#condofixed

1.

Sometimes Kazuya would close his eyes and he would see a hot summer day and Eijun staring back at him from the pitcher’s mound.

Kazuya’s eleven years old and he knew almost nothing of the world. But he could’ve sworn the sight of Eijun with his leg raised up high was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever see.

-

2.

Kazuya had a blanket pulled over his head and his face was buried against a pillow when his phone vibrated once, then twice.

That was his alert for text messages.

He groped for his mobile, flipped it open, and blearily stared at the screen. 

He had to read the text thrice before he could make sense out of it.

-

3.

It’s a message from an unknown number, composed of a mere four words: Eijun’s going to Seidou.

-

4.

The first time Kazuya met Eijun, he’s innocently standing by the coach’s box when something hit him hard from the side.

The next thing he knew he was lying on the ground, groping for his glasses.

“I’m so sorry!”

Then there were hands on his elbows, pulling him up, clumsily brushing the dirt off of his clothes. 

He blinked.

It was a bit blurry but he could see the sheepish grin directed at him. 

“I’m really sorry! I didn’t mean—!”

“Sawamura!” The assistant coach roared out. Kobayashi-san had a grandfatherly air about him and gentle, calloused hands. Before this day, Kazuya had never heard him raise his voice. “Get back here!”

“Ack! Sorry! I have to go! Here!”

His glasses were unceremoniously placed in his hands.

And Kazuya could do nothing but watch the boy run away, kicking up a cloud of dust in his wake.

-

5.

Kazuya knew staying up late to watch all those videos was a bad idea. But he only really started regretting his decision a few hours later. He’s thirty minutes late to morning practice and the threat of running god knew how many extra laps was starting to become a very real possibility. 

He was on all fours trying to quietly crawl his way into the line when his head bumped against something hard—something human.

“Ouch!” He rubbed tenderly at his forehead.

And when he looked up, a face he hadn’t seen in years was staring back at him.

-

6.

He supposed a minor degree of pain was characteristic of his each and every meeting with Eijun.

-

7. 

“I can’t believe you’re late on your first day,” Kazuya said with a shake of his head.

But maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised. Eijun was taller, older, the planes of his cheeks sharper, but his eyes were just as wide as he remembered and he could easily detect the shadow of a mischievous smile in the curve of his lips. 

“AH! MIYUKI KAZU—!” 

Kazuya had to immediately clamp a hand over his mouth. 

He was also as loud as he remembered.

“Don’t scream like that you idiot!” he hissed.

Eijun pried his fingers away. “Sorry! Sorry! I just didn’t think I’d meet you again like this!”

He had so many things he wanted to ask and so many things he wanted to say. But these weren’t meant to be discussed when one was huddled behind a shed with a fearsome coach waiting on the other side of it. 

So instead he settled for, “Didn’t you say you were going to Inashiro?”

Eijun crossed his arms in front of him. “I said no such thing!”

“Ah really?” Kazuya propped his chin on his hand, trying to hide an amused smirk behind his fingers. “I could’ve sworn you said—”

“—Did not! Never! I’ve never said anything like that!”

-

8.

Kazuya was leaning against a chain-link fence with his legs folded beneath him when Eijun said, “Takashima-san was the one who scouted me.”

He was supposed to be checking his form but his gaze was focused on his hands. He picked at the label of his sports drink, trying to rip it off. From the corner of his eye he could see Eijun adjust his footing. 

“Yeah, she did mention that,” Kazuya answered distractedly.

Eijun took a practice swing, then another. “I turned her down at first! Did she tell you that? I thought it was a joke or something.”

Kazuya tightened his grip around his drink, the plastic giving under the pressure he exerted.

“But I was really glad! I’m really glad she scouted me.”

Eijun rolled his left shoulder and swung his bat thrice in succession. 

“I didn’t think anyone wanted me anymore.”

-

9.

Kazuya felt the slightest bit guilty when the coach told Eijun to run for the rest of afternoon practice. 

Luckily for him, his guilt was quickly replaced by something else. 

“WAIT!” screamed Eijun at the coach’s retreating back.

Memories were such unreliable things—especially the fond ones—because how the hell could have he forgotten the most important detail?

Eijun’s chin was raised and his shoulders thrown back when he declared, “I can’t end it like this! Because I’m going to be this team’s cleanup hitter!”

Kazuya suppressed the urge to drop to his knees and bury his face in his hands.

He honestly couldn’t believe that he’d forgotten the fact that Sawamura Eijun was a walking, talking human disaster.

-

10.

A name flashed through the screen of his phone and he automatically pressed the receive button. 

He’d been expecting (dreading) this call for days. 

“Kazuya-kun?” There was nothing but a soft, lilting voice in the other end of the line. But that voice brought with it the image of large, brown eyes that always trailed after Eijun, a throwing arm that rivalled guys twice her size and small hands that expertly split ice popsicles. 

“Wakana-chan,” he greeted.

“How’s Eijun-kun?”

Kazuya had to shake his head at her constancy. “He’s doing fine.” Teasingly he continued, “Aren’t you going to ask about me?”

The Wakana he remembered always had a witty comeback ready for him. This Wakana—the one that’s merely voice and static, the one that he hadn’t seen for years—only had worried sighs and tragedies to recount.

-

11.

Kazuya watched Eijun finish another lap.

Thirty seven, he counted silently. 

The sun was going to come down soon enough but Eijun didn’t show any signs of stopping.

-

12.

“You weren’t there,” Wakana says softly, evenly.  

It’s not an accusation. Merely facts stated as truth. 

“He tried pitching even after the pain made him keel over. Coach had to drag him away from the mound.”

Kazuya’s grip tightened around his mobile. A dozen words flashed through his mind. A majority of them were unprintable. 

There’s a long-suffering sigh on the other end of the line. “Did you know? He started running again before he even had his cast removed. His grandpa almost had a heart attack when he found out.”

They both laughed humorlessly at that. Only Eijun could’ve possibly been stupid enough to even attempt that feat.

“So can you watch over Eijun while he’s there? Can you please do that, Kazuya-kun?”

-

13.

Kazuya had only heard Wakana plead once. 

That was when she asked permission to leave practice early because her cat died. 

He remembered that day clearly because Eijun started crying when she broke the news to him and he had to rub at the space between his shoulders to console him.

-

14.

Kazuya honestly didn’t know how he was supposed to start. Every morning he woke up telling himself that today was the day. He was going to finally have a proper conversation with Eijun.

And every evening he went to bed telling himself that he was going to do it tomorrow. 

He agonized over this dilemma for about a week until Eijun knocked on his door one evening, a bat slung over his right shoulder.

His grin was wide, but its corners were strained, when he said, “Hey! Wanna help me with my batting practice?”

-

15.

Eijun crowded him. There was more than enough space on the bench but he chose to sit right next to him. He was close enough that he could smell the scent of sweat against his skin. He could feel the warmth he was emitting and he could count every inhale and exhale. 

Eijun had his gaze directed at the stars when he said, “Cracks in the basement of the supri—suprapa… No!”

He furrowed his brows in concentration.

“Su. Pra. Spi. Na. Tus! It’s supraspinatus! Anyway they say there was a crack on that tendon and that there were abnormalities in the e-pi-phy-sis of the humeral bone.”

Kazuya swallowed the lump in his throat. 

It’s a struggle but he managed to keep his tone light, “Don’t use complicated words. You might strain your brain! Do you even know what that means?”

He was expecting an offended shout and hands around the collar of his shirt in return for that.

Instead, Eijun’s tone was low and soft, his lips curled into a worn smile, when he replied, “It means I can’t pitch anymore.”

-

16.

“Here.”

Eijun blinked at the gloves he held towards him.

“What’s that?”

Kazuya snorted. “They’re batting gloves.” He added as an afterthought: “Idiot.”

Eijun fumed. “I knew that! Why are you giving them to me?!”

Kazuya took his wrist and pressed the gloves against his open palm.

“Because you’re going to need it.”

-

17.

Kazuya narrowed his eyes at the jagged red line that sat on the skin between Eijun’s elbow and wrist. “What’s that?”

“I dived after the ball during fielding practice earlier,” he said around a mouthful of rice.

“Dumbass,” Kazuya sighed out. “Just how clumsy are you?”

Eijun huffed. “I’m not clumsy!” He stretched out his arm in front of him, showing off the wound. “And this would turn into something cool like a battle scar! A battle scar!”

-

18.

He remembered that Eijun always had dirt under his fingernails and scratches all over his legs and his knees. He frequently tripped over his untied shoelaces and there was even that one time when he ran headfirst into a glass door. He needed stitches in his forehead and he cried uncontrollably for hours.

He fell over and over again.

-

19.

But he also stood back up, over and over again.

-

20. 

Kazuya was used to having several feet between him and Eijun. So he found the few inches that separated the batter’s box and the catcher’s box uncomfortably close.

Eijun quickly threw him a backward glance. “It feels really good to have you look up at me! I could get the hang of this!”

For a moment he forgot that the coach was standing behind him as the umpire. There was unbridled fondness in his tone when he said, “I can’t actually see your face though, stupid.”

-

21.

Kazuya was sixteen years old and he still knew almost nothing of the world. 

There was nothing especially smooth or graceful about Eijun’s batting. Hell, half the time he simply hacked at the ball.

But he could’ve sworn the sight of Eijun with a bat between his hands—the pure desire in every swing, the poetry in his follow through—was one of the most beautiful things he’d ever see.

-

22.

The ball arced through the air.

Kazuya followed its trajectory with wide eyes beneath his catcher’s mask

It’s a beautiful summer afternoon and the sky was a brilliant shade of blue. 

And for a moment, the ball blended into the white, swirling clouds before making its descent. 

-

23.

Eijun was ten years old and absolutely hopeless.

“I don’t understand, how can you not hit the ball?” taunted Kazuya.

A batting cage separated them but he could clearly make out the frustration on Eijun’s face.

“One day,” he promised, eyes narrowed and fixed on the pitching machine. “One day, I’m gonna hit a home run and you’re going to regret it!”

Kazuya laughed. “I’ll look forward to that then. But in the meantime why don’t you just bunt for all your at bats?”

-

24.

Eijun dropped his bat and ran.

His laughter rang throughout the field. 

He was running so fast that his helmet had flown off before he reached first base.

He was still laughing when he rounded second base. 

His cleats hit third base hard and it made a joyous sound.

Then he’s finally heading towards the home plate—towards him.

He had too much energy, too much speed, and too much momentum. If he kept it up he would’ve ran straight to the dugout. Eijun had to do an awkward bunny hop to decelerate. 

He set both feet on home plate and he spread his arms wide open. 

The smile that he flashed at Kazuya was all teeth and way too bright.

-

25.

“I told you I’d do it someday!”

Kazuya shook his head. There were tears at the corner of his eyes and his jaw and cheeks ached from laughing too much.

Eijun pressed his fist right at the center of his chest.

“That was amazing, wasn’t it?!”

Their grins were matching, identical, when Kazuya wrapped his fingers around his wrist. 

“It was.”

-

Note: This was loosely based on Shinyaku “Kyojin no Hoshi” Hanagata. It’s one of the most memorable baseball manga for me even though there are only like a dozen chapters translated.