yushi’s feet.
“That one is huge!” Sakuya screams.
All of them look up to see a massive slime, almost wide enough to cover the entire roof. Somehow, Sion just knows that this was the first blob they saw on the incline, now more than triple its size. Sion wonders if this is how he dies.
But this one explodes of its own accord, almost as if it was too large to carry its own weight. Sion’s lungs fill up with murky green gas. He chokes and coughs, trying to expel air from his body. He spins around, looking for his team, but the fog is heavy and he can barely see his own hand in front of him.
The gloom is denser closer to his feet, so he lifts his chin and searches the space above him.
He can see a spot of clear blue sky. The circle is shrinking rapidly, the last bit of reality hidden away, the murky green closing over it like a zipper. Another blob is perfectly centered in that shrinking window. Soon, the green will entirely cover the sun.
Something tells Sion that the creature in the distance is their last chance. He needs to kill it.
“Throw it to me!” Sion shouts as loudly as he can over the wind rushing around them, “Throw me the ball Yushi!”
“I can’t even see you! I can’t see any of you!” Yushi screams back, panicked.
“Just listen to the sound of my voice!”
Sion doesn’t get a response. Yushi is hesitating.
“Try, Yushi.” Riku joins, he doesn’t yell, but his firm voice is clear through the constant din. “You’ve never missed before.”
“Trust me!” Sion shouts, “You need to trust me!”
Sion holds his breath.
There’s just half a beat, then the ball comes rushing towards him.
He feels his tendons stretch as they build momentum for the swing, ready to release with a snap. His swing is perfect. He feels the hit before he hears it, a satisfying resistance against the bat that he can sense all the way through the palms of his hands. The crack of the baseball soaring through the air, hurtling towards the last dot of summer sun. In the distance, the sphere slides into position, eclipsing the last lingering rays of light.
Then, everything explodes.
---Saturday September 16th, 2023. 19:21---
Once the dust settles, the sun has already set. It’s almost like nothing had happened at all, if not for the dancing lights in the sky, just a little too green to be fireflies.
It’s as if all of them had been holding their breaths. Suddenly, the air has never felt so crisp. The team members find themselves staggering together, a magnetic pull. Sion wants nothing more than to hold them all in a warm, tight embrace, so he does. He feels Yushi lean in comfortably to his shoulder, Riku’s reassuring hand on his back, Ryo’s hair against his cheek, Sakuya’s hand closing around his dangling fingers, Daeyoung’s eyes meeting his.
It feels like something has slotted into place. Under the glow of the fading lights, he thinks, for the first time, that this team-- his team-- is ready to play.
---Monday, September 18th, 2023. 18:06---
After Monday practice, on the train home, Yushi finds himself drifting off, body tired and mind relaxed for the first time in weeks. As his eyes flutter closed, the train car speeds ahead, coaxing Yushi towards his dreams.
In his schoolbag, his baseball moves, just a little, barely perceptible to the human eye. Perhaps, if he had looked closely, he would have noticed the small, almost iridescent, green-hued sheen tracing the laces of his baseball.
Outside, somewhere far away, it begins to rain.