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His name was Yūki Tetsuya.
Yūki, written with the characters for 'tie' and 'fortress' and Tetsuya, written with 'clarity' and 'nari (to be)'.
His father once called Tetsu his "little iron man" because 'tetsu' could also be read as 'iron.' His mother made a groaning sound and told his father that he was terrible at making jokes, but Tetsu didn't get it. He thought it was brilliant. He wished he was made of iron. If he was made of iron, he'd be practically indestructible, and then he could do all sorts of exciting things, like entering the rumored haunted storage building at the back of his school. This was, of course, before he decided that he wanted to play baseball.
Ten years later, he was made the captain of Seidō's baseball team.
結 (yū) – "tie, connection"
The captain is the string that connects the entire team to one other.
Before he knew it, somehow, Tetsu had come to lead the rest of his yearmates on their runs around the field. It had become a pattern that they all settled into as easily and naturally as breathing. Tetsu ran at the head in his punishing but steady pace, and the rest ran in place behind him as if he were pulling them along.
When he became the captain, nothing much changed except that instead of just his yearmates, the entire first string ran behind him.
At the beginning of his third year, the new first years joined the team. Some were quiet, some were loud; some were skillfully-cut gems, some were diamonds in the rough; some quit after a few days of training camp, and others persisted. It was the same as always.
There was one first-year, however, who woke up before anyone else and ran around the field with a tire tied around his waist. Tetsu expected the boy to give up after a few days, but weeks later, he was still running, the tire forlornly flopping up and down in the air behind him. In fact, several others sometimes joined him on his runs, and at the sight, Tetsu couldn't help but be reminded of his own first year.
城 (ki) – "fortress"
The captain is the foundation that keeps the fortress standing.
Tetsu had started playing shogi just before joining Seidō. His grandfather had taught him the basic rules and gameplay, and gifting him a set, told him that he showed promise. Tetsu decided there and then that he would become a great player, and started playing whenever he could find the time. After all, practice made perfect.
He usually played against Miyuki, who was the best shogi player in the team, but he found a new opponent in the first-year who ran around the field. His name was Sawamura Eijun.
Tetsu quickly found out that, like him, Sawamura liked to set up a fortress as his defensive castle formation. Miyuki was the kind of player who liked to experiment with opening moves and defensive strategies, so his castles were always changing, but Sawamura – for all his unorthodox pitching abilities – was a solid, classic player. It was a comforting change in pace from the erratic way Miyuki played, which often led to his contemplating the moves for minutes on end, dragging out the game.
(He still usually lost against Sawamura too, however.)
哲 (tetsu) – "clarity, wisdom"
The captain must never waver.
Whenever Tetsu stepped up to the plate to bat, he entered an almost trance-like state of clarity in which everything but his bat and the ball disappeared. The pitcher was something that simply released the ball; the ball had a life of its own and it shot toward him like a white blur in the darkness. He himself was irrelevant. It was his bat that moved forward and met the ball.
Doing this had landed him in the position as cleanup for the Seidō batting lineup, but it was simply the way he batted.
Tetsu didn't understand how others couldn't simply see the ball as he did, but there were many things he didn't understand. For one, he didn't understand why leaves changed color and fell off in the fall, but that was probably because he'd slept with his eyes open through his biology class. He also didn't understand why the coach wanted so many pitchers on the first string, but he trusted that the coach had a plan for the upcoming summer tournament.
There were many more things Tetsu didn't understand, but one thing he did truly and well understand was to never show it on on his face. If he did show it on his face, he became someone – someone beside the bat and the ball – and then everything would fall apart.
Whatever vague thoughts he may have been entertaining about the parallels between himself and Sawamura were immediately quashed when he first saw the first-year's batting.
"Aghh! So that was his curveball!" Sawamura roared, stomping away from the base.
"That was a fastball…" said someone, sweating. The rest of the team shook their heads in exasperation, but there were a few grins lingering here and there, replacing the high-strung tension in the dugout with growing excitement instead.
That was another thing Tetsu didn't quite understand.
How did someone like Sawamura, who openly showed all of his emotions on his face and wore his heart on his sleeve, strengthen the team like this?
也 (ya) – "to be ( nari )"
The captain must always be the captain.
It had gotten dark out, and the lights around the field had been turned on. The repeated clanging of the coach's metal bat against the baseballs filled the air. Even as sweat poured off of him, the summer night air felt bitingly cold on his skin.
"What's wrong?" Coach Kataoka's gaze seared into Tetsu's. "Can't get up, Yūki?"
"You just need to lead with your plays."
Clenching his fist against the hard ground, Tetsu fought against the screaming ache in his muscles and the lightheaded dizziness.
"One more..." he bit out as he struggled to his feet. He raised his fist toward his chest, breathing hard, his heart pounding and protesting so furiously against it that he thought it might explode if he moved the wrong way. "One more, please…Coach."
Ryōsuke and Toru followed, and a few seconds later, he heard Jun's familiar roar.
"Alright, last one! Don't lose focus until the very end!"
"Yes sir!"
As they stumbled to field the last round of balls, Tetsu thought – though his vision was growing blurry – that he could see the first-years staring at them with awed expressions. One of them looked particularly reverent, with widened, glowing eyes.
I know that look. Who among the first-years looks like that?, Tetsu wondered almost deliriously to himself, but it was all he could do to stay on his feet. Falling was not an option.
鉄 (tetsu) – "iron"
The captain is iron.
The chemistry teacher was droning at the front of the class, pointing with a long stick at specific elements on the periodic table of elements.
Jun had long since stopped even pretending to be paying attention, and he snored willfully away on his desk. Ryōsuke had his textbook open, and was apparently listening with a small smile on his face – but as his eyes almost always appeared to be permanently closed, it was a hard call to make.
Tetsu tried not to sleep in class, but even he couldn't survive this particular unit on – he rechecked the blackboard – 'the physical properties of elements.' He had been drifting in and out of sleep, when he thought he heard his name being called. His eyes flew open – but it turned out that the teacher had just started talking about the transition metals.
"Iron, symbol Fe, is atomic number 26. It is by mass the most common element on Earth, and the fourth most common element in its crust. Pure iron is soft, but is significantly hardened and strengthened by impurities, in particular carbon…"
Tetsu dozed off again, and by the time he woke up, the teacher had moved on to the noble gases.
After practice that day, Tetsu was heading back from the batting cage when he saw three figures talking nearby the bullpen.
"Make sure you don't mess around after dinner," said Miyuki in a warning voice. "Get enough sleep for tomorrow's game." Furuya, with his usual poker-face, turned his back to the catcher. "Hey now, don't ignore me!"
"What about me?" Sawamura piped up, pointing eagerly at himself. "Should I get lots of sleep tonight too?"
"Why would you need to?" Miyuki turned to Sawamura with a smirk.
For some reason, Tetsu's legs had stopped moving. His breathing had slowed down from his long practice in the batting cage, and he was already starting to feel some of the energy returning to body, but for some reason, his legs had stopped listening to him. As he waited for his legs to stop rebelling, he pretended to wipe some sweat off of his face with a towel.
To his consternation, he was noticed. There was a rattling metallic sound as Sawamura bounded to the fence and shook it.
"Captain!" said Sawamura. "That ball you hit over the fence earlier today almost hit me on the head!"
"Did it?" Tetsu couldn't remember which one he meant. "How's your pitching coming along?"
At that, Sawamura looked taken aback, and Tetsu had to wonder how little the first-year must have been asked that question to warrant such a reaction. Slowly, Sawamura gave him a small, almost shy smile.
"Great. Well, it could be better, but I'm working hard to get the boss to notice me!"
"You mean the coach, not the boss, Bakamura," Miyuki sniggered, and Sawamura's face hardened in a heartbeat into a scowl.
The three began to walk to the other end of the bullpen, and Miyuki and Sawamura continued to banter – or rather, Miyuki mercilessly teased Sawamura, who blustered and reacted.
Tetsu stood motionless, rooted.
He had an impulsive urge – a strange, unfamiliar feeling for him – to tell Sawamura that his being on the first string meant that the coach had already noticed him. He wanted to tell him that his tireless runs around the field every day were an inspiration for the rest of his yearmates. That even if he couldn't field or bat properly now, if he kept trying, it would be sure to pay off.
Even if no one is telling you so, there are people looking at you, he wanted to say. The coach is looking at you. Chris is looking at you.
I'm looking at you.
But Tetsu said none of these things, for it wasn't his place. His place was as the Seidō baseball team captain. He was an impenetrable wall, an unmovable fortress. He was iron.
He took a deep breath. Slinging his towel back, Tetsu found that his legs could move again, so he turned to leave. And then suddenly –
"Captain! Are we going to continue last night's shogi game?" It was Sawamura again, regarding him with a eager, hesitant, almost childish look.
His heart skipped a beat.
Of course, he realized, stilling for a brief second before his heart resumed its steady pace.
"Of course," he said, leveling the first-year with a slow nod. "Prepare to lose."
Sawamura crowed back, "We'll see about that!"
With a wave, he sped up to join Miyuki and Furuya, leaping up and throwing his arms around them. Miyuki said something half-biting, half-laughing, and a look of vague alarm spread across Furuya's usually blank face.
'How did someone like Sawamura, who openly showed all of his emotions on his face and wore his heart on his sleeve, strengthen the team like this?'
It had been such a simple thing to understand. If Tetsu was iron, then Sawamura was one of the things that made it stronger.
He couldn't see Sawamura's face at that exact moment, but he thought he could imagine it: eyes glowing, and his face split in a grin so wide that it ached to look at him.