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“Are you waiting for us to grow old and die out here, Sawamura?” Kazuya punches the curve of his catcher’s glove with his left knuckles, slipping as much snark as he can into his voice. Around him, wind ripples in a mesmerizing pattern across the trimmed grass rimming the diamond. Tree branches sway at the park’s edge. “The hills here are beautiful, I know, but I’d like to play professionally for at least a few years before I go out!”
Sawamura’s whole face is red, and metaphorical puffs of smoke are coming out of his ears. “Don’t talk about death while you're catching for me, you bastard!”
“I can’t tell if I’m supposed to be catching for you or desiccating under the California sun.” Kazuya watches smugly as Sawamura’s face contorts into a frustrated growl.
“You’re a horrible partner!” Sawamura tosses the baseball high into the air with his right glove, then scoops it easily with his left when it arcs back down toward him. There’s some special draw, Kazuya thinks, as Sawamura shifts his body towards first base, his eyes glowing bright as two suns, about a pitcher so easy to toy with. Someone just as exciting to shape and mold and teach as he is to tease into a fury.
Sawamura lifts his leg, right arm locking high across his chest to block the sight of his throw. Then, before Kazuya can so much as blink, the ball comes zipping into his mitt.
An inside fastball, with near perfect precision. Sawamura grins at him with all his teeth. “Can you tell that you’re catching now, you nine-tailed captain?”
Kazuya’s hand throbs. “Just wanted to make sure you weren’t still daydreaming up there!” He can’t help but grin back at Sawamura, though, even as something in his chest twists up at the sight of him looming large on the mound, hair blowing loose in the seabreeze. He’s not sure he’ll find a pitcher with enough fire to match his two cannonballs at Seido. The two powerful, unwieldy diamonds-in-the-rough who’d landed by sheer luck straight into his mitt in high school.
He’ll miss his two aces, once he’s drafted. Far, far more than he’s willing to admit.
Kazuya swallows. The only sort of future that doesn’t scare him is the kind he can read from behind home base, in the shift of batters’ grips and the faces of runners on base.
“Top of the ninth, and the score is tied 7-7,” Kazuya calls, cutting off all thoughts of the draft. He tosses the ball back to Sawamura. “Two outs, and two runners on base. It’s the semifinals of the Spring Tournament. Raichi Todoroki’s at bat.” He crouches; flashes five fingers, then two, and sees the exact moment Sawamura’s eyes light up with recognition. “Can you toss it right where I want, ace?”
Sawamura answers with a Cutter Kai that breaks clean into the sweet spot of his glove. It’s a perfect pitch; Raichi Todoroki would have struck out. Kazuya can feel his racing heartbeat all the way down to his fingertips.
“Oi! Baseball idiots!” Kazuya turns to see Kuramochi marching across the field, looking murderous. “Sunset at the pier’s in just under an hour! We’re leaving your sorry asses behind in the dust!”
Kazuya swallows down his heart. Dredges up one of his more aggravating smirks for his closest friend. “What’s this I hear about you looking for an ass, Kuramochi? It’s true that yours is looking rather abysmal these days.”
“Cheetah-senpai!” Sawamura bellows from the mound. “Join us! We need a batter!”
“Didn’t you hear, you idiot? We’re leaving!” Kuramochi turns a withering glare onto Kazuya. “And stop twisting people's words around, Miyuki.”
Kazuya bats his eyelashes suggestively. “Don't be jealous, Mochi.”
“Jealous of what? Your ego?” He starts to blush, though, softening the edge in his words.
“Kuramochi-senpai!” Sawamura shouts, as Kuramochi glares. “Aren’t you getting your bat?”
Kuramochi runs his tongue across his canines, leaving them slick. Kazuya definitely doesn’t stare. Kuramochi turns to Sawamura, raising his voice. “Yes, and I’ll use it to chase you into the van if you don’t pack it up right now!”
Kazuya snorts as Sawamura runs off, yelping. “Do you even know how to speak outside of swear words and empty threats?”
“Do you know how to speak outside of taunts and teasing?” Kuramochi brays out a laugh, then sprints away in a sleeping Furuya’s direction, back on his mission of herding the team toward the vans. “Oi! Wake the fuck up and get in the van!”
Kazuya lets his eyes linger on Kuramochi’s sprinting silhouette — all toned muscle and lightning speed, fast enough to outrun the clouds of dust he leaves puffing through the air in his wake — for just a second. Kuramochi’s loud, braying shouts trail behind him. Get in the damn car, Furuya! It’s hilarious, and shouldn't be in the least bit endearing. Behind him is damp grass, and grey-blue patches of sky. Kazuya can’t help but throw his head back laughing, and he’s not sure if the strange feeling in his chest is mirth or melancholy.
Is it possible to miss people before they’re even gone?
***
March had come in a flurry of cherry blossom buds and low-quality amateur photographs. Kazuya’s father, caught up in his endless workdays at the steel mill, hadn’t been able to make it to the Seido graduation after all. (Not that Kazuya had really been holding out hope). He’d called in advance, announcing his absence through the crackly speakers of Kazuya’s old flip phone while Kazuya’d stood barefooted in his best friend’s dorm room, pretending not to care, and feeling Kuramochi’s stare boring into the back of his head. Kuramochi’s parents had seemed determined to make up for the old man’s absence, two days later, with a completely unnecessary deluge of attention.
They’d coerced him into taking cheesy photographs outside Practice Field A and underneath the archway leading to the dorms. Half of them had been staged, with Kuramochi tucked into some compromising position underneath his throwing arm, bullied there by his family’s glares. Kazuya, caught in the obligatory politeness toward elders that had been drilled into him by his mother as a kid, hadn’t been able to worm his way out.
“I hope you know,” Kuramochi’d muttered at him, as the both of them stood under the archway with their arms slung around each others’ shoulders, their hips pressed together tight, “that I’ll beat the shit out of you in Mario Kart tonight if you let my mother cajole us into extending this photoshoot any longer.”
“She’s your mother,” Kazuya’d whispered back, winking at him in between two camera flashes. “Shouldn’t you be the one standing up to her?” He’d winced as Kuramochi’s mother had hand-waved them into an even more shockingly intimate position, with Kazuya half behind Kuramochi, their legs pressed flush together. Kuramochi’s hand had curled loose around the tiny scar underneath his ribs, making it tingle. Behind them, two third years from the basketball team had wolf-whistled loudly. “Plus you’d have to actually be good at Mario Kart to carry through on that threat.”
The camera had flashed. Kuramochi had shot him a nasty grin. “Oh, you’re so on.”
Later, as they’d trudged back toward the dorms together, significantly more ruffled, Kuramochi had placed a light hand on his shoulder. “Oi.” He’d sounded embarrassed. “Your side. Is it okay?”
Kazuya turned toward him, surprised. They’d stared at each other in the gentle afternoon light.
Just two weeks prior, Kazuya’d taken a risky dive for home base and landed on his bad side. It had bruised, just a little bit, and the friction had torn away a piece of his skin. It had been nowhere near as bad as his injury a year ago — although the whole team had still swarmed him anyways, mid-game, Kuramochi tearing across the field before the time out had even been called.
The dive had been a calculated risk on Kazuya’s part. (That’s what he’d tried to explain to a highly unimpressed Coach Kataoka later, anyways.) Mei had been looking far too smug on the mound, throwing pitch after untouchable pitch to their batting lineup. As Seido captain, it was his job to knock that kid’s ego down to size.
They’d lost the game, anyways. None of it mattered in the end.
Outside his dorm room, the sun shining gold and red in Kuramochi’s hair, Kazuya had flashed a practiced smile in his best friend’s direction. “Worried about me? That’s cute.”
“Bastard.” Kuramochi had given him one of those no-nonsense stares. “I’ve got extra ice packs in my fridge. If it hurts, just say so.”
Kazuya had hoped the irregular beat of his heart wasn’t too obvious in his expression. “Aww. So… when are you planning to give me your second button, along with all this quality medical care?”
The stare had shifted into something far more menacing. “You’re only ever nice to adults. With everyone else you’re a right piece of shit, you know that?”
“You love me anyways,” Kazuya had teased — and tried not dwell too much, later that night, on how Kuramochi hadn’t corrected him.
***
They drive three hours in a too-cramped van down the California coast, with Sawamura roaring on about every cow they pass and Kuramochi attempting to wrestle him into an octopus-strangle to shut him up and Haruichi snarkily commenting that Sawamura’s probably got a home with the cows, if he wanted one, as the world’s most hyperactive shepherd dog. By the time they make it to Santa Cruz, Kazuya is half-certain the ringing in his ears is permanent.
Furuya’s kneeling by the grasses at the edge of the dirt trail, fingers combing through a handful of chalky pebbles and rock flaking into dust. “The colors,” he says when Kazuya’s footsteps approach him. “Some of the rock has pink in it, but most of it is pale like chalk.”
“Calcium, I think.” Kazuya kneels beside him and plucks one of the pebbles from Furuya’s palm. “Calcite crystals that turn the marble white. And the pink is from oxidizing iron.”
“Oh.” Furuya is staring at him now, with the same sort of intensity he usually saves for a pitch wind-up on the mound. The seabreeze catches at the ends of his dark hair. “Okay, Miyuki-senpai.”
“Miyuki Kazuya!!” Sawamura bellows from a few paces behind them. When Kazuya turns, he finds Sawamura kneeling too, nose almost to the ground. “What type of rock is this!”
Kazuya rolls his eyes. “That’s dog shit, Sawamura.”
Kuramochi cackles. Sawamura’s face turns bright red, eyes growing triangular, and Kazuya swears that steam starts pouring out of his ears, like he’s an honest-to-god volcano spirit or something. “You tricked me!!” he wails, and Kazuya can’t help but throw his head back in laughter. He swears, that kid is a character straight from the pages of a manga.
As they straggle on, Maezono attempting to corral the team into some semblance of order, Kazuya finds himself falling behind. He’s never been the most attentive captain, anyways … and the cliffs really are beautiful, here, streaked with lines of pink and orange. Kazuya watches stormy waves break against the rock, rhythmically. He wonders how it might feel to be one of the pelicans, down by the beach, diving and rising wherever the wind will carry him.
“Oi! Get your head out of your own ass.” A calloused hand slides into his hair, squeezing lightly at his neck before dropping to linger against his shoulder blades. When Kazuya turns, Kuramochi is wrinkling his nose at him. “We’re in California right now. Go smell the salty air, or whatever.”
“One of these days, we’ll need to unpack your preoccupation with my ass, Mochi.”
“Can’t be preoccupied with things that don’t exist.” Kuramochi’s making his grumpy face, but his hand drops lower down Kazuya’s back, contradicting his words. “Seriously though … stop looking like a lost puppy. We’re graduating, not blasting off to different corners of the universe.”
Instinctively, Kazuya raises his head to check on the team. They’re all racing ahead on the trail, Sawamura and Furuya kicking up trail-dust in their mad dash down to the beach. Next year Seido will have a much different team — but Kazuya doesn’t let himself dwell on that thought for too long. Instead, with a tentativeness that Kazuya so rarely feels out on the diamond, he reaches behind himself to link his fingers with Kuramochi’s.
“Have you ever thought about playing internationally?” Kazuya asks him.
“I…” Kuramochi’s fingers tighten, then loosen. “Huh?”
“I used to watch MLB games on the TV, with my mom. She went to college out here, did you know?” He raises his free hand to shield the sun from his eyes, as he looks up at the sky. “When I was little, she promised to take me to a real Giants game, in person.” He can feel Kuramochi’s gaze on the left side of his face, like he’s an x-ray cutting through to the bone. Seeing everything. Kazuya shivers at the attention. “Guess we’re finally living out that promise, sort of. Anyways, the NPB draft isn’t until October. The major leagues, though…”
“I didn’t know you were even considering an international contract,” Kuramochi says quietly.
“I… I’m not.” Kazuya traces an absent circle on Kuramochi’s thumb. “It wouldn’t make any sense to. Everyone I know is back home.”
It’s quiet for a while. Their sneakers crunch against the dirt, in a sort of uneven rhythm. Kuramochi’s grip tightens, and Kazuya isn’t sure if it’s intentional. To the left, a triangle of pelicans swoop up toward the sky, the wind carrying them up and away.
“You could always download Skype, like a normal person.” Kuramochi’s voice is gentle when he speaks again. “There are low-cost ways to do international calls, these days. Plus you’d be back in the winter, for Christmas and New Year’s. And,” he swallows, “it’s not like I couldn’t scrounge up a plane ticket if I needed to. If Sawamoron can do it, anyone can.”
Kazuya hazards a lopsided grin, glancing sideways at Kuramochi. “Bold of you to assume my career decisions hinge on you.” He tries to add a teasing lilt to the words, to soften them.
“You know I’d never ask that of you.” Kuramochi’s staring right back at him. So, so intently; his eyes have that same sharp look that he turns on the opposing team’s battery, right before he slams the ball between two fielders and sprints to second. Kazuya finds himself a little short of breath. “Still — you’re not alone in everything you do. You know that, right?”
In lieu of an answer, Kazuya glances around them. Most of Seido is down by the beach already, out of sight, their voices carrying with the breeze. There’s no one else around. So Kazuya leans in, their shoulders bumping, and brushes his lips against the curve of Kuramochi’s ear.
The skin tastes salty, matching the smell of the ocean that the wind carries up toward them. Kuramochi’s scraggly hair tickles at his nose, and when Kazuya takes a breath he can smell the citrus of Kuramochi’s shampoo. There’s another scent too — something warm and comforting that reminds him of bus rides back to Seido, after an away game.
He presses his lips to the skin a little harder. When he draws back again, Kuramochi’s cheeks are flushed a lovely pink.
“I said that to wipe the worried look off your face,” Kuramochi grumbles. “It wasn't an invitation to put your saliva inside my ear.”
Had Kazuya looked worried? “You like it,” Kazuya teases, then winks and runs off in the direction of the beach, dragging Kuramochi along in his wake, and not dropping his hand until they come within sight of the team. Joy and nostalgia are two birds unfurling their wings inside his chest, soaring side by side.
***
Two days after the Inashiro game, Kazuya had been lounging around on Kuramochi’s bed, examining his nails like they were a moderately interesting minor league game. Nothing better to do, today; and no opposing teams for Kazuya to analyze to pieces, anymore. His nails had been a bright, florid orange, chipping away at the edges. He’d picked at the paint aimlessly, replaying one of his calls from the bottom of the fifth inning in his head, over and over.
Maybe if he’d repainted his nails before the game, he’d have been able to hit one more home run off Mei’s nasty pitching. Maybe if he hadn’t cracked two days before the game — hadn’t gone off on some useless tangent, to Furuya of all people, about a future he can’t even begin to envision, Seido could have…
The door had swung open with a bang. “Cheetah-senpai!” Sawamura’d hollered at a despondent Kuramochi, who’d been sprawled face-down across the floor. Then he’d spotted Kazuya on the bed, and done a hilarious double take. “Gahhh! And the bastard, Miyuki Kazuya!!”
“Shut up, Sawamoron,” Kazuya’d droned reflexively. Orange paint flakes had fallen onto his shirt, like a cover of snowflakes.
“No can do!” Sawamura had bellowed. “The Big Boss told us to take some time off to reflect, not to —“ Sawamura had swept his arms around at his own room, encompassing all the dirty laundry strewn across the furniture “—puddle around and let our souls slowly wither away, like flowers without sunlight! Therefore, I —“ a thumb-jab at himself “— Sawamura Eijun, am here to be the sunlight for my violent senpai’s wilted leaves—“ a finger-jab at Kuramochi “—and the spring rains for my twisted captain’s barren earth!” Another jab at Kazuya.
“Are you trying to proposition us, idiot?” Kazuya snorted, cutting off the metaphor before it could descend into incomprehensibility.
Sawamura’s face went red with outrage. “Stop making everything so twisted, Miyuki Kazuya!!”
“Well, you did say you wanted to — what was it?” Kazuya grinned. “‘Water our barren earth, shine on our lovely spring flowers’…”
“Stop being gross, Kazuya.” It had been the first sound Kuramochi had made in the past hour. He’d rolled over, groaning, and Kazuya had winced at the sight of his best friend’s red-rimmed eyes, smile slipping off his face. “Everybody knows Sawamura’s clearly had his brain taken over by shoujo manga. He doesn’t know how not to speak the sappy romance language of thirteen-year-old girls.”
“What’s wrong with shoujo manga?!!” Sawamura protested. Then he’d turned to Kazuya, and proceeded to flip the tables on the whole conversation. “Hey, let’s go to San Francisco!”
“…Excuse me?” Kazuya had sputtered.
“San Francisco!! You know, home of the Giants?” Sawamura had tilted his head, as though they were living in some possible universe where Kazuya didn’t know who the SF Giants were. “We can go to Scottsdale Stadium and watch their Spring Training!” He’d poked his head closer to Kazuya’s face. “You’re worrying about the draft right now, aren’t you? Don’t you want to go visit an MLB team?” Suddenly Sawamura’s eyes had gone wide, and begun to sparkle. “We should take the whole team with us, too, it’ll be good for morale!”
“You’re right about the shoujo brainwashing,” Kazuya had muttered at Kuramochi, after a lengthy pause. Then he’d turned his bemused gaze onto Sawamura. “How on earth would we get to San Francisco, hm, Sawamoron? With what money?”
“On a plane, captain!” He’d spread his hands out, a toddler’s pantomime of flying, before beaming hopefully at them both. “If we had the tickets, would you wanna go?”
“I…” Sawamura’s gaze had been so earnest. Damn pitchers, with their big, stupid, demanding hearts. “Sure. Yeah. I’d want to go.” He’d smirked jokingly. “Same as I’d wanted to go see the sun in a big rocketship! Or…” Go to Koshien, he didn’t say, but they’d all heard it anyways. The room had sobered up fast.
“Well!” Sawamura had bellowed into the tense silence. He’d straightened his shoulders, and Kazuya had inexplicably remembered the image of a dejected first-year Sawamura, after their first loss to Inashiro. He’d been hit, suddenly, by how much his pitcher had grown in the span of a single year. Time had gone by so fast. “Then I, Sawamura Eijun, will make it happen! Prepare to be utterly bedazzled!”
Sawamura had stormed out of the room, slamming the door shut with another bang. The poor kid probably still believed that inflicting chaos on the world was an appropriate outlet for his enthusiasm. Some things never change.
“I didn’t know you were thinking about the draft.” Turning, Kazuya had caught sight of Kuramochi staring at him, brown eyes bright though puffy eyelids. The smile had slid off his face.
“Of course I’m thinking about the draft. Aren’t you?”
“Well, now I am. It just … had all felt so far away before today.” He’d reached up to scratch at his scalp, and Kazuya had tracked the way his shirt had ridden a few inches up his abdomen. “Dammit Miyuki, stop making everything so sad!” He’d sighed, and then his eyes had dropped to Kazuya’s hands, narrowing. “Your nails look like they’ve been chewed up by a bear. Stop picking at them.”
“Well, your face looks…” Kazuya had cut off as a warm, calloused hand wrapped around his own. Swallowing, he looked down. Their fingers were curled together; it looked so intimate, like they’d done this a million time before. “Mochi?”
Kuramochi was sitting up, then, and from the drawer by his bedside he procured a bottle of nail polish. It was a bright orange color, the kind Kazuya liked best, though he’d never admit it. He’d probably left it in Kuramochi’s room. Kazuya watched as Kuramochi uncapped the bottle, cheeks flushed — then, gentler than usual, began to coat Kazuya’s right thumb in a new layer of color.
“Stop fidgeting.” Kuramochi’s batting callouses slid against the back of Kazuya’s hand, rough and familiar. “You know, for a captain who babies all his pitchers, you’re shit at taking care of yourself.”
“Maybe I’m just looking for someone to take care of me.” Kazuya’s voice had wobbled, so he cleared his throat. “Are you volunteering, Mochi?”
“Hell no. There’s not enough money in the world to pay me to put up with your bullshit.” Kuramochi’s face had been closer than usual, and with the lack of distance, Kazuya could make out red streaks at the edges of his eyes, where Kuramochi had rubbed the skin raw. The sight had made his chest ache. He’d wanted to reach out, and trace the sorrow away with his thumb. “You can talk to me, you know?” Kuramochi had continued. “If you’re … you know. Worried. That’s what best friends are for.”
Instead of moving, Kazuya had stayed stone-still, hoping Kuramochi couldn’t feel his rapid pulse with all his careful attention to Kazuya’s hands. “You’re contradicting yourself, Mochi dearest,” he’d sung instead. Kuramochi had wrinkled his nose, and even with his twisted-up expression and the raw redness of his skin, Kazuya had found him utterly attractive.
Three days later, when Sawamura had burst into the team meeting late, waving two fistfuls of Tokyo to SF flight itineraries in the air like battle flags, Kazuya hadn’t know whether to yell at him for recklessness or laugh at the absurdity of the universe. Instead, he’d simply stood shock-still at the front of the classroom. Sawamura had waved the wrinkled itineraries in his face, laughing loudly. I told you so! he’d bellowed, shouldn’t have doubted your ace pitcher, cap!, until Kuramochi had broken out of his own shock enough to wrangle their kouhai into a tighter-than-usual octopus-hold.
***
They don’t mention the draft for the rest of the day, or the entirety of the next. Instead, Kazuya lets himself be buoyed along by Sawamura’s bulldog energy and the team’s general chaos, tumbling toward every pit stop on their long itinerary with the efficiency of drunk cows. Between Maezono’s grumpy morning face, and Okumura’s literal wolf-growls during their hour-long car rides, Kazuya finds himself laughing too often to dwell on anything but the present.
“You made this itinerary,” Haruichi informs him in the late afternoon of their third day. Kazuya had just been complaining to their car about the soreness in his calves from romping around the city. “Do you even have the right to complain, Miyuki-senpai?”
Haruichi tags on the honorific, but his tone of voice and the steel of his smile remind Kazuya so strikingly of Ryou-san. It brings back an image of the older Kominato, back in his first year at Seido, as he’d lingered in the school cafeteria to enforce the three-bowls-of-rice rule with a devilish grin. He wonders when Ryou-san had become ‘the older Kominato’, in his head, and when Haruichi had become just Haruichi. The past year has gone by so fast.
“There’s a difference,” Kazuya replies to Haruichi, “between creating an itinerary for a vacation, and being coerced into writing the plans for your own demise.”
Haruichi hides his laugh behind a hand, and Kazuya grins. It’s true. Sawamura had spent countless hours sprawled across Kazuya’s dorm room floor, blabbering on about the ten billion different sights he’d wanted to see. For a kid that never completed his homework on time, Sawamura sure could do his research. Kazuya had been just about to inform him of their physical constraints — the 24-hour day, the inability to warp spacetime at will — but he’d taken one look at Kuramochi’s face, reading the excitement hidden behind layers of gruffness, and found himself agreeing to everything.
His calves are cursing him, now. Still, maybe it had been worth it, walking all that way just to see the look on Kuramochi’s face when they’d walked into the Musee Mechanique on Fisherman’s Wharf.
After a dizzying day spent between Fisherman’s Wharf and the hiking trails criss-crossing the Presidio, Kazuya finds himself herding everybody back into their small apartment by 4 in the afternoon. It’s an early end to the day. Tomorrow, they will wake up at the godless hour of 7am to grab breakfast, before catching the Spring Training game between the Giants and the Dodgers. He knows that most of the first years have packed Dodgers’ shirts for the trip, after hearing Sawamura raving about the Giants nonstop for the past month. It’ll be an amusing game through and through.
Maybe it’s good that they’re all retiring early today. Furuya looks dead on his feet, and most of the first-years are yawning into their hands. When he stumbles over the threshold, locking the front door behind him, Kazuya makes a mental note to hide the TV remote so he can wheedle everyone to bed by 10pm at the latest.
Kuramochi follows him into the kitchen. “I’ve never seen you cook before,” he says, sliding onto the countertop by the stove. Opening the fridge, Kazuya selects a plastic box of bok choy and a handful of shiitake mushrooms.
“I cooked for myself at home, for a really long time.” He selects a cutting board, running the knife under hot water before beginning to slice the mushrooms. A flash in his mind: the sound of his father stumbling past the front door late at night, when Kazuya had already tucked himself into bed. He swallows the memory down. “Our first year, I used to sneak into the Seido kitchens after-hours to make omurice.”
“Kyaha! How domestic.” Kuramochi looks too comfortable, perched up on the counter. Kazuya splashes him, and he yelps. “You know, I used to think you were all angsty and mysterious. Turns out you’re just a middle-aged mom raising thirty baseball children.”
Kazuya smirks at him. “Are you relegating yourself to the status of child, Mochi?”
Grimacing, Kuramochi hops off the countertop, selecting another vegetable knife and brandishing it in jest at him. “Use my own words against me again, Miyuki Kazuya, and I swear you’ll never see the light of another day.” He looks so ridiculous with the kitchen knife, his scruffy hair at odd angles, the dim kitchen lighting making him seem like a samurai from a cheesy historical drama. Kazuya has to laugh. Kuramochi’s face splits into a grin, too, and he grabs some of the bok choi to rinse. “So. Feelings about the game tomorrow?”
They work together elbow to elbow. “Looking forward to Sawamura’s face of betrayal when we collectively roll out in Dodger’s gear.” Kazuya laughs, and doesn’t let himself think about the warmth of Kuramochi’s throwing arm, or how Kazuya hasn’t cooked with another person in years.
“You’re so horrible at answering questions.” Kuramochi elbows him, then drips sink water all over the countertop as he transfers the bok choy onto the cutting board. “I’m asking you how you feel about being in Scottsdale Stadium. You know, watching your dream team play a live game and all that shit.”
“I feel…” The irregular beat of the knife, as Kuramochi begins to cut the vegetables, fills the kitchen. I feel small, Kazuya thinks. Like a kid with a crooked baseball cap, and dreams too big to fit inside his catching glove.
“You always short-sell yourself,” Kuramochi says, his eyes on the board as the knife works. “All those international scouts at the Seido practices were there for you, Kazuya. You do realize that, right?”
“Ah.” Kazuya bumps their hips together. “Have I finally earned your acknowledgment, Mochi dearest?”
Kuramochi rolls his eyes. “Quit it with that pucker face. Everybody’s always acknowledged you, since the beginning of time.” Vegetables sliced, he flicks on the stove heat, and throws the mushrooms into the pan once the oil is warmed.
“Not everyone,” Kazuya says quietly. “Not in all the ways that count.” Stubbornly, he doesn’t think about Miyuki Toku’s absence at his graduation, and every one of his games.
Silence, for two beats, before Kuramochi is cupping his cheeks and turning Kazuya to face him. “You’ve always been sort of amazing to me.” He’s far too blunt, and Kazuya feels breathless. Kuramochi’s callouses rub against his skin. “You’ll make it, whatever you want to do. It’s you we’re talking about, after all.”
“You really need to cut your nails,” Kazuya informs him, because he can manage nothing else, before leaning in, and pressing their lips together.
He can hear the murmur of the television in the next room. Sawamura, always Sawamura, is bellowing something. Kazuya will have to shut him up later, before he manages to rouse the neighbors and shatter glass with his voice. Right now, though, he and Kuramochi are all alone in this stolen, imperfect moment. There isn’t enough air in Kazuya’s lungs, but still he tugs on Kuramochi’s shirt, keeping him close, not wanting to break apart. Maybe it’s a little bit selfish, wanting to stop time right here. The stove is still on, and Kazuya doesn’t want to open his eyes.
“Miyuki-senpai,” Furuya asks later, as the team is gathered around the rickety dinner table, “did you burn the mushrooms?”
Kuramochi chokes on rice. Sitting beside him, Maezono thumps him on the back. Sawamura begins to bellow something ridiculous about burnt food causing stomach tumors.
Leaning back in his chair, Kazuya smirks. “You’ll have to blame your vice-captain for that. He was … very distracting.” A wink across the room. An angry-looking blush.
“But I didn’t do anything?” Maezono asks, confused.
“Oh, sorry. I meant the other vice-captain. You know, the one who can actually make contact with a ball when he’s at bat?”
Beneath the table, Maezono and Kuramochi try to stomp on Kazuya’s left foot in unison, and end up stomping on each other instead. Above the table, the team spirals into chaos. Sawamura tries to come to Maezono’s defense, and Okumura drops a cryptic comment about Seto’s superior base-stealing technique, compared to other yet-unnamed upperclassmen. Kazuya leans back with a smile, watching a food fight begin in the twitching of Kuramochi’s fingertips. He lets the noise pour over him, and doesn’t let himself wonder how on earth he’ll find another family like this next year.
***
One week after the Inashiro game, Kuramochi had cornered him inside his own dorm room.
“Stop making that face,” Kuramochi grumbled, swinging the door shut behind him. Kazuya had been about to make some teasing, throwaway comment about hiding jealousy behind barbed insults. But then Kuramochi had clicked the lock into place, and Kazuya’s throat had gone dry.
Okumura and Kimura were still down at the practice field. They were alone in here.
“Mochi?”
“Are you blaming yourself?” Sighing, Kuramochi had dropped his hands from the doorknob, then turned on Kazuya. His brow was furrowed, and there was something strange in his eyes. “You can’t possibly still be blaming yourself for the loss.”
“No.” Kazuya had swallowed, then looked away. Kuramochi made a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. “No, it’s not the game.”
“Then what? You have to tell me things, sometimes, you know? I’m not a mind-reader.”
Kazuya sent up a million prayers to the baseball gods that Kuramochi wouldn’t suddenly develop the ability now. It would probably make things a little inconvenient, if his best friend could tell the amount of fear that suddenly clawed its way up his chest. Or the … inexplicable warmth in his belly, and the way his heart was beating abnormally fast. “I don’t owe you—“
“You can cut the bullshit right now. Something’s clearly bothering you. And if it isn’t my job as your best friend to wheedle it out of you, then the sky isn’t blue and baseballs aren’t round.”
He’d propped his arms onto his hips, and Kazuya gave up any hope of salvaging some emotional distance at the sight of Kuramochi’s sleeves riding up his arms.
“You’re so much faster than me, Mochi.” With a sigh, Kazuya eased himself onto the floor, lying sprawled on his back.
“Huh?” Kuramochi’s mouth twisted in confusion. “I mean … I’m the top of the batting lineup. Of course I — but you — dammit, I can’t call plays, you idiot!” He’d stomped his way closer to Kazuya. Kazuya felt a little like he might vomit his heart out onto Kuramochi’s socks.
“Is that the only word in your vocabulary?” Kazuya closed his eyes. “I wasn’t talking about baseball.”
“Then what—“
“It’s the end for us, isn’t it? We’ll never have another shot at Koshien. I’ll never…” Kazuya curled his fingers into fists, “get to taunt three pitchers at the same time again.”
“Oh my god. You’re the sappiest porcupine on the planet. It’s high school graduation, not the fucking apocalypse.”
Kazuya opened his eyes to arch an eyebrow. “Porcupine?”
“You know. Spiky. Emotionally unavailable.” Kuramochi’s feet were right next to his face, and he nudged Kazuya’s shoulder with his left toes. It shouldn’t have been the least bit attractive. “Oh, what I wouldn’t give for Sawamura to see your melodramatic side right now.”
“I do not have a melodramatic side.”
“Dude, you’re worse than Maezono when he’s reading sports mangas about underdogs who end up making it big. Your wistful face is a million times worse than his full-on ugly cry.”
Suddenly, Kuramochi had collapsed sideways on the floor by Kazuya. He cupped Kazuya’s jaw in his palms, and used his thumbs and index fingers to trace lines around Kazuya’s eyes. “It gets all red over here.”
“Oi! Don’t touch my face—“ Kazuya yelped as Kuramochi’s fingers trailed lower, down to his neck. He’d lifted his shoulders instinctively.
“Kyaha! I didn’t know you were ticklish—“ Somehow, Kuramochi’s hands kept trailing lower, down Kazuya’s arms and sides. And somehow, as Kazuya tried to squirm away, they ended up with Kuramochi sprawled on top of him, legs straddling his hips.
The movement of Kuramochi’s hands trickled off. Kazuya stilled, staring up at his best friend. The ceiling light haloed his scraggly-long hair.
Instinctively, Kazuya pulled him down by the nape of his neck, and met him halfway.
Time didn’t really stop. The ground was still kind of cold under Kazuya’s back, and Kuramochi’s breath tasted like the chicken curry they had for lunch. Still, Kazuya dug his fingers into the mess of hair at Kuramochi’s neck, and didn’t want to let go. It was a strange heady feeling — the rush of adrenaline through Kazuya’s veins, and the way the past and future dropped away, along with all his worries. It was just Kuramochi’s warmth above him, and that rare feeling of invincibility.
***
The day before they leave San Francisco, they make it to a Spring Training game. Kazuya watches his favorite team in the whole world play. It leaves him a little dizzy, like if he lets go he’ll fall off the edge of reality and straight into all his childhood dreams, leaving everyone he knows behind. He’s not sure if it would be a pleasant feeling. He’s not sure if he’d be happy.
True to color, Sawamura’s whole face turns red when the Seido team unzips their windbreakers in unison, revealing a sea of Dodgers shirts. “I, Sawamura Eijun, will not forget this betrayal!!” he bellows, drawing the ire of everybody around them. As Kazuya laughs, Kuramochi threads their fingers together.
“Don’t disappear into Miyuki-land,” he whispers, lifting his free hand to poke at Kazuya’s temple. “We’re all here right now.”
***
Their flight back to Tokyo leaves at 7:15am. Cursing up a storm, Kuramochi and Maezono herd their half-asleep team onto their two rental vans, pushing at people’s backs, grabbing bags and jackets off the floor to toss them into the backseats. Kazuya elects to lean against the dusty passenger side door of one of the vans, watching the chaos unfold. San Francisco is shrouded in a thick fog, this early in the morning, and people’s silhouettes keep vanishing, then reappearing close enough to bump into each other. It’s sort of hilarious to watch.
“When Jun-senpai told us to support you, as our captain,” Maezono growls at him, the dark bags under his eyes making him look gruffer than usual, “this is absolutely not what he had in mind.”
The word captain hits Kazuya like a punch to the chest. He lifts his paper coffee cup up to his lips, hoping that the steam might conspire with the dense ocean fog to hide his expression. Maybe Maezono will think he’s still snickering. “I don’t know about that. Babysitting suits you.” Forcing the ends of his lips to curl upwards, Kazuya lilts all the ends of his words, teasingly. “Maybe he’s been secretly nudging you toward your life’s calling!”
“Bastard,” Maezono mutters under his breath, as he throws two suitcases into the trunk, and Kazuya simply laughs.
Ten minutes later, Maezono’s face is smudged against the window. He’s fast asleep. Next to him, Sawamura’s snoring lightly, his sleep-mumbling buried into the sleeve of Furuya’s windbreaker. He keeps whispering jumbled things about aces and using your hips to bunt, stupid senpai!, and Furuya’s brow furrows in a half-asleep response, even as a cartoonish bubble swells and narrows beneath his nose.
Kazuya steals Kuramochi’s phone to take a picture. Snickering, he emails it to himself.
“You’re only good at technology,” Kuramochi grumbles at him, hands draped around the wheel, “when it becomes useful as a tool for gathering blackmail.”
From the passenger seat, Kazuya grins saccharinely. “Five years into the future, when our sleepy little kouhai become internationally recognized pitchers, we can trade these pictures to the tabloids for a fortune!” He reaches out to bop Kuramochi on the nose. “Don’t come groveling to me for a share of the profits then!”
“Bastard,” Kuramochi snaps his teeth at Kazuya’s finger.
“You love it.”
“I do.” He’s so direct. It winds Kazuya. For a second Kazuya is standing by the loud refrigerator in their too-small rental apartment, again, feeling Kuramochi cupping his face under the blinking kitchen lights, the night dark outside the window. That same tightness is gathering around his windpipe, reminding him of the precarity of this moment. “Kazuya, about last night…” Kuramochi begins.
They take a turn onto the highway, and into what must be a cloud. The fog thickens around their car, until all Kazuya can see is the few meters ahead and to the sides of their van. Occasionally, another car will jump out from the ether to whiz past them, then disappear. In his periphery, Kazuya watches as Kuramochi slows their speed, because it’s impossible to tell which way the road will turn in front of them. He’s grateful that Kuramochi’s driving right now; he’d hate to feel so out of control.
“Which part of last night?” Kazuya asks. “You burning the mushrooms, or you calling me a middle-aged mother?”
“You’re terrible.” Kuramochi’s grinning, though, and despite his penchant for swear words, Kazuya thinks he may just be the most patient person on the planet. He has to be, after dealing with all Kazuya’s hedgehog tendencies these past three years, and deciding he still wants to stick around. The fog curls its fingers tighter around their van.
“Gonna octopus-strangle me, or something?”
“Bet that smug face of yours would look infinitely less attractive in the hold of an actual octopus.” Kuramochi veers the car into a sharp turn, following the road that materializes out from nothing. “You know, after I toss you out the window of our plane into the goddamn Pacific Ocean. I’d be doing all the flight attendants a favor.” Everybody knows Kuramochi is all bluster and no bite. He’s staring at Kazuya with steady eyes, the same way he stares down the opposing team’s second baseman right before he steals. Kazuya’s always admired that about Kuramochi. The fierce honesty in his every expression, and that way he has of barreling so fearlessly toward whatever endpoint he’s set his sights on. It steals the breath from his lungs, so that Kazuya can’t even manage to tease Kuramochi for taking his eyes off the road.
Kazuya isn’t used to being anybody’s endpoint. He isn’t used to being somebody worth a 170 cm, scraggly-haired shortstop’s riskiest plays.
Outside, the fog closes in even more, until little droplets of condensation form on the windows. He doesn’t know how Kuramochi can make out the road at all, right now.
Kuramochi clears his throat. When he speaks again, his voice is a little scratchy, and much more serious. “Kazuya … I know it feels like everything’s still up in the air rights. We’ll both be trying for the draft, in a few months, and … well, I don’t have your knack for stats, or predictions. But I do have a decent ability to read my friends. I know that you’re scared.”
Staring out the window at a whole lot of white nothing, Kazuya swallows. “Scared is an understatement,” he murmurs.
“Think of it like this road, yeah?” To his left, Kuramochi lifts one hand to gesture at the way the fog is eating up their peripheral vision. “It’s scary because we can’t see too far ahead. It feels like we’re about to drive right off a cliff, and into the Pacific Ocean. But I see just enough to know where to turn—“ as if to demonstrate, the highway curves sharply to the right, and Kuramochi turns the wheel one-handed, while Kazuya pretends his heart doesn’t skip a million fucking beats at the stunt, “—and the road is still there, beneath us, leading exactly where we need to go. You’ll be okay, Kazuya. We’ll both be okay.”
His voice peters off, blending into the whir of the car’s heater. The road straightens, and the van rights itself. Swallowing down his too-loud heart, Kazuya thinks about how Kuramochi has always been good at making him feel a little less alone. “We’ll both be okay,” Kazuya echoes.
“Although I might still come over and murder you, if you ever do that hedgehog thing and stop responding to my emails.” Grinning, Kuramochi lifts his right hand to poke Kazuya’s bicep. “No guarantees.”
“I’ve got a barbarian for a best friend.” Kazuya glances into the rearview mirror, checking that their teammates are still asleep. Then, powered by the adrenaline rush of that last sharp turn, he grabs Kuramochi’s index finger, and takes Kuramochi’s throwing hand in his own. “For a … boyfriend,” he says, testing the way the word feels on his tongue.
Power tastes sweet. He watches the tips of Kuramochi’s ears blush red, and satisfaction curls in his gut. “I guess we’re even, since my boyfriend is the world’s biggest asshole.”
“Why, thank you!” Kazuya sing-songs.
“That wasn’t a compliment, you bastard!” Belying the gruffness of his words, Kuramochi squeezes his hand tight, until Kazuya can feel all of the baseball callouses fitting against his own. All through the rest of the drive, as Kuramochi navigates like an expert through the fog, he mumbles a string of half-embarrassed insults under his breath, and never once lets go of Kazuya’s hand.
One hour later, their plane takes off, Tokyo-bound. Headed for home. Kazuya can feel the exact moment the wheels lift off the ground; a rush of gravity pulls him backward into his seat, and his hand tightens around the seat divider. Kuramochi, already poking around at the movie selections on his mini-screen, absentmindedly links his pinky with Kazuya’s. Sitting behind them, kicking at the backs of their seats like a child, Sawamura makes a bright, happy noise.
Later, Kuramochi will cajole him into sharing earphones, lifting the seat divider so that Kazuya can lean toward him, and they can watch cheesy, subtitled American rom-coms together on Kuramochi’s screen. There will be an open packet of salt crackers between them, spilling crumbs everywhere, and Kuramochi will be laughing into his ear (kyahaha!) as Kazuya pokes fun at the blonde and the brunette on screen fighting over some frilly white wedding dress. Later, as the lights in the cabin dim, Kuramochi will spread a single blanket over the both of them, and pillow his head on Kazuya’s shoulder, closing his eyes.
Now, though, it’s enough for Kazuya to watch out the window as the fog parts around the metal plane wings. Eventually the fog cover breaks altogether, and cloudless blue sky burns Kazuya’s eyes. He looks down, taking in the curve of the bay, the way the city pours colorfully around it. We’ll be okay, he thinks, as San Francisco grows small and disappears from view. Kuramochi’s pinky is warm where it links with his own. He reaches out, enveloping Kuramochi’s whole hand with his own. When Kuramochi makes a soft, pleased sound, his heart feels far too big for his body. For once the whole future feels within his grasp, new and miraculous and warm. He looks inside himself, and finds no fear at all.