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“Senpai~”
After team training ended, Sawamura deliberately sidled up next to Miyuki and eagerly took the baseball bag from his shoulder.
“Aren’t you curious how far the renovation at home has gotten?” The pitch at the end of his sentence lifted slightly, like a little hook.
“I seem to remember you’re in the group chat too.” Miyuki effortlessly reclaimed his bag. “The renovation crew uploads progress photos every day, and I’ve sent you the link for the live updates before.”
“That’s different!”
Sawamura reached out and grabbed the shoulder strap of Miyuki’s backpack, pulling him toward the side of the road. “How can looking at it online compare to seeing it in person? The experience is on a completely different level!”
“Senpai~ It’s only a ten-minute walk from here, and you must have the key on you. Just let me take one look~”
He tugged on Miyuki’s backpack strap again, his voice growing softer. “The workers have already gone home. I’ll just go inside and take a quick look, then come right back out! I promise I’ll be two hundred percent careful and won’t damage anything, and they won’t even notice anyone was there!”
“You’re the homeowner now, you know.” Miyuki opened his baseball bag as he casually retorted.
“! You mean we can actually go see it now?!”
“Keep your voice down—” Miyuki took the key from the inner compartment of his wallet and waved it in front of Sawamura. “The weather forecast says it’s going to rain later. Someone said he’d ‘just take one look,’ so you’d better keep your word.”
“Senpai, you’re the best!”
Half an hour later.
“Senpai, you’re an idiot!”
Sawamura stomped his foot, kicking up a layer of dust from the floor. “Why did you close the door?! Now the ladder outside has fallen over and gotten wedged between the doorknob and the wall. We can’t push the door open at all…”
“If someone hadn’t said he was only going to take one look and then proceeded to go room by room giving his opinions, I wouldn’t have closed the door to avoid getting complaints from the neighbors.” Miyuki peered carefully through the crack at the awkward angle of the ladder. “Besides, why are you blaming me for the wind knocking it over, huh?”
“Of course it’s your fault! You lived here for four years, so you should know this place better than me. Hmph!”
“Okay, okay. Sawamura-san, please give Miyuki-san, who apparently knows this place better, some room. He needs to call the property manager.” Miyuki straightened up and began searching through the contacts on his phone.
Sawamura shuffled over to his side, nervously watching as the call connected.
“…Yes, a ladder is pressing against the doorknob… The house is temporarily closed to visitors while it’s being renovated? The on-call maintenance worker can only arrive in about an hour… An hour. Okay, thank you.”
Miyuki hung up. He was just about to explain the situation to Sawamura when he noticed the serious expression on his face flickering between light and shadow. Then, in the next second, it disappeared into complete darkness.
Every light in the house had gone out.
Miyuki’s phone screen lit up again with a sigh.
“Hello? Has the maintenance worker been dispatched yet? …Oh, not yet? That’s perfect, then. The power in the house has gone out, so we need to have it checked and repaired… Mm-hmm. Thank you for your help.”
After the call ended, the phone screen went dark as well.
Sounds he hadn’t noticed before suddenly became crystal clear: the protective film over the windows rustled softly in the wind, while the occasional sound of cars passing in the distance drifted in.
Miyuki could no longer see Sawamura.
“…Senpai, did you bring a flashlight?”
“Nope.”
“Then a tablet?”
“Didn’t bring one today.”
“…So we’re going to spend the next hour in this pitch-black room with only one phone as our light source?”
“Only one? What about your phone?”
“My battery is below ten percent already!”
“How are you able to say that so confidently…”
“Because Miyuki-senpai’s bag has everything in it!”
“A professional baseball player does not carry a flashlight and a tablet around in his bag.” Miyuki sighed again. “My phone is only at forty-eight percent. We have to conserve the battery.”
“Speaking of which, Sawamura, haven’t you been relying on me a little too much lately?”
“…”
Miyuki turned on his screen and shone it toward Sawamura. He found that Sawamura had somehow crouched down on the floor, with a fresh streak of dust smeared across his face.
“Senpai, why is there an outlet here?”
Miyuki carefully nudged the floor in front of him with his foot, slowly making his way to where he remembered Sawamura crouching. He tentatively reached out with his right hand, feeling along the wall before slowly moving downward until his fingers found an unfinished outlet box.
“This used to be where the dining table was. I put a coffee machine here, and there should still be a water pipe nearby. Be careful and don’t go touching things randomly.”
“Did the coffee machine come first, or the outlet?”
“The outlet. When I first bought this house, it was just a bare shell. I spent ages talking with the designer about all the wiring and the layout.”
“Is this renovation being handled by the same designer?” Sawamura’s voice seemed to have drifted farther away again.
“It’s too dark right now. Be careful not to trip over any of the renovation materials on the floor—”
“My eyes have already started adjusting to the darkness. You don’t get to dodge the question—”
“What does the designer have to do with dodging a question?” Miyuki turned his screen on again and slowly swept it around the room, finally spotting a figure standing on tiptoe at the end of the hallway. “The designer from back then was transferred elsewhere. The one handling this renovation is his apprentice.”
“…Sawamura, are you having trouble communicating with the new designer?”
“Mm… not really.” Sawamura’s voice had somehow moved behind him. “I was just suddenly wondering if you miss the old house more, and maybe didn’t really want to renovate this one. You put so much thought into the previous place…”
“Back then, I never imagined I’d end up living with you.”
A deep rumble of thunder suddenly sounded outside. The next second, torrential rain came crashing down, pounding against the protective film over the windows with a loud, rushing roar.
Then a flash of lightning streaked across the sky, briefly illuminating the room through the gaps around the doors and windows.
In that fleeting brightness, Miyuki saw that the baseball bag had disappeared from Sawamura’s shoulder. He was holding two pieces of cardboard in his right hand, while his left hand was sneaking forward, apparently trying to pinch Miyuki’s cheek.
The catcher reacted on instinct, grabbing his wrist and catching the culprit red-handed.
“What are you doing, Senpai…? I was just trying to take you to a room…”
“Oh?”
“The… little room on the south side…”
“The place where someone had a huge argument with me right before the power went out?”
“Oh, are you going or not?!” Sawamura stomped his foot, his voice muffled in the humid, stuffy air.
“Then I’ll leave the guiding to you, Sawamura-san~”
“I have a name! Miyuki Kazuya, what is wrong with you today? Are you afraid of the dark?”
“…”
“Or are you nervous because you can’t see very well?”
“…”
“Wait, no. Sawamura-sama can already see fine in this much light, so why can’t you? Hmm… is it because you’re getting too old…”
A smack on the head interrupted Sawamura’s rambling.
“You seem to be saying something rather rude. ❤”
Amid their bickering, the two finally made it safely to their destination.
Sawamura broke free of Miyuki’s hand, shoved the pieces of cardboard into his arms, then ran over to close the window.
With a creak, the window shut.
“Why are you just standing there? Sit down.”
“Sit? Sit where?”
Miyuki had finally managed to adjust somewhat to the darkness. He could vaguely make out garbage that hadn’t yet been cleared away, along with cans of renovation materials scattered across the floor.
Sawamura waved a hand and immediately carried the garbage out of the room. He came back, kicked a few things aside with his feet to clear a flat space, then huffed and puffed as he snatched the cardboard back, spread it generously across the floor, and plopped himself down first.
“Come on, Miyuki Kazuya, this is not the time to worry about whether it’s clean or not! And isn’t carrying that baseball bag around all this time tiring?” Sawamura patted the empty space beside him, rubbed his hands together, then dusted the cardboard off a few more times for appearances. “There, sit down already!”
“You’re washing these clothes today.” Miyuki pushed his glasses up.
“It’s just putting them in the washing machine. Fine, I’ll wash them… Oh, will you just sit down already?!”
Unable to stand it anymore, Sawamura reached out and yanked Miyuki down beside him.
The rain outside grew heavier, and lightning flashed past the window from time to time, briefly illuminating the room.
After a stretch of silence, Miyuki was the first to speak.
“So, tell me. What did you bring me here for?”
“…I still want to leave this space empty for now.” Sawamura’s voice was small, but he deliberately leaned toward Miyuki.
“…And after you leave it empty?”
“Don’t know yet.”
“…”
“We can renovate it later when I figure it out, can’t we?”
“Sawamura, if we don’t decide on its purpose now, we’ll miss the chance to plan the lighting, outlets, and plumbing properly. Afterward, we won’t be able to change them easily.” Miyuki frowned, a hint of impatience entering his voice. “If you have an idea, you can just tell the designer. Even if you’re torn between a study, a tea room, an entertainment room, a walk-in closet, or some other function, that would still give him useful information. You can’t just say nothing like this.”
“But you didn’t ask me either when you told the designer to put cabinets across the entire wall!” Sawamura became agitated.
“The room we live in now is full of your things. Did you ever think about where you were going to put everything after you moved in…”
“Are you regretting asking me to live with you, Miyuki Kazuya?!”
Sawamura cut him off and shoved Miyuki away, words spilling out one after another.
“Does living with you mean everything has to be arranged according to your way of organizing things, with all my stuff shoved into cabinets wherever you think they belong?”
“Wait, that’s not what I meant…”
But Sawamura wouldn’t let him speak. His voice only grew louder.
“I know this is your house, but you’re the one who suggested living together in the first place, and now you’re the one saying I don’t plan things properly!”
“Sawamura.”
Miyuki had already adjusted to the darkness. He reached out and covered Sawamura’s mouth, refusing to let go even as the other man punched and kicked at him.
“I’m not trying to tell you how to live. I’m saying that if we put cabinets here, our trophies and medals, your manga, and my videotapes will all have proper places. From the standpoint of how we actually use the space, this layout makes more sense.”
Sawamura’s struggling weakened somewhat.
“If you’re against the cabinets because you hate organizing things, or because you think they’ll make the room feel cramped, we can use white cabinets instead. I’ll organize everything.”
Sawamura’s struggles suddenly intensified. He even bit down on Miyuki’s palm before finally getting himself free.
“We don’t even know what our life is going to be like in the future! Why do you have to lock everything into place already?!”
Miyuki froze.
Outside, the rain pattered softly, and the fresh scent of wet grass and plants seeped into the room through the gaps.
“Maybe someone else will come live here someday, or maybe we’ll pick up new hobbies and get new equipment! If we box everything in now, what are we supposed to do when we want to change it later?!”
After saying all of that in one breath, Sawamura suddenly stood up and took several deep breaths.
“I don’t want to move into your house. I want to live with you.”
“…Then what do you want?”
“Um… leave this room empty.”
“Then what am I supposed to tell the designer? That this room doesn’t need outlets, lights, or plumbing, and he can just paint the walls and lay down the floor?” The moment the words left his mouth, Miyuki himself fell silent.
Sawamura slowly sat back down, curling himself into a ball with his knees hugged to his chest. He murmured,
“…That doesn’t feel right either…”
Miyuki opened his phone and brought up the plans the designer had sent him, pinching and swiping across the screen to zoom in and out.
The screen was startlingly bright in the darkness.
White light traced the edges of his black frames, while changing images reflected across his lenses. His gaze remained focused, the deep crease of his double eyelids visible behind the glasses.
Sawamura stared at Miyuki’s profile, tilting his head as he tried to picture the layout he wanted for the room. Inspiration, however, remained painfully scarce.
The sound of the rain gradually faded into the background. In the not-so-large room, the only things clearly audible were their breaths, one following the other.
“Let’s not do the wall-to-wall cabinets for now. Leave one wall completely open, and put an outlet in the corner. When you figure out what you want to use the room for, tell me then.”
Miyuki turned toward Sawamura.
“But there might be power strips sprouting all over the floor later. It won’t look very pretty. Are you okay with that?”
“I’ll do my best to hide them!”
Sawamura thought for a moment, then added,
“And there should be a really bright ceiling light. Warm-colored.”
“Why?”
“Because I might want to put a desk in here!”
“…Weren’t you just saying you didn’t know what you wanted to use this room for?”
“Now I have a tiny bit of an idea.”
“…”
“And we can always change it later, right?”
Miyuki sighed.
“Okay, okay. Then that’s what we’ll do. Later, Sawamura-san can give the designer your opinions in the group chat.”
“Really? And I’ll give my opinions on the designs for the other spaces too!”
“Rejected.” Miyuki turned off his phone screen and stood up, stretching. “Before you discuss the other designs with the designer, you need to get the approval of the other person in this household—”
“Miyuki Kazuya, you’d better wait! You are not getting out of this house until we’ve talked through everything today!”
“Ah, I think the rain stopped.”
“Miyuki Kazuya!!”
A dragging sound suddenly came from the entrance, like someone pulling a heavy object across the floor.
The two of them fell silent at the same time.
“Knock, knock.”
“Excuse me, is this Mr. Miyuki? I’m the on-call maintenance worker. The obstruction at the door has been cleared. I need to come inside and check the power outage. Would that be convenient?”
“Coming! I’ll open the door right away!”
Sawamura jumped over the various renovation materials scattered across the floor and cheerfully ran toward the entrance.
Miyuki bent down and accurately picked up the two pieces of cardboard in the darkness. Just as he was about to leave the room, he caught sight of the baseball bag Sawamura had abandoned in the corner.
Seriously. And he said he wasn’t going to leave things lying around.
Miyuki expertly slung both bags over his shoulders and leisurely walked out of the room.
Whoosh—
The lights suddenly came on.
Miyuki squinted and waited for a while, transitioning from being accustomed to darkness back to being accustomed to the light.
When he finally looked up again, Sawamura had already seen the maintenance worker off and was wandering around the living room with his hands clasped behind his back.
The moment he caught sight of Miyuki from the corner of his eye, his eyes widened. He immediately hooked an arm around Miyuki and forcibly dragged him over to the wall where the switches had been laid out.
“From now on, you’d better listen carefully to all of Sawamura-sama’s design opinions!”
“…How about tomorrow? My phone battery is below ten percent now too…” Miyuki frowned helplessly.
“No!”
“Just use your brain and remember all of this, Senpai! I still have to hurry back and do the laundry later, so let’s make this quick!”
“Which is exactly why we should just go home now—and your bag is so heavy. Carry your own bag.”
“Miyuki Kazuya!!!”