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Tanba doesn't know it at the time, but when he looks back this evening will linger in his memory, the final link in a golden chain just before it breaks.
The sun's reluctant to set today. It drapes lazy golden light across the flat expanse of the baseball field where the rest of the team is practicing, spills dying over the bullpen where Chris and Tanba stand a short distance away from one another. Chris's eyes are on his, weighing his condition after pitching for this long, and his preferences, and what they're still working on improving together. He rolls his shoulder a little, an unconscious habit that he's picked up in the last month. Tanba licks the sweat off of his upper lip, his fingers twisting the baseball in his right hand. He's feeling the strain, both from the next game looming and from the day's practice. He's hungry for his favorite pitch, the feel of the ball flying smooth and sure from his fingertips.
Baseball has always been a mental challenge for Tanba, never really a physical one. That's not to say that baseball isn't physically demanding—after today's practice he will lie in his bed for hours, too sore to sleep. But his pitches are ingrained into his muscle memory. He runs for a base and his legs move freely, easily, as fast as they can take him. His body never betrays him, only his mind; so it never occurs to him, as Chris gingerly shrugs his shoulder, to wonder at what the gesture might mean.
Chris settles at last, his weight poised on the balls of his feet, as balanced as a dancer. He pauses for another moment and then his fingers flick once, twice, calling for Tanba's favorite pitch.
Tanba can feel his whole body light up. His eyes rise from Chris's fingers to his smiling eyes, returning a small smile of his own: You knew, he thinks. The windup is pure pleasure and his throw is fast and true. It hits Chris's glove with a loud sound. "Good!" Chris says. He raises his right arm, ball in hand to throw it back—and then hesitates.
Tanba blinks at him. "Chris?"
Chris rises onto his feet then, his arm dropping to his side. Tanba watches the ball as it sinks toward the floor, watches the way Chris's fingers curl around it. "Let's stop for today," he hears Chris say. "Come on, I'll help you cool down." Chris's voice is so deep and mellow. Tanba wants to listen to it for the next three years.
They don't usually stop this early, but Chris's expression is oddly tight around his eyes. "All right," Tanba says. He walks towards Chris, reaching out to take the ball from Chris's loose grip. Tanba hasn't shaved his head yet, and so when Chris reaches up with his left hand, his hand ruffles through Tanba's sweaty hair. Tanba squawks, ducking his head, and Chris's hand slips down to rest on his shoulders.
I should have known, he will think for months and years afterward. I should have known then. I should have known.
--
The new first-year won't call him senpai and it grates at him. "What signals are you used to, Tanba?" he asks, eyes bright. "I'll use yours to make it easier."
Tanba shakes his head. "We'll go with yours," he says. "And you should address me properly. I'm your senpai."
Miyuki stares at him, eyes unnervingly level behind his glasses. "You're my pitcher," he replies, and it's wrong, all wrong.
Tanba has to admit that Miyuki is a natural genius. His plays are as tricky and brilliant as his smile and he fits in at Seido, surrounded by sharks. But Miyuki is smaller than Chris, and physically incapable of filling the space behind home plate like Chris did. Tanba looks up and sees Miyuki's sports glasses reflecting the harsh stadium lights, and always feels unmoored.
("Tanba's a difficult pitcher too, sometimes," he overhears Miyuki say once. "He's such a creature of habit."
He focuses on working with Miyauchi after that.)
Regardless, Tanba adjusts as best he can. He stands on the pitcher's mound many times after Chris stops playing. He wins and loses games with the rest of his team by his side. But each time he enters the dugout he watches Chris, who sits without grime or sweat in his neat button down shirt and tie.
Chris writes in his little black notebook, and Tanba listens to the soft rush of his pen across the paper. He writes in English—to make it harder for other people to spy on us, Chris once told him with a twinkle in his eye. But it's also a language that Tanba never learned how to speak.
--
"I never gave up on you," Tanba says the night after the third year game.
Chris stops and turns to him, but doesn't say anything. Tanba's hands clench into fists, steeling himself. Fear and nerves prickle down his spine, but three years of baseball at the national level have taught him how to hold his ground.
"It didn't matter who gave me signs," he murmurs. "I always heard them in your voice, in my head."
Chris steps closer, his eyes never leaving Tanba's. It's the same gold Tanba is so familiar with, but the light in them is different. Older. Three years is a long time, Tanba thinks.
"And the signs we came up with, in our first year," Tanba says, "I never used them with anyone else. Using them again, today, I—I knew had to say something to you. It felt like no time had passed." Tanba closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "It's how it was supposed to be. You and I, as Seido's battery."
The night is quiet, and weighs on him once he's exhausted his supply of words. Chris is broad shouldered and steady, reading the tells in his body language as well as he always has.
"I heard you applied to study abroad," he says.
Tanba nods. It was no secret.
When Chris reaches forward, Tanba lets him take his hand without question. Chris's fingers are broad and deft and run lightly across Tanba's hand, feeling the hard won expertise in each callus. "I'd like," he says, his voice careful and soft, "to have the chance to catch for you again."
There's almost no space between them when Chris looks up. Tanba wants very badly to brush the curls away from Chris's face, the feeling visceral and immediate in a way he hasn't experienced in years.
"Please," Tanba whispers.
Chris leans in, closing the last small distance between them. "We're not who we used to be," he says, "and I'm glad for that."