Archive of Our Own

A full-chested sigh heaves his lungs, awake and ready like wings unrolling to take flight, like the afternoon air currently swirling through the spaces between his fingers. It’s hardly more than a graze of his thoughts against a watercolored fantasy, whimsical and absurd; but the bite of inspiration flares bold and spiced at the fringes of his mouth anyway, and he pulls in a slow breath, murmurs, ‘Hey, Miyuki-senpai, do you believe—’

var. I – poco animato (a piacere)

He thinks he may still be a diamond in the rough: pitches wild and coarse and misshapen, untidy missed swings, and the heat of blaring energy to his name. The other team’s catcher can see it, maybe, his stare fixed and steady like he sees Eijun, sees right through Eijun, sees right into the gaps of the bones of Eijun’s ribs. A little too sharp-eyed for Eijun’s comfort – pupils dark and slim and keen, making his wrists clench, making his toes squirm.

‘What happened to my team.’ A deflated sag of limbs and a half-confused little smirk; his mellow, squinting gaze curves almost moonlike, with a subtle amusement twinkling at the edges.

‘They went off for lunch while you were in the bathroom,’ says Eijun thinly, lashes dripping across his frame of vision – a squint of territorial caution. He eyeballs the catcher with a fragment of suspicion and a twist of pursed lips, and mutters under his breath, ‘Really? This is what we lost to?’

He gets stunned surprise in answer, which is then gradually followed by a quick, smothered scoff, trouble tucked behind the corners of a frosted grin and slinking between white slashes of teeth. As sharp as a scratch of thorns, and irritatingly magnetic: a bladed gaze guarded by slick gold-tinted glass.

‘What spunk. You sure are rude,’ the catcher drawls, smooth and narrow, a voice of woven spider silk. He folds himself in half at the waist to lift the mitt from the bag at his feet, and raises a single eyebrow. ‘Wanna try pitching to me?’

A face that Eijun’s seen during high school games, but a name that he’s never really learned. He discovers later that it’s Miyuki Kazuya; that he’s a year older at twenty-one; that he’s a sports sciences major at Waseda. A terrible smile and too-intelligent eyes and crooked wit, and Eijun doesn’t think that he’s particularly likeable at all.

But Eijun likes the thunder that crashes in Miyuki’s glove when his fastball hits it.

The catchers that cross his path don’t generally tend to wax lyrical about his malleable joints, about his raw and uncut pitches, or about the irregular ways in which the pitches break. But then again, Eijun finds them to be details that Miyuki doesn’t need to delve into, anyway. Miyuki only has to take one look in his direction for novel intrigue to stitch itself into the line of his mouth, and for fascination to glimmer in the moisture of his eyes, again and again.

‘Don’t you want to go to lunch with your team,’ Eijun hesitates, cleats sinking light and unsure: the ball, then the heel, a pulsing beat against the dirt. It’s three times, now, that Miyuki’s missed a team lunch in their departure.

‘It’s fine,’ says Miyuki, lukewarm and purposeful and a thin tendril of curious, with the back-and-forth flap of an easy hand and the lenient tilt of a sinuous hip. ‘I get to see them every day, anyway, and we don’t play practice games against you guys often. Come on, pitch me another one.’

Eijun complies; every pitch is a welcome excitement, a flame dripping through all his veins. Anticipation quivers in a tremolo over his skin, following the bow of his knees, the shifting of weight across his thighs, the coiling of muscles at his shoulder blades. Brazen certainty winds around his pitching fingers like a curl of mist, and then – his eyes catch and hook onto Miyuki’s for a fraction of a second before they slide away, looking elsewhere, just so he can hear it on its own. That firm, resounding smack; its ringing after-echo.

Even now, his heart never fails to race after every throw.

‘… It feels like I’m doing Chris-senpai dirty by sneaking around behind his back and throwing to you, these last few times!’ Eijun complains.

‘How is it sneaking around. We’re right in the open,’ Miyuki deadpans, rolling dry lips against his tongue, leaving them glistening wet, star-flecked. ‘And Chris-san is sensible. Honestly, you could take a few notes.’

‘Wow, that’s rich, coming from the guy who got left behind by his team while in the bathroom! I don’t want to hear that from you, of all people.’

Miyuki fixes a lingering look on him that’s both soft and sharp – a little breathless, a little dangerous, a little striking. Eijun’s snipped, shallow breaths snag in his lungs, his pulse thrumming hot and quick at his wrists, warm palms going damp underneath that gaze. He tries to tell himself that it’s not thrill.

It’s only when Eijun sees Miyuki and Chris talking together after another practice game and discovers that the two of them have actually known each other since their middle school days that he catches his first glimpse of a shift in Miyuki’s general air: soft-eyed respect from one catcher to another, almost like he’s gone back to being a little boy with no realistic limit to his dreams. A definite contrast to his usual dry, guarded restraint – Eijun can’t help wondering if that kind of thing had become even more pronounced by having matured so early, and grown up so fast.

‘Oh?’ Eijun croons at him with interest, open-mouthed. ‘So you can have a face like that too.’

Miyuki grins at him, threads affectionate fingers through his hair, ruffles the dark and wayward tufts. The base of his palm drifts hot over the nape of Eijun’s neck; a wisp of breathy laughter slides out from between his teeth.

Eijun noisily complains at this, protests a storm at the elbow that Miyuki hooks around his and at the heated sighs against his ear, but he lets himself soak in the mild and puzzling warmth of it regardless, which maybe isn’t such a terrible thing. It still tastes of Miyuki, even if it doesn’t have the usual cool detachment of Miyuki’s half-truths, the faces that he seems to slip into the front to keep any others behind secret doors.

He wonders why he mightn’t really mind that much if the two of them stayed pressed against each other’s bodies like they are now, wonders what’d happen if time were to crawl to a stop, wonders if spiders could weave delicate webs around them if they remained perfectly still together, just like this.

Fall gives way to winter, to icier morning jogs and stooped, tired students and the heavyweight air of upcoming exams. But if it’s an opportunity and excuse to get warmer, then Eijun will take it: there’s no reason not to run for longer, to swing harder, to keep pitching, pitching, pitching until heat kindles in his muscles and new calluses pepper his hands – a soothing tempo, a constant beat, a steady rhythm.

To him, college baseball’s always going to have some degree of romanticism to it, its pulsing lifeblood awake and unremitting, stirring under his skin and settling in his bones: a symphony of rubber soles scraping against the dirt, of steel-crisp collisions of metal and leather, of heaving breaths catching on the teeth of still-young men. The purest form of euphoria, just the way he likes it.

‘I think it’s not too different from when I was in high school,’ Eijun says, throwing Miyuki a stare through low, dark lashes.

Miyuki glances sideways at him, and pulls in a trimmed and meaningful sniff; their elbows brush against each other’s, bony and coarse. ‘The level’s a lot higher, actually,’ he monotones, comfortably throwing an arm around Eijun’s shoulders. ‘But I suppose it’s good that you’re enough of an idiot not to notice. Must mean that you just improved naturally.’

A sharp, slanted swing of his pelvis, and Eijun knocks Miyuki’s hip, fiercely enough for a faint smudge of soreness to bloom over his own. ‘How rude,’ he prickles, scowling. ‘And I had Chris-senpai back then too, you know. He caught for me for a year and pretty much, like, guided me the rest of the way through! So of course I would.’

He gets that quiet, somewhat shielded smile in response, and a calm stare that’s as cool as a cotton-light fall of snow.

‘Why are you even here,’ Eijun bristles, pointedly ignoring the sudden itch underneath his skin. ‘You have your own campus to go to, don’t you. I’m starting to forget that you’re not a student here.’

Miyuki tilts his mouth at that, his face somehow expressive but unreadable at the same time. It’s still an eye-catching look for his natural lines and angles, though – a thought that’s more frustrating to Eijun than it should be. ‘Are you actually complaining when a rival catcher is interested enough in your weird pitches to keep coming back for you.’

‘You’re a jerk,’ answers Eijun flatly, unimpressed and unmoved. ‘And why don’t you come out to lunch with me sometime, then? Make up for all the lost lunches from when your team left without you. It’s not good to have your meals late, Miyuki Kazuya!’

It’s maybe a little curious that Miyuki quiets at that invitation, that he grazes the back of his neck with his fingernails, that the soft, damp line of his mouth kind of stumbles in a failed attempt to reply. Miyuki’s always looking at him, staring, seeing with that quiet calm; but this time, it’s Eijun who doesn’t swerve his gaze, and funnily enough, his belly’s all the warmer in light of what he’s seeing.

It’s okay, because lines of spider silk hover in the corner of his sight, and he knows, somehow, that the answer’s a yes.

The leftover chicken sandwiches are cool in his pocket when they leave the café, swaying solid and weighty against his hip; Eijun tugs haphazardly at the love-worn edges of his old scarf, wrenches his jacket collar into a tighter fold around his neck, moves to exhale warmth into his own palms. ‘Isn’t going pro everybody’s dream, though?’ he says, and long, quiet breaths slide through parted lips in threads, unrolling into hanging smears of mist.

‘A dream for most little boys, maybe.’ A curl of long, wiry fingers around a corrugated cup filled with steaming coffee, bold and full and earthy. ‘But not everybody’s the same. It’s not everybody’s goal. It’s not necessarily everybody’s dream, either.’

Eijun’s eyes drift onto the path ahead of them, and even in the cold grey of winter, shimmering optimism’s still thankfully able to color his field of view, and his heart can still see the sun.

‘Well, it’s mine! After I graduate, I’m going to try out.’

Half-moon fingernails find and flutter delicately against Eijun’s wrist, leaking trails of prickling heat. ‘You make it sound so easy. It’ll be a long and hard road just getting there, and it’ll be a long and hard road once you get there, too.’

‘Are you a wet sock or something.’ Eijun puffs out through hard teeth; straightens an even harder sternum. ‘I’m always up for a little challenge! It’d be amazing, right? Standing on the pro stage.’

After all, he’s spent more of than ten of his twenty years being helplessly in love with baseball, and he’s more than aware of how far he’s already walked, how far the tethers of his body will let him go, how much farther he can still push without coming apart at the seams. The ache and yearning’s always sleepless, the daydreams trembling with want; he throws Miyuki a summery grin.

And Miyuki looks at him. Looks with that strange curious heat that he always reserves especially for Eijun, looking on steady and settled like he’s probably never going to look away. Then that mouth starts to coil upward, slow and vaguely charming – nothing more than a shadow of a smile – but it’s perfect as it is, and something honey-sweet bleeds inside Eijun’s ribcage, starts to swallow his heart whole.

He supposes that he may just like Miyuki Kazuya a little more than he’d originally thought.

‘Yeah, it would,’ Miyuki answers with a liquid gaze and a hand slipping past Eijun’s, fingertips grazing over Eijun’s thumb and a callused palm settling against Eijun’s own, skin to skin, like their own little secret. Knuckles nudge discreetly between knuckles, fingers not quite knitting together, but enough for the fire-burn to stretch to the apex of Eijun’s throat, to the very tips of his ears. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

The words come out warm in the afternoon cold, and Eijun folds his mouth around that promise. He tastes spun sugar, gossamer-soft.

He blames winter nearly fading away for feeling hot all over, for turning him into a gangling mess of sweat-dampened palms and steaming breaths and smoldering collarbones; but it’s really only whenever Miyuki looks at him, he knows – quiet and supple and focused, a hint of more than what he’s grown used to, a silk-soft scrutiny that curls and tumbles somewhere deep in his stomach.

Sometimes it’s strange, Eijun thinks, that Miyuki looks at him at all. A catcher worth his salt and a natural king on the diamond; Miyuki’s always been unexpectedly inspiring and genuinely good at what he does. Often too good, really, standing on a glimmering plane just barely within reach of Eijun’s fingers.

‘If both of us do end up in the pros,’ Eijun says, ‘would you still catch for me, or?’

A casual shrug, cool and flat. ‘Wouldn’t hurt. Like I’ve always said, your pitches are interesting.’

‘I know you’ve said that,’ Eijun answers, frustration taut in his belly and prickling underneath his fingernails. ‘Is that all, though? How about me.’

The years of mild teasing have always slid off him like water over stone. His body thrums with excess energy, his booming voice loud and his eagerness unapologetic – and he’s never surprised that people think he’s an idiot, never disturbed by their collective urge to always just say it to his face point blank. And even then, what he’s just unexpectedly blurted out sounds idiotic enough to make him inwardly cringe a little. The words are already out of his own mouth, too late to shut in with his teeth.

Faint heat pools underneath his collar, and his gaze sinks to the ground, slow and unsure.

But Miyuki breathes, pauses, waits. And then takes a careful step in, fingers trailing against Eijun’s wrist like he’s counting every pulse, before tugging Eijun in close and looking him right in the eye.

Eijun can almost see the cloud of uncertainty start to fade from Miyuki’s face, with some degree of a pleasant surprise taking its place.

‘… God,’ Miyuki hums with a note of tender reprimand, a chord of buried affection. ‘You really are something, Sawamura.’

It’s enough to slip the milky veil from his eyes and to let him see, suddenly, how he and Miyuki actually fit – puzzle pieces slotting together, the way baseball’s always been lovingly set into them both: maybe they’ve always been walking down this path. Like the raised thumb lightly tracing Eijun’s parted lips has been a long, long time coming. Like the mouth that eventually, finally replaces it, closing over Eijun’s own, is the first morning dew in a desert. A clumsy, tentative peck that lands too far off to the side first go; a soft, stupid laugh that’s weirdly endearing, and then another try, modest and unsteady and alive. A flower-bloom, what with Miyuki opening discreetly in Eijun’s hands; and Eijun warming in the full of Miyuki’s mouth, kissing back, illusory wings unfurling, dry throat and tight lungs unraveling themselves to breathe, to let the air in.

His heart beats calm and even; blood pulses through tangled webs of veins, as slippery as spider thread – a choice he’s more or less woven.

Some time after their pitching session and a quick bathroom visit on Miyuki’s part, Miyuki comes back only to catch Eijun in a daydream. Warm weight envelops Eijun’s waist when Miyuki drapes an arm sideways around him as he’s sitting in the generously dark shade of the dugout, relishing in the cool afternoon air swirling against his skin. Eijun sags himself against Miyuki’s torso, solid and secure at one side of his back; it’s almost strange, how easily he’s grown used to every sensation of touch between them over the space of nearly a year.

Splinters of memories fall away from his thoughts, and he answers the unspoken question. ‘I was just thinking about before I came here. Back when I was in high school and stuff. And, like, even before then.’

He’s answered with a single nose-bump against the back of his ear, and voiceless breaths trickling hot over its shell; but he knows that Miyuki’s listening, rapt and attentive.

‘I think—’ he starts, and then pauses; he’s not really cut out for words, maybe, isn’t as eloquent as Miyuki and other people are, hasn't got much lyric or poetry in him, only a fiery outlook and an equally fiery voice. ‘Ah, I’m just happy, I guess! That I chose things and ended up with this, basically. I’m glad I’ve played baseball all this time, you know? That’s a hell of a lot of years’ worth of people to call teammates. I’m so happy I met Chris-senpai. And I’m really glad that I’m, like, pretty much set for the years after this.’

‘Maybe you and I will end up playing on the same team one day, too,’ Miyuki murmurs, tracing mellow whorls over Eijun’s arm with his thumb.

Almost like a door gradually creaking open. Like the usual wary fog that has Miyuki so closed off is well on its way to dissolving.

Eijun answers by turning to press sloppy lips to Miyuki’s jaw before shrugging himself out of Miyuki’s grip, getting onto his feet in a single fluid movement, and thrusting an open hand sideways in offering.

‘C’mon, Miyuki Kazuya,’ he grins, and the word partner hangs from the rims of his mouth, stirring thick and unruly between them. ‘I’m beat! Let’s put on a movie after we wash up?’

The only answer he gets is a too-theatric eyeroll, but roughened fingers soon rise to wrap around his own, sturdy and warm.

In the end, baseball has always occupied the biggest space in his heart, and always will. But at this rate, he thinks he may just be able to fit Miyuki in right next to it.

His phone chimes to the message: Do you wanna come and play catch?

Give me an hour, Eijun replies, a subtle half-grin twitching at the edges of his mouth. I’ll be there.

He makes his way over with his glove and his heart cradled in his hands, expecting to play some good baseball. Or more accurately, not expecting to end up in Miyuki’s darkened dorm room with his fingers twisting in Miyuki’s hair, not expecting to have Miyuki’s tattered breaths against the curve of his neck, or the thrilling pressure of Miyuki’s bare hips against the inside of his naked thighs, or the wet teeth indulgently grazing his shoulder.

Adagio, slow and stately, sixty-six beats per minute. Languid, hushed, blood-hot.

But they still go outside to play catch afterward, mussed hair and tender mouths and sleepy limbs; ‘I can’t believe what kind of baseball nerds we are,’ Eijun grumbles into the evening air, knowing that he’s just had the time of his life, knowing that he’s also having it now, too. Miyuki only curls himself over and laughs belly-deep.

‘So I suppose the enemy catcher likes hanging out here, huh,’ Chris says with a tiny pale streak of a smile and the voice of a tranquil field in spring.

He’ll always live for this: his world in a nutshell, the pulsing rhythm and tempo of Sawamura Eijun through and through. All of it flickering through diamond-shaped days spent doing runs in star-dappled twilights and playing games in fire-bright sunshine and savoring the cold, crisp wind in his hair. A whole exciting universe shared with people who have already imprinted themselves into his heart and soul: everyone, his family, his friends. His brothers-in-arms on the field, his batteries, his partnerships. Even his opponents.

Eijun glances across at Miyuki, brows pinched and wrinkling, but he’s white-hot all the way to his fingers and toes. ‘This guy just never stays away.’

‘Well, that works out, doesn’t it. I plan to play baseball for a long, long time, so since you’re doing the same, I may as well stick around you,’ Miyuki shrugs, nonchalant. And then whatever hazy mist may still be left in his face thins, dissipates completely, and he gives Chris a tilted smile that reaches the corners of his eyes. ‘What do you say, Chris-san? He seems like an interesting guy. Can I catch his pitch?’

var. II – libero, con calore

He thinks he must be a diamond in the rough: a feral knot of little chunky fingers and crooked, straying pitches, a frame of still-tender bones pushing energetic limbs. A future ace sculpted from gold-tinted dreams, made of sun-hot willpower and endless burning hopes. The team’s catcher seems to take him in stride, though, eyeing him with a slick liquid interest that twists his fingers, locks up his wrists, squeezes his knees.

‘Yo, new kid. Anyone ever tell you your pitches look really weird?’ A drawl of bared teeth and singsong honesty, drenched with enough curious interest to make Eijun squirm.

‘How rude! You haven’t seen anything,’ he thunders, pride swelling like dawn light in his chest, like unfolding wings bristling themselves awake. ‘And who are you calling kid? Your pants look too big for you!’

Dark plastic squares frame a stunned, gaping look, and the summer air almost thickens with Eijun’s puffed-up satisfaction at the sight. But it’s slowly followed by a slack, oblique smile that lights up all of their surroundings, accompanied by a gaze that’s both grating and eye-catching, seasoned but young: a sparkling look of fascination behind sheets of silver glass.

‘I meant that in a good way, you know. They’re unique. Huh, I like you.’ A prickly tongue rolling between full, rosy cheeks, and a slippery chuckle, breathy and thin. He shoves small hands idly into his pants pockets, and says: ‘Hey, Coach! He seems like an interesting guy. Can I catch his pitch?’

Eijun learns later that his name is Miyuki Kazuya; that he’s almost a year older, just shy of twelve; that he goes to the school just one suburb over. Not easy to like, and not easy to ignore – Eijun can’t exactly help the way his own blood’s rippling at that pearl-toothed grin, at the deep-set hooks of that stare, and at the carefree confidence that’s slithering a little too close to home.

In any case, Miyuki Kazuya catches his pitches in ways that Wakana and his other schoolmates never really could.

And he’s never blamed them for it, never will, but suddenly, everything falls into place. Like his pitches have always been made of water, coursing into Miyuki’s glove in liquid paths, following invisible lines as fine as gossamer silk. Like Miyuki’s always spoken the language of numbers all his life, and known how to read between the lines. Like Eijun’s throws have never been shapeless, or gross, or confused.

‘Feels good, huh,’ Miyuki says outright, with a sliver of knowing stretched across that gleeful flash of teeth.

There’s no extra strain in the crook of Eijun’s elbows, no added knots in the rise of Eijun’s shoulders, no real change to the way that Eijun’s always pitched. And somehow, for whatever reason, this rude boy still knows how to catch for him.

‘Shut up,’ is the only thing he grits out, impatience niggling up his backbone, because hell if he’ll let himself get teased without getting the last word in.

Miyuki looks at him and grins, looks at him keenly like he sees a pitcher, and Eijun dips his body into the gaze as if it’s sunlight.

It’s eleven weeks in when the coach folds the little league club in two to form temporary teams for a casual practice game; eleven weeks well-spent with Miyuki when Eijun actually manages to wrap his fingers around victory. Just a regular fastball straight down the middle, the way he’s always thrown it, but with every bit of scorching vigor let loose and with no shackles at his wrists. Brilliant daylight at his back and a quickened pulse pounding at his throat, and he wins for the first time – a summer sun rising where it’s never risen before.

His heart balloons in his ribcage, excitement flaring to life in his elbows and knees. There’s something almost dangerous about winning, as if he can get used to it.

‘It feels – more than good,’ Eijun answers finally, toes curling inside his cotton socks and tongue flower-soft in his mouth.

Miyuki says nothing, offering that usual smile that reminds Eijun of serene nighttime silence and flickering winter stars. He cocks an eyebrow, looking at Eijun like he has no intention of letting his gaze slip away; Eijun squares his shoulders with a grin, spine straightening, and lets him stare.

‘… Have you heard of Seidō,’ Eijun asks around a thick, saucy mouthful of burger.

Miyuki stops, little oil-smeared fingers and a greasy potato fry dangling halfway to wide-parted lips. ‘Isn’t high school a little too far away for you to think about. You’re not even in middle school yet.’

‘I know,’ flies out of Eijun’s throat with emphasis. But he’s gotten used to it; for the four months that they’ve known each other, Miyuki’s always been a little damp at the corners – made up of careful footsteps and ice-cool restraint and unsaid thoughts that are never easy to read. ‘I just saw something about them on a magazine stand the other day, so I don’t know much about them! But if they’re a baseball school, that means we can play some good baseball, right?’

He’s well aware, in the end, that it’s still wishful thinking for now: a fantasy of shining on the mound forever with a field of kaleidoscopes in his eyes, warm daylight on his cheekbones and brass-colored melodies catching at his ears. But who knows if he’s walking through that dream without knowing it, really, and if he’s already seeing his own coming treads on whatever path’s laid out ahead of him – one footfall, then the next, then the next, like an echo of a heartbeat.

Miyuki sighs, impatient but soft. ‘You sure aim big.’

‘Let’s go there, Miyuki Kazuya!’ Sunshine overflows from the gaps of Eijun’s ribs, and he wriggles forward in the too-spacious booth seat, knees bouncing enthusiastically underneath the table from just the thought alone. ‘You’ll have to go there first, but you can wait for me for a year and then I’ll follow you! How’s that sound?’

‘You’re hopeless,’ is the only answer he gets, but constellations glimmer in the wet curve of Miyuki’s mouth.

Sleek gold-tinged glass is maybe a little too slick for a twelve-year-old boy, but Eijun still hums: ‘Those would look cool on you.’

Miyuki may as well be a lighthouse for how brightly and gleefully he beams, a sudden wide grin armed with milky teeth. ‘You think so, huh?’

The smug tone crawls instantly at Eijun’s skin, pricking at his collarbones and up along the back of his neck, and reflex is quick to take over, leaving him squinting and scowling. ‘You’re so – god, I take it back,’ he bites out, and moves to squeeze his way out of the sports shop.

Miyuki’s wearing those goggles when he turns up to the club practice session two weeks later, though, with his usual big dark frames tucked away somewhere unseen. The look on his face is way too pleased for Eijun’s liking, twinkling handsome and awful and as golden as the sunny future that Eijun dreams about every night.

The phone rings for him like a dawn bell when seven months of being in the club have passed by, leaving his blood pounding like thunder in his ears; he runs, runs back up the long mountain of stairs, runs to his room where Miyuki’s been playing video games with him, runs before what he’s doing even registers in the fringes of his mind.

‘Coach wants me to start in next week’s game!’ he cheers in a fanfare, fists pumping with explosive triumph.

Just like that, he’s become the sunrise. He’s become a promise: a challenger with his team buried in his heart, hoisted on his back, held in the palms of his hands. And sure, it isn’t anything more glamorous than an off-season game against the neighboring local little league club, but he doesn’t mind. He has baseball, he has his teammates, and he has Miyuki – who’s always eyeing him with restless interest, who’s always sitting at the cusp of Eijun's thoughts these days, who’s always offering enough of himself for Eijun to be able to meet him in the middle like two strands of spider-silk crossing paths.

Miyuki looks up from the flickering television screen, giving Eijun only a bare wisp of a smile and an appreciative head tilt, and that’s totally okay.

Because in the end, when they’ve managed to secure a win, Miyuki’s the one who’s running. Casting his helmet and mitt into the dust, running from the catcher’s box, running across the diamond, running to Eijun. Eijun barely has to think twice about it before stepping away from his little sanctuary of raised earth and coming forward too, laughter chiming from his lungs like the tinkling of a music box – and it’s almost like the world stops when they come together halfway, throwing their arms around each other, Miyuki’s boyish delight singing in Eijun’s ears and the scent of dirt and sweat and euphoria hooking right into his heartstrings.

Vivace, quick and bright, one hundred and forty-four beats per minute: winning still feels perilous, but it kisses him hot and summery too, and at this point, he’d be more than happy to make a gamble for it any day.

Swelling chests press together, faces burying in each other’s shoulders, Miyuki’s hips firm and flush against his. He thinks of writing silk threads around the two of them now, the way he’s written and chosen basically everything else in his life. After all, there’s nothing to suggest that he and Miyuki can’t live in the arms of sunlight forever to play baseball, right?

Bones stretching heavy and tender, field-warmed muscles filling out, lines and corners turning more pointed – they’re gradually flowering, outgrowing the safe armor of being little boys, and the combined mess of both of their bodies in Eijun’s shrinking futon during their weekend sleepover is clumsy, a web of hard knobbed knees and stiff jagged elbows and sharp, stubborn angles. Somehow, though, everything still manages to be softened into a lullaby in the dark; even Miyuki’s shoulder, a lump of rigid circle underneath the cushion of Eijun’s cheek. Even the blunt chin and steep jaw cutting into the crown of Eijun’s hair.

‘Maybe we can play pro one day, when we’re all grown up,’ Eijun murmurs into Miyuki’s collarbone, still-small fingers tangling into the hem of Miyuki’s shirt.

‘… Seriously. First Seidō, and now the pros,’ Miyuki deadpans with a casual sniff, pulling their shared blanket higher around his ribs. ‘Your ambition really is something else.’

‘I’m playing baseball until I die, so I just want to make the most of it!’ Eijun protests, annoyance bleeding through the slits between clenched teeth. ‘What’s wrong with that. You can come with me or you don’t have to.’

‘Keep your voice down, or your mother’s gonna come in and tell us off. Honestly, you’re such a handful.’

Nearly thirteen years old and who knows if rainbow-colored dreams have ever really made their way into Miyuki’s bloodstream before or whether he’s mostly going to be made up of sums and logic to the bitter end; he definitely talks beyond his years sometimes, flings out words that don’t usually come from the mouths of children. A ripened blossom alongside Eijun’s scraggly bud, and the eagerness in Eijun’s bones wilts, dulled and dim.

But then Miyuki sighs, and there’s something about it that seems almost strangely fond.

‘One thing at a time.’ A sedate prayer, a murmur coated by a crystalline promise. ‘Gotta work hard for a few years if we want to get into Seidō, right? Whatever comes after that, we’ll think about later on. You have to show everybody what you’ve got, future ace.’

Together, equals. The sun’s back suddenly, fitting itself into the dark corners of Eijun’s chest, filling up his mouth, pulling it so wide that the resulting grin almost hurts. ‘And here I was about to ban you from staying the night ever again,’ he jokes, humming in contentment at the warm hand curling over his hip while tucking himself more cozily into the curve of Miyuki’s neck. ‘It’s a deal.’

A chapped smile blooms against Eijun’s temple in reply, subtle and slow.

‘Hey, ‘morning.’

Three smooth strides into the bullpen, and Eijun yawns loudly before leaning in to leave a brief, moist press of lips to Miyuki’s cheekbone.

It’s almost like Miyuki’s usual cool ice cracks apart with how he flushes completely red, jawline going taut and breaths leaking out shallow, hand flying to his face to softly scrape fingernails over his cheek. ‘What was that?’

‘Oh,’ Eijun answers, surprised. He isn’t used to seeing Miyuki look as young as his actual years, the familiar maturity and near-adult rationality draining from wide, wet eyes, leaving only a damp-palmed and innocent curiosity behind. All things considered, the look suits him. ‘Were you – wanting a proper one? Like … here?’

Two pointed taps of a forefinger to the center of Eijun's mouth, and the dull, grating look that Miyuki throws him nearly tickles his gut to amused laughter.

His hands drift up anyway, sweet and careful and as natural to him as all his pitches, warm knuckles grazing both sides of Miyuki’s face. And Eijun leans in, breath stuttering in his lungs and pliant lips cheerfully starting to purse and pucker – but an open palm instantly smothers his face, fingers tensely splayed out, pushing his nose flat.

‘Seriously, you … good grief, leave that one for when we’re grown up,’ Miyuki says, throat pink-stained and mouth clumsy and gaze unsteady, the stumble of a growing boy made too aware of his own gangling limbs. He pulls his hand away and levels his shoulders, announcing, ‘Five years. Wait five years and I’ll let you do that.’

Eijun thinks he gets it, and he steps back, sugar dust rolling on his tongue.

‘That’s pretty specific. I’m glad you’re giving us more things to do together in five years, though!’ His ankles quake like he’s standing on the edge of the world, muscles going slack like the very last of his doubts are clearing. ‘… So are you planning to kiss me back?’

The mangled noise that Miyuki gives him is a satisfying degree of incredulous; a perfectly misshapen groan of disbelief. ‘I can’t believe you,’ Miyuki grumbles, but the promise and shy want wedged between the words shine bright – even when they tiptoe belly-deep in his voice, shielded by a brave song, a brave face. A not-so-secret yes, clear as morning.

At the end of the day, Eijun knows that it's five years that they’ll have in their hands, along with every year after that; all the time in the world together is theirs for the taking, anyway. A future tinted by the vast expanse of the diamond, the vibrant cheers and game calls snagging at their ears, the hot rush for victory pounding in their fingers and toes. A future made warmer by secret evenings spent seated against each other’s bodies, by fingers twining together in the space between them, by hushed laughter shaking their chests.

‘You did say when you met me that you liked me,’ Eijun points out with a cheeky sunflower grin, blunt and merry.

Miyuki gives him a flat, dead stare and no actual answer, but the creases at the corners of his eyes and the quirking edges of his lips say god, you really are something, Sawamura; a leisurely arm snakes sideways around Eijun’s waist and Miyuki’s gaze slides forward, looking where Eijun knows he always will – where both of them always will.

var. III – l'istesso tempo

He thinks he isn’t a diamond in the rough anymore; hasn't been for a while now, not when he’s built from years of breathless runs in sunrise half-light, from unkind training camps that numb his nerve endings, from euphoric victories, from painful losses. And not when winding, irregular pitches have bridged the yawning cleft between the amateur and pro leagues, carrying him here in a blaze of glory, loud and blinding. The team’s catcher is within arm’s reach, tall and full of presence and armed with a dusky, moonlike gaze behind a see-through sheet of gold – just as Eijun’s been expecting.

‘So, is it everything you’ve ever dreamed of so far?’

The question makes Eijun stop, makes him chew on his lower lip.

‘… From what I’ve seen, yeah,’ he answers, wrinkling his nose in contemplation. The crisp grass crunching underneath his soles, the raw, spiced scent of the diamond’s dust, the afternoon air licking circles at his jaw: it’s all the same, and it’s all different, too. ‘But I’ve literally only just gotten here! It’s – this is kinda surreal, to be honest.’

Miyuki Kazuya smiles a lopsided smile, just a little curl on one side, and there’s something maybe a little unreadable about it, like a surface layer shrouding a mystery underneath.

‘I’ve been to your games. Seen you play on TV, read your articles in the magazines,’ Eijun admits slowly, caution lurking between his teeth. ‘I want to know what it’s like to throw to you.’

Something shifts in Miyuki’s eyes, like ripples on otherwise still water, like something’s moved to intrigue. ‘For a moment there, I almost thought you were going to say that I was your hero.’

‘I’m a pitcher!’ Eijun answers, barbed and hot, bubbling annoyance puffing out his chest. ‘You know what you’re doing; any smart pitcher would look at you. For heaven’s sake, what an ego.’

That makes Miyuki chuckle, a sound that’s both fluid and chafing, inviting reluctant appreciation, inviting soft dislike.

Eijun learns then that he sure has character; that he takes the shape of both rude boyish cheek and controlled adult wisdom for being nearly a year older, at twenty-four; that there’s maybe more human in him than the fearsome catching machine from the magazines. He also learns later that day that his own unconventional pitches fit with Miyuki shockingly well, and he knows then that he’s definitely followed the right butterfly, swerved to the right footpath.

Allegro, fast and lively, one hundred and twenty beats per minute. He’s swept from his feet in a gale of wind: travel, the Asia Series, press conferences, near-daily games during baseball season. Familiar rhythms set to a different time signature – shimmering camera flashes and the crowd’s roaring heatstorm and the striking chord of his pitch in Miyuki’s glove, blending together in nearly a perfect mirror image of the blood pulsing in his wrists. A quickening in the tempo that he’s used to, faster than he knows how to swing his bat, faster than his pitch has ever been.

His spine droops heavy, the inside of his head lined with cotton wool, his entire body going flimsy and boneless. In comparison, Miyuki’s calm seems almost iron-tough, taking him from one stepping stone to the next with barely any stumble: spine pin-straight, feet set apart, pitch-calls singing with keen intelligence in the silence.

‘Are you alive,’ upside-down Miyuki says with a glass-cool hint of amusement, hips bent forward, face hovering over Eijun’s.

Eijun can sink into the earth forever now and maybe pass into legend, wilted arms and legs stretched loose on either side of him, a tired mess in the shape of a star. A groan of sore muscles and heavy eyelids falling halfway, and he coaxes his breaths to even pulses, leaving the obvious answer unsaid.

‘You look worn out,’ Miyuki tries again, almost carefully, each syllable as measured as a steadily ticking clock. ‘Things not what you expected?’

Sprawled on his back in a bright splash of sun, weighted and drowsy with rough sprinkles of dirt underneath his palms, but Eijun’s reflexes twitch and fight and he quickly sits up, twisting his body to look Miyuki in the eye. ‘What’s with the weird interrogation,’ he grinds out. ‘I can take anything that’s thrown at me, you know.’

‘God. You really are something.’ A small teaspoon of amusement sitting on a too-slick tongue. ‘Sawamura.’

The look on his face prickles in the deep of Eijun’s belly, underlines the heartbeat tapping at the roof of his mouth out of nowhere. He shakes his head, shakes the unexpected shyness away from his shoulders.

‘... I want baseball to keep being something I love,’ he says firmly, resolve clenching in a rigid pressure inside his ribcage, spicy and stubborn. ‘Not a chore, and not just some job, or whatever. I know I'm being put through my paces, but I'm still enjoying it. So you don't have to worry, Miyuki Kazuya! I'll manage.’

Fingers curl into a fist, and he lets himself fall back down with a prominent thump, turning his attention back to the warm, simple sunlight. Miyuki huffs out a laugh, throwing him a little barely-there smile that reaches his eyes – and maybe, Eijun thinks, it’s not always so easy to tell the difference between the two.

He’s used to the sidelong glances after four months, low-lidded and blood-deep, a gaze of cool moonlight underneath the spray of dark eyelashes.

Winning in the pro league hasn’t changed much from his amateur days – still made up of the blazing heat of the sun swelling between his shoulder blades, the racing upbeats and downbeats of fearsome plays, the rumble of thunderous voices sailing over the wind. It’s maybe a touch hotter, a touch more summery, but nearly a perfect double. The same thrumming delight, the same overwhelming relief, the same release of long-clenched lungs to let a tangled breath free.

Eijun’s eyes slide across and he lets Miyuki fix that twilight stare on him, mouthing to himself that his heart’s pounding only from the victory.

And defeat runs in much the same way: one slip, one misstep, and they’re lost from the tournament.

Five months in and Eijun tastes his first professional loss. Still made up of the stuttering of his pulse from the knot in his throat, the chilling quiet of tearless teammates, the faded exclamations of the opposing players and the crowd. It’s maybe a touch cooler, a touch more wintry, but nearly a perfect double. The same stooping disbelief, the same pause in the earth’s spin, the same taut pull of heart tissue and clamping of teeth.

Wet heat behind his eyes, a snow-cold ache under his skin. As if there are thorns in his bones, or stones weighing down his gut.

Miyuki steps up to his side and doesn’t turn to him, doesn’t say anything. Callused knuckles sweep against Eijun’s and stay, a coarse but gentle touch, the only fragment of warmth in the all-consuming silence.

Time rolls as steadily as the echo of a metronome: swing and click, swing and click, a slow song fit for a slow dance. His dawns and dusks pass with one step, then another; one foot forward, then the next. He can’t help but think of snowflakes falling, delicate and drowsy like drifting spider silk.

He slumps back against Miyuki’s couch as if he’s made to sink into the cushions there, cradled by the waning murmur of their half-forgotten television show, the tension in his sinews and muscles dripping away through the pores of his skin.

‘Are things what you’d thought they’d be,’ says Miyuki straight out, eyeing him purposefully: a calculated gaze of beats and measures.

Eijun lets out a hazy sigh, curved fingernails picking at an unraveling thread on his sleeve. ‘Losing always sucks. Like … it doesn’t feel all that different from losing when I was still playing amateur, to be honest,’ he says, and those bygone days throb like a silhouette of love in his chest, full and tender and bittersweet. ‘But making the best of our off-season should be fun, shouldn’t it? I just – I wanna keep on pitching, you know. Getting all those fierce guys out.’

Miyuki slants his head against the top of the couch, and freckles of light tip into his pupils like stars. ‘Huh. Early on, you looked a little overwhelmed with the pace of everything, but you’ve managed to grab it by the horns pretty quick, haven’t you? Sheesh, how stubborn.’

‘Well, I love playing,’ Eijun answers with a jut of his bottom lip, ‘so it’s easy for me to keep enjoying it, I guess? But that’s the same for you, right?’

A shuddering half-breath swipes against the back of his ear, dusted with scraps of amusement; Miyuki’s hand closes soft and warm over Eijun’s in the thin space between them, and Eijun’s heart tightens just that little bit more.

‘… You seem like an interesting guy.’ The tilted smirk that greets Eijun from the direction of the fence is toothy and catlike, itching persistently at his nerve endings. ‘Can I catch your pitch?’

There’s maybe too much melodrama in the answering roll of Eijun’s eyes, but the midday sunlight’s leaking pale and rich into the bullpen and draping pleasantly over his skin, and he can’t funnel a real jab into his answer.

‘Why does that sound like a pick-up line,’ he answers in good humor, bright golden summer in his mouth. ‘And good afternoon to you too.’

‘Yeah, I—’ Miyuki says, suddenly a little flustered and uneven at the edges, fingernails gliding in a single nervous scratch over his wrist. Eijun thinks he doesn’t actually look too bad like this, all vulnerable and unguarded like some frosty nighttime’s just unintentionally slipped into tender morning. Miyuki steps forward, then, clearing his throat and continuing: ‘—Anyway, looks like you’ve been handling the last few months pretty well. Practice is gonna start getting pretty rough again soon, I hope you realize.’

‘Yeah? Bring it.’

The off-season doesn’t last forever, and Eijun can already feel his own knees and elbows stir themselves awake, quivering with heat. He drags dampened lips back into a grin – an honest, burning mouthful of little fangs.

Of course, Miyuki’s a guy of continuous rhythms, of easy grace and clever calm in movement and in speech and in his obvious unbroken thoughts in the dark – and he replies as such. ‘Typical of you to be so gung-ho about everything,’ he says, lashes low. Loose fingers slot into the gaps between Eijun’s, fitting just right into the narrow spaces, skin against skin.

The strange sensation pressing at Eijun’s lungs is almost like a prayer for mercy; like everything he doesn’t dare say aloud right now; like the marrow of his bones and the branches of his nerves are trying to tell him that he can't be misreading this.

He passes a light squeeze to Miyuki’s palm, and the faint bend of Miyuki’s mouth steals away his breath.

Victory still thumps with the kind of rhapsody that dances over his sternum, a hot-fisted grip of pomp and circumstance around his pitching knuckles and pulled vocal cords. It’s an off-season practice game and nothing larger than life, but the small triumph still stirs with life at his fingertips – just like the ghost of his last ruthless pitch, and just like its residual curl of smoke. At the end of the day, any win after a loss shines even more honey-gold to him, dyed with the same sunshine after the rain.

He laughs and laughs, loud and stupid and free, and Miyuki’s expression blooms with color at every corner, too, a flourish of the first frost-painted flowers before spring.

‘Noisy as always,’ he says, breathless and striking. ‘You’re so insufferable.’

Eijun beams when Miyuki leans over to kiss any leftover misgivings away, sloppy and rumpled and perfect, coaxing a pliable mouth and an aching heart open – and he swears that Miyuki’s heart is beating in time with his when he kisses back, soft chests nearly flush together, their braided fingers shivering in unison.

The south had smelled different to the city, a fragrance of damp heat and petrichor and warm grass. Two languid days in Naha has Eijun going home with salt-scented skin tinted bronze, easy footsteps as weightless as a summer breeze, jaw cool with fading sweat. The peppering of fans that line the pale walls when he and Miyuki touch down back at Haneda is surprisingly more ample than usual: a rumbling orchestra of the giggly pleasure of teenage girls, the bulky cameras flashing cold silver, the bright and eager chatter of young boys.

‘… Maybe I’ll give Kuramochi a visit,’ Miyuki says, angling an exasperatingly handsome grin and a lazy wave to a girl nearby who’s all tittering birdsong – eyes glittering with stars and his name spilling from her lips like a mantra. ‘See how his ankle’s doing, and then show him a few of the pictures that we took at the beach.’

‘Are you literally just trying to make him jealous,’ Eijun monotones with distaste, curved knuckles hoisting the strap of his travel bag higher on the rigid angle of his shoulder. ‘When he’s all better, he’s gonna kick you in the butt the very first day he’s back at practice, you know! How long has he been rambling on and on about wanting to go on a trip now, like a month or something? You don’t have to rub it in his face.’

‘It’ll give him an incentive.’ A pointed tilt of an eyebrow, charming and terrible. ‘Motivation speeds up recovery.’

‘You’re the worst. What are my parents gonna say if they meet you, I swear,’ Eijun grinds out through clenched teeth, and his feet quicken, hurrying to reach the fringes of the crowd. ‘You’re lucky I’d still go places with you, jerk. C’mon, I’m pretty hungry, let’s get some breakfast.’

Fingers reach up to ruffle his hair and Miyuki slings a messy arm around him – half a drop of cheeky bravado, and an ocean of skinship and warmth; it’s everything that folds around Eijun in the level din of the airport around them, and more.

He shakes up a cyclonic fuss of full-chested indignation, but can’t help leaning over the table to leave a stupid peck on Miyuki’s chin as they slide into the private restaurant booth anyway.

‘What’s there to want after the pro league.’ Curved fingers dig into the dips of his waist, and a thrilled sigh flares hot at the line of his throat. ‘What else are you aiming for.’

‘Are you testing me or something? Why do you keep asking me all these questions.’ And protruding granite juts rigidly against his lower back, making his shoulders clench, but Eijun’s mouth still pulls into a wet grin anyway. ‘That’s – ngh – that’s easy, isn’t it? To keep everything as it is now. To stay happy with the way things are. To just … always play baseball.’

Tongue and lips and teeth skate down the shell of his ear, and Eijun’s next breath catches fire in the deep dark of his lungs.

‘Would you want to be there with me,’ he pants, voice stumbling over unusual modesty even as he’s running his fingertips along the inside of Miyuki’s naked thighs.

‘Always is a long time, partner, but how can I say no to playing baseball until I die,’ Miyuki hisses unevenly, purpose dripping cool and slow from the open slash of his mouth, a seamless match to the nighttime shadow and grey half-light seeping in from Eijun’s windows. ‘Ah … god, Sawamura.’

Everything considered, Eijun’s always known exactly what he’s seeing whenever he so much as looks in Miyuki’s direction. An intricate design of blood and bones that are molded from gears and numbers, flavored with pored-over scorebooks and watchful silence; Miyuki has the taste of steel and reason, not the type to say love or even like, not the type to say forever. In all respects, that makes his answer all the more annoyingly, breathlessly perfect, and it nearly brings Eijun to his knees.

He’s far from being a child anymore. He’s all grown up, pressed firm against the kitchen countertop with Miyuki’s bare hips grinding up against his own, with twining pressure in his belly and between his legs and along his spine, with a quiet refrain of guttural moans falling from his parted lips and tensed fingers twisting into Miyuki’s hair. Hardly a little boy in any respect, but hell if he isn’t still brimming with dreams: dreams as endless as the vast, revolving sky, as dangerous and star-kissed as the open galaxies, as stunning as the new light that he wakes up to every dawn.

When he dreams of happiness, he dreams of what he has. Baseball, teammates, family, friends, Miyuki. He dreams of this.

And the diamond, too, will always be a home to him. He knows that the earth’s going to keep turning like the cogs of a music box, and time’s going to keep slipping by, and he’ll still want to stand here – bathed in summer and every season after, with sturdy feet planted in the dirt and with beads of daylight resting in his eyelashes. Gossamer threads have always sailed in the corner of his daydreams, through it all; a wispy streak that maybe comes from another world, that maybe is in every world, that flutters like the lifeblood in every vein.

‘… Is everything what you hoped for,’ Miyuki asks, low and meaningful, and the sentiment trickles like honey over Eijun’s skin.

Eijun cocks a single eyebrow, brazen and deliberate and smoldering together with a half-lidded gaze like a challenge. ‘I’m stuck with you and we’re gonna have to work hard for the upcoming season and all the seasons after that. What do you think?’ he says dryly, but with a bare breath of fondness. ‘How about you?’

Miyuki flicks over that infuriating half-grin that’s sloped on one side, fingers wrapping cozy and snug around Eijun’s palm; the affectionate crinkle at his eyes is more than an adequate reply, as far as Eijun’s concerned – the only answer that he really needs.

tema - dolce

Hey, Miyuki-senpai, do you believe—

‘—in parallel worlds?’ says Eijun.

A solid weight rustles in the grass, curtained by the rising perfume of rich earth and yesterday morning’s rain; Miyuki rolls over, shifting onto his side on the now-dry bed of dirt. ‘What is this,’ he monotones, laying an elbow casually on the ground and cradling a soft cheek in his curved palm. ‘Are you reading some strange stuff again? More of those super-old books?’

‘I – they’re not strange!’ Eijun replies hotly, a sharp and dissonant chord in every shade of irritable, even when the crinkled, yellowing paper enclosed by fragrant leather skin is an undeniable and sturdy bulk inside his jacket pocket right now. ‘But the concept’s pretty interesting, isn’t it? The theory exists in a lot of cultures, I think! Like, in science, mythology, religion and whatever. They have neat symbols and stuff, like—’

Like spiders, spinners of beginnings, of ends, of stories, of universes. He doesn’t always fully understand the romanticism or poetry of this sort of thing, but the thought’s still resonating all the way up to the tips of his ears like a song anyway: melodies strummed from thin webs stretched across space and time, bridging black holes, weaving fault lines of silver light in the void beyond the dark.

‘—I don’t mean to interrupt,’ says Miyuki bluntly, swiping a wet tongue over his teeth. ‘But I’m curious to know where this is going.’

Quiet attention hangs and settles like snow in his eyes and Eijun’s suddenly a little self-conscious, heat draping over the hollow of his throat in what he knows must be an obvious wash of pink.

‘… It’s just fun to think about what it might be like, I guess?’ he answers, fist briefly tightening and releasing in a faint echo of his own pulse: a soft clenching and unclenching, a subtle rise and fall, a push and pull of something that he can’t really put his finger on right in this second. ‘I mean, if there are different variations of us … and baseball’s still just as fun and important to them – to us, you know? And if those versions of us are playing together, too! Like it’s fate, or destiny.’

‘No such thing as fate or destiny.’ It’s curt and ruler-straight, a reply of cool stone and needle-sharp reason, made up of the same order and method crafted in tactical pitch-calls and innumerable hours carefully spent analyzing scorebooks. ‘Where people end up is a result of choices, not some celestial arrangement. Face it, you and I met because of our choice to play baseball, not because of some miracle of the universe. If your hypothetical worlds exist, and we’re playing together in them, it’s because that’s what we chose. That’s what we wanted.’

It’s almost like the film of paper’s pulled away from Eijun’s eyes and is replaced, all too suddenly, by a long stretch of open galaxies; he breathes in wonder, low and muted, swirling and kindling against the roof of his mouth.

‘… What are these worlds like for you?’ says Miyuki with a note of interest, wiry fingers slipping through tufts of grass, inching toward Eijun’s own. ‘Why don’t you tell me how they exist, as you imagine them?’

One part wise to two parts bladed metal, like a pinprick underneath Eijun’s skin. But the words aren’t unkind, and that stings just a little more, maybe. He wilts, coming midway to a sigh. ‘You think I’m just being stupid.’

‘I didn’t say that. I’m saying that if these worlds don’t exist anywhere else, they exist, at least, in your thoughts,’ Miyuki answers pointedly, his lips skewing into a frown; but he immediately softens at the edges, little by little, slanted mouth loose and gleaming eyes attentive. ‘I mean, you took a moment to think about them. You brought them up with me. If anything, that’s enough to say that they’re alive in some form, right?’

Eijun already knows, maybe. That in some shadow-painted nook of his mind, he’s vaguely flirted with the idea of some kind of divine providence, riding on a multicolored dream of being a fixed point in the universe – in all the universes: a champion with a calling, a purpose. Sure, Miyuki sees a lot of things in black and white and grey, but there’s no question in Eijun’s mind that he can see it all clearly either way, keen-eyed and intelligent.

‘Yeah, okay,’ Eijun murmurs, clamping his teeth around the miniscule spark that’s undoubtedly been ignited by the quiet focus Miyuki’s giving him – a gaze that’s making his heart pound, that’s skimming over his own like fingertips slowly grazing across his wrist. It’s not like he’s really thought about these scenarios much at all, to be totally frank and honest; but even as shapeless blurs, he’s definitely felt their outlines and contours sitting deep in his belly anyway, like a tucked-away sheaf of unopened diary pages. ‘Can you imagine if we only met and started playing together from college? Or if we met a lot further back and played together in a little league club! Or if we met only as pros—’

‘—And I suppose all of these involve making choices that lead to being happy?’ Miyuki says, his half-lowered eyelids stained by a strip of sun and by a dash of subdued fascination. ‘What’s happiness, though?’

It’s nearly a funny thing to ask, especially when Eijun knows that Miyuki doesn’t really need to; there’s something about the question that rings almost like a challenge, or a dare.

‘Well, baseball’s fun and makes us pretty happy, right? And … I don’t know if you know this, but I wanted you to catch for me. That’s why I came to Seidō.’ A cheap and tacky ballad, syrupy sugar to his ears, but Miyuki’s also a big part of the reason that he’s here, and it is what it is. ‘I wanted to keep throwing to you, ever since that first time, you know?’

Maybe Miyuki can hear it right now, too – the bleary memory of his own thrumming laughter two years back; a voice of chiming bells framed by a colorful grin, telling Rei that Eijun seems like an interesting guy, asking generously if he can catch Eijun’s pitch. Eijun’s end, and also his beginning.

‘I think you might’ve told me, once.’ A feathered sigh that curves together with the corners of Miyuki’s eyes; an exhale that licks hot at the underside of Eijun’s jaw. Lean catcher’s fingers slide across the palm that Eijun’s laid on the grass, knuckles skating over knuckles, skin warm against skin. ‘… Either way, I won’t forget anytime soon.’

Now this is new.

A different kind of thrill from standing on the diamond, even though Eijun’s entire field of vision is still full of constellations, with every pale shimmer threaded to the next: heavy-lidded looks meeting in the middle of a shining battery, between partners. Miyuki’s gaze bright and watery and brimming with promise, then and now, lacing together with Eijun’s own the way their fingers would. Two trembling stars walking night and day, twisting themselves and each other in silk string.

Miyuki’s hand tugs at the hem of Eijun’s shirt in an earnest request, and Eijun slopes forward; each of Miyuki’s curling lashes sweep long and fluid like a spray of dark plumes, and the droplets of light in his pupils flicker like jewels when Eijun leans in, a sight that he’s willing to admit is captivating as hell. A quiet heartbeat winding around Eijun’s own in melodic counterpoint, and Miyuki softly pulls in, too, breath slipping out in hot tendrils, trailing over the edge of Eijun’s chin.

‘… But they’re over there flirting again, Kuramochi-senpai, I don’t want to—’ a quiet voice protests, as delicate as petals and as prickly as thorns. ‘—Uh, Eijun-kun! Lunch is all ready in the dining hall, are you and Miyuki-senpai coming, or?’

A dry press of lips across one side of Eijun’s mouth, languid and novel and altogether lovely, and he knows he’s hooked and caught in Miyuki without regret, knows he’s purposely swerving away much too late. He briefly returns the fleeting kiss, the touch lingering with faint affection and chaste apology, fingers winding in the wisps of hair at the back of Miyuki’s neck. ‘I … ah, yeah, Harucchi! We’ll come over in a minute!’ he calls out in a loud voice, turning his head just a fraction – and then he withers all the way down to his toes with a low, dismal groan, tucking his face into the crook of Miyuki’s neck and shoulder. ‘Come on. For something that feels like it’s been a long while coming, of course someone just has to come and interrupt the first time ‘round. Lame.’

‘I’m not too surprised, to be honest. What a way to spoil the mood. Can’t be helped, I guess,’ Miyuki murmurs, brows knitting at the soured moment. He looks every bit as disappointed as if he’d wanted more, and it’s enough to make Eijun’s pulse race suddenly – a ruffle of wings taking flight and soaring. ‘I think my dormmates might be planning to stay out and do some late practice tonight, though, so if you want … you can come over to my room later? We can make up for it.’ A breathed promise, flowering underneath his tongue, steady and alive.

‘Yeah, sure,’ Eijun answers colorfully, and the boldness of the sentiment smolders warm and mulled at his lips, at the hollows of his cheeks, at the shells of his ears. ‘Just you and me sounds really good. Although all of those guys wouldn’t be those guys if they weren’t always hanging around or popping up at the worst times, huh?’

One, two, three beats per measure: a waltz in the shape of a full circle, and he gets it well enough. Baseball, his teammates, his batteries. His family, his friends, his own self. And every tiny piece of it is definitely as much a part of him now as breathing, walking, sleeping: a set of certainties and instincts as deep-set as building shelter, as fights for survival, as spinning webs – ropes of unbroken blood-pumps in simple triple time.

And Miyuki’s here, too, a stupidly welcome presence in the vicinity of all of it, making a discreet home in the folds of Eijun’s heart tissue, together with everything else. Just the way Eijun wants it.

A coil of fingers around the sharp-cut triangle of Miyuki’s elbow and one last sloppy peck to Miyuki’s cheek, and Eijun straightens up, chest magnificently puffed, the back of his mouth sweet and warm. ‘Alright, Miyuki-senpai, let’s go! Hey, you wanna sit with me for lunch?’

At any rate, there’ll always be hope in him, teeming with exuberant noise and quaking energy and all the promises of the universe. Which is painfully childlike, maybe, but a firm hand reaches over to squeeze his wrist in appreciation, and the answer basically speaks for itself. Andante, easy and calm, seventy-two beats per minute: temperate and perfect.

‘God, you really are something,’ Miyuki answers, a tender cadence of heat. ‘Sawamura.’

Maybe, in other lives, in other timelines, in other worlds, he’ll still choose this. And if he doesn’t, for whatever reason, then he supposes that’s okay. Because here and now, at least, this version of him has made some pretty damn good choices; it’s no wonder he’s slept fuller nights and woken up more contented in the mornings than he’d ever thought possible.

He casts Miyuki a sidelong look, angled lips quirking at the edges in a precursor to a fond half-smile – and Miyuki rolls his eyes in quiet patience, face glimmering from corner to corner with unmistakable affection.

Sawamura Eijun: a star pitcher of Seidō High School’s baseball team who’s still got a lot of steps and long roads ahead of him to walk. Yeah, he sure does like the sound of that.