Work Text:
“What do you think dating actually looks like?”
It’s fourth period — history, with a special emphasis on the Edo period this week — and considering his grades have started slipping as practice has ramped up, Shunpei should really be paying attention. What he’s doing instead is idly doodling baseballs in the margins of his near-pristine notebook and — thinking. He’s doing a lot of that, honestly, and has been for the past few days. Turning over an exchange he’d heard between Mishima and Raichi in the locker room, over and over, and… well.
Now he’s asking Arakawa about dating. Apparently. Because an answer’s starting to take shape in his mind and he’d really, really like to be wrong, just this once.
Arakawa Toshiyuki doesn’t turn his head or otherwise do anything to acknowledge that Shunpei’s spoken. He squints at the board (looking positively thrilled at the prospect of reading any of their teacher’s teeny-tiny handwriting without his glasses) and taps the eraser of his pencil in a mindless beat against his desk.
“Toshi-chan,” Shunpei says, as though Arakawa hadn’t heard him the first time. As though they’re friendly enough that Shunpei calling him by an overly-familiar nickname isn’t eight shades of weird and off-putting.
They’re friends , sure, in the sense that they’ve been in the same class for two years in a row and somehow get paired off together pretty frequently. But Arakawa doesn’t call him Shunpei, or vice versa. He thinks it’s funny, though. And maybe he’s gotten a little complacent because of Raichi and the whole if I keep calling you by Coach’s name things are gonna get awkward and I don’t do awkward thing that they settled within days of Raichi joining the team.
Mostly he thinks it’s funny.
Arakawa certainly doesn’t, judging by the death grip he’s now got on his pencil. Shunpei grins, waits him out. Sure enough, the moment their teacher turns back to the board and starts in on another line of illegible notes, Arakawa snaps around to level a frankly terrifying glare at Shunpei.
“Never call me that again, or I will ruin any chance you have of ever going pro, Sanada-san .”
Shunpei lifts his hands in a placating gesture, though he’s unable to wipe the smile completely from his face, so it’s anyone’s guess how seriously Arakawa takes him. “Yikes, no cutesy nicknames, got it. Can you answer my question now?”
Seemingly pacified, Arakawa lets the pencil drop onto his open notebook and regards Shunpei — not so much curious as he is contemplative. Arakawa doesn’t really do people, Shunpei’s learned. He can hold his own in a conversation, and crowds don’t bother him, nothing like that. But if you told him he suddenly had to live on some desert island completely devoid of human contact for the rest of his life, he’d most likely just ask what else he was allowed to bring with him. Other people’s problems don’t rank very highly on his list of daily priorities.
But Shunpei’s desperate, and he cannot, under any circumstances, bring this up with someone from the baseball team. As it happens, Arakawa knows nothing about baseball and cares even less about Yakushi’s team in particular, which means he’s perfect. He probably doesn’t even know anyone’s name besides Shunpei’s.
“That depends on the people involved, doesn’t it?”
Shunpei winces. Okay, yes, that’s absolutely true, but it’s such a non-answer at the same time and that helps him not at all. He opens his mouth for a clarifying question, but Arakawa shushes him and angles back toward the front just as their teacher glances around at the class.
God, what bad timing for an existential crisis. He should’ve scheduled this better.
By the time fourth period ends and the classroom fills up with the overlapping chatter of students getting the most out of their short break, Shunpei’s practically vibrating out of his skin. He’s not a nervous person by nature, so this is — new. Unpleasant. Nothing at all like the tingling anticipation he feels before a game, or even the slow-rising heat of frustration when he’s put on the back foot against a particularly vexing team.
Arakawa isn’t one to take pity on him, so Shunpei’s half-expecting him to clear out immediately, taking the opportunity to hit up the vending machine or go to the bathroom, or something to avoid Shunpei pestering him. But, miracle of miracles, he stays seated, and even turns to look at Shunpei. He raises a brow, drumming his fingers lightly atop the desk.
“So are you dating someone,” he asks archly, “or is this some thought exercise?”
“No,” Shunpei says, instantly, laughing. He pauses, something swooping in his stomach, equal parts uncomfortable and intriguing. He cocks his head. “Maybe? Not… intentionally.”
That’s confusing enough for Arakawa’s expression to tighten, his brows drawing together, mouth pursing. “Now you have to explain.”
Sure, he can do that. The words have been clamoring to come out of him, anyway, ever since he connected the dots three days ago and briefly lost his mind over the implications.
Now, can he do it coherently ? Here’s to finding out.
“I have this friend,” he says, because saying it’s a teammate is definitely not happening and they are friends, baseball is just how they happened to meet. “And I’m really talking about myself,” he adds, seeing the skeptical tilt of Arakawa’s head. “It’s really me and they’re really my friend. No dumb attempts at disguising the situation, promise.”
Arakawa sighs but gestures for Shunpei to continue before propping his chin against his fist and leaning into his desk.
“They were talking with someone the other day, right? About relationships and all, because they’re, you know, not very experienced.”
“And you are?” Arakawa points out dryly, with an undertone of as if you’d be here with me otherwise . Which is… a fair point.
“No, you’re right. I’m not sure I’ve ever even had a girlfriend that lasted longer than a week.” No shame there, if he’s honest. He’s never been particularly interested in dating, despite attracting more than his fair share of attention since middle school. “But they’re new to friends, too, so it’s… a little different. And their other friend, he was explaining that dating’s like, the next level of friendship.”
“Oh, we’re off to an informative start.”
For me or Mishima? Shunpei wonders, amused despite himself. Mishima would blow a gasket if he knew someone was critiquing his expert advice , so it’s good that Arakawa will likely never know exactly who’s behind Shunpei’s shitty story.
“You get closer with someone, hang out with them all the time, miss them when they’re gone. You eat lunch together, walk home together. Go, I don’t know, sightseeing? Do fun things outside of school.” Mishima started losing the plot around the time Shunpei’s brain overloaded with information, so he’s not very clear on what counted as a date in the first year’s book. “Dating,” he says, with a stupid little flourish of his hand to emphasize his point.
“And you do all these things with your friend,” Arakawa says, matter of fact. His eyes flick from Shunpei’s hand to his face, looking up at him through his lashes. Thoughtful, if not very invested in Shunpei’s emotional turmoil. “You certainly sound like you’re dating, from a purely objective standpoint.”
Fuck.
“Fuck,” Shunpei says, softly, dragging his stupid flourishing hand down his face. He’s — okay, he’s not freaking out, because he did that already, and Arakawa confirming his suspicions is less jarring than the realization he had initially. He’s unnerved, though. Or, no, not quite the right word. Wound up is closer, like. Okay, now what?
Because, yeah, it does sound like they’re dating. Him and Raichi. And thinking it now — admitting it now — hits him like a sucker punch to the solar plexus all over again.
He couldn’t tell you exactly when it started (beyond, like, less than a month into playing with him), but he and Raichi spend a lot of time together. A lot . As in, if Shunpei isn’t asleep or working part-time at the electronics store his uncle runs, nine times out of ten you’ll find him with Raichi. Sometimes Mishima and Akiba are there, or Coach, or a handful of other teammates, but mostly it’s just… them.
He buys Raichi food often, because Raichi practices too much to work and his family’s always tight on money (and also his dad uses food as a motivator to get him to hit home runs?) and sometimes when they’re together Raichi’s stomach makes this truly obnoxious rumbling noise and he goes incandescently red and it’s— it was never pity, exactly, but now it’s more that Shunpei thinks he’s, well, cute. It’s endearing. He likes being the one to feed him, too. It satisfies an urge he didn’t even know he had prior to meeting Raichi.
As for going out, they’ve probably been to every family-style restaurant within walking distance of the school, and a few more that are a train ride or two away. Shunpei likes the relaxed atmosphere for doing homework and Raichi likes the size of the portions, even if he’s still terrible at giving his order to servers and not-so-subtly begs for Shunpei to take over. Which he does, nearly every time, because a flustered Raichi might be kind of cute (really cute, sheesh) but Shunpei gets a knot in the pit of his stomach any time he thinks someone might say something disparaging or outright cruel because of Raichi’s social anxiety.
They’ve also been to the aquarium, once, when plans fell through for one of Shunpei’s non-baseball friends and her boyfriend. She’d offered him the tickets with the stipulation that he take someone he liked — and clearly she’d meant in a romantic sense, but Shunpei doesn’t, and didn’t, have anything going on in that department. So he’d defaulted to Raichi, partly because he’d known then Raichi had never been to an aquarium in his life, and partly because Raichi was — is — someone he likes. Keeping with the spirit of the request, if nothing else.
(They’d gone for conveyor belt sushi afterwards because as much as Raichi oohed and ahhed at the tanks, his eyes bright and twinkling in the soft blue light cast by the water, ultimately being surrounded by fish had just made him hungry. Shunpei minded less than he maybe should have, all things considered.)
And perhaps the most damning piece of evidence? Shunpei definitely misses Raichi in the scant few hours he’s not around. His cackling laugh, his manic grin and the feral gleam in his eyes whenever he gets matched against an interesting pitcher. His coarse hair that Shunpei nonetheless loves to ruffle when Raichi’s rounded home plate for the umpteenth time this season. The solid warmth of him, pressed up along Shunpei’s side as they ride the train, listing together with the rocking of the car and staying that way out of convenience.
He’s going to have to reevaluate that last one, isn’t he?
“I can’t actually be this stupid,” he says, mostly to himself, as he sweeps his hand through his hair and slouches in his chair to stare up at the pockmarked ceiling.
Arakawa, who evidently returned to his notes while Shunpei processed all this, only hums in response, noncommittal. He flips a page and sets pencil to paper, scribbling something at the top of the page and circling it twice.
“ Accidentally dating is, like, such a cliche,” Shunpei continues, not remotely discouraged by Arakawa’s unproductive silence. He’s not into romancey, shoujo stuff the way his one cousin is, but he’s sat through enough of her rants on the unoriginality of modern mangaka to know didn’t know they were dating is pretty popular these days. It’s cute and awkward and strangely charming, according to the online forums she frequents, which she refutes vehemently with her own posts.
Shunpei’s not feeling very charmed himself right now, either, not when he’s the subject of this kind of romantic cliche.
And yet.
“Sanada-san.”
Shunpei shakes himself from his thoughts, focusing in on Arakawa, who merely blinks at him and hooks a thumb over his shoulder. “Visitor,” he says, and at first Shunpei doesn’t get it — he’s not class rep, so what does he care if someone’s come calling for one of their classmates? But then Arakawa, surprisingly only a little exasperated, adds, “That stuttering first-year, presumably one of your teammates? He keeps poking his head into the room and ducking back out the second someone makes eye contact with him. Please go collect him before one of the do-gooders decides he needs to be rescued.”
Shunpei’s standing before he’s even consciously thought about it, and it’s only the knowing gleam in Arakawa’s eye — so plainly visible with his glasses absent, honestly, fuck whichever member of the basketball team accidentally beaned him with a stray pass — that gives him pause, keeps him from dashing right up to the door. He does lean over to peek, though, and, yeah, definitely Raichi. Only half his face, because he’s trying to be, what? Stealthy? But he’s got half his face past the door frame and one hand white-knuckling the wall, his eyes darting around the classroom with an almost palpable sense of desperation.
Given Shunpei’s the only member of the baseball team in 2-C (the perks of still being a relatively small team), it’s not hard to guess who Raichi’s looking for.
“Break’s almost over,” Arakawa says, almost absently, his gaze dropping to his notes once again. “No need to keep him waiting, Sanada-san.”
No need to keep him waiting.
Shunpei’s answering smile is a little crooked, a lot uncertain, and he has to bite down hard on his lip to keep it from completely overtaking his face.
Arakawa Toshiyuki has sat at the top of their class two years in a row, and somehow it’s only now that Shunpei realizes just how smart he really is.
“Aye, aye, sir,” he says, tapping a two-fingered salute to his temple (that Arakawa ignores, as is his right) before he slips out from between the desks, making a beeline for the door and the timid figure hunched just beyond it.
“Nada-senpai!”
Raichi perks up the moment he spots Shunpei walking towards him, his mouth stretching into his signature overzealous grin, pulling sharply at the scar on his cheek.
“Hey, Raichi,” Shunpei says, sliding his hands into his pockets to curb his automatic impulse to reach out and ruffle Raichi’s hair. Three days ago he couldn’t have told you why he likes doing it so much — Raichi’s hair isn’t soft, and whatever shampoo he uses probably doubles as a body wash, the kind he overhears girls citing as red flags for guys they might be into. Now, though. Now he’s had the answer smack him across the face, and the truth is that he likes Raichi’s reaction more than the gesture itself. The red heat staining his cheeks, the nervous laugh it always elicits, the way he’ll fiddle with his hands and not even bother to try and swat Shunpei away.
It’s a good look on Raichi, flustered and pleased, and Shunpei — really should’ve seen this coming long before Mishima of all people clued him in on his own feelings.
“Need something?” he asks, because if he doesn’t get the ball rolling he’ll just keep staring at Raichi like some lovesick shoujo male lead and frankly no one needs to see that. Sanada doesn’t exactly care about protecting his reputation (he’s not even sure what that is among the general student body), but Raichi’s twitchy enough as it is just being on the second-year floor; if they draw any more attention he’s liable to bolt before he’s accomplished whatever he came here for.
Raichi’s smile dissolves into a scowl at the question. He scratches at his cheek and says, “My old man says he needs you to drop by his office before practice.”
“Oh?” Shunpei tilts his head. Raichi’s lackluster response isn’t surprising; he’s not fond of running errands for his dad, especially not during the school day. Which Shunpei knows because he’s spent literal months just talking with Raichi and his dad is one of his favorite things to complain about, despite the fact that they do seem to have a decent relationship, unorthodox as it is. “Any idea what it’s about?”
Raichi’s hand moves from his cheek to his hair as he screws up his face in concentration, clearly trying to recall exactly what his dad had said to him. “Somethin’ to do with recruiting? Maybe? I was busy tryin’ to sneak somethin’ for breakfast, so I didn’t hear him, really…”
“You’re covered for lunch, right?” Shunpei asks, and it’s so automatic, so thoughtless, he doesn’t register that it’s not even remotely the point of this conversation until Raichi brightens again and digs into his pants pocket to proudly produce a handful of mismatched change.
“Uh-huh! It’s leftover from when we went to the arcade over the weekend!”
The arcade, right. Where Shunpei (very stupidly) spent so long trying to win a stuffed monkey from the claw machine because it reminded him of Raichi that his hands cramped up. He’s going to get an earful at practice today if he’s off with his pitching and he sure hell won’t be explaining why to anyone who asks.
“Glad to hear it,” Shunpei says, and if his voice cracks a little, well, Raichi’s not going to call him out on it. “I’ll meet up with Coach,” he adds, because that’s at least an issue he can tackle without his brain fritzing out on him. “He probably wants to go over what we’ll wanna look for when the new first years get here in a few months.”
Raichi shoves his money back into his pocket and beams. “I hope we get some crazy cool pitchers! I wanna send all sorts of balls flying , right over the fence! Over the trees !”
He takes a batting stance and mimes hitting a homerun, looking for all the world like he’s already standing at home plate, facing down a gaggle of crazy cool first-year pitchers. A fuzzy warmth starts up in Shunpei’s chest, and he doesn’t — can’t — repress the too-big grin he always wears around Raichi these days.
But then Raichi straightens suddenly, wide-eyed, and he stares up at Shunpei like he’s — well. A little afraid, maybe? Shunpei still has trouble grasping the idea that literally anything could strike fear into the heart of Todoroki Raichi, but he’s seen him freeze up in crowds and stammer through apologies after accidentally bumping into someone. This… looks uncomfortably like that.
“Whoa, Raichi, what’s—”
“Naada-senpai’s still the coolest!”
Shunpei steps back involuntarily as Raichi presses closer, stretching up to his full height so he’s as close to eye-level with Shunpei as he can be. Rather than scared, now, he looks determined, and it’s such an uncanny match for the expression he wears while he’s doing his ridiculous quota of practice swings (an expression that Shunpei would not previously have admitted to finding attractive) that something inside of Shunpei’s chest knots up while something else unravels. Like finding familiar footing in an unfamiliar setting — like finding his groove again in the middle of an inning with runners at the corners and Akiba’s unwavering mitt behind home plate.
Raichi balls his hands into fists and nods once to himself; Shunpei can hear the steadying breath he takes in, perfectly timed with the rise and fall of his chest. Shunpei, by contrast, isn’t breathing at all. It definitely doesn’t feel like he’s getting any air to his lungs, anyway, and shit , they’re in the doorway, aren’t they? People are probably watching, wondering what the hell they’re doing, standing so close to each other with Raichi looking like he’s gearing up for a punch and Shunpei incongruously flushed (because the heat climbing up his throat sure as hell isn’t sunburn).
“I mean it!” Raichi insists, which just further baffles Shunpei. “Even if we get a new pitcher with balls that go whoosh and bam , or, or a hundred new pitchers, Naada-senpai is still gonna be the coolest! The best! Nobody’s better than Naada-senpai, ‘cause Naada-senpai is just… just…”
Oh, Shunpei thinks, as Raichi appears to run out of steam, stumbling over himself and getting increasingly red around the ears because of it, yeah, I like this. I like Raichi.
It’s obvious, in retrospect. It’s been obvious for a while now.
“Naada-senpai is Naada-senpai,” Raichi says at last, huffing as he drops back down onto his heels. “The coolest, strongest pitcher in Tokyo. Even Misshima says so!”
Shunpei sincerely doubts that Mishima has ever earnestly said anything like that about him, except maybe in the context of players he wants to surpass (and in that case Narumiya Mei is likely Mishima’s definition of strongest pitcher ), but hearing it from Raichi feels… well, it’s just this side of too much , if he’s being honest. Raichi’s praise is over the top and extravagant and real — he genuinely believes what he’s saying, believes in Shunpei . And he has since the moment he first saw Shunpei pitch from his place in the batter’s box, long before Shunpei felt he was up to the task of taking on the ace title.
For someone as talented and dedicated as Raichi to think so much of him…
“Hey, Raichi,” Shunpei says, his heart in his throat and undoubtedly the biggest, dumbest smile on his face, “you wanna go out with me?”
Raichi blinks. “We’ve got practice today, though,” he says, his voice rising towards the end, an unintentional question.
“No, yeah, that’s true. I didn’t mean, y’know, go out and do something. I mean, uh.” Abruptly, Shunpei comes to the realization that he’s never actually confessed to anyone, that it’s always been the other way around. Apparently that was for the best for all parties involved. “Go out. As in, on a date. As in, would you like to date me?”
He’s not really expecting anything, because to have any expectations at all would imply he’d thought about doing this, in some capacity. Which he hadn’t. He’d gotten so stuck on accidentally dating Raichi that he hadn’t even remotely considered the prospect of doing it on purpose. And, truthfully, if you’d asked him how Raichi might respond to a confession, he probably would’ve said something along the lines of, “Spontaneous combustion. And there goes our chances of making Koshien this year” and left it at that. It would’ve gnawed at him afterwards, probably, this suddenly pressing need to know what Raichi’s response would be. But he wouldn’t have really devoted much time to thinking about it, because it would’ve been just — a random question about a teammate.
Now, he’s… concerned. Because Raichi’s gone so red in the face he’s almost purple, and he’s also possibly not breathing despite his mouth being wide open.
Oh, I’m really killing our chances of getting to Koshien, aren’t I?
Because he might actually be killing Raichi at this rate. Shit.
“Raichi, you can just forget I said anything, okay? I wasn’t trying to freak you out. Let’s… pretend the last five minutes didn’t happen. Like I said, I’ll talk with Coach, so. It’s alright, yeah?”
That prompts Raichi to finally exhale in a broken, reedy wheeze (which seems especially painful coupled with the fist he pounds against his chest), screw up his face again, and then — book it down the hall like he’s rounding third to go home.
“Huh,” Shunpei says to the now-empty doorway. “Definitely could’ve planned that one better.”
Arakawa looks him over as he shuffles back to his seat, dazed, brows arched in what Shunpei can only assume is blatant and unrelenting judgment. “You scared him off,” he says, matter of fact. A statement, not a question.
Shunpei’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He’s tempted to ignore it, but it could be his parents, or even his uncle, and getting a text message in the middle of the school day is uncommon enough he’d be remiss to brush it off. He unlocks his phone and thumbs over to his messaging app (the one he had to install for the sake of the Yakushi Baseball Group Chat that absolutely did not exist prior to Mishima joining the team) as he offers Arakawa a sheepish smile.
“Think I came on a little strong,” he says.
The text is, ironically, from Mishima himself. Not in the group chat, either.
Senpai Raichi just ran past my classroom and then doubled back to tell me to text YOU that he says YES!!! Yes to what??? He made me write in all caps with the exclamation points he’s so annoying. He didn’t do something stupid again did he?
Huh.
“Or maybe not,” Arakawa suggests in response to whatever disgustingly sappy thing Shunpei’s face must be doing right now.
Shunpei presses a hand over his mouth, even knowing there’s no chance of staunching the lovesick smile tugging at his lips. “Yeah,” he says, “maybe not.”
If this is what dating really looks like, Shunpei’s looking forward to it this time.