Chapter Text
The air was crisp and clean. The birds soared through the sky. The clouds looked like cotton candy. There was a slight gust of chill air that passed through, ruffling the leaves of nearby trees, notifying that autumn was coming. The field wasn’t muddy, nor overly dry, and most importantly, no one was around, even on a delightful day like this. It was perfect for Seungmin to practice his batting.
Usually, he would practice pitching, but it had been a while since he heard the crack of a bat striking a baseball. There was a ready-to-use pitching machine left by the baseball team pointing at home plate, Seungmin filled the chute with baseballs then grabbed his bat and stood on home plate, face-to-face with the wheel system. He reached into his jacket pocket and turned on the machine with a small remote control. The machine whirred to life and soon after, it shot a ball towards Seungmin. The first ball was a strike, but Seungmin was only just warming up. Once he was more prepared for the incoming ball, Seungmin swung the bat and struck the ball, sending it about 30 meters away.
The cracking sound of the leather skin around the ball slamming against the wooden bat sent shivers down Seungmin’s back. If he could marry the concept of baseball, he would. It had been years since he was the one batting instead of pitching. He wasn’t on the Sungkyunkwan University baseball team, even though he really wanted to be. He wasn’t good enough to be on the team anyway, plus most of the members were complete stuck-up, preppy assholes. People that Seungmin did not want to be associated with.
Now, since he usually pitched, that did mean he was practicing. He had a childhood friend from a short portion of his childhood before he moved back to his hometown. Seungmin had stayed in touch with him throughout the years and found out that they both had applied to go to Sungkyunkwan University. Seungmin was going for a bachelor’s degree in law. His father was a prosecutor, and his mother was a dermatologist. When it came to Seungmin picking what major he wanted to succeed in life, he didn’t have many options, so he picked law to make his father happy. He didn’t want to go into law, but he wanted to go into medicine much less. His childhood friend, on the other hand, was able to do whatever he wanted. His parents just wanted him to be happy. So, he chose theatre. If Seungmin chose theatre, or anything to do with the arts, his parents would most likely disown him. He probably wouldn’t have been able to play baseball at all if his grandfather hadn’t convinced his parents.
The baseballs went quickly as the pitching machine ran out. Seungmin threw down the bat and turned off the machine with the remote then sighed heavily before walking out into the field to collect the various baseballs. The clean-up process was Seungmin’s least favorite part. As he shoved the last baseball into net bag, he caught sight of someone leaving the arts building. It was a guy, probably around the same age as Seungmin. He had a school uniform on, but it had been altered. Instead of neat long slacks that hit down to your ankles, they were cut into shorts with a chain looped around the guy’s thigh. Instead of clean white sneakers, he had on tall knee-high boots. Instead of a fitted, professional school uniform jacket, his school jacket seemed oversized with different patches, buttons, and enamel pins scattered down the front lapel. What really seized Seungmin’s attention was a guitar case looped around the guy’s arm, resting against his back. The case was the only article on the guy’s body that seemed to be brand new or at the very least, taken care of. Seungmin always wanted to play guitar, but his parents would never allow it.