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The first time Youichi notices, it’s during a random barbecue Seido’s decided to hold over a weekend.
“Let it cool first!” he snaps, stopping Sawamura just short of popping a steaming piece of grilled lamb into his mouth; he gets a sullen side-eye for his trouble, but at least he’d prevented what could have been a pretty serious burn incident (which he’s quite sure he’d have to nurse after, considering how hapless his roommate is) – Sawamura puffs out a violent mouthful of air, almost blowing the mutton off his fork, before gingerly testing it with his fingertips.
He lets out a squeal of absolute delight when he does taste it though, and Youichi – currently master of the flames – preens internally. There’s something quintessentially satisfying about setting up and pulling off a barbecue – especially after numerous attempts to try and fail to get the cursed coal to fire up – and what with the number of paper plates that’ve been circulating since he’d dished out the first round, he’s even willing to contend with the sweltering blasts of heat from the grill giving him a bath in his own sweat.
“ohmygoshshenpai” Sawamura garbles out, ploughing on regardless of Youichi’s barked Don’t talk with your mouth full!, “isshshhooogood! You should try!”
Youichi allows himself a smug smirk at that – he’s allowed to take credit for his handiwork, after all. It’s a bit more difficult resisting the urge to brag, but he opts instead to point out, sardonically, “I’d love to, but as you can see – “ he lifts both his arms, one gripping an old magazine to fan the flames of the old pit they’d managed to salvage from one of the equipment rooms, the other holding a pair of tongs, “I’m kind of occupied.”
The over-sugared jab goes straight over Sawamura’s head, though, because one second he looks genuinely disappointed on Youichi’s behalf, and the next minute he’s brightening, grinning as hard as he would for anything from the main characters of one of his manga finally getting together after a couple of hundred chapters, or nailing a perfect cutter in a crucial match.
“Have some of mine!”
And Sawamura’s in the process of carefully scooping up some of the food on his plate, his hand already in the air and in motion, making its way toward Youichi in less than enough time for him to register that he’s about to be spoon-fed by this idiot, mouth instinctively opening – when the arm bearing toward him disappears.
This miraculous feat of prestidigitation occurs in tandem with an enraged shriek from Sawamura –
And the sound of unbridled laughter from a catcher neither of them had even seen approach them.
Let alone make a grab for Sawamura’s wrist and cleanly bite off the morsel Sawamura’d been offering Youichi.
“Damnit Miyuki Kazuya! What the hell are you doing, stealing my food?”
Miyuki, the incorrigible bastard and universal pain in the neck, smirks at Sawamura without a hint of remorse.
“You shouldn’t be so stingy now, Sawamura-kun,” he croons, and as much as Youichi’s fallen into the habit of teaming up with this guy to bully the southpaw – to keep him from getting too full of himself, he’d righteously justify, whenever Zono tries to intervene in Sawamura’s defence – the sweetness in his tone leaves a bitter aftertaste in his mouth, making him grimace, “You can afford to share a bit of that with your senpai.”
Sawamura’s response is immediate. “I was trying to share that with my senpai. Till you showed up, damn tanuki.”
“Spoken like a true kouhai,” Youichi grins, flipping burger patties, waiting for Miyuki to whine and complain about preferential treatment, possibly ending with Sawamura grabbing the catcher in one of the chokeholds Youichi has taught him.
Through firsthand experience, of course, because Youichi is a firm believer in learning by doing.
But this doesn’t happen.
Instead, Sawamura, grumbling a little under his breath about annoying immature captains, is in the process of forking up another piece of steak for Youichi when he catches, out of the corner of his eye, Miyuki nick the plastic utensil straight out of Sawamura’s hand.
“Hey!” Sawamura’s cry of outrage almost hurts Youichi’s eardrums, and normally, this’d be more than enough excuse to twist him into a full-nelson – but the shortstop finds himself unexpectedly distracted when he cranes his neck to find Miyuki placid and unaffected by the excessively loud tirade being rained upon his head, standing there with his baseball cap perched at a jaunty angle on his messy head of hair, glasses sliding a little off his nose, slick with perspiration, because it is a hot day and the billowing smoke from the grill isn’t helping –
With the end of Sawamura’s fork protruding from his mouth.
“Give it back, you bastard,” Sawamura storms, hulking toward the catcher, who adroitly side-steps him.
With that damn plastic fork still sticking out of his mouth like a lollipop.
And an idea – a notion, an epiphany – rends its way through Youichi’s head, pierces through everything else with the crackling precision of lightning, and just for the tiniest, most infinitesimal of moments, it illuminates.
It’s gone, between a blink and the next, but as Youichi hurriedly salvages the last of the burgers from getting charred to a crisp, the gears in his head are already turning, because he thinks he might have deduced just enough.
“Just get a new fork, Sawamura,” he says, keeping his voice even and nonchalant; he watches Sawamura growl in frustration, pause mid-swipe at the catcher, evidently and openly contemplating his next move, because Sawamura is nothing if not completely transparent, before vocally expressing his disappointment in their leader as he shuffles toward the stack of leftover plates and cutlery.
Miyuki, completely the opposite of transparent, just laughs.
And Youichi. Well, it kind of pisses Youichi off.
So he decides, on the fly, to test his epiphany.
He waits until Sawamura’s guzzled down some mash, putting out the fire and letting the orange-gold embers of charcoal smoulder into slate black, before offhandedly saying,
“Hey, give me some of that.”
And Sawamura, who’s really very naïve if you stop to think about it – very straightforward, very guileless, way too trusting – immediately moves toward him, making to offer him his food –
And although Youichi’d been half expecting it, he still experiences a gut-lurch of surprise when Miyuki interrupts.
“Why don’t you get a plate for yourself, Kuramochi? You’ve worked hard, you must be hungry.”
It’s all the proof Youichi needs.
“Wow,” he whistles, grabbing a paper towel and scrubbing the grease off of his fingers, deliberately avoiding looking Miyuki straight in the eye – his head is still swimming with the sheer magnitude of the monumental realization he’s just stumbled upon (Does he even realise? That idiot clearly doesn’t but - ) “So much concern from Miyuki Kazuya? Should I be afraid?”
He reaches in the general direction for Sawamura’s plate as he says this –
Only to have it – and the person holding it – get jerked backward, just shy out of his reach, because Miyuki’s decided to throw an arm around Sawamura and tug at him, a playful grin on his face that doesn’t falter even when Sawamura bristles and screeches out in protest.
“How mean,” Miyuki tuts, and proceeds to casually pluck the second fork out of the plate; he spears a bit of meat, bites into it, takes the time to chew and swallow, “I’m not that horrible. Am I, Sawamura?”
He directs this at the pitcher busily struggling to get out of his hold, squirming and trying to save his lunch at the same time –
Entirely too distracted to catch the tell-tale signs of strain flicker, like spots dancing behind your eyelids after a camera-flash, just beneath Miyuki’s cocky grin.
But Youichi isn’t distracted.
Youichi spots it just fine.
Well, what do you know.
***
Youichi concludes, fairly quickly, that Miyuki probably does not realise.
Which is quite a feat to accomplish, considering the pains he’d gone through to prevent an indirect kiss between Youichi and Sawamura – but that isn’t something Youichi likes to dwell on.
Nevertheless, the shortstop finds himself very mindful of sharing cutlery with his teammates.
In fact, he might even have been able to write it off as an isolated incident – maybe Miyuki’d just been incredibly bored and in the mood to screw with Sawamura, or maybe all that boiling humidity had addled Youichi’s own head and he’d lost it a bit from heatstroke – if it were not for the fact that it clearly isn’t an isolated incident.
Because now that the lightning’d already sparked inside of his head – now that he’d seen, even if for the briefest of flashes, the most fleeting of moments – he can’t un-see.
He can’t stop himself from noticing how the amount of contact Miyuki initiates with Sawamura could possibly count for skinship.
He can’t stop himself from noticing that he doesn’t try to pull all that touchy-feely crap on anyone else.
He can’t stop himself from noticing that in those rare and far-between moments when Sawamura’s preoccupied with something other than flittering round the catcher with the pleasantness of a rogue mosquito to get him to catch his pitches –
Miyuki goes out of his way to get his attention.
“Well, I’d love to catch for all our pitchers, but I owe it to the ace to give him priority!”
And it never fails.
It never fails to completely snatch Sawamura away from whatever else he might have been doing.
Whoever else he might have been with.
“Damn you, Miyuki Kazuya!” Sawamura hollers, stomping away from Kanemaru, who’d begrudgingly deigned to give him a few batting tips, instantaneously forgetting all about his classmate, “It’s your responsibility as captain to treat everyone EQUALLY. Equally!”
And it’s amusing, sometimes, now that he’s looking at this situation through an entirely new pair of lenses, a brand new perspective that shines the light into nooks and crannies Youichi’d not even known existed, watching their cocksure, manipulative little shit of a captain reduced to a kindergartener sticking gum in someone’s hair because he can’t deal with liking them –
It’s also a little infuriating.
It’s also a little maddeningly, because it’s like watching someone snag his bait again and again, only to toss it back into the water to watch it flounder and begin the game again.
Unfair.
Heartless.
And while Youichi might not be one for introspection to discover his own motivations, or allowing emotions to get the best of him, he’s never really been the type to hold back when it comes to tackling something he doesn’t like.
So when he’s out on the practice fields, genuinely trying not to body-slam Sawamura into the ground for his abysmal ability to field without inflicting everyone in the immediate vicinity with second-hand embarrassment, he stalls the southpaw before he can take off like an angered bull when Miyuki’s jeering call rings out across to them.
“Don’t react,” he tells the southpaw, under his breath; he leans forward, motioning Sawamura to come closer too, “You know he’s just doing that to piss you off right?”
Sawamura’s face is scrunched so badly he almost resembles the gargoyle-like expression Zono pulls off when he’s in the batter’s box.
“But it’s so unfair!” Sawamura gripes, and Youichi draws on all the patience of possibly the entire galaxy not to pull a double-leg takedown when he feels spit spray into his face, “How am I supposed to improve if he won’t even –“
“If you really want to be ace,” Youichi interrupts, and the moment he enunciates that magic word he notes the way Sawamura’s fluctuating concentration snaps straight back to him like his cleat slamming down on base in the nick of time, “you have to be better at things other than pitching, you know. Furuya sucks at fielding but at least he’s a decent batter.”
And as Sawamura lets this sink in, in this uncharacteristic, sobering moment of honesty they’re sharing sans physical violence, Youichi adds in, for good measure, “If you want Miyuki to acknowledge you, you’re going to have to prove you’re more than just a southpaw, yeah?”
***
By the end of practice, Coach Kataoka personally commends Sawamura’s unwavering-borderline-psychotic focus, having grown accustomed to the crazy leaps of growth the guy can show practically overnight when he puts his mind to it, and assigns him to fielding practice with Youichi for a week.
Sawamura goes cat-eyed and Haruichi has to poke him to check if he’s still breathing, but he doesn’t argue.
Miyuki, however, does.
***
As hilarious as it is to watch someone as egotistical and morally bankrupt as Miyuki Kazuya flail like a clumsy middle-schooler afflicted with his first crush – and Youichi has to admit, after around the fourth time he’d tried and failed to get a reaction out of a certain southpaw who’d wholeheartedly dedicated himself to practicing steals, that it’s incredibly gratifying – the shortstop has to ponder whether all this is sustainable.
He’d pretty much confirmed his hypothesis – in fact, the degrees of distraction their captain’d started displaying lately would be quite alarming if allowed to get out of hand. In Youichi’s humble opinion, he’s not of the same bent of personality as Miyuki – he’s not a completely heartless bastard, and as much as it’s fun to watch a besotted Miyuki stumble round his feelings with all the sensitivity of a rampaging elephant, Youichi isn’t going to prolong the psychological warfare any longer than necessary.
Especially as he doesn’t even know if Sawamura returns the captain’s…questionable affections.
It’s ironic that, for someone that’s repeatedly chalked up as too forward, too simple-minded, it’s difficult to gauge whether Sawamura might potentially reciprocate whatever the hell Miyuki – the one that’s incidentally proved himself highly capable of keeping secrets – is grappling with. Youichi’s known Sawamura long enough and closely enough to know that he’s a pretty single-minded guy – he lives, breathes and sleeps baseball, can get so lost in it even when he’s not on the field that he forgets to reply to text messages from his family and friends (Youichi knows, because Youichi has snooped through his phone more than enough times). He might not be the most effective player out there all the time, but Youichi can grudgingly admit, in the privacy of his own mind, that that single-minded determination had brought him all this way – from being a loudmouthed brat with a weird form to an irreplaceable element of the team, a player, their mood-maker, without whom some of Seido’s key victories wouldn’t even have been possible.
And while Youichi isn’t likely to ever vocalise any of this, on pain of death even, he does understand that that this growth’d only been possible because Sawamura’s love for baseball is so all-encompassing he probably doesn’t have the time or the energy to love anything else.
Which brings Youichi to an uneasy state of affairs.
Because clearly, Miyuki has a thing for Sawamura.
And there’s no telling if Sawamura might have a thing for him back.
And neither is he entitled to, neither is he automatically obligated, but still –
And just as he’d picked neutral ground to stand on when Miyuki and Zono’d had that falling out last year, worldviews and opinions and ideals clashing and clanging and threatening to upset the rhythm of the team, Youichi decides that it’s about time he retreats to the bleachers.
This has nothing to do with him. He affirmed what he wanted to affirm – he doesn’t have to get involved anymore.
Besides, he tells himself, Miyuki hasn’t even cottoned on to the fact that he’s crushing on Sawamura.
Maybe, given time, this entire quandary would reduce itself to nothing.
He repeats it to himself, a mantra. A reassurance. I don’t have to get involved anymore.
***
Youichi learns soon enough that he’d been wrong.
***
Youichi finds Miyuki waging single-handed war against a pitching machine.
“Oi,” he bellows, deliberately loud to make himself heard above the sharp gun-shot cracks of balls sent flying, only to thunk into the wire-mesh and flop lifelessly to the ground, “What the hell did you do?”
Miyuki makes to raise his bat for another aggressive swing when Youichi cuts the machine off.
In the sudden absence of sound, magnified echoes reverberating across an otherwise empty practice room, the silence feels oppressive.
Foreboding.
Youichi, fists clenched so tight inside of his pockets his knuckles are bleached white, counts three sluggish seconds before Miyuki chooses to answer.
“Whatever do you mean?”
And Youichi has to count again, but this time for different reasons – this time, he has to force himself to hold his ground and not give in to the black, burning need to stalk over to that obnoxious asshole and sock him straight in the nose.
“I mean,” he says, grits it out between grinding teeth and boiling anger, “What exactly did you say to Sawamura?”
Youichi doesn’t have to ask. Youichi already knows.
He’d gone to hunt down Kominato the moment he’d look up from his video game to find Sawamura, nose rubbed raw, damp patches shiny against the apples of his cheeks, eyes unfocused and watery, barge into their dorm and unceremoniously dive inside his covers, from where he’d refused to budge despite Youichi’s increasingly alarmed demands to know what the hell had happened.
Miyuki stands a few feet away from him, bat slack by one side, the other hand fiddling with his cap.
Pulling it down.
Over his eyes.
“That,” he says, eventually, and Youichi is possibly capable of murder right now, because back in his dorm he’s had to leave his perpetually annoying roommate, the guy that’s his partner-in-crime against all their pranks on the first-years, the guy that he takes absolute pleasure in thrashing at Mortal Kombat, the guy who probably embodies the meaning of “heart of gold” no matter how cheesy and absolutely repulsive it is to admit even inside of his own head – that guy is crying, shuddering with silent sobs like his heart’s been broken, irreparably, and this guy’s here, tone unruffled, gait unaffected, with the unmitigated nerve to speak so offhandedly, “is none of your business.”
Haruichi hadn’t needed much persuasion to speak.
In fact, Haruichi had been quivering, tense and pale when he’d scoured him out, sitting beside Furuya in the dugout with his hands laced tight together, brow pinched.
It’s the angriest Youichi’d ever seen him, and when he’d looked up, clear sharp eyes left unconcealed by his new hairstyle, the cutting edge of intensity had reminded him instantly of Ryou-san.
“Actually,” Youichi says, in the present, inside of the indoor practice room that somehow the rest of the team had tacitly agreed to avoid tonight, and though his voice is low, it booms, resonates through the room, takes on an inflection that’s almost menacing, “I think you might have forgotten that I happen to be vice-captain of this team.” He steps forward, and it costs him all the self-control he possesses to keep his strides measured and slow, to keep his fists balled inside of his pockets, because he can still hear Haruichi’s words spin round his head, a vinyl record with the needle scraping into worn-out tracks
He told him he’s hopeless as a pitcher.
He told him he can never make ace.
He told him he might as well stop trying.
“And by team,” Youichi adds on, lilting with a false politeness that’s discordant, unpleasant to his ears, “I mean both collectively and otherwise. So –“ he pauses as he brings himself to a stop a bare foot away from Miyuki, studying him, studying that indecipherable expression, that thin line of his mouth, the tight grip round his bat’s handle, “I think it very much is my business.”
Give me one good reason
“So I’d like to know –“
Not to break your smarmy face
“what did you say to Sawamura?”
Youichi thinks, as he waits, as more seconds filter past, a line of ants, brisk and endless, marching away, that by even letting this guy explain – even giving him a chance to present his side of the story – probably qualifies him for sainthood.
Finally, after what feels like an infinite test of his patience, Miyuki shifts.
He sighs.
And it’s one of defeat, one of resignation, one that makes his frame droop a little, and the change, though minimal, is still drastic enough to take Youichi a little aback.
“I overreacted,” Miyuki mutters, and Youichi has to strain his ears to make out the words, “he was trying to get on my nerves, going on and on about how he doesn’t need me to catch for him to be ace, and I – I guess I was too wound up. Tired. Stressed. I don’t know. I snapped.”
When Miyuki finally makes eye-contact with him, for the first time since Youichi had confronted him, there’s a burning sincerity visible even behind his glasses.
“I didn’t mean it,” he says, low and firm, urgently earnest, “I don’t know what happened but I didn’t mean it.”
And Youichi believes him. Youichi believes that Miyuki genuinely doesn’t know what happened – but Youichi does.
Youichi knows that it’d been a mistake to think that Miyuki’s…feelings – would resolve themselves cleanly and conveniently, evaporate like overnight dew off of grass under the blaze of a summer sun.
Youichi knows, now, that what he’d tentatively labelled as a crush might really be something more – something stronger and more intense, something so unlike what one’d expect from Miyuki that Miyuki himself hasn’t been able to grasp it.
Youichi knows that Miyuki’s been reduced to a temperamental child that cries because he’s confused, because he doesn’t know what’s troubling him, and it’s simultaneously hilarious and excruciatingly aggravating.
The shortstop inhales, a great big pull of air that makes his chest heave out, and he lets it all out slowly, part to compose himself, part to stall as he tries to put his fragmented thoughts together, figure out how to move on from here, because clearly, he’s in way too deep already. Clearly, he’s the only one that understands why any of this is even happening, and the universe has deemed that he has no choice but to get involved.
At the back of his head, he thinks of Sawamura, a second-year southpaw that works twice as hard as everyone else to make up for the natural ability he thinks his teammates possess and he lacks, a surprisingly earnest guy that’s somehow wriggled himself into a soft-spot in Youichi’s heart, which he’ll vehemently deny until the day he dies, a boy, with big dreams he chases no matter how they elude him.
He thinks that he deserves better.
“Look,” he says, and he chooses his words carefully, deliberately – he’s not the world’s most sensitive guy, awkward with his own emotions and especially with someone else’s, but he doesn’t want himself to be lumped together with Miyuki as the type to wield words carelessly either, “I don’t know what exactly your beef with Sawamura is –“ Youichi pretends to ignore the way Miyuki’s eyes cut abruptly to him as he says this, “but whatever problem or issue you have with him, figure it out.”
And then, because diplomacy is not really his style, he pulls one of his fists out of his pocket and points a threateningly finger at the catcher.
“Or so help me.”
***
Youichi isn’t naïve enough to believe that everything will return to normal overnight, or that Miyuki will figure out the reason behind his own erratic behaviour just because Youichi’d nudged him in the right direction.
Over the next few days, he infers from the way the southpaw and their captain keep their interactions light and courteous that Miyuki has probably apologized to Sawamura – but Youichi thinks, remembering with a grimace just what had been said, that it’ll be a while before either of them can forget and completely move past it.
If anything, he’s a bit worried about whether Sawamura’s self-esteem had taken some damage, whether or not the words had been intended – as resilient as he’s proved himself, getting over the yips in the space of a few weeks, mastering new pitches after learning to readjust his grip in just a few hours, facing off against some of the strongest teams in the prefecture as a first-year – Youichi knows that no one is invincible. Youichi’s watched some of the toughest of his seniors crumble under the pressures of feeling inadequate, feeling inferior. He knows nothing is more destructive than self-doubt.
But if it’d gotten to him, Sawamura doesn’t let on – he’s his usual enthusiastic, dorky self on the field, and Youichi doesn’t miss how Haruichi and Furuya band around him these days, the former actually taking over from Kanemaru to teach the southpaw to do a bit more with a bat than just his crazy-efficient bunting, the latter challenging him just enough, whether it’s getting to the baths first or running more after-practice laps, to let him know that he still considers him his rightful rival.
It’s oddly heartwarming, how far the idiot trio have come, and it reassures him.
***
But that’s not the only sign of growth Youichi becomes privy to.
Over the next couple of weeks, as Sawamura and Miyuki gradually outgrow the awkward, self-conscious distance that’d inevitably swelled up between them, and they return to their usual, rowdy, can’t-tell-if-we’re-friends-or-foes dynamic, Youichi starts noticing something of a shift in the catcher.
Notices that he spends less time trying to piss Sawamura off, and more time just being around him.
Less time forcing himself into Sawamura’s personal space, more time on the sidelines.
And it’s so subtle, the signs too fleeting, too short-lived and well-hidden and unobtrusive, that Youichi only sees because he’s looking.
And sometimes, when Sawamura’s busy laughing his lungs out with his friends, when he’s tugging at his hair and pinching the bridge of his nose as he struggles through his homework, when he’s following Youichi or Kanemaru or Toujou around like a little helpless kitten with big pleading eyes to get them to teach him –
Youichi’ll sometimes catch the wistful look slipping across Miyuki’s features as he spectates.
And in an unprecedented, unexpected turn of events, Youichi actually feels bad for Miyuki.
***
“I don’t know how,” Youichi says, disdain evident in his tone, “you can read all that trash.”
Sawamura’s hackles are up instantly.
“Don’t call it trash! It’s heartwarming and sweet and emotional and sensitive and beautiful!” Sawamura brandishes the manga he’d been reading, all pink bubbles and gold stars splayed across the cover, in time to the impressive slew of adjectives he sprays out like bullets.
“Uh huh,” is Youichi’s extremely unconvinced response; he stretches, dropping his controller into his lap and massaging at the crick that’d formed at his neck while trying to nail a Brutality, “that’s why they all have the same plot.”
An enraged, They do NOT rings out behind him and Youichi shakes his head a little, exasperated (fond), before glancing out the corner of his eye at the guy that’d shot-gunned the desk in their dorm.
“So,” Youichi says, carefully offhand, “if these manga are so great, how come you haven’t gotten yourself into a “heartwarming and sweet and sensitive” relationship yet?”
He turns around as he says this, swiveling on the floor, part to get a good look at the amusing ways Sawamura’s face contorts as he splutters, embarrassed – part to note how Miyuki would react.
“I- I- I- don’t have time for that kind of thing!” Sawamura yells out, defiant, doing a remarkably accurate impersonation of a sun-ripe tomato.
Youichi cackles. “Or do you mean no one has time for you?”
“Senpai!” Sawamura screeches, chagrined, and Youichi grins, genuinely entertained.
But as therapeutic as pulling Sawamura’s leg is, Youichi has a different agenda in mind.
Truthfully, he’s playing this whole thing by ear. But he’s spent enough oddly painful days just watching Miyuki silently pine away for an oblivious southpaw, and as much as that turn of events is singular in its own rights, Youichi thinks he’s been traumatized enough by things he rightfully shouldn’t even have had the misfortune to witness.
It’s obvious to him that Miyuki’s self-aware enough to have come to grips with his feelings – and it also doesn’t surprise him, really, that he hasn’t tried to act on them.
Even for a conceited little prick like Miyuki, putting everything on the line for someone who might not even return his sentiments can be daunting, putting it mildly.
“So even Wakana gave up on you, huh?” he teases, feeling his way round it.
“I told you we weren’t like that!”
“Yeah, right,” Youichi drawls – he’s pretty sure that at some point or the other Sawamura’s pretty little female friend had been crushing hard on her childhood friend; but as much as he’s used this as an excuse to use Sawamura has his favourite punching bag, he’s also concluded that that had been a passing thing – Sawamura clearly didn’t realise, let alone reciprocate, and Wakana probably figured out and returned to being more of a sister-figure than a potential girlfriend.
That, clearly, did not happen in Miyuki’s case.
Which is why Youichi thinks, even if it’s Sawamura turning him down, or saying that he’s not interested in having a relationship, any revelation at all about where the guy even stands on the matter – at least it’d give Miyuki something to go on.
Even if its closure.
“So you’ve never even considered being in a relationship before?” Youichi asks, raising a sceptical eyebrow – he peeks askance at Miyuki, and notices that his pen has stopped moving over his notebook.
“N-no!” is Sawamura’s frazzled response, and Youichi has to stop himself from pointing out that he’ll probably rip his beloved manga in two, given how he’s gripping it, “I told you! I’ve never t-thought about that kind of thing!”
“Hmm.” Youichi hadn’t really expected anything different – he’d surmised early on that Sawamura’s clearly out of his depth at anything except the game that’d brought him to Tokyo all the way from his little bubble in Nagano.
But that definitely complicates things.
“How is that even possible?” he says, improvising, a bit desperate. All he really, really wants is for these two to get their shit together so he can just go back to his usual hobbies of gaming, baseball and wrestling his roommate without fearing another apocalypse because of the romantic ineptitude of teenage boys, “I bet they don’t even have characters like that in your stupid manga.”
“They do! And they’re not stupid!”
“Is that so? And how do characters like that get into relationships then?”
“How?” Sawamura frowns at him, and tilts his head to the side, like he’s just been asked the world’s most obvious question, and Youichi would feel offended, Youichi would around this point get to his feet and drag that insolent twerp out of his bed to taste retribution as he tackles him to the floor, but he’s side-tracked by the way Miyuki’s gone so still the shortstop wonders if he’s even breathing anymore and –
“The other person woos them, of course!”
***
A couple of days later, while Youichi’s flat out on the floor of his dorm with his headphones on, he drags drowsy eyelids open just enough to see that Miyuki’s at the door.
As surreptitiously as he can, he winds down the volume of his iPod.
“Sawamura,” he hears, and remains as still as he can, feigning sleep, but in actuality highly tempted to take a good look at what’s happening, “I’m…I was thinking of getting in some extra practice. Do you…uh…wanna join?”
There’s a pause, and then frantic rustling from somewhere close to him, and the ground under Youichi reverberates with the thud of eager feet hitting the floor, an excitable, “Sure!” from somewhere above him.
It isn’t until he hears the definitive click of the door shutting that Youichi allows himself a self-congratulatory grin, before cranking up his music and blocking everything else out.