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the most difficult thing is simply that zaizen naoyuki has never had to "try things out" in his life. it was always baseball, the snug of his glove on his hand and the mound firm beneath his feet, the fierceness of the sun on his neck no match for his implacable will. he's always known what he was meant to do. it's a dream that breaks fast but dies slow, a split second at home plate, a year of rehab, a knee that heals, but not quite right. a few months of watching coach scramble to find a university — any university — that will take him, the unrealized chrysalis of his own potential hanging over his head like the sword of damocles.
three years ago naoyuki would have told anyone who asked that he planned to go pro straight out of high school. two years ago, that he was going to recover, that he would climb his way back up to the top. last year, he mopped the sweat from his face while he told his oldest friend that he was done, that the golden boy of senior league was never coming back. it was easier not to look, terrycloth a flimsy shield against whatever expression chris was wearing. he steadied his shoulders with a casualness he couldn't feel, held his breath when all chris said was: i see . it was a fresh wound then, easily unstitched with the wrong words, the things chris had known better than to say, the things naoyuki sometimes imagined him saying.
closing a door, nailing it shut. sorry about that promise that we couldn't keep, sorry about me, sorry i can't keep trying. there's a monster sleeping beneath chris's skin, the desire to play, to win threaded through his veins, held dormant beneath connective tissue and the steady beat of his heart. naoyuki knows it better than anyone, recognized it the first time he saw chris set foot on the diamond. it's going to wake up and no one on the college circuit will know what hit them. all naoyuki's got left is a ghost.
the first few months of naoyuki's university career were a jigsaw puzzle, piecing together who he is without baseball. everything felt like a distortion, images viewed through thick panes of glass, playback stuttering over the missing word “pitcher” every time he introduced himself. a skip in a record, the sound dropping out, three seconds of silence catching in the corner of his smile, hiss crackle pop. a tiny graveyard of might-have-beens unspooling itself in his chest.
it's disorienting sometimes, campus air uneasy in naoyuki's lungs, a place he never expected to be. it's halfway through the school year, and he's said it now, said it more than once. i used to play baseball. said it with the same careful offhand tone he used on chris, like the ache in his knee doesn't shake itself awake in stairwells and on long hauls across campus, like the bitterness isn't still sitting beneath his tongue, undigested, a black pearl of grief and longing.
chris makes his official game debut in the fall; naoyuki catches it mostly by accident, soba shop television flipping through channels until he says “wait,” a reflexive response to the sound of an announcer saying takigawa-kun. the field looks small on the faded screen, chris a smudge of white behind home plate, the mound flattened by camera angle. naoyuki still knows the distance by heart.
the batter steps up to the plate, all determined swagger, and naoyuki imagines the gleam of chris's eyes behind the catcher's mask, already knows the first pitch will be to the inside, high and tight.
"did you want to watch this game?" the shop owner says, and naoyuki blinks, looks away. swallows down the heat in his throat.
"no," he says. "that's fine."
grief is a heavy thing, denser than flesh or bone. no one can carry it forever. i'll try to find something else, he'd told chris, almost a year ago now. he hasn't yet, but he is trying. all anyone can do is try.
*
in december, naoyuki goes home. winter break stretches out in front of him, free of obligation for the first time in years. he could swing by kokushikan, help out with training camp, let coach see his face, but it feels impossible. maybe later. maybe never.
"are you eating enough," his mother says his third night home, hands on his arms like gentle vises, as if she can divine his caloric intake via touch.
"yeah, ma," he says, the automatic sort of grumble being mothered always elicits from him. she hums, patting his face with a fond hand.
"well," she says, "i suppose you don't need to eat as much as you used to."
"yeah," naoyuki says again, shifts away. "i'm going to go out for a bit."
"don't forget your coat," she says, and he grunts.
it's snowing when naoyuki steps outside, fat white flakes drifting down from the sky in lazy swirls. snow is rare in tokyo, won't last past sunrise, but for now it blankets the night in a nearly tangible hush, casting fuzzy halos around the streetlamps. a few blocks ahead, the convenience store sign winks through the haze, promising warmth and cheap food without his parents nosing around.
naoyuki pauses at a crosswalk, baleful red hand guarding the empty street. it's as dark as it ever gets in this city, light pollution obscured by the fall of snow, the pale cloud of his breath rising like a prayer. silent night, holy night.
winter is a season of death and sleep, bare branches waiting for spring. naoyuki is old enough to know that it will pass, that the world keeps turning. the trees will bloom whether naoyuki does or not. time heals all wounds, etcetera, etcetera. the light turns, and naoyuki steps out into the street.
*
the doorbell rings a week later, early january, naoyuki halfway through a music magazine and a tin of cookies an aunt brought over.
"nao, get the door," his mother calls from down the hall and naoyuki drags himself out from under the kotatsu with a groan, pulls the door open without checking the peephole. it's chris, looking rosy in the winter chill, smart wool coat buttoned neatly and scarf wound around his collar.
"hi," he says, and naoyuki blinks, caught entirely off guard. they've only spoken a couple times, exchanged emails and greetings, and now naoyuki's carefully maintained distance is sheared away in an instant. "i thought we could go to the shrine together."
"i have a phone, you know," naoyuki starts, interrupted by his father popping out of the kitchen.
"oh, chris!" he says. "i thought that was you i heard."
"how did you hear him," naoyuki says, a grumble under his breath he knows chris caught by the quirk of his lips.
"it's good to see you," dad says. "it's been too long. come inside, you should stay for dinner."
"we were just headed out," naoyuki says, pushing his father back toward the kitchen.
"maybe tomorrow," chris says, always so polite, and naoyuki rolls his eyes, reaching for his shoes.
"nao's so pushy," dad says, but he goes, waving, hand the last thing to disappear around the corner.
"who was it?" naoyuki hears mom ask him.
"chris," dad says, sounding pleased.
"i'm going out for a bit," naoyuki announces, more loudly than strictly necessary, closes the door with a firm click before he even gets his jacket on. "don't laugh," he says to chris, but it's too late, chris's laughter trailing behind them as naoyuki struggles into his jacket on the way down the steps.
*
the closest shrine is a brisk walk on a cold day, the last leg of the trek a meandering path up a sharply angled hill. naoyuki's already been here with his parents this year, inching up the walkway with the new year's crowd, more standing than walking. this time, he keeps pace with chris and his stupidly long stride, grateful for the lack of small talk. his knee starts to ache halfway up the hill but he ignores it, refusing to admit that it affects even this.
chris stops at a waypoint two-thirds of the way up, a bench and a couple vending machines, waves naoyuki toward a seat while he pretends to inspect the selection of hot drinks.
"it's fine," naoyuki says, the most transparent lie he's ever told, breathing evenly through sheer force of will. chris just looks at him and naoyuki hisses through his teeth. "pain in the ass," he says, but he sits down, the metal chill against his thighs.
"we're almost there," chris says after a few minutes, abandoning the pretense of wanting a drink to drop down next to naoyuki.
"how's your shoulder holding up?" naoyuki asks, abrupt. "i saw that you were playing."
chris smiles and naoyuki looks away, mouth twisting. "i'm doing fine."
"you'll do more than fine," naoyuki says, gaze tilting at the sky. "i know you will."
"thank you," chris says, and naoyuki stands up, starts back up the hill.
"come on," he says. "i don't have all day."
*
naoyuki doesn't look at chris again until they're finished at the shrine, bow-clap-bow, new year’s wish sticky in his throat. there's too much caught up in his chest to try to untangle and he's too old to ask for the impossible. he tacks let chris keep playing onto the end of the litany of well wishes for his family, leaves it at that.
"there's one more place i want to go," chris says, when they reach the bottom of the hill, brows raised slightly, like he's expecting naoyuki to protest.
"it's cold out," naoyuki says, automatic, but he falls into step with chris, turning opposite the way they came.
"i thought it might be nice," chris says, tone so bland it makes naoyuki shake his head.
"really," he says, but he goes along. he almost always does, when it comes to chris, and he doesn't really need to ask where they're going. he knows this by heart too, the stoplights and right turns, the comfortable sort of silence between old friends. the baseball field comes into view as they round a bend, small and green, bright in the stretch of drab concrete and bare trees.
naoyuki lets out a breath, counts the steps out of habit. there are less now, legs longer than the last time he was here, the place where he became a pitcher to fear. six steps to cross the street, two more for the sidewalk, nineteen to loop around to the gate. how many fewer would it take, now, from the gate to the mound? naoyuki takes three steps in and stops. he's not sure if it hurts or not, the ache rising up beneath his skin too constant to count. his heart is always turning for home on the diamond, steady and true, magnetic north. maybe that's what got him in trouble.
the gate clangs softly as chris lets it fall shut, stepping past naoyuki, head tilted like he's listening for something. his back is so broad now, naoyuki thinks, watching him move down the baseline, pausing between the long shadows stretching across the dirt.
that's a familiar sight, the curl of light on chris's shoulder, sun sinking at exactly the correct angle to kiss him with gold. naoyuki looks away. something he's seen before, something he'll never see again. smiling at each other across the field in middle school, young gods in cleats and baseball caps. would things have been different, if they'd gone to the same high school, if they'd had the chance to to play together? would they be standing here now, context completely changed?
naoyuki breathes in slowly, the sting of january air in his throat. he doesn't know, can't know. can barely remember what that's like, believing that hard, with that kind of purity and intensity. he's not sure he still could. could this version of himself have looked chris in the eye at the tail end of summer, said if we teamed up, we could take nationals? he hadn't just believed, he'd known, certainty coursing through the circuitry of his heart.
two monsters, two gods, two boys that can only go forward from here.
"been a while since i've been here," naoyuki says, squinting at the brilliant wash of sunset colors, the spread of light over the diamond. the dugouts are empty and cold, dull grey against the warm brown of the dirt, the green of of the grass.
"i figured," chris says. there's a pause, punctuated by the sound of traffic in the distance, a lonely bird calling from across the street. "it took me a while, you know."
"what?" naoyuki says, peering down the field, rewinding to last year, any excuse to look away for another few seconds, to not admit.
"to really believe you were quitting," chris says, and naoyuki scoffs, anger sparking bright and hot beneath his tongue. that's familiar too, old and easy, but the snarl dies in his throat when he turns and chris is right there. chris, looking at him with a gentle sort of regret in his eyes when he says, "are you happy?"
"maybe," naoyuki says. "not yet. i'll get there." he says it like a challenge, like a dare.
chris laughs, low and soft, the sound catching at something in naoyuki's chest. "you will," he says. "you will."
like everything else, it's easy to believe when chris says it. naoyuki scowls, digs an elbow into chris's side, jabs him through his obnoxiously nice coat. "i know," he says. "did you forget who you're talking to?"
"no," chris says. "i could never."
"i hate you," naoyuki says, shoves him away. "god. you really better come over for dinner tomorrow or my dad will never shut up."
"all right," chris says, so agreeable now that he's said what he wanted to say. naoyuki resents that in him, resents so many things so easily, but he supposes there are some things that just don't change. the sun rises, the sun sets, chris is always going to find a way to piss him off.
the sun is setting, already low, fat semi-circle hanging on the lip of the sky. orange light bathes the field, some terrible sort of symbolism that naoyuki refuses to accept. "it's getting dark," he says, scuffs his feet in the dirt. "we should head back."
chris is smiling now but naoyuki ignores it, turns his feet toward the gate. there's time. now that they’ve resumed their binary star orbit, however altered, there’s time.