#distance-----space

A soft breeze cuts through the open diamond, leaving the mound undisturbed as the first batter steps up to plate. He’s tense, and nervous, but not unhappy about it. Youichi doesn’t bother hiding his smile; he knows just what that’s like.

Instead, he braces himself as the pitcher winds up his arm, ready to throw a ball that, for Youichi, never comes.

//

It’s two flights of stairs and a left turn, the bottoms of cardboard boxes slippery from sweat. It’s a close summer this year, the air hot and humid with little to no breeze. It’s a still day, full of stifling heat, and Youichi’s legs ache from the heave, the hauling, and the way his front door needs to be slammed open by the hip, his hands too full to jiggle the doorknob properly.

It’s two flights of stairs and so much furniture. Youichi’s never even given it that much thought before: beds, chairs, tables, the flotsam that happens to fill the space that he’s never really needed. He was fine with bunk beds; he’s fine with what he has now.

“You-ichi, you’re being slow.”

Truth be told, Youichi considers what he’s got now a massive improvement. Ryousuke keeps the only key they have so far, Youichi already resolving to make copies before he ensures that this remains the case.

Damn, if it’s not thrilling to be this way. Ryousuke is cutting open their boxes and sorting the contents, cross-legged on the (their) living room floor in sweats and Youichi’s shirt. “Didn’t you use to be an athlete?” Ryousuke tsks, grinning at the sight Youichi must present.

“Still am,” Youichi grunts, the last of their cardboard boxes finally inside the (their!) new apartment. He kicks the door closed behind him, shoes off at the genkan and a smile already on his face.

//

Youichi tugs the brim of his borrowed (long term, Ryousuke’s insisted) hat over his forehead. It’s already interesting, this first inning. The pitcher paws at the mound and Youichi scowls with him at the batter on the plate, Ryousuke at his side in team colors.

He hipchecks him, tracking the way Youichi’s eyes follow the outfield. “Stressed?”

“Excited,” Youichi replies, and that’s always true. “First game of the season, Ryou-san.”

The nickname rolls off his tongue with the weight of habit. People are settling into their seats, some with drinks and some with food, but Youichi is only ever watchful of the game, and his partner. “They’re still the clear favorites,” Ryousuke says, eyes on the batter as he makes a dive for first base. “Last season wasn’t good, but they’ve changed the lineup and added some interesting faces.”

Youichi nods. Batter two misses the ball. “The intrasquad was worth it, huh?”

It had meant so much for Ryousuke to see it, the exhibition game where the Swallows played themselves for no points. It was for the love of baseball, and the love of the person sitting beside him, that Youichi had gone.

Ryousuke had always been in love, somehow, with the Tokyo Swallows. He had been born into it, and was raised with it in him; Youichi used to envy that, the sheer skill and talent it had borne out as Ryousuke grew from a talented player to a genuine phenom. He walked with no falter and ran with no fear.

Youichi only supposes that, not for the last time, he was one lucky bastard for running just the same way.

//

It is nothing but chicken breasts, protein shakes, and egg whites in the fridge. Electrolyte powder little satchets fill up the vegetable crisper, and Youichi is hungry, goddamn it.

They’d taken one look at the unappetizing fridge and gone out. Groceries, or whatever, were another thing Youichi hadn’t thought about; he’d just assumed he’d eat at the college canteen, like every other student. Not out of fondness for the food, but the necessity, he’d insisted, but Ryousuke had a whole year on him of eating canteen food.

Now, Youichi pushes a shopping cart before him while he frowns at the little towers of vegetables. “I didn’t know you could cook, Ryou-san.”

Ryousuke looks up as he pauses weighing vegetables in his hands, tomatoes in a terrifying, sickly yellow sitting in each palm. “I thought I told you,” he starts, and edge of his smile is almost too-sharp, covering the edge of his voice. “I can’t.”

//

The second the Swallows are up for bat, Ryousuke sits up a little straighter.

Only a few years ago, Youichi has no doubt, Ryou-san might have wished to be there among them. He would have blazed through their ranks, maybe been the shooting star that pro baseball always craved to see. He had the kind of guts to make it in the professional scene, if only by determination alone. But Youichi’s also seen him strategize, and seen him play; even on his bad days, Ryousuke was an inspired player.

(but it had come, the check. the bill always came at the end: a sprain, a torn muscle, a daring play gone horribly wrong. it was a high-stakes form of roulette, never knowing where the end might come for any of them. whole groves of aspiring hopefuls were always cut down, year after year, and youichi had wished, at the time, for nothing more than to be the one under the axe.)

“They’ll run for it,” Ryousuke murmurs, just loudly enough for Youichi to hear him.

“And make it,” Youichi answers, both their gazes are fixed on the only beacon they’d ever been trained to see: the home plate, and the safety just beyond.

//

College ball is nothing like high school.

If Youichi had thought Seidou was intense, including his time as vice captain and his tenure as a first-stringer, he’d been mistaken. Coach Kataoka, for all his effort, had clearly been kind to them, retrospectively speaking.

In college, it’s all different. Ryou-san is different. Ryou-san is so smart and his textbooks clutter their rooms, and Youichi loves this, loves every bit of it as he bites a little into Ryousuke’s skin, kisses the mark he’s left.

Even at home, Youichi can feel himself changing in response to Ryou-san’s unspoken challenge, and they run together around the block, still side by side, on a silent four-count to the dawn. He can see now what people might mean about it, how innocent he’d been in high school. How it had been about Koushien and nothing more, about getting there and basking in glory at journey’s end.

Now, there’s more to it. Youichi is being scouted; everyone is, but the weight of the agents’ eyes are different from Takashima’s. They’re still calculating, but less kind. Youichi can feel himself being measured by grams-per-yen, by championship titles. It’s a career staring him in the face, if he’s lucky (and Youichi hopes he’s lucky), and it makes him play better, sharper. He runs faster, his body fully grown, and Youichi revels in the physical mastery of it all, calls every play and runs faster than the wind. For the first time in his life, he can see the end: a life beyond the sport and the regimented life of an athlete. A life without Ryousuke and his ceaseless drive, and perfect talent.

But he’s always done his best knowing the full stakes of the game. Youichi’s never run scared in his life, and he won’t start now.

//

By the third inning, Ryousuke’s eyes are inscrutable. The game announcer’s voice blares differently in Youichi’s ears when off the field, his has had a great season so far, batting a .031 average sounding more like pressure and less like praise. Someow, these little moments, between plays when the pitcher winds up, ready to throw, can still catch Youichi’s breath.

Slowly but surely, the Swallows make for their first home run. Ryousuke’s posture is tense, a tight frown pulling across his mouth. A small, slight movement makes Youichi look down: Ryousuke’s pinky finger latches onto his, out of sight but not out of mind.

“They’ll be fine,” Ryousuke finally says, and Youichi knows he means it for them, too.

//

It has always been this way: Ryousuke starts it, and sometimes finishes it, but never without Youichi. In Ryousuke’s final season of college baseball, something had gone wrong: he’d pushed his body to the final limit, and paid the price.

“Move.”

It’s funny, how some things bring Youichi back. But he can’t afford to remember what it used to be like, not when Ryou-san is spitting mad and about to tear apart in the seams, all that perfect self-control Youichi knows so well shredded from strain. “Move,” Ryou-san repeats, voice growing vehement, and Youichi does, but not the way he’s sure Ryou-san would like.

They’ve never liked the smell of hospital antiseptic. It’s too harsh, and the room is too white, too starchly bright. Ryou-san shouldn’t even be up, not after tearing his ACL, and Youichi knows Ryou-san’s determined face when he sees it.

“Sorry, Ryou-san,” he hears himself say, and he doesn’t dare touch him. Not now, when Ryou-san is radioactive and angry. “Doctor’s orders.”

//

The fourth inning sees a rapid-fire squeeze play and finally, a home run for the Swallows. The crowd goes wild, roaring its praise while Ryousuke smiles, satisfied. This is the advantage the first team to score always keeps: the push and pull of the game is on their side. Youichi’s been buoyed by it before, and with that same courage, he frees his pinky from Ryousuke’s, and grabs his hand.

“Youichi?” Ryousuke tilts his head, small frown pulling at his mouth.

“Just ‘cause,” Youichi replies, answering the unspoken question, and presses a small, quick kiss to the back of Ryousuke’s hand. “Felt like it, I guess.”

//

Recovery is a long and painful road. The doctors are hopeful about Ryou-san’s future, his ACL surgery passing by without complications. Ryou-san reports to physical therapy every day, still runs around the block at dawn, Youichi by his side.

On the surface, at least, things appear better. Ryou-san’s leg seems better, and he is running a little like he used to.

Well, Ryou-san’s leg is healing, but Ryou-san is not. Ryousuke and Youichi barely speak to each other, except in moments when it all seems perfect, smooth as glass and just as fragile. Ryousuke laughs with a sharpness under the usual bite, an anger that still brews in him that Youichi can’t get him to release.

“Go to practice, Youichi,” Ryousuke tells him, stretching into his physical therapy exercises on the floor.

And Youichi does. Baseball was always fun, and the exhilaration still gets to his head, but he can’t stop thinking about the rest: how Ryou-san had looked, forlorn and small, for the first time in Youichi’s life, to his eyes.

Now, when Ryou-san runs, he runs as fast as before. But, or so he claims, it’s just not the same.

//

At the halfway mark, the wind changes. Youichi and Ryousuke can both feel it, from the energy of the crowd and the way the Swallows move on the field with newfound urgency.

Athletes always were superstitious people: it was the way someone tied their laces, or the sequence of foods eaten at breakfast, or a particular helmet or a lucky pair of socks that helped them be that little bit more. Youichi wonders what they have down there, the players on the diamond, holy water showers or just the devil’s luck. Youichi had always preferred a kiss, a good luck charm that promised so much at the end, and Ryousuke had always been fair about it.

“Foul,” Ryousuke murmurs under his breath just as the batter swings. The umpire agrees with him.

“You feel it, huh?”

“Yes.” Ryousuke’s eyes concentrate on the form of the batter, Swallows colors bright against the diamond green. “The wind’s changing for the better.”

//

Ryousuke never plays another game. It rots at Youichi on the inside, the rage, the pain, the what could have been. He doesn’t dare say anything at all, not even when Ryousuke spends some nights perfectly still, staring into what his future used to be. Youichi does what he can to bring him back, down to earth, and he is desperate to make sure Ryousuke doesn’t slip away from him. Not like this.

(on other nights and early mornings, ryousuke is so angry he bites his silence into youichi’s skin. ryousuke pulls at youichi’s hair and scrapes his teeth against his throat, as if he could make youichi bleed for the trouble. ryousuke makes soft whines at the back of his throat, impatient and hard-edged, and youichi meets him halfway there, just as he always does.

neither of them talk about the bruises they leave on each other when the day dawns. the grit of youichi’s regret, full of words he’s not sure how to say, fill the pit of his stomach.)

//

Youichi buys Ryousuke and himself a drink each from one of the vendors moving up and down the bleachers. Soda was a rare luxury back when they were both kids, but now it’s just a nice treat. Youichi hands Ryousuke’s over with a broad grin.

“Thanks.” Ryousuke snaps open the tab of his soda and raises it in mock salute. “Too bad it’s not beer.”

“You think we’ll need it?” Youichi clanks his can against Ryousuke’s, and they both take a drink as the Swallows make for another run to home plate.

“No,” Ryousuke answers, and the giddiness rising up in Youichi’s chest is more than soda. “I don’t think we do.”

//

A minor league team signs Youichi on after he graduates. He doesn’t tell Ryousuke, but when he comes home Ryousuke already knows, told the news by their former teammates.

“Congratulations, Youichi,” Ryousuke says, pressing a welcoming kiss to Youichi’s cheek. “You did it.”

“Uh, Ryou-san,” Youichi starts, and he’s not sure why Ryousuke is coping with this, how he’s not screaming with the hand he’s been dealt.

“Ryousuke,” he corrects, and the kiss is on Youichi’s lips this time, insistent. “After all this time,” Ryousuke mouths, voice low and serious, “Don’t you consider us equals?”

//

“Hey.” The Swallows are tied by the eight inning, and this is it: all or nothing, victory or loss. Baseball has always been black and white, attack or defense, to Youichi. “What do you think will happen?”

Ryousuke tightens his grip on Youichi’s hand, squeezing fondly. “Whatever it is,” he replies, eyes on the field, “I’ve made my peace with it.”

//

Disaster strikes after Youichi’s first year in the minor leagues.

“I got lucky with you,” Youichi blurts out. At four in the morning, the ache in his back so deep it burns at his spine, Youichi can focus on nothing and no one.

Ryousuke’s hand is cool against his cheek. “Youichi,” the sound of his own name strange to his ears, coming from that mouth. His ruined focus still zeroes in on the voice, and Ryousuke is tugging up the hem of his shirt with an efficiency that, maybe just days ago, might have burned at Youichi in a different way.

The gel is so cool on his skin, the sharp smell of menthol searing into his nose. It hurts, it hurts like hell, but this is the way the bill is always paid.

Youichi has seen so many people go under the scythe this way. Players that never deserved it, players who had overdrawn their luck, or tempted fate, or just been too inexperienced. Youichi is none of those things, and the sharp, gritty rust in his spine is so heavy and unfair.

“Don’t ever let me hear you say that again,” Ryousuke says, pressing his lips against the back of Youichi’s neck. He’s sinking, back into bed, into the brokenness of his body. At six in the morning, or eight at night, or the black midnight sweeping itself into Youichi’s eyes, Ryousuke’s voice is so soft, so faraway. They were burned by the same fire now, and Youichi can feel again Ryousuke’s hands, massaging into his back, the pain beaten back by exhaustion.

“Youichi,” and he struggles to reply, Ryousuke’s body a warm, reassuring presence. “We never left anything to chance.”

//

They might have run too fast. Youichi might have played too rough, reckless in his pursuit of each base, each ball thrown his way, and Ryousuke might have overreached in his ambition. They’ll never know.

The Swallows wave at their adoring crowd, and Ryousuke claps for them, scoreboard and dusty grass the only evidence of their hard day’s work. Youichi claps and cheers a moment later, tearing himself out of the memory of Ryousuke’s bitter smile and the fire in his spine.

“Good game?” Youichi asks, still clapping for their team. Ryousuke quirks a brow, and Youichi amends, “Good birthday game?”

“Well, considering they won,” Ryousuke laughs. The sound is bright and clear, and Youichi savors it, grinning wide in reply. “Thanks for the tickets.”

“Happy birthday, Ryousuke,” and the name is still a delight to say, Ryousuke coloring faintly around his ears at the sound.

“Come on, Youichi.” Ryousuke pulls the brim of his loaned baseball cap over Youichi’s eyes and takes his hand, laughing while Youichi tries to put it back to rights. But he’s laughing too, Youichi glad to be watching a game with Ryousuke after all, after all these years. “Let’s go home.”

She’s petite, wearing an enigmatic smile and an employee’s apron. She’s a lot of everything Yoi-chan likes, but the shock of pastel pink hair crowning her head catches Yoi-chan’s attention and keeps it. “Yes?” she inquires, her voice softly cutting through the shop’s silence. 

“Uh,” Yoi-chan mumbles, forgetting herself. Eijun wags his tail, nosing at the hand holding his leash. “Oh. Yeah. My dog.”

“You brought in your dog?” She sweeps her way around Yoi-chan and behind the counter, ushering the small cat under the register. “Tanba, stay still.”

“I am,” Yoi-chan murmurs immediately, and blushes.

“Since this is clearly your first time here,” she says, tapping a slender finger on the countertop, “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”

“You let all your pets roam free around here?” Yoi-chan can’t help it; she was always raised with a smart mouth. Fortunately, it earns her a bigger, if not sharper, knifelike smile from the girl. Yoi-chan wonders what her laugh sounds like. 

“No,” she replies. “I keep my pets on a tight leash.”

Yoi-chan wants to know if she’s as red as she feels. Eijun, apparently tired of being ignored, barks. “My pet, uh, my dog. He’s kind of sick.”

“Let me see him.” The girl abandons the counter and makes for Eijun, tucking the edge of her apron underneath her as she sits down on the shop floor. “You’re sick?” she frowns, and it takes Yoi-chan a brief moment to remember that she’s talking to Eijun, not her. Although she’d like for that to happen. 

“How’s he been eating?” Eijun makes the biggest, saddest eyes at her when she scruffs his head.

“Uh, regularly. Like, I feed him at normal times, four times a day, but he’s been sick afterward. I took him to the vet’s, and I was told I could buy some kind of special food here…?” Yoi-chan lets the question trickle out of her, realizing that she’s not being heard at all. The girl is laughing while she plays with Eijun’s ears, and only pauses when Yoi-chan stops talking. 

“Special food is in aisle two,” she says, and resumes playing with (or torturing, Yoi-chan’s not sure) Eijun. For what it’s worth, Eijun doesn’t look like he’s complaining. “Unsupervised pets should stay at the counter.”

“He’s not unsupervised,” Yoi-chan points out. “He’s with me.”

The girl smiles sweetly, and nods toward aisle two. “His owner is busy.” Still, she goes, and she can overhear the girl talking to Eijun. Yoi-chan’s got to admit, Eijun’s cute in a big-eyed, dumb way, but the girl speaks to him like he’s another person, instead of the usual high-pitched voice people adopt when they see him. “Your owner’s been feeding you crap, huh? Terrible. She’ll get you the good stuff, and then you’ll have to come back and thank Ryo-chan for her trouble.” Yoi-chan takes a long time to “find” the specific brand Eijun’s vet recommended, and walks back slowly to the counter. 

“Ryo-chan is about to steal my dog, and that’s real trouble.” Yoi-chan plunks the bagged puppy chow on the counter, and Eijun looks reluctant to move. 

The girl, Ryo-chan (which is such a cute name, for a cute girl) shrugs. “My store, my rules. And your dog’s easy.”

“He’s not,” Yoi-chan grumbles, but she can’t help but be good-natured about it. “Yeah. Well. Just a little.”

Ryo-chan brushes off the dog hair on her apron, and goes to cash Yoi-chan’s puppy chow out. “That’s four thousand eighty-four yen.”

“Jesus,” Yoi-chan whistles, but what’s she gonna do but feed her dog. She hands over the requisite change, and her fingertips brush over the Ryo-chan’s open palm in the exchange. She has nice hands. 

“Come again,” Ryo-chan smiles, closing the cash drawer and printing Yoi-chan’s receipt. 

Yoi-chan pockets the tiny sheet without even looking at it, and takes up Eijun’s leash again. “You know what,” she says, and takes a gamble. “I just might.” She offers the girl a crooked grin, and hopes for the best. “I’ll see you around?”

Mid-way through bagging the dog food, the girl laughs in her face, and if it weren’t so cute, Yoi-chan would be offended. “Lame,” she snickers, and that’s it, Yoi-chan’s a goner. Still, she clears up her laughter, a little color in her cheeks herself when she replies, “Yeah.” 

“‘Scuse me?”

“Yeah, you’ll see me around.” She hands back Eijun’s food, but Yoi-chan’s not sure what’s in the bag anymore. The pet shop is quiet, just Ryo-chan’s engimatic, cheerful face and Yoi-chan breathing, wondering if this was what it was like to meet someone and fall in (headfirst, terminal velocity, rocketing toward) love. Ryo-chan’s smile lingers with her, Yoi-chan lost in a daze of soft pink. Still with her head in the pastel clouds, she leads Eijun out of the store, Eijun understandably and demonstrably unwilling to leave the shop and the pretty girl.