Chapter Text
The first letter Sawamura received appeared near the very start of his second year at Seido. He had paused upon getting to his shoe cubby, the sight of a little white envelope tucked between his outdoor shoes a surprise. He ended up staring at it for a couple of seconds, as if trying to see if he was imagining it or not.
But he wasn’t dreaming; someone had left a letter in his shoe cupboard.
This caused Sawamura to suddenly look around him, as if it would help him figure out who had left the letter here. He had been held back by some classmates after their last class was over, talking about the latest issue of a shojo manga they were reading. Because of that, he had arrived at the genkan when it was already filled with students either getting ready to go home or passing by on their way to their club activities.
He couldn’t notice anyone obviously looking at him, nor did anyone seem to be paying him any mind either. Aside from the cubby neighbours who gave him a weird look at the way he was behaving.
Sawamura doubted he would have any luck finding out who had put the letter there.
Instead of investigating some more, he decided to gently store it in his bag, quickly changing shoes afterwards. He figured he would take a look at it once at the dorms, preferring not to be late for practice because of this. Plus, he felt a little embarrassed at the idea of reading what looked like a love letter right in the middle of the crowded genkan.
He also would likely never hear the end of it if he wound up being late because of what he assumed was a love letter.
The letter nearly slipped out of his mind entirely once his attention was put on baseball practice, focus set only on his training. Had he not been looking through his bag after dinner to find the notebook he had borrowed from Kanemaru, he might have actually forgotten about it all until the next morning's class.
Sawamura ended up staring at it for a moment, a light blush blooming on his cheeks at the idea of this being a love letter. He wasn’t particularly interested in a confession, as it would obviously not be from the person he’d wish one from, but it was still nice to think someone might like him enough to write a love letter. It had never happened before.
“Watcha got there, Bakamura~~” suddenly came from behind him, making the pitcher jump and spin around. He found Kuramochi standing behind him, bending over him a little with a mischievous grin stretching his lips. He had that look in his eyes, the one he got when he found something to tease Sawamura about or mess with him.
“N-Nothing!!” Sawamura quickly replied loudly, hiding the letter behind his back so his roommate couldn’t see it. His instincts were telling him to run away when that glint in his eyes shone brighter, but he found himself reacting too late. Before he could even try to get away, he found himself stuck in a wrestling hold.
“Got it! Kyahahahaha!” the upperclassmen laughed loudly and victoriously as he held the letter up proudly. Sawamura tried snatching it right back, but his attempt was embarrassingly easily dodged. Kuramochi then quickly escaped from their dorm room afterwards, forcing Sawamura to run after him to get his letter back.
“Kuramochi-senpai, give it back!!” the pitcher yelled as he followed after him, immediately catching the attention of everyone around them. Not to help, it was already the time when most started heading to the indoor training ground for extra swing training. It made it so the path around the dorm was filled with curious teammates who stopped to look at them.
“No way,” Kuramochi laughed again, his typical shrill laughter echoing loudly. “An idiot like you managed to get a love letter, I have to see this,” he continued as he opened the envelope with ease, thankfully not ripping it open. Sawamura wondered how he could do that while still running around to dodge and avoid his attempt to stop him.
“Dear Sawamura,” the shortstop started, making his voice a couple of pitches higher as if to imitate a girl. This caused Sawamura to groan loudly, begging him once again as he felt his face heating up impossibly hot. Why did his roommate have to love messing with him so much?!
“I’ve been a big fan of yours for a while now, I have watched all of your matches,” he continued reading, swiftly squeezing between Watanabe and Miyuki to slow Sawamura down. “I was so happy to see you on the mound at Senbatsu, you looked truly lovely and pretty as you pitched,” Kuramochi finished, only now stopping his running around to laugh.
Only then was Sawamura able to grab the letter and envelope again, taking a couple of steps back as others also joined in the laughter. He could tell everyone was laughing at him again. “RUDE!! You don’t just read these kinds of letters for everyone,” Sawamura yelled. He could feel his face burning up, but he wasn’t quite sure if it was from embarrassment or because he was angry.
“Congratulations, Sawamura, you received your first love letter,” Miyuki laughed, his typical annoying grin stretching his lips. “Too bad your secret admirer didn’t think you looked cool and handsome on the mound, though,” he pointed out.
Sawamura bristled at this, eyes growing cat-like as he got only huffier by the second. So what if they didn’t use those words! She liked seeing him on the mound!
“There’s no name,” Kominato pointed out, nearly making Sawamura jump right out of his own skin. He hadn’t heard his friend come closer behind him, now looking over his shoulder at the letter he was holding tightly.
“Figured it couldn’t be a love letter,” Kanemaru laughed.
Sawamura tried not to get any more annoyed and mad at their words as he was being teased. It wasn’t like he wanted this to be a love letter either. Truthfully, he hadn’t even thought about dating once since he had joined Seido and much preferred focusing on baseball. And well, if he did have a crush on someone already, he didn’t need to acknowledge that, nor did he need to do anything about it.
Instead, he decided to focus on the fact that someone liked his pitching enough to leave a nice note in his shoe cupboard. That in itself was an idea which made Sawamura really happy. It even warmed his chest with a mix of pride and warmth.
He ended up puffing his chest with pride, a large grin painting his face as he was now the one to laugh loudly. “This is right, this great Sawamura Eijun has received a letter from a fan, it is even better than anything else, must be sad to have none,” he said loudly, hands on his hips as he laughed some more.
“I’ve actually had both love letters and fan letters left in my cubby and desk before,” Miyuki pointed out. “Same here, though I’m not as popular as our captain,” Kuramochi added with a laugh, to which Miyuki mumbled about it being more bothersome than anything else.
“Me too,” Furuya stated, making Sawamura spin around, not having heard him coming either. “They called me handsome and strong,” he added, as if to just add more salt to the wound.
This made Sawamura look huffy and bristled again, turning to march back into room 5. “You guys don’t get it,” he grumbled to himself, ignoring the extra teasing remarks thrown his way. He knew they were only teasing and messing with him, but it still stung a little when he felt genuinely excited that someone liked his pitching enough to tell him. She might only be too shy to tell him in person.
But once the door closed behind him with a soft click, Sawamura paused, quiet. Kuramochi didn’t seem to be following behind, likely gone for some extra swinging practice or a captain meeting with Miyuki and Maezono. A look around also told him Asada wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the room, likely out for extra practice or hanging out with some teammates.
Seeing how he was finally by himself again, Sawamura pulled the letter out again to look at it. This time he looked at it properly, rather than having it read out loud in a funny voice.
[Dear Sawamura,
I’ve been a big fan of yours for a while now, I have watched all of your matches. I was so happy to see you on the mound at Senbatsu, you looked truly lovely and pretty as you pitched.]
Somehow, Miyuki’s words couldn’t get out of his mind. Lovely and pretty. He wasn’t exactly expecting to be called handsome and strong like Furuya, but the choice of words seemed… odd. Would a female classmate really call a member of the baseball club lovely and pretty?
Sure, some of the girls in his class had jokingly called him cute as they talked about their shared interest in shojo manga. But it wasn’t the same as being called pretty either. Could he even be called pretty in the first place? He felt like that was a very… feminine compliment that didn’t fit a baseball player.
And the more he looked at the letter, the more odd he felt. Even the handwriting seemed a little… unlike what he’s seen from classmates. Sure, he knew girls didn’t necessarily write in cutesy and feminine handwriting. But this just… didn’t feel like anything he’d seen from his female classmates' notes before.
He was starting to think he was looking into it a little too much.
He decided to push this strange feeling to the back of his mind, a smile pulling at his lips once again at the idea that someone thought he looked good on the mound. Lovely and pretty was still better than ugly and pathetic. He would take the compliment.
He ended up hiding the note at the bottom of his drawer, as a little keepsake for the first time he received such nice words anonymously like this. Maybe he would be lucky and have others to add later on.
After that, he grabbed his glove, getting ready for some extra pitching before bed. It would also make for a good distraction from the odd feeling he couldn’t stop from building up inside him.
Of course, upon arriving at the indoor practice ground, he was teased some more by his teammates. Thankfully, it died down rather quickly as everyone went back to their own thing. He felt really satisfied with his extra training session, even managing to beg for 10 catches out of their captain.
The second letter came in about a week later, once again tucked upright between his shoes. This time Kanemaru was with him, having both left the classroom at the same time to go to practice.
“Another one?” Kanemaru asked when he noticed the envelope, arching a brow. “Wow, you’re either getting surprisingly popular or this girl really likes you,” he commented. Despite being the one to say it, he didn’t seem very convinced by the first option. Even Sawamura was much more inclined to believe it had to be from the same person as before.
“I mean, I am the great Sawamura Eijun, ace of Seido, of course I’d get popular!” Sawamura replied with a loud laugh, startling some of the passing students behind them.
“You’re not the ace, though,” Kanemaru pointed out as he rolled his eyes a little, gaining a huff at his reminder. “You’re not reading it?” he then asked when he noticed his friend was just carefully storing the letter inside his bag.
“I don’t need more mocking,” Sawamura said, squinting his way a little, still remembering how Kanemaru had been part of the crowd last week. This made Kanemaru roll his eyes again. Sure, it had been funny when Kuramochi had read it out loud last time, but he wasn’t going to laugh at him every time he got a letter. Even more so if it was going to become a recurring thing.
They didn’t bring up the letter again as they started heading back for baseball practice, instead talking about what would be on the training menu for the afternoon. Although this time around, Sawamura didn’t forget about the letter as practice rolled on, wondering what it could be saying this time. He was also starting to wonder if this was going to become a recurring event, to find letters in his shoe cubby.
“So, what did it say?” Kanemaru asked as he came to sit with the other second years, taking a seat next to Furuya. He was immediately shushed loudly and harshly by Sawamura, whose eyes grew cat-like as he looked around, hoping no one had heard him. He knew for sure that if a certain captain and vice-captain heard, he would not be left alone.
“I haven’t had time to read it yet, came for dinner right after practice was over because I was starving,” Sawamura answered. But he was really curious and wanted to know too. He would do it once he was alone in the room or both of his roommates would be distracted enough.
“You got another letter?” Kominato asked quietly, leaning closer to him. It was rather clear he wasn’t interested in having his friend loudly shush him as he had done for Kanemaru. Especially since he was sitting right beside him.
“Yeah,” Sawamura replied with a smile. “I was a bit surprised, honestly, didn’t think it would happen again, and only a week after the first one, too,” he admitted. It had really felt like a one-time kind of thing to happen to him.
The conversation moved on from the subject soon after. It was both to avoid pulling unwanted attention to the letter and because there wasn’t much to talk about when he didn’t even know what was written. Though the little they all talked about it only made Sawamura more curious about what was in the letter this time.
Thankfully, when he got back to their room after a good soak, he found that Kuramochi was the only one in the room. More so, he seemed focused on one of his fighting games, barely grunting a greeting back when he came in. Sawamura easily assumed Asada had to be busy doing something else, not risking walking in on him reading. Not that he believed he’d ask about it.
He took that chance to quietly read his letter, feeling a little giddy despite the strange apprehensive feeling sitting in his gut. He tried being quiet as he sat at the desk, trying to keep an eye on Kuramochi in case he turned around.
The giddiness he had from getting another letter disappeared rather quickly, though, as he read the content. A small frown started replacing the little excited smile he had.
[You did incredibly well in the last practice game you had yesterday. Although it is a true shame that your coach switched you out halfway through to make that small sidearm pitcher come in.]
This was only the first half of the letter, and it had managed to annoy Sawamura already. He didn’t like how this sounded like the person writing this letter was looking down on Kawakami’s skills.
Sure, Sawamura would love to hog up the mound to himself all the time, but the coach’s decisions were final. Plus, Kawakami was part of the first string, which, to Sawamura, meant he was good. This meant he had proven he was better than all the other pitchers present in the second string and those who didn’t even make either.
Kawakami was a needed part of the team, and he hated the idea of someone putting down his teammate to lift him up. It only felt like this person was ignoring all the hard work the other pitcher had put into honing his skills. It only left a bitter taste, completely ruining what seemed to be this person’s attempt at praising Sawamura.
He decided to continue reading, feeling like he would only make himself angrier if he kept thinking about it. It hadn’t been the plan for the night, getting angry on behalf of his teammate who didn’t even know the comment had been made.
Yet the second half sounded… weirder, making him pause, his frown deepening again.
[And as always, your wind up looked incredible and alluring. Your leg raises so high with so much confidence, never losing balance. You must be very flexible to be able to pull it that high up in the air. I wonder just how flexible you truly are.]
That strange gut feeling from before only intensified, now making him feel deeply uncomfortable on top of that. This didn’t feel like the person was actually complimenting his pitching form. It sounded nothing like how he had heard others describe it before, like when Takashima had come to scout him back in middle school.
They sounded a little too focused on just how flexible Sawamura seemed to be.
Did he look that flexible in the first place?
“Hey, Kuramochi,” Sawamura called out, hiding the letter inside a textbook just in case. “Do you think I look flexible?” he finally asked, pushing the chair a little to see his roommate better.
“Uh?” the third year replied, sounding annoyed at being disturbed in the middle of playing his game. Sawamura was already starting to regret his question. Maybe it wasn’t so bad that Kuramochi seemed too distracted to have heard him properly.
A few more seconds passed by without any other reaction from the older player.
Sawamura was about to try to forget about this weird letter by finding something to distract himself. This is when he heard the upbeat fighting music and sound effects pause, switching to the slower-paced track of the pause menu. “Come again?” he finally asked after turning his way, looking confused.
“D-do you think I look flexible?” Sawamura asked again, looking anywhere but at his roommate, who was now staring at him. He was starting to feel extremely stupid for even asking such a weird question to him. But there was no turning back now, so he might as well ask properly. “More precisely, when I play… I guess?”
There was another beat of silence between them as Kuramochi did nothing but stare at him, obviously confused as to where this question even came from. “I… guess? Yeah,” he answered, as if he did think about it a little. “I suppose on the mound you do seem to lift your leg higher than Furuya and Nori do? If that’s what you’re asking about,” he added.
He then grinned a little before laughing as he seemed to think about something. “You sure feel flexible when I do wrestling moves on you, though, kyahahaha!” he stated. “Sometimes I’m surprised just how far I can pull and twist you around without actually hurting you,” he admitted easily, clearly enjoying the memories of the different holds he could make on him.
“Also, I did see you stretch for practice many times, you’re more flexible than most of the guys on the team, I think,” he continued, looking to the side as if trying to recall something. “Still remember last year when you kept yelling at Haruichi to keep pushing and that he wouldn’t hurt you as he helped you stretch,” he recalled. Now, none of the second years that were close to Sawamura even worried as they helped him stretch, even pushing harder when he was being annoying, knowing it wouldn’t hurt him.
“I see,” Sawamura simply replied, not adding any more than this. He had thought it was odd that someone would point it out like this, but he supposed he did look flexible even to people looking from afar. Even if it had taken some thinking about it for Kuramochi to say so…
And the wording was still…
“Why did you ask?” Kuramochi then asked, pulling him out of his train of thought.
“Hm? Oh!” Sawamura reacted at first, before getting a bit tense because there was no way he could tell him the truth. “Some girls in class were talking about our last P.E class, we had to do a lot of stretching, they pointed it out, and I was wondering if it was true,” he lied, a nervous laugh escaping him. Halfway through his excuse, he wondered if it sounded believable enough.
Kuramochi just looked at him with an arched brow, staying quiet for a moment, making him nervous. Sawamura was certain he was going to be called out on his lie, yet instead, the shortstop only started laughing. “What, are you now going to brag about how you beat everyone flexibility-wise?” he asked. “I guess it could be fun watching Furuya try to imitate you even if he can’t possibly manage it,” he continued.
Sawamura started laughing with him, feeling himself relax the more they did so. He found himself reassured in a way, feeling more at ease than when he had finished reading the letter. When their laughter eventually died down, he had already managed to partially forget about the odd wording and the fixation the letter seemed to have.
“I’ll leave you to your video game, cheetah-senpai,” Sawamura grinned, backing the chair away a little when he was threatened with a wrestling move. “I have some homework to do,” he argued as if it was actually a reason not to twist him into a pretzel.
“With that brain of yours?” Kuramochi laughed, earning him an angry huff from the second year. Sawamura then started placing his textbook on the desk, ranting about how he could do his homework just fine; he wasn’t that dumb either.
He missed how Kuramochi’s teasing grin disappeared slowly as he kept looking at him, his expression growing a little more thoughtful. Worry slowly seeping in.
After that, more and more letters started appearing in his shoe cupboard after school. He had even tried starting to get to them before either of his friends could see them. It did earn him some questioning looks from them when they noticed how quick and sneaky he was acting.
He would always quickly hide them in his bag, not bothering to be careful anymore as he did so, wanting them to disappear out of sight quickly. If they ever really noticed the letters before he could hide them, none of them bothered to really mention it or ask what they said. Sawamura was rather happy about that, because he knew he would otherwise need to lie.
There was just no way he would ever tell them what they contained.
The more letters he received, the worse the gut feeling he had at first kept growing. He was seriously thinking there was no way his secret admirer was a girl from their school. Yet he still didn’t want to believe or actually acknowledge more deeply what the other possibility could be. After all, he wasn’t some cute girl or a pretty woman. He was a loud high school baseball player who did nearly nothing but play baseball.
While the first letters seemed innocent enough unless you looked too closely at the wording, as he did, the more that came in, the less subtle they became.
He had grown wary of reading them, anxiety rising as he discovered just what other comments the sender had about him. He would get angry at how this person was talking about his teammates, usually Kawakami and Furuya, as they were both pitchers; but the content about him was a little too much for him to feel strongly about both.
His attention usually ended up fixated on the second parts of the letters, the one typically dedicated to him; at least, the times he wasn’t the only dedicated subject.
[I really like your energy on the mound, it feels like you could never run out of it. It makes me wonder just how far you can push yourself before being exhausted, weak and pliant.]
[You have such a nice voice, especially when you are loud. I wonder what it would be like to hear it from up close. Or when you yell in a much different way.]
[You run so much all day and night, I wonder just how strong and firm your legs must be at this point. Despite how soft you look from afar, I bet your muscles must be very solid.]
[You throw so much, I wonder just how callused your fingers and hand have become from it all. You look so soft, but maybe your hands aren’t. I wonder how it would feel to touch them.]
[One of the managers seemed to talk about your lips today, did you get dirt on them after that slide? Now I really want to see them up close, I feel like your lips must be pretty plush and soft.]
[You looked so red today as your captain seemed to tease you. That’s a very pretty colour on you, I wonder just how far that blush reaches and what it looks like aside from on your pretty face. I wish I could be the one making you this flustered.]
All the letters were starting to make him feel overly conscious of both what was happening around him at all times and of himself, too. It would even point out habits he had never realised he had before and kept talking about his body in weird ways.
But he was trying to rationalise it all, telling himself it was just someone who either really liked him as a player or was pulling a prank on him.
After four weeks, in which he received a total of twelve letters, he was apprehensive to see the school day end. He was starting to feel himself grow tenser the closer he got to his shoe cubby, fearing finding a new letter waiting for him. A new letter that would be filled with more comments that made him feel alarmed and had his skin crawl.
Relief would wash over him when he would find nothing, tension leaving his body immediately. On days with no letters, he was able to focus back properly on whatever his friends had been talking about, feeling like a weight had been taken off his shoulders. At least, until the next day.
And that day was no different on that front. He was already close to being late to practice after having been held back by a teacher who wanted to talk to him; something about not paying enough attention in his different classes lately. He had just nodded and tried to get this done as quickly as possible.
As he was rushing to go and change his shoes, he felt the familiar anxiety of getting to his shoe cubby suffocating him. It all vanished when he saw nothing waiting in his cupboard but his shoes, a deep sigh of relief escaping him. ‘It’s going to be a good afternoon of practice,’ he thought to himself with a smile, quickly switching what he was wearing before running to the training field.
He was actually getting more and more excited as he remembered Miyuki had promised to catch for him that day. No letters, Miyuki catching his pitches and feeling full of energy; nothing could be better.
Then, as he got closer and closer to dorm room 5, that creeping sense of dread started welling up inside of him again when he noticed something on the door. When he finally came to a stop in front of the door, he could only stare at it for a moment, his stomach doing a strange mix of dropping and twisting into knots.
A letter…
Another damn letter, hanging right there, taped on their door. He shook a little at the possibility that either Kuramochi or Asada could have been the one to see it. The idea that either of them could have read what was inside suddenly made him pale. Forget the embarrassment he had felt at the first “love letter” being read for everyone; he’d probably want to die if they knew what they had grown to be now.
He snatched the little white envelope rather quickly once the initial surprise had washed away, looking around as if anyone else would still be around to see him. Everyone was likely already at the field starting practice while he was still not even in uniform.
He quickly stepped into the room afterwards, throwing his bag to the side as he went to grab his uniform, envelope still in hand. He placed it on his bed as he started changing, wondering where to hide it for now. But as he got ready to hide it away, he noticed something strange.
The envelope felt… a little thicker than usual.
This made him feel curious, as usually there was only a single piece of paper folded in half inside. Nothing more, nothing less. Curiosity ended up getting the better of him, already feeling like his afternoon was ruined by having found the envelope. He figured whatever was inside couldn’t be any worse than what he had already read before anyway. Might as well rip the band-aid off immediately.
How wrong he was…
His stomach dropped at the same time as all colour drained from his face after reading the single line on the paper.
[Picked up a new hobby. Photography is rather interesting, especially when I have such a beautiful muse.]