Work Text:
20:14
The motion-sensor light in the entryway flicked on at just the right moment as the door swung open, casting the dark silhouette of someone with a bag slung over his shoulder across the floor.
Sawamura rolled his left elbow a few times. As he shrugged off his baseball bag, he reached over and hit the light switch.
Sleek strips of modern lighting glowed a soft, warm gold, their blurred reflections lingering on the floor-to-ceiling windows, echoing the staggered skyline of high-rises beyond.
The high-rise apartment wasn't particularly large, but the location was perfect—less than a twenty-minute walk from the team's training facility. When he was in good shape, Sawamura would even jog there in the mornings.
Lately, though, his rehab trainer had forbidden him from adding extra work on his own, so he'd obediently switched to walking.
Sawamura pulled out his phone and opened the alarm screen. His finger hovered over the pinned 06:00 alarm for a moment.
Tomorrow was Monday. The rehab group hadn't scheduled any on-site training, which meant he didn't need to report to the team facility.
And in the middle of the night, there would be a live broadcast of Miyuki Kazuya's game.
He switched over to the streaming app and checked the projected starting lineup one more time, then returned to the 06:00 alarm.
Should he watch Miyuki's game?
There was a faint click.
The phone screen went dark.
————
23:35
Sawamura lay in bed with an eye mask printed with absurdly huge cartoon eyes over his face, tossing and turning.
The heavy curtains blocked out the city lights. The air conditioner quietly sent a comfortable stream of cool air through the room, and he'd even put fresh sheets on the bed.
Still, he couldn't sleep.
Had today's rehab session been too light? Or was it because he'd heard the younger guys throwing earlier?
Damn it. I want to pitch too.
Under the blanket, his right hand settled lightly over his left elbow. Out of habit, he pressed at it a few times. There had been no pain since training ended today, not even that faint, tight sensation he'd been getting a while back.
If it stayed like this all week, he'd be able to get back into the bullpen next week, right on schedule.
And before long, the great Sawamura-sama would come roaring back into the first-team starting rotation!
Go to sleep already! You need to get yourself in shape!
Sawamura rolled onto his side and burrowed back under the covers, trying his best to empty his mind.
————
01:25
The motion-sensor light in the entryway came on again.
A can of ice-cold beer swung inside a plastic convenience-store bag, condensation sticking the thin plastic film to the aluminum.
My rehab trainer is definitely going to kill me if he finds out...
But one can should be fine!
Sawamura shuffled across the floor in his slippers, headed straight for the sofa, shoved the coffee table aside, and sat down on the floor.
He yawned.
Reaching behind himself with his right hand, he fumbled around until he successfully dug a tablet out from the gap between the sofa cushions.
The 01:28 on the lock screen made him squint.
His right hand moved across the screen with practiced ease. Before long, the livestream was casting onto the television.
The noisy commercials gave the apartment a little more life, splashing bright patches of color across Sawamura's face.
Psshh—
Bubbles rushed upward inside the can, colliding and bursting over one another.
Sawamura's unfocused gaze rested somewhere on the television screen. His right hand mechanically lifted the beer, making a small toast toward the empty air beside him before he tipped his head back and drank.
A muffled roll of thunder seemed to sound somewhere outside.
One drop, then two. More and more rain struck the floor-to-ceiling windows until a soft film of water spread across the glass.
The patter of rain nearly drowned out the commercials on TV, so Sawamura bumped the volume up a few more notches.
Oh. Forgot about the alarm.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and switched off the 06:00 alarm.
By the time he finished, the announcer's voice finally came through the television.
“Following today's game, we'll have a special summer fireworks event...”
Fluent English surrounded him, but Sawamura wasn't paying attention. He opened social media with practiced ease, switched to his alt account, then tapped through his following list to the only profile it followed.
Miyuki Kazuya.
There was hardly anything on Miyuki's page. Aside from the post announcing he'd joined the team when he first moved to the U.S. two years ago, nearly everything else was just reposts from the club's official account—and there weren't even many of those. A few swipes were enough to reach the bottom.
A lot of fans even suspected Miyuki had handed the account over to someone else to manage.
Maybe he'd forgotten his own password by now.
That would be perfect.
Sawamura opened the Messages tab.
The chat was still filled with nothing but his own profile picture and a string of unread message bubbles.
[What was that pitch sequence in the seventh today supposed to be?!]
[Three weeks ago]
[You seriously trusted that pitcher's splitter that much?]
[Three weeks ago]
[You weren't catching today?]
[Two months ago]
[Are you hurt?]
[Two months ago]
......
[Finally made it through seven innings today. Gave up two runs.]
[Five months ago]
[...That's decent, right?]
[Five months ago]
......
[Had really good curry today.]
[One year ago]
[Still wasn't as good as yours, though.]
[One year ago]
......
[Your mascot is seriously ugly.]
[One year ago]
......
[It snowed in Tokyo today.]
[Longer ago]
Miyuki wasn't going to open his message requests anyway.
And even if he did, there was no way he'd have enough time on his hands to pick out this completely unremarkable alt account from the pile, then scroll all the way back through two years' worth of messages.
So today could be the same as always.
Sawamura took another deep swig of beer, then slapped both cheeks with his hands and forced his attention back onto the broadcast, which was about to begin.
“Let's go! Studying the world's best hitters is part of a pitcher's training too!”
————
02:33
[This pitcher again?]
[02:02]
[Really into sliders away today, huh?]
[02:28]
Sawamura stared at the screen without blinking, fingers flying over the keyboard as he sent another message.
[Ohhh, so he was setting up that inside fastball.]
[Just now]
The batter popped one up on the infield. A fielder settled under it cleanly, securing the final out of the second inning.
The broadcast cut to the umpire's angle and replayed the moment of contact in slow motion.
“If he'd gotten the bat path just a little lower, would that have gone for extra bases? No, no—the fastball was too hard, and they'd already shown him breaking stuff before that. If this pitch had been another slider, though, that swing angle would've been perfect.”
Sawamura set down his phone, leaned over the coffee table, and dug out a baseball. He nestled it into his left palm, shifting between different grips.
Suddenly, stark white light spilled across the floor.
His eyes followed the light upward.
A blazing sun had appeared on the television screen, suspended high in a crystal-blue sky.
Heat shimmered visibly above the field, the wavering distortion captured perfectly by the camera.
Nice weather.
Must be hot, though.
What did it feel like to play on a field like that?
Did sweat blur your vision?
Did you have to keep changing into dry undershirts?
Ah. Japan and America were different...
But there had to be some things that were the same, right?
————
03:05
The pitcher on the mound was drenched in sweat, his gaze unwavering.
The close-up ended. He lifted his leg and delivered.
The splitter dropped sharply as it neared the plate, hitting the dirt well in front of home.
Miyuki dropped his center of gravity almost at the same instant. His chest protector absorbed the first bounce. The ball kicked away to his right, and he reached out with his mitt to keep it in front of him.
“Ball! No swing!”
Sawamura had been watching where the pitch landed, but the next second, his brows drew together.
As Miyuki stood up, he gave his right hand two small shakes at his side.
[Hey.]
[03:06]
[Where did that just hit you?]
[03:06]
Onscreen, Miyuki merely exchanged a few words with the umpire before throwing the ball back to the mound.
[Go have the trainer look at it!]
[03:07]
He crouched behind the plate again. The batter let out a breath and settled back into his stance.
[You still shake your hand like that when your fingers hurt.]
[03:09]
Sawamura froze, staring at the message he'd just sent.
By the time he looked back up, the batter had already drawn a walk.
...They'd been broken up for two years already. Why the hell did he still remember something like that so clearly?!
Back when they were still on the same team, Miyuki had done the same thing once before. Nothing had looked unusual on the live broadcast. Sawamura had only noticed the tiny detail afterward, when he'd gone back over the footage carefully.
Sawamura hadn't had a game that day. After finishing a commercial shoot, he'd been dragged out drinking by some guys from his year and hadn't gotten home until the middle of the night.
After washing up in a hurry, he'd crept quietly into the master bedroom and slipped into bed beside Miyuki.
In the faint moonlight, even the fine hairs on his senior's face and the bluish shadow of stubble stood out clearly—never mind the sleep mask printed with those ridiculous cartoon eyes.
“Mm...”
Maybe he'd sensed the warmth beside him. Miyuki rolled onto his right side, turning his back to Sawamura, and slipped his left hand out from under the blanket to rest beside his face.
Isn't that position uncomfortable?
Drunk Sawamura had never been one for hesitation. He bent over, reached beneath the covers, and simply pulled Miyuki's right hand out.
“Ugh...”
The white bandages wrapped around his fingers looked painfully conspicuous in the moonlight, and paired with Miyuki's sleepy mumbling, somehow made him look even more pitiful.
After that, every time Miyuki made the same little gesture during a game, Sawamura would force him to go see the trainer.
Eventually, Miyuki almost stopped doing it altogether.
————
03:48
“Bottom of the sixth, full count, two outs, runners at the corners. Can this starting battery stop the bleeding here and prevent any more runs from scoring?”
Holding his breath, Sawamura watched the starter throw a beautiful changeup.
It dropped perfectly into the catcher's mitt.
“Strike three!”
Sawamura shot to his feet, knocking over the empty beer can by his foot.
“Nice pitch!!!”
Rain pattered softly against the floor-to-ceiling windows outside. At some point, the thunder had stopped, making the sound from the television seem almost obnoxiously loud.
Sawamura snatched up his phone with one hand and started typing. With the other, he grabbed the remote and turned the volume way down.
[Damn it.]
[03:50]
[I want to pitch too.]
[03:51]
————
04:17
The batter turned hard on an inside pitch and ripped it into right field for a base hit.
Sawamura slapped his thigh.
[Serves you right!]
[04:17]
[Get ahead of the next guy first. Don't try to challenge him head-on.]
[04:18]
————
04:28
“Miyuki comes through with a huge hit! Both runners from second and third score, and they've taken the lead!”
[Not bad.]
[04:29]
[Can't believe you managed to pull that outside pitch too.]
[04:30]
The camera cut to a close-up of Miyuki Kazuya, now out of his catching gear.
His right foot rested on second base. His sweat-soaked face carried a smile, though the fierce sunlight reflecting off his wraparound sunglasses hid his eyes and brows from view.
Sawamura sat up straighter and returned to the message box, typing and deleting over and over.
[Finally gotten used to American food?]
[04:33]
[Is your hair getting long again?]
[04:39]
Sawamura backed out of the text box and only then realized that tonight's messages already filled most of the screen.
When was the last time he'd done this?
Probably that first month after they'd broken up.
The chat had been a lot livelier back then.
If breakfast tasted bad, he'd tell him. If training had been exhausting, he'd tell him. If he won a game, he'd tell him. If he lost, he'd tell him even more.
Sometimes there would be dozens of messages in a single day. Whatever crossed his mind, he'd throw it into that chat.
And it wasn't as if their breakup had been ugly.
No one had cheated. No one had demanded that the other give something up.
Miyuki wanted to go to America.
Sawamura wanted to stay in Japan and keep pitching.
They'd talked about it more times than he could count, and in the end, neither of them changed his mind.
“We'll still be friends, right?”
They'd even said it with a smile.
And yet their LINE conversation had stopped on that very day.
Later, Sawamura secured a permanent place in the first-team rotation, while Miyuki gradually established himself as a regular starting catcher in the majors.
And the messages from Sawamura's alt account became fewer and farther between.
Three weeks ago.
Two months ago.
Five months ago.
Sawamura scrolled upward twice, then looked again at the dense cluster of timestamps from tonight.
...What the hell.
He was way too noisy tonight.
————
05:07
[Congratulations.]
[05:07]
The camera swept across Miyuki's team before turning toward a corner of the outfield.
Fireworks streaked upward, trailing white smoke across the sky.
Boom.
The blue daytime sky was too bright. The colors vanished into the sunlight almost the instant they burst, leaving behind nothing but a slowly expanding cloud of pale smoke.
Sawamura's shoulders jerked at the explosion.
[Who the hell thought daytime fireworks were a good idea?]
[05:10]
[You can't even see them.]
[05:11]
Dawn was beginning to brighten the eastern sky.
Shadows of raindrops clinging to the floor-to-ceiling windows fell across the wooden floor.
At some point, without him noticing, morning had arrived.
Sawamura watched the television for a while.
Then he looked out the window for a while.
[Guess they're pretty loud when you're actually there, though.]
[05:15]
He bent down, picked up the empty beer can from the floor, and tossed it into the trash. Then he put the baseball beside him back into the coffee table and pulled the table into place.
[Did you see them?]
[05:20]
Send.
Nothing changed in the chat.
His was still the only profile picture there.
————
05:37
Sawamura lay sprawled across the large bed, the social media app still open to that last message.
[Did you see them?]
He stared at it for a few seconds.
Then, suddenly, it irritated him.
“...Not like you'll answer if I ask.”
Sawamura switched straight back to the home screen.
The LINE icon sat there quietly, exactly where it always had.
He tapped the pinned chat that hadn't moved in two years.
His right hand awkwardly typed a few words into the message box.
Then his finger hovered over Send.
He didn't press it.
————
05:45
[LINE — Sawamura Eijun — 05:45]
When are you coming back?
————
06:32
Sawamura was already on the verge of falling asleep when his phone vibrated.
[LINE — Miyuki Kazuya — 06:32]
I'm coming back to Japan on November 12.
[LINE — Miyuki Kazuya — 06:33]
I've got an event on the 13th. I'm free the afternoon of the 14th.
[LINE — Miyuki Kazuya — 06:33]
What happened?
[LINE — Sawamura Eijun — 06:35]
Let's meet.
[LINE — Miyuki Kazuya — 06:36]
The 14th?
[LINE — Sawamura Eijun — 06:37]
The 14th.
[LINE — Miyuki Kazuya — 06:37]
Okay.
Sawamura put down his phone, pulled the sleep mask back over his eyes, rolled onto his side, and curled beneath the covers.
Brilliant sunlight slipped through the gap beneath the curtains, blooming white across the floor.
The air conditioner quietly sent out a comfortable stream of cool air.
Before long, the steady rhythm of breathing rose and fell from the bed.
The apartment was silent.