Archive of Our Own

*

It's a long tradition in Seido High School Baseball Club. It's quite unusual from an outsider's perspective- as well as from freshmen's- but the culture is so subtle one can easily blend in to its midst.

It is subtle, but it doesn't mean it's not powerful. You'll hear about it, but it's operating underground and not everyone is in on its operation.

One could go on to his normal life without realising he's already targeted and started falling for a certain person.

Of course it doesn't always mean coupled people would always stay together, but most of the time, since the boys always take serious consideration regarding the couple's compatibility, most matched couple end up pretty much staying together for a long time. 

The rest of 'staying in love' business would be the couples' job already.

Since the freshmen would be adjusting in the culture of rampant matchmaking in the baseball club for the first few months, it's become an unspoken rule not to let them 'matchmake' for the others.

It'll be the second and third years' job to pair people off, drawing up plans to make them naturally fall for each other.

That said, when Miyuki Kazuya and Kuramochi Youichi- Isashiki Jun and Kominato Ryosuke's successful first project- turned second year, they couldn't help but put their fingertips together, already planning the whole year.

*

"-- So you're saying you're jealous of Sawamura over that girl he's texting?" Kazuya asks, his arms crossed, eyes narrowed and brows pulled down.

Youichi's mouth falls, rolling his eyes. He took a step forward, toward Kazuya who has his back on the window.

"No! I'm saying I don't feel good when he's texting Wakana-chan!"

Kazuya threw his hands up, scoffing. He looks at the side, a smile appearing in his face. He put his hands to his waist, schooling his face to a smirk as he looked at his boyfriend. Youichi flinched.

"I see," Kazuya says, nodding.

Youichi closed his eyes tightly, mentally kicking himself. Sighing, he looked at Kazuya's eyes, stepping closer. He drew in a smirk of his own.

"Don't you smell something rank?" He asks, scrunching his nose as he swats the air.

Kazuya frowns, shaking his head as he recrossed his arms.

"No? You can't smell anything?" Youichi asks, smirking. He leans in to Kazuya, sniffing loudly. "Oof, I think I can smell jealousy over here!"

Kazuya, who doesn't ever let his poker face down, couldn't help but let his guard down. His mouth fell, eyes wide.

"Shut up!" Kazuya says, turning around to open the window.

That was their situation when they got to talking that maybe, could be, perhaps, it's time for them to match someone.

And maybe that someone is Youichi's roommate and Kazuya's pitcher, Sawamura Eijun.

 "You don't even call me Kazuya-chan yet you're calling some random person 'chan'? What the hell was that?"

"So you want me to call you Kazuya-chan?"

"Shut up!"

*

Eijun doesn't know what to think of when Kuramochi and Miyuki just started hanging around him more.

Don't get him wrong, he respects them and likes them, but he'd rather hang around his friends who doesn't tease him relentlessly and ask stupid questions about himself.

Not to mention, they're creepy. He already caught them looking at him in several different occasions looking like they're studying him, with their narrowed eyes and their obvious exchange of information behind their hands.

He did confront them one time, but all they did was look at him like he's a complete idiot, establishing vehemently that they're innocent but of course Eijun knows they're the exact opposite of innocent.

He wanted to ask them what's their deal and pick on their brains, but with someone who loves someone twisted, he's better off steering away from their brains.

More importantly, he has to focus on practice and strengthening his weapons for the summer.

*

"I mean, we've collected information," Kazuya shrugs, his palms up. "I think it's good that we begin with setting up Sawamura."

"Are you sure with this person, though? Because we can still back out now…"

Kazuya smirks which built up to a full-blown sneer. Youichi rolled his eyes. If he just didn't want to like Kazuya, he'll push him off the rooftop.

"Their egos are big, for sure, but they're too similar, don't worry about it," Kazuya says, waving a hand under his nose.

"All right, but let me say this once again: little involvement, just lots of opportunity--"

"Yeah, yeah, it's not like we can make them feel anything, anyway," Kazuya says, rolling his eyes. "We'll just create and orchestrate beautiful scenarios and throw them in those situations."

Youichi looks at Kazuya for a moment, before letting a smile appear on his face. Kazuya rolls his eyes but smiled back.

"I feel like we had too many free time on our hands…" Youichi says, covering his mouth with his fist as a couple of sniggers escaped his lips.

Kazuya looks at their target, who kept looking their way with a pulled down brows and wide eyes. 

"Oh you're so having a relationship, Sawamoron," Kazuya says before joining his boyfriend's laugh.

In over a few meters away, Eijun clutched on Haruichi's arm as his two senpais continued laughing while looking at him.

*

"Hey, Sawamura," Kuramochi calls and Eijun could hear the crunch of gravel coming closer.

Eijun turned around and looked up. Kuramochi, hands to his waist, looms over him.

"Yo, senpai, what's the matter?"

"Are you done with your training?" Kuramochi asks, still looking down on Eijun.

Eijun frowns slightly, brushing the dust off his hands. He stalls for time by slowly standing up. If what Kuramochi would tell him is important, he wouldn't ask Eijun about his training first and a little bit of inconvenience would be a good payback for all the times he's uncomfortable because of him and Miyuki.

When Eijun's at least satisfied with the silent vindictiveness he displayed, he smiled slightly.

"Yeah, I just finished," Eijun says, nodding his head. "Why?"

Kuramochi let his hands slide in his pockets.

"Good, we just hid Furuya so Haruichi needs help cleaning out the dugout on field B," Kuramochi says before coolly stalking off, hands still in his pockets and Eijun wanted to run after him, take some of the field dirt and throw it to his senpai's back. Or face.

Stomping and grumbling, he made his way to the other field and noticed there are an insane number of people around today.

He did hear from his senpais that two Koushien superstar teams would have a Round-robin with Seido today. Eijun just didn't know up to what extent they're well known of.

He violently pushed away the netting and started on to the dugout, noticing no one, not even Haruichi, was there.

"No Haruichi? That's not fair, I'm the one supposedly helping…" he whispered under his breath, crouching near the stray cooler packs and started sorting out. "… Not the one doing the cleaning… I'm supposed to be the support, not the main…"

He continued grumbling while sorting through the clumps of packs before someone put a had on his shoulder. Thinking it was Haruichi, Eijun turned around.

What faced him isn't Haruichi but someone unfamiliar.

That someone has his cold blue eyes narrowed, his brows pulled down, his lips pursed and his tall nose flared. He has this look of a mischievous elf in him, and his blonde hair didn't help quell that image.

If Eijun would be honest, he would admit the private space-intruder looks really attractive.

A beat too late, Eijun falls to his bottom in surprise.

"What are you doing?" The stranger asked, crouching in front of Eijun. 

"Uhm, sorting out things," Eijun says, forcefully pushing off the ground. He dusted off his pants before turning away to go back to his interrupted work.

The stranger clicked his tongue before crouching right next to Eijun, his hands swatting Eijun's hands away from the ice packs he's counting.

"What the hell are you doing?" The stranger asks, elbowing Eijun away from the cooler. 

Eijun once again fell to his bottom.

"What's your problem?" Eijun asks, now frowning as he look at the blonde stranger, who started checking the coolers Eijun previously sorted out.

After he's done checking the coolers, the stranger went to look at Eijun by his place on the ground. He still got that condescending stare, but his overall expression softened.

"You? What's your problem? Why are you sorting out Inashiro's coolers?" The stranger asks, crossing his arms.

Eijun, for the first time, let his eyes wander off the stranger's face. The stranger wears white jerseys on top of a white compression shirt, some large, bold prints in red splashed across his chest. His mouth slowly opened.

The stranger clicked his tongue again and Eijun closed his mouth.

"Are you done checking me out? Seido's raising their kids shameless…"

Eijun shakes his head, frowning to himself. He slowly picked himself off the ground again, slowly standing up.

"I'm sorry, I…" Eijun starts, looking at the ground as his neck heat up.

The stranger stood up as well, dusting his pants. He looked at Eijun up and down before re-crossing his arms, stepping close to Eijun.

"You're sorry you checked me out or you're sorry because you got caught planting something to sabotage Inashiro?"

Eijun stepped away but thought better of it. The stranger's smaller than him, why must he back down?

"I didn't know," Eijun says, shrugging. "No one was here, I thought it's our dugout. The coolers look the same, there aren't any bags--"

"My bag is over there," the stranger says, pointing to the benches.

Eijun opens his mouth, but thought better. He looks away, cringing.

The stranger narrowed his eyes even more, his brows pulling lower.

"Are you sure you didn't put anything in the ice packs? Any allergens? Needles or something?"

Eijun scoffed, rolling his eyes. He raised his hands.

"I don't have anything with me," Eijun says, raising his eyebrows at the stranger.

"Because you already put the needles on the ice packs so that when I wear them I'll--"

"No, I would never do that!"

The stranger bit his lip while looking at Eijun through narrowed eyes.

"How would I know you're telling the truth?" The stranger asks, still wearing a suspicious expression.

"Ah, you can frisk me--"

"Frisk you?" The stranger asks, stepping away as he looks at Eijun, swatting the air, frowning and his mouth twisted. "Ew, I wouldn't want to touch you--"

"Now that's hurtful!" Eijun says, stepping toward the stranger. "It's not like I have a disease or something! And you did check them, didn't you?"

The stranger stepped away from Eijun more, putting some mere two feet between them. He pulled something out of his pocket and sprayed something in the air, before haughtily putting the small bottle back to his pocket. The smell of disinfecting alcohol reached Eijun's nose and he chuckled softly.

"I did check them," the stranger says, crossing his arms.

Eijun nods.

"And you saw nothing of the sorts, right?"

Eijun pursed his lips, trying to hide a smile when the stranger looks like he's got a migraine coming.

"… Nothing," the stranger admitted softly, his nose up in the air.

Eijun titled his head to the side, raising his brows.

"Right, you saw nothing, and I did a good job at sorting things, right?" Eijun asks, smirking.

The stranger looks at him sideways, his mouth is smiling but his face is crumpled. Eijun's blood boiled.

"I'm sure I can do a better job at it," the stranger softly says.

"Then why don't you sort them all out?" Eijun challenges, hurt that the stranger just couldn't thank him for his accidental help.

The stranger rolls his eyes, his arms falling to his sides. He looked directly at Eijun with raised brows.

"That's why I came back here, right? But you're done with them, right? So why would I still sort them out, it's a waste of energy, right?"

Eijun nodded, frowning at the stranger.

"Right, I wasted my energy sorting out your things," he says, feeling satisfied when the stranger's mouth falls open, eyes blinking fast.

"It's not like we asked you," the stranger says, leaning towards Eijun, frowning deeper. "It's an accident."

"But don't I deserve a token of gratitude even if I only accidentally helped?"

The stranger's face became even more elfin as his nose flared again. He forcefully sighed, his eyes rolling at the back of his head, throwing his arms up the air before stalking off to the dugout.

Eijun thought the stranger already left him and thought better than to banter with someone like him, but Eijun could see him shifting through something. 

The stranger took one look at Eijun behind his shoulder and Eijun couldn't help but smile widely. The stranger rolled his eyes.

Eijun could feel breathless, impatient that the stranger's taking a lot of time walking toward him. He has to suppress his wide smile, just to appear teasing, but his facial muscles are screaming, so he stopped and just shamelessly smiled.

"Here," the stranger says, reaching out a hand to Eijun, eyes narrowed and nose sticking up the air.

Eijun reached out with both his hands, bowing slightly. He might be wrong in the head sometimes, but his family instilled proper manners in him. The stranger gently put a cellophane wrapped brownie on his hands.

"Thanks! What's this?" Eijun asks.

"Brownie," the stranger curtly says, not looking at Eijun.

It's not like Eijun didn't already know, to that extent. Eijun narrows his eyes, smelling the brownie.

"Heeh~ it looks good, but are you sure this isn't poisoned?" 

The stranger's mouth fell before he almost bared his teeth at Eijun. He took a swipe at the brownie, which Eijun hurriedly raised above his head. He smiled down at the appalled stranger.

"I'll eat it," Eijun says, stepping away and shrugging. "If it's poisoned and I died, you'll get the blame."

The stranger growled at Eijun, who didn't mind him. Eijun just opened the wrapper carefully, before smelling the opened brownie.

Eijun won't lie when it comes to foods. The brownie in his hands look good and it smells really good that his mouth filled with saliva.

The stranger clicked his tongue.

"I'll have you know that everyday, my mom makes me tho--"

"Ooh, your mom made this?" Eijun asks, exclaiming while looking at the brownie closely. "Then it's fine! I don't think any mom would poison her kid!"

The stranger bobbed his head to the side. Eijun smirked.

"Unless, of course, she couldn't stand you and poiso--"

"Can you please stop with the poisoning joke?"

Eijun's smirk built to a smile, looking at the stranger up and down.

"Only because you said please," Eijun says.

The stranger rolls his eyes, sighing hard. 

Eijun made a show to eat the brownie slowly, conscious of the fact that the stranger is watching closely. 

If Eijun is correct, then the stranger loves this brownie enough for his mom to make this everyday, then the stranger just gave up a beloved snack for Eijun.

Eijun just wanted to torment him a bit. He did get tired sorting out their things, so a little bit of indirect torture would suffice. And the brownie does taste good.

"Hmm, so good," Eijun says, mouth full of the brownie. He looks at the stranger who's looking redder. "What's this, red bean?"

The stranger nods, swallowing hard before looking away.

"Red bean and chocolate," the stranger says, his breath hitching.

"Ooh," Eijun mutters, taking another bite. "It's really good."

The stranger nods. Eijun does feel a bit worried because it's like the stranger suddenly lost his energy until the stranger snapped his head up, full of energy, crossed his arms, and stuck his nose up.

"Damn right, it's good, so better be thankful, that someone like me," points to himself, "gave you," points to Eijun, "a snack. My snack."

Eijun has to remind himself to close his mouth. He swallowed hard.

"Why, who are you?" Eijun asks, vainly trying to put up a brave front. 

The stranger frowns, looking at him through narrowed eyes.

"You're not from around Tokyo?" He asks and Eijun couldn't help but affirm. "Which prefecture?"

"Nagano," Eijun says, shrugging. "Why?"

The stranger smirks, stepping closer to Eijun. Eijun raised the brownie to his chest, trying to get something in between the stranger and himself.

"Well, Nagano boy--"

"Eijun," Eijun blurts out in his panic. The stranger's glare melted away. "I mean, my name's Sawamura Eijun."

"Well, Eijun, I'm none other than the Prince of the Capital, Narumiya Mei, Inashiro's Ace. The fact that you've even got to stand near me should be a blessing to you."

Eijun gasps out when Narumiya Mei clutched his wrist suddenly. 

"And the fact that I gave you my snack should mean the world for you," Narumiya says, biting a portion off the brownie on Eijun's hand. 

Eijun has to actively stop himself from crying out or keeping his mouth closed. 

"Now go to your dugout," Narumiya says, pointing to the first base dugout. He chews a little before swallowing. 

Eijun stands there, open-mouthed and dazed, looking at Narumiya. Narumiya clicks his tongue, motioning to Eijun.

"Go! What are you waiting for?"

Eijun slowly smirked and Narumiya crumpled his face, rolling his eyes.

"You've got brownie bits on your teeth," Narumiya says, sneering at Eijun.

Eijun slowly cleaned the front of his teeth, enjoying the look of disgust on Narumiya's face. 

"You've got brownie… essence here," Eijun says, pointing at the corners of his mouth. 

Narumiya took his time taking a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe the offending pools of saliva. When he's done, he stares back at Eijun, his eyes getting bigger by the second.

"So? Why aren't you going?" Narumiya asks, pointing once again to the Seido dugout.

Eijun just rolls his eyes, taking a bite off the brownie. Narumiya backs away and sat on the front row bench, crossing his legs as he plays with his hair.

"Go!" Narumiya says, shooing Eijun using his foot.

Eijun rolls his eyes, biting off a portion of the brownie before waving bye at his interesting new… friend.

---

"I mean, it's still a success, right?" Kazuya asks.

"Technically, we failed to execute the exact plan, but I'm not complaining," Youichi says, looking at Sawamura, who's looking at something in his hands before putting it in his mouth in whole, standing right in the middle of the field.

"I mean, as long as we got them together--"

"Yeah, as long as they're together…" 

"Kuramochi-senpai, Miyuki-senpai, can you move these ice boxes, please," Haruichi asks, pointing to the two biggest packs on the ground.

Youichi sighs.

"If that idiot isn't a complete idiot, then we're done here by now," Youichi says, grunting as he picked up the closest pack.

"Who would have thought he'd go and sort out Inashiro's things instead?" Kazuya says, planning to increase Sawamura's training menu. Then realized he's got no power over it.

*

Kazuya and Youichi knows their case is the first of its own. No one ever knew of any Seido Alumni who succeeded matchmaking two people from different schools.

Not only is physical availability a requirement for two people falling truly in love, but also two people with huge egos are hard to push to fall.

The time and instances of their meetings are limited and hard to orchestrate, it stresses Youichi and Kazuya out. That, on top of everything baseball-related stress piled up on their shoulders.

"Oi, Sawamura, you're stressing me out," Kazuya says, clicking his tongue.

The kid, who's reading something on his desk quietly across the room, looks at Kazuya with understandable bemusement and disgust. Sawamura opens his mouth but closes it again, not knowing what he could reply to that.

"Just, I dunno, go out to the shopping district first," Kazuya says, rubbing his hair. "Ah, buy nail files and that clear nail polish for your nails."

Kazuya doesn't really know Sawamura much, but he did know Sawamura's tells and right now, as a vein throbs furiously on his forehead, his nostrils flared and his lips smiling but slashed white, Kazuya knows Sawamura's definitely riled up.

"Right," Sawamura says, turning back to fix his things, letting the chair scrape the floor loudly.

Sawamura then slowly put on some light coat and and got his tote bag latched on his shoulder. He turned one last time at Kazuya and Youichi.

"Don't use my bed with whatever you'll do. Just don't. I'll know," Sawamura warns, looking at Kazuya and Youichi sharply before stalking off, slamming the door.

"Upstart."

*

Eijun blows off steam by stopping by one of the arcades Kuramochi dragged him and the others before.

It's not worth mentioning, but Eijun got the highest score off the whack-a-mole. Lame. But he did hit a lot of imaginary Miyuki and Kuramochi, so it's still his win.

He did calmed down halfway to his walk. The spring breeze, even through the thick throngs of people, is still cold but the sunshine is pleasant to the skin.

Then he went in a bookshop and tried choosing books to buy and there he stumbled upon one of the most interesting people he met: Narumiya Mei.

Narumiya's currently comparing two novels in his hands, obviously choosing which to buy. Eijun, of course, acted on impulse. He quietly walked up to his unsuspecting back and mimicked what Narumiya did the first time they saw each other.

Instead of jumping and immediately turning around, Narumiya stiffened. Eijun could feel the stiffness of his muscles under his hand and the ragged breath he's taking within seconds.

"Relax, it's just me," Eijun says, chuckling pointedly as he removed his hand resting on Narumiya's shoulder. "Sawamura Eijun."

Narumiya's posture slackened. His hands tightly clutching the books fell to his sides as he released a huge sigh. Then he's all tensed again.

Narumiya clicked his tongue as he turned to Eijun, looking really angry with his frown and narrowed eyes.

Eijun smirked.

"So," Eijun starts, overriding what Narumiya would say. "How many enemies did you make for you to get so scared like that?"

Narumiya, who closed his mouth during Eijun's comment, opened his mouth again, scoffing. He rolled his eyes and shook his head before turning back to the bookcase. Eijun followed, standing beside him and pretending to choose among the books on the stand.

"I don't have enemies," Narumiya says, glancing at Eijun sideways. 

Eijun knows that's a lie.

Just the other day, Eijun asked Chris about Inashiro- just because Eijun knows Narumiya will undeniably get mentioned. Chris said Narumiya, with his natural condescending attitude and talent in baseball, joined by other talented people, will of course attract unwanted hate and hostilities from other schools.

Of course, that lead to Chris' schooling about proper manners and sportsmanship toward enemies, because even during the Round-robin they had with them, Seido felt this united hate toward Inashiro.

Not that Eijun does feel hate toward Narumiya, there's just this feeling of wanting to beat him and his team in a serious game.

On one hand, Eijun is certain Narumiya already received some unwanted hostilities from other teams.

"I see that you didn't have any allergies or something…"

Narumiya's mouth twitched but he just hummed, weighing two books on his hands.

"So that means I didn't put anything, right?"

Narumiya cleared his throat, putting back a book to the stand. Eijun glanced at the book Narumiya put back and picked it up.

"Hoo, so you're leaving Blue Bamboo, huh?" 

Narumiya didn't answer, but just looked at Eijun, frowning.

"I'll take it," Eijun says, shrugging as he held on to the book. 

Narumiya snubbed him and started walking to the register. Eijun followed. 

"Have you been reading Osamu Dazai long?"

Narumiya stopped and looked at Eijun, a disbelieving smile on his face. He looked at Eijun up and down before shaking his head.

"What the hell?" Narumiya mutters.

Eijun pursed his lips, humming.

"Hmm, that's not good…?" Eijun asks, leaning in toward Narumiya. "I mean, I was just asking about your choice of author…"

Narumiya faced him properly, blinking at him fast.

"No," he says, shaking his head. "It's not… normal."

"Heeh~"

"So just go away," Narumiya says, snapping his head sideways before stomping toward the register. 

Eijun followed. 

"Well I think it's normal," Eijun says when he's beside Narumiya before hurriedly snatching the book out of his hand, running toward the register.

"Oi!" Narumiya calls from behind. 

Eijun snickers, putting the books in front of the registrar.

"I'll be paying for these, please," Eijun tells the registrar. "Hurry up, he's here. Please wrap them separately."

Narumiya sighed heavily when he arrived by the register.

"What the hell are you doing?" Narumiya asks through gritted teeth. 

Eijun shrugged, paying in cash. He smiled at Narumiya as he pushed the parcel to his chest. 

"Seriously?" Eijun asks when Narumiya didn't get the book from his hand yet. 

Narumiya released a shuddering sigh, clasping the book to his chest.

"It's not so hard, isn't it?" Eijun says, rolling his eyes. "Now let's go, you're holding up the line."

Narumiya clicked his tongue once more, stomping past Eijun and to the sliding doors. Of course, Eijun followed.

"So," Eijun once again says, catching up on Narumiya by the streets. "Where are you off to, now?"

Narumiya groans, roughly scratching his hair before turning to Eijun.

"Listen, kid," Narumiya starts.

"Eijun," Eijun interrupts. "I mean, my name's Eijun. Sawamura Eijun. You're calling me by my given name last time, so I thought--"

"Right," Narumiya interjects, the parcel crumpling and his knuckles turning white. "I don't know what you're doing, but don't you think I want to be alone, right now?"

Eijun dropped his smile.

They're in the middle of a busy pathway that people has to swerve around them, inconvenienced and scowling, and the two of them are doing nothing but stand there, facing off.

Eijun shrugged.

"I paid for your book, a little gratitude would be appreciated."

Narumiya rolls his eyes.

"I didn't ask you to pay for it."

Eijun pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes.

"I think it's normal for a friend to buy things for their friends…"

Narumiya, who got his eyes to the side and not on Eijun's, snaps his head back and stared at Eijun, mouth slowly opening. He blinks fast as he looks away again, swallowing hard.

"I… I don't…" Narumiya starts, frowning and still looking away. "I don't consider you as a friend."

"Ouch," Eijun says, clutching his chest. "I consider you as a friend, though…"

Narumiya rolls his eyes, biting his lip. He looks at Eijun, his brows raised.

"Well I don't," Narumiya says, batting his lashes. 

Eijun smirks.

"Well I do, Mei," Eijun says.

Narumiya scoffed, frowning. 

"You're incorrigible," Narumiya says, rolling his eyes. 

He started to turn around but someone bumped on his shoulder, sending him falling sideways. Eijun hurriedly put out his hand, clutching on Narumiya's arm to send him upright.

There is this pleasant second- or an infinite of a second- where everything slowed down and Eijun and Narumiya's eyes met, both wide eyed and breathing hard. 

Eijun doesn't know what happened but there's just this pull toward Narumiya and he's suddenly tipping really close to him, despite his feet planted firmly on the ground.

Narumiya turns his head sideways and Eijun swears if he moved even closer, his nose would touch Narumiya's cheek.

Eijun leaned closer to Narumiya's ear, instead, hand trailing up his shoulder.

"That's like two points for me, Mei."

Narumiya clicked his tongue and shrugged Eijun's hand off his shoulder, pushing off Eijun before fixing his unruled sleeve, turning away.

"I don't want any obligations from other people, so I'll just, I dunno, give you two things you want."

Eijun, who admits he's sometimes wrong in the head, smiled widely at the sight of Narumiya's red ears, nails digging on his palm painfully.

"Really? Then save me the other one and give me your number!"

---

"Miyuki-senpai! Kuramochi-senpai!"

Kazuya turned around and saw Sawamura smiling widely, his once lank tote bag now bursting with its contents.

"You can't believe what I did this afternoon!"

Kazuya frowns, checking his pitcher's state of physicality and saw no injuries. At least he saw no major injuries.

Looking closely, though, there is this fading red print on Sawamura's upper cheek, extending to his temple and disappearing to his hairline.

"Yeah, no, what did you do?"

"I bumped into Mei and then asked for his number! Man, you said he's stuck up? You're more stuck up, in my opinion!"

Kazuya let his mouth fall as Sawamura walked away, laughing. Beside him, Youichi mirrors his expression.

"Mei?" Kazuya echoes, looking at Youichi. "Did he say Mei?"

Youichi nods slowly, eyes following his roommate. He looks at Kazuya.

"I think he said he asked for Narumiya's number…"

The two of them stared at each other for a while, mouth drying.

"What. The. Hell?"

"… Right?"

*

"Sawamura-kun."

Eijun looks up from his phone. Chris stands in front of him, scorebook on hand.

"Yes, Chris-senpai?" Eijun asks, putting his phone back in his pocket, clicking it shut. He stands to join Chris. "Is something the matter?"

As far as Eijun knows, as the start of the summer qualifiers nears, there's only few of the practice matches to play and the only big thing to look forward to is the giving of jersey numbers.

Chris goes around checking each of the players' health and possible injuries and by this time of the night, he's already fussing about early turn ins and massages.

Eijun, who actually did his cool down with Chris, already gave up sneaking some more throws behind Chris' back and just resorted to doing his most favourite pastime: texting Mei.

It's really enjoyable, how Eijun could actually see Mei's expressions by what he sends Eijun. Or what reactions Mei probably does whenever Eijun sends him pick-up lines, so Eijun's extra motivated whenever he's texting him.

It's not like Mei texts him back as enthusiastically as Eijun does, but there are their moments that Eijun thinks being slapped in the head suddenly in the middle of the street is worth it.

Chris hums as he lead the way to the dorms.

"Actually, I just wanted to say an observation…"

Eijun, hand still in the pocket, could feel his phone vibrate and fought the urge to take it out and read his message. Eijun pursed his lips in a tight smile instead and hummed, urging Chris to go on.

"Well, you see, I noticed you're always on your phone…"

Eijun's mouth fell as his brows rose. 

"I…"

Chris turns to him a little before nodding.

"It's fine, I just want to say as long as you do it outside of practice and that your personal training isn't affected, it's fine."

Eijun nods even as he frowns.

"Yeah, it's not like… I'm holding my phone everywhere I go and…" Eijun looks up at Chris. "What did you think of my performances, though?"

Chris tilts his head down, brows bobbing.

"Oh, I think you're good," Chris says, stopping in front of the cafeteria. 

Eijun sighs, closing his eyes for a bit as he stopped in front of Chris.

"I would even say, you're actually improving so much, it made me think you have a huge inspiration…"

---

Eijun (20:15): can I go there this weekend?
Eijun (20:15): just for research purposes

Mei (20:18): no

Eijun (20:36): Mei
Eijun (20:36): MEI
Eijun (20:37): I have something to tell youuu
Eijun (20:37): MEI

Mei (20:38): what
Mei (20:38): so annoying

Eijun (20:39): hahaha
Eijun (20:40): it appears you've become my inspiration

Eijun (20:47): Mei?

Mei (20:52): stop hitting on me

Eijun (20:52): I've been caught!
Eijun (20:53): so what about this weekend? Can I go?

Mei (20:54): no

---

Eijun (04:40): Good morning!
Eijun (04:40): I'm the first one to greet you this morning again, I'm sure.

Mei (04:41): no, you're not

Eijun (04:41): you're awake?
Eijun (04:42): Mei's awake!
Eijun (04:42): who are you awake with?
Eijun (04:43): me!

Mei (04:45): too early for this, Eijun.

Eijun (04:46): nothing's too early when it comes to you

Mei (04:48): stop

---

Eijun (16:46): hey
Eijun (16:46): I'm eating strawberry ice cream

Mei (16:48): who eats strawberry ice cream when there's raisins and rum?

Eijun (16:49): you like raisins and rum?

Mei (16:49): I love them

Eijun (16:50): what do you say about an ice cream date with me, then?

Mei (16:52): no

Eijun (16:52): I'll buy you lots.

Mei (16:53): shameless

Eijun (16:53): only for you

---

Eijun (20:56): do you know what's on the menu?

Mei (20:58): ???
Mei (20:59): Eijun, I think you sent it wrong

Eijun (21:00): it's correct
Eijun (21:01): it's for you
Eijun (21:01): you're supposed to ask what
Eijun (21:02): and then I'll tell you me 'n' u
Eijun (21:03): it's supposed to be a cute pick up line

Mei (21:05): have you eaten yet?
Mei (21:05): I think you're hungry

Eijun (21:06): no
Eijun (21:06): ^I just wanted to say that because you're always saying no to me
Eijun (21:07): don't get angry
Eijun (21:07): please don't get angry
Eijun (21:08): I'll send you tons of pick up lines, don't worry

Mei (21:09): I'm not

---

Eijun (20:30): I just finished training
Eijun (20:30): I think it went well
Eijun (20:31): you? How's your day?

Mei (20:46): do you ever just feel like sometimes you're not sure of what you want anymore?

Eijun (20:46): is that question for me?
Eijun (20:46): is it about baseball or generalities of life?

Mei (20:47): Eijun

Eijun (20:47): if you're feeling uncertain and you're starting to lose confidence in yourself, take a step back
Eijun (20:47): it's gonna be okay
Eijun (20:48): the only thing certain in this world is that everything passes.
Eijun (20:49): take some long walks instead of straining yourself.
Eijun (20:50): because you're really good

Mei (20:50): Eijun

Eijun (20:51): artists have them too
Eijun (20:51): moments of uncertainty
Eijun (20:51): and they just take some break
Eijun (20:52): and you're really good at baseball so

Eijun (21:02): Mei?

Mei (21:06): no words of this to anyone else
Mei (21:06): just you and I

Eijun (21:07): just you and I
Eijun (21:07): I love the sound of that

Mei (21:08): oh please

Eijun (21:09): listen, about that long walk, call me

Mei (21:10): no

Eijun (21:11): okay I'll just take it as another obligation from you, then
Eijun (21:12): two tokens of gratitude and a token of apology

Mei (21:12): stop counting
Mei (21:13): hoarder

Eijun (21:13): for youuu

---

Eijun (04:46): good morning~
Eijun (04:46): Mei Mei

Mei (04:47): good morning

Eijun (04:47): my Mei replied!

Mei (04:50): I'm not your Mei

Eijun (04:50): oops slipped

---

Eijun (22:03): Mei can I call you
Eijun (22:03): Mei Mei

Mei (22:04): why is it important?

Eijun (22:04): uh-huh
Eijun (22:05): important

Mei (22:05): okay then

~~~

Mei (22:12): you said it's important

Eijun (22:12): I want to hear your voice

Mei (22:13): no

Eijun (22:13): I do, though
Eijun (22:14): I'll call again!

Mei (22:16): stop calling!

Eijun (22:16): answer or I'll keep calling all through the night

Mei (22:17): I'll turn my phone off

Eijun (22:20): okay calm down
Eijun (22:20): let's just video call
Eijun (22:21): you don't even have to talk
Eijun (22:22): I just want to see you

Mei (22:25): shameless

Eijun (22:25): for you

---

Eijun (16:03): are you an alien?

Mei (16:04): no

Eijun (16:04): Mei, you're supposed to ask why

Mei (16:05): okay
Mei (16:05): why

Eijun (16:06): because there's nothing else like you here on earth

Mei (16:09): I should've just completely ruined your pickup line

Eijun (16:09): aww
Eijun (16:10): happy training, Mei Mei!

Mei (16:11): you too

---

Eijun (20:37): I got in

Mei (20:38): first string? Good for you!

Eijun (20:39): thanks

Mei (20:50): it seems like you're not that excited

Eijun (20:52): because am I that worthy?

Mei (20:53): what
Mei (20:53): if your coach thinks you're useful to the team and he sees your value, then sure you are
Mei (20:54): because don't even think you'll come even close to the first string if you're not helpful to your team
Mei (20:55): that's what I think

Eijun (20:57): but there are like even better players than I am

Mei (20:59): all the more reason to show everyone you're worthy of your number

Eijun (21:02): it must have been really hard on you to wear 1
Eijun (21:03): do you still sleep?

Mei (21:05): it's hard to sometimes
Mei (21:06): well it's me, so

Eijun (21:07): well it's you, Mei Mei

---

Eijun (20:43): save me
Eijun (20:43): Mei Mei
Eijun (20:44): MEI MEI

Mei (20:45): why

Eijun (20:45): save meee

Mei (20:46): you do realise I'm at Inashiro, right?
Mei (20:47): and that it's easier if you asked your teammates to save you

Eijun (20:47): but it's you I want

Mei (20:48): stop that

Eijun (20:49): but it's Miyuki-senpai and Kuramochi-senpai, they're bullying me
Eijun (20:49): save me from them

Mei (20:50): don't mind them, they'll get tired soon
Mei (20:51): and I'm at Inashiro so

Eijun (20:52): so, say, if Inashiro is one minute away from Seido, would you come here and save me?

Mei (20:52): no

Eijun (20:53): ouch my Mei Mei won't save me?

Mei (20:53): I'm not your Mei Mei

Eijun (20:54): I feel like in this relationship, I'm the one always giving

Mei (20:55): there's not even a relationship

Eijun (20:55): OUCH
Eijun (20:56): Mei Mei, you hurt me

Mei (20:57): stop that

Eijun shot up to a sitting position, his phone dropping to his lap. Over the weeks that they've been texting, he thought Mei would've warmed up to him even more, but it seems to Eijun that he's got no progress.

Eijun scratched his brow, sighing. Over the dorm TV, his two senpais are playing with whatever is on their hands, looking really chummy and annoying.

"Hey, senpai," Eijun calls, gripping his sheet tighter. "What would you do if the person you're pursuing is playing really hard to get?"

---

Kazuya, whose fingers are tangled to a string, lightly kicked Youichi's leg and gestured to Sawamura frantically using his eyes.

"Wh-why do you ask?" Youichi asks.

Sawamura sighs, visibly rolling his eyes. He put his phone up and flourished it in the air.

"This-this person is really hard to get! I've been hinting, no, I've been saying I wanted to have a date but they just says no!"

"Oh?" Kazuya mutters, untangling his fingers from the string. "Maybe you're pushing too hard? Why don't you pull for a moment?"

"Pull?" Sawamura asks, tilting his head at Kazuya before looking back at his phone screen.

"Yeah," Youichi supports, nodding his head. "Push and pull is important to start a relationship."

Sawamura frowns at that, looking at Kazuya and Youichi through narrowed eyes.

"I didn't know that…" Sawamura says, frowning down his phone.

"Try it," Kazuya says, sly smile on his face. "Don't text Mei tonight and see what will happen."

Sawamura nods, visibly swallowing.

"Yeah, yeah, I won't text Mei Mei tonight…" he distractedly says, much to Kazuya's fun. 

Sawamura then proceeded to cover himself with his blanket, laying down. When Kazuya's certain he's not peeking, Kazuya turned to Youichi, eyes and mouth wide.

"What the hell?" Youichi mouths, red in the face.

"We're good!" Kazuya mouths back, lightly slapping Youichi's thigh.

Youichi rolls his eyes, although still smiling.

"We didn't do anything," he says.

---

Eijun (21:16): I hate you

Mei (21:17): you don't mean that
Mei (21:18): don't say anything you don't mean

Eijun (21:18): you're right, I don't really hate you
Eijun (21:19): but still for tonight
Eijun (21:20): I won't text you

Mei (21:20): Eijun

Eijun (21:20): so don't hate me, okay
Eijun (21:21): just for tonight
Eijun (21:21): good night, Mei Mei! Dream of meee

Mei (21:22): Right
Mei (21:22): who told you to do this?
Mei (21:23): it's not effective
Mei (21:23): it's not

Mei (21:32): I won't dream of you

Mei (21:48): Eijun
Mei (21:48): hate you

*

Eijun nervously watched for their reactions, gripping the hem of his apron and worrying his teeth.

Sachiko nodded as she swallowed. Eijun raised his brows at her.

"Well it's good," she says, shrugging. "It's actually good."

Haruno nodded, leaning toward Sachiko.

"Right? This is just his second try…"

"I think it's good, too, Sawamura-kun," Yui says, examining the brownie on her hand. "Not too sweet but it gives you energy… it's perfect for athletes."

"Really?" Eijun asks, smiling. He hook his head, glancing to the side. "I mean, does it give enough nutrients? Should I add more protein powder? How about vitamin C? I mean--"

"I think it's perfect as it is," Takako says, shaking her head. "If you add more of those, the flavour of the red bean and chocolate could get overpowered."

Eijun stares at her for a moment before shaking his head. He blinked at Takako and nodded.

"You're right, senpai, thank you," he says. He turned to Chris, who sits beside Takako, and gave him a brownie. "Chris-senpai, please try it as well and tell me what you think. You too, Harucchi, here."

Eijun's about to give another brownie away, but noticed that it's Miyuki. He scoffed, snubbing his senpai.

It has been weeks since Eijun tried Miyuki's advice to 'pull', thinking Mei would push, but the effect is almost opposite.

Mei did reply to his texts but Eijun couldn't help but think it's even colder than before. Kuramochi and Miyuki did assure him, on multiple occasions, that Mei is acting like that because he was 'flustered' Eijun suddenly didn't text him.

Eijun thinks it's bullshit. If it's Mei, who's tenacious and dogged, then of course it's natural that Mei would be wooed by someone as tenacious as he is.

Eijun just has to… be truthful with his approaches.

But at the time, Miyuki and Kuramochi did sound so reasonable, so it's still Eijun's responsibility to fix his own actions, since the two didn't even pushed him to 'pull'.

Eijun just got Mei to warm up to him again, so Eijun decided to ask the lady managers for help one day and they told him that usually, people tend to fall for someone who shows they care about the person.

Takako then suggested that Eijun should prepare something for the person Eijun is pursuing, Mei.

Eijun didn't actually completely know who Mei is. Eijun just knew he's great at baseball, started reading Osamu Dazai this year, threw a wild ball so he got depressed, lost his form and then stood up stronger, he has two sisters and twin nephews, doesn't like fish, doesn't like liars and hates quitters.

But Eijun also knew that Mei loves the snack his mom bakes him: the red bean chocolate brownie.

Eijun searched and searched for recipes and tried making them one by one, asking help from the managers. They've only just decided on a recipe yesterday and this is Eijun's second try making it and trying to perfect it.

It became a common occurrence for everyone to see Eijun hanging around the kitchen- with the kitchen aunties looking in and the lady managers piping up suggestions- for a week now that his teammates started turning in for bath early to try and ask for crumbs from Eijun's baked brownies.

"Not Miyuki…" Eijun whispers to himself, purposefully making Miyuki and the rest hear him.

Everyone laughed, even Kuramochi, who already got rejected days ago, is snickering beside Miyuki.

"Oi," Miyuki drawls out. "I'm friends with Mei, though…"

Eijun rolls his eyes, grimacing at Miyuki.

"Mei said he doesn't really like you, so…"

"Ha-ha," Jun laughs, leaning on Chris' good shoulder. "Seriously, though, Narumiya?" He shakes his head, clicking his tongue. "I never really understood how kids' brains act these days…"

Eijun raised a brownie, offering it to Jun.

"Psht, senpai," Eijun says, closing his eyes dramatically. 

Eijun flourished the brownie near Jun, who plucked it from his hand, digging in.

"Hm, it's good, dammit," Jun says, violently chewing. "Ryo, try it!"

Eijun meekly smiled at Ryo and offered him one.

"Are you sure, though?" Ryo asks, taking the brownie from Eijun. "There's barely enough…"

"Ah, no," Eijun shakes his head. "This is the final try. I'll bake another batch for Mei."

Ryo chuckles as he chews, one eye opening.

"Just make sure to put your head on track when we're already facing him and his team…"

Eijun widened his eyes before closing it, one hand rising up to Ryo.

"Psht, Ryoniisan, everything's fair in love and wa-ugh!"

"Upstart kid."

"Hyahaha!"

---

Eijun (21:24): Mei Mei
Eijun (21:24): Mei Mei
Eijun (21:25): MEI MEI

Mei (21:26): why, I'm studying

Eijun (21:26): ooh my Mei Mei's studying~ 

Mei (21:26): yeah

Eijun (21:26): take a break for a bit

Mei (21:27): okay

Eijun (21:27): with me

Mei (21:29): what

Eijun (21:29): take a break by talking to me, I mean

Mei (21:30): right
Mei (21:30): what do you want from me?

Eijun (21:31): everything of Mei Mei

Mei (21:31): Eijun stop, seriously

Eijun (21:32): anyway
Eijun (21:32): I have your word we'll meet tomorrow, right?

Mei (21:33): right

Eijun (21:33): just the two of us?

Mei (21:34): if time permits

Eijun (21:34): you're making me hopeful

Mei (21:35): not intentionally, mind
Mei (21:35): but if we met with my team around me, then that's that

Eijun (21:36): that's that?
Eijun (21:36): will you let me hug you?
Eijun (21:37): when everyone's around

Mei (21:37): no

Eijun (21:37): aww
Eijun (21:37): then we need to be alone!

Mei (21:38): still no

Eijun (21:38): aww you wound me
Eijun (21:38): Mei Mei
Eijun (21:39): I just
Eijun (21:39): I made you something
Eijun (21:39): they're not like what you're used to but try them out.

Mei (21:40): what are they?

Eijun (21:40): brownies

Mei (21:43): they're not poisoned, are they?

Eijun (21:44): no, they're not!
Eijun (21:44): you wound me, care bear!

Mei (21:45): what?
Mei (21:45): what care bear

Eijun (21:46): but to tell you the truth, they are poisoned
Eijun (21:46): poisoned with my love

Eijun shot out of bed, throwing his phone on the floor, his hand clutching painfully on his hair as his feet dig on the ground. His eyes are watering as he beat himself mentally.

He might have gotten too far.

Eijun whines as he sat down on the floor, scared of what Mei's reaction is.

He had just gotten back Mei's good graces, Eijun's afraid of losing him again.

The phone vibrated and Eijun wormed his way to read it.

Mei (21:49): I'll kill you
Mei (21:49): tomorrow

Eijun (21:50): oh Mei Mei, care bear of love, I beg your mercyyy
Eijun (21:51): your dear Sawamura Eijun would leave your graces and let you study
Eijun (21:52): lest I say anything more to upset your highness

Mei (21:52): stop that
Mei (21:53): seriously

Eijun (21:54): seriously

Mei (21:54): I'm going
Mei (21:55): good night

Eijun (21:55): good night, Mei Mei
Eijun (21:56): care bear of my love
Eijun (21:57): see you tomorrow
Eijun (21:57): dream of me
Eijun (21:58): because I'll definitely dream of you

Mei (21:58): noo
Mei (21:59): Eijun

Eijun made sure to let Mei see he read his last message, just to feel satisfied; he won today, after all.

He waited for a couple of minutes but his heart beats so hard and so fast that he just threw his phone back on his bed, whining, his feet thumping on the floor quietly.

---

Eijun's been so excited he doesn't even mind the crowd or the heat. He smiles through the heat and the possible suffocation a baseball stadium full of sweaty high school kids could induce.

One could say Eijun's mind is empty. Or full of nothing but the thought of meeting Narumiya Mei once again.

They've only met twice, but as they say, separation makes one's heart grow fonder. Or make Eijun flirt even harder.

Just this morning he surprised Mei with a video call. Usually, they do it during the evening when Mei's alone in his room or when he's already in bed, blanket covering him that his shot is dark except on his face.

They haven't called during the day, but Mei's groggy enough for him to pick up the call.

Eijun saw firsthand how puffy Mei's eyes and cheeks could be, now. He even took some screenshots that he showed off to Haruichi and Kanemaru, who told him Mei would probably hate him if he knew Eijun showed off some of his unflattering pictures.

Not that Eijun could actually think Mei would stop being attractive. Eijun is certain that even if Mei wouldn't shower for days, he'd still look good and smell good.

Or that's just how his attracted mind think about Mei.

Impeccable.

Speaking of impeccable, the dependable Seido baseball club lady managers are impeccable at keeping the brownies safe and cool, the bag Eijun prepared already slung around his shoulder, carrying twenty individually wrapped brownies.

"Oh?" Ryo mutters in front of him, stopping abruptly.

Eijun stopped as well and he felt someone bump on his back lightly.

"Hoo~" Eijun mutters, smirking, eyes already falling to Mei.

The whole of Inashiro first string stopped in front of the entire Seido first string, who immediately looked at Eijun as one, smirking, and then to Mei, who raised an eyebrow before turning pink. The foreigner beside him sniggered quietly.

Eijun just thinks Mei's adorable.

Which is a funny thought, because Mei currently looks like he's about to kill, his eyes shifting to Eijun ever so slightly.

"We're in different blocks this time…" Mei's catcher says, looking at Tetsu.

"Right," Tetsu says, nodding seriously. "We'll face each other in the finals…"

Eijun smirks wider wiggling his brows at Mei when he caught him looking. Mei rolled his eyes, frowning slightly before looking away from him again.

"Oho, just don't trip up before facing us," Harada says, smiling.

"Same to you," Tetsu says, smiling as well. "We really need to have a rematch this year…"

"Right," Harada says before looking at Tanba. "Is your injury all right?"

Mei then smirks up at Tanba, much to Eijun's chagrin.

"Is going bald your way to commemorate your injury?" He asks.

Jun raised his hand to Mei, shaking his head.

"Our Ace can't talk right now," he says, closing his eyes dramatically. "Jaw injury and all." Jun then points his hands on Eijun's direction. "If you have any inquiry, please send them to our very own south-- ugh!"

Eijun felt this confusion of what's going on at first and as the color on Mei's face drained and everyone beside him and behind him glared at someone who's passing by, Eijun felt this strong, unpleasant stirring in his chest and he already found himself choking on his front collar because Haruichi grabbed the back of his clothes.

"Oops," the boy says, shrugging. "I didn't see you there, Narumiya."

His team laughed behind him.

Mei rolls his eyes, not even looking at the boy who spat in his direction. He does have his nose flared, pursed lips and a slight frown but that's just because Eijun has had his face memorised through their late night video calls. 

If you're someone who's not really acquainted with Mei, you'll think he doesn't even bother thinking about the blatant bullying people displayed.

"Oh? That's Narumiya? He doesn't seem remarkable…"

Mei's frown deepened and Eijun's glare sharpened.

Miyuki sniggered loudly, getting all attention to himself. He laughed until he's clutching at his side.

Eijun wanted to punch him, but since he's ways away, he couldn't. Eijun could see Mei's slight frown turning to a silent seething.

"Right, he isn't that remarkable," Miyuki says and even Kuramochi is glaring at him. He waves a hand in front of his face until he's calmed down. He smirks at the intruders. "Outside of baseball, that is."

"We suggest you play a game against them first," Tetsu calmly says. "So that you know."

"You preppy boys know nothing…" one of the intruders says, smirking. "You're all going down."

"Right," Harada says. "We'll just face you on the field."

Ryo chuckles, tilting his head down as he glared at the new boy who spoke.

"We also suggest that you go on to your business," Ryo says. "We don't need insecure people like you here."

The intruding team's mouths opened collectively, gaping at Ryo.

"We're not--"

Ryo sharply snapped his head to the side, not even looking at them.

"Will you please move along? Your insecurity is making me sick."

Eijun sighs, releasing some of the tension building on his shoulders. The intruding team stands there, glaring at everyone and especially at Ryo.

The leading boy earlier stomped past, but before that, Eijun doesn't want his chance to get even slip past away just easily.

"Don't even think you can come close to Mei and his standards," Eijun says, whispering as he followed the boy with his head. 

The boy looks at him, stopping just beside him, frowning.

"Who are you--"

"I'm no one, but at least I'm not a loser like you--"

"I'm not a loser--"

"Oh you are," Eijun says, nodding, chuckling. "Believe me, you are."

There's this moment where Eijun and the boy face off and all Eijun could see is red and that he wants to hurt this boy in front of him who dared spit on Mei when he doesn't even gave himself a chance to know Mei.

Eijun's swimming in cotton and he's drowning. His clarity only came back when he heard Mei's voice.

"Hurt him and you and your team will be disqualified."

Then Eijun could feel his arm being pulled down by Haruichi, who's shaking beside him amd noticed Ryo standing in front of Eijun, hands on his hips.

"There are witnesses here," the foreigner beside Mei says, pointing to everyone.

The boy growled at Eijun before huffing, stalking off. His teammates followed him but not before throwing Eijun and everyone a glare.

When they're gone, Ryo suddenly turned around to Eijun. One of his eyes is opened, glaring at Eijun.

"Who said you could be cool?" Ryo says before chopping Eijun's head.

Eijun cried out, holding his head. The pressure from Haruichi's hold loosened and Eijun faced him to try and ask some sympathy.

What faced him is a stone faced Haruichi.

"It's not even cool," he says, right hand already up in the air.

Eijun waited for the hit, bracing himself but it didn't came. He opened one eye to look at the situation, only to see Haruichi looking between his hands. Seemingly decided, Haruichi raised his right hand again and hit Eijun's head.

"Aww…"

"Should I hit, too?" Furuya quietly asks, right hand at the ready. 

"No! He'll die!" Jun shouts from the front.

"Oh…"

"Don't sound so disappointed!"

*

Mei looks at Eijun, the color in his face returning, before frowning. He tugged at the collar of his compression shirt, creaking his neck. He took a big breath which he released slowly. He rolled his eyes before looking down to his feet.

"Let's go," he quietly says, stepping over the spittle on the ground. 

It's not only Eijun who's confused. Even some of the Inashiro kids looked surprised, frowning and casting furtive glances at Eijun. Some even points, like the foreigner.

They couldn't end it like this, Eijun thinks. Not like how it is. With Mei frowning and downcast. Not like this.

When Mei's by him, Eijun immediately raised up his hand in greeting to which Mei reacted violently.

The moment Eijun raised his hand, Mei raised his in front of him, shrinking and defensive. Behind Mei, everyone jumped up, looking between Eijun and Mei and their stances tensed, waiting to pounce on Eijun, if he ever did something to hurt one of their kind.

Eijun licked his lips slowly, swallowing hard, his eyes only on Mei, standing still.

Chris did hypothesised before that the winners always encounter untoward behaviour from other teams. 

This year, as they're the winner of last year's qualifiers, Inashiro would surely get the brunt of all unwanted and unreasonable hostilities from other's, as what just happened earlier.

It's not even the first time Mei reacted this way. Back when they first met with him being so suspicious and particular with his questions to Eijun, then back at the bookstore, now this.

At the sight of Mei like this, eyes squinted and ready to accept a physical blow, Eijun suddenly wanted to beat those people; he hate them to the core.

Eijun forced a chuckle, brushing his fingertips on Mei's open palm.

"Relax, it's just me," Eijun says, echoing his words weeks ago from the bookstore. "Sawamura Eijun."

---

They're too quiet to hear. Even if Youichi would lean in, there's no way, they're just too close to each other.

Maybe Ryo and Haruichi could hear them…

Kazuya clears his throat, stretching his arms above his head.

"Let's go?" He says, looking around. 

Tetsu nods, looking at everyone.

"We'll just wait for Sawamura by the bus," Tetsu says before he started walking, leading the way.

People, of course, are generally uncomfortable with others displaying their affections in public, so their teammates hurried along, barely looking back at Sawamura and Narumiya's direction.

Even the Inashiro kids moved along the opposite direction, leaving Narumiya to Sawamura with thumps on his back.

This unspoken rule doesn't seem to apply on Jun, who openly stared at the two with squinted eyes and downturned brows.

"Jun-san, we should go," Youichi says, sniggering.

"No, let's just watch," Jun says, waving at the air. "I've read something like this--" 

"Jun," Ryo calls, looking back from ways ahead. "I didn't know you fancy watching people kiss--"

"They're not kissing," Jun points out.

"Not yet," Ryo says, smirking. He rolls his eyes, motioning with his head. "Let's go."

Jun rolls his eyes but followed Ryo, sighing. 

Youichi looks at Kazuya and as one, they hid their mouths behind their hands and laughed quietly.

They were losing confidence, but as long as the two end up together, they're fine.

---

Mei did relax but, just like back then at the bookstore, he's back to being teeth and growl.

He's pink in the face, though.

Eijun chuckles.

"So, how many enemies did Mei Mei make again?"

Mei frowns, lower lip jutting out.

"I have no enemies," Mei says, looking away. "I have insecure people attacking me."

Eijun's mouth fell, building to a smile. He nods.

"Of course!" Eijun says, nodding. "And do you know what I think?"

Mei sighs, looking at Eijun before looking away once again.

"What?"

"I think," Eijun says, breath hitching as Mei looks at him. "They already lost when they even felt bitterness toward you."

Mei blinks, frowning as though he's thinking about something. He points at Eijun.

"You're not…" he trails off, tilting his head.

Eijun's mouth opened and he laughed before putting his hand on top of his chest.

"I'm a sport, mind you!"

Mei shakes his head, small smile in his face.

"Right, right…" he says.

"And don't ever think I'd attack you," Eijun says, looking at Mei with a playful glare.

"Oh I just acted on impulse," Mei says, waving a hand under his nose. "It's normal."

Eijun taps on Mei's elbow lightly.

"It shouldn't be normal! No one should attack you--"

"I mean," Mei says, chuckling lightly while pointing at Eijun. "You do attack me sometimes."

Eijun frowns, seriously thinking when he actually attacked Mei so that he could think about his actions and formulate a plan on how to ask for Mei's good graces.

"… What?… When?"

"Oh, your texts and calls and video calls," Mei says, rolling his eyes. 

"Oh, but they're my sweet attacks on you…"

"But they're really… not good."

Eijun hums, leaning close to Mei with a smirk.

"Not good because you're feeling something, right?"

Mei rolls his eyes, pursing his lips. He looks back at Eijun with raised brows.

"Yeah, I'm feeling annoyance," he says, smiling.

Eijun looks down at his lips, conscious of their closeness and as Mei pursed back his lips, Eijun snapped his gaze back to his blue eyes, gulping and breathless. He leans back a bit.

"I'm sure that's not it," Eijun says, winking. 

Mei snorts, looking away.

"There you are again, attacking me…"

Eijun rolls his eyes, smirking. 

"Speaking of attacks…" Eijun clears his throat, leaning to Mei. "I think you're upset earlier… want me to hug you?"

Mei's small smile bloomed to a wider one, which he tried so hard to suppress but couldn't, so he just pursed his lips between his teeth.

"No," he says, rolling his eyes as he bite his lips.

"No? You don't want me to comfort you? My hugs are warm…"

Mei huffs, small smile in his face.

"No."

Eijun rolled his eyes at Mei mockingly.

"Come on, don't be shy, I don't smell sweaty," Eijun says opening his arms wide. "And I don't mind sweat if it's from you."

"No," Mei says, pushing Eijun's chest with his fingertips.

Eijun gasps, pointing at Mei's fingers, causing Mei to jump a bit.

"Mei Mei touched me!" Eijun says, grasping the fabric Mei touched. He put out his hand near Mei, who frowned at it. "Should I touch, too?"

Mei scoffed, lightly slapping Eijun's hand away.

Eijun gasps, holding out his hand.

"Mei Mei touched my hand…" Eijun looks at Mei, smirking and raising his brows. "If you just want to hold my hand, you could just say so, I'll hold your hand, so what do you say?"

Mei scoffed at Eijun's offered hand, smiling.

"No."

Eijun sighs, hand limping to his side.

"You're always saying no, no, when will you say yes, yes?"

Mei smirks, shrugging.

"Never," he drawls out.

Eijun whines, stomping his feet lightly. Mei chuckles.

"And here I thought you're already falling for me…"

Mei's mouth opened, eyes wide. Small laughs bubble from his chest as he clutched his hands into fists.

"Shameless," he breathlessly says, his ears reddening.

Eijun, who has his own wide smile and racing heart to think about, nodded dazedly.

"If it's you…"

Mei looks away, frowning, but he couldn't mask his smile.

"Seriously."

"Seriously," Eijun echoes, earning Mei's chuckles.

"Brat…" Mei whispers to himself, still looking away from Eijun.

Mei's so close and Eijun wants to touch but of course, Eijun couldn't. He could flirt all he want, but Eijun has to have Mei's consent. So he just held onto his tote bag tightly.

And at least he's smiling now.

"Even if it's just a small hug for a reward?" Eijun pushed, teasing Mei. At this point Eijun will take Mei's red cheeks. "I made the first string, you know?"

"Your appeals won't reach me," Mei says behind his fist, chuckling.

"You won't even give me a slight hug? Slight, slight hug? Little hug? Come on~"

Mei raised his hand close to Eijun, trying to hide his face, shaking his head.

"Will you please stop flirting for a while--"

"Why, is it working?"

"No--"

"I think it is working…" Eijun says, letting his forefinger and middle finger scratch on Mei's hand.

Mei peeked from behind his hand, where Eijun smiled at him, before sighing heavily.

"Shameless brat," Mei whispers as he slowly withdrew his hand away, clasping it behind him.

Eijun playfully pouts, narrowing his eyes at Mei.

"Mei Mei couldn't even hold my hand…" Eijun says, looking to the side.

"Stop being so dramatic," Mei says, lightly kicking on the ground.

"I worked so hard to get to the first string so we can play against each other…" Eijun continues, pouting and stepping away.

"Listen here--"

"I made Mei Mei brownies but he couldn't even hug me…" Eijun continues, bowing his head slightly. "My oop!"

Eijun's grandpa once told him of a funny story. It's a story of how he and Eijun's grandma met. Eijun's grandpa said he experienced this slow motion where he could see everything, from Eijun's grandma's eyelashes to her vibrant dress, and there he immediately knew he'll love Eijun's grandma for the rest of his life.

It was funny at the time. Slow motion and then he knew he'll love a person forever.

But right now, Eijun's experiencing this slow motion- where he could see every bit of sheer sweat on Mei's forehead to the fine smile lines at the corners of his mouth, smell his powdery scent that's too clean for a baseball player and there's this clenching in his chest that's so pleasant it brought him to tears- as Eijun's arms started circling Mei.

Eijun barely held Mei when he's gone again, making him whine and gape at Mei.

Mei widened his eyes at Eijun, immediately fussing and looking around.

"D-don't cry," Mei says, leaning on Eijun's direction before looking away again. "S-sorry, were you hurt--"

"Yeah," Eijun says, nodding and blinking fast. "You pulled out too fast."

Mei stops, narrowing his eyes at Eijun.

"What?"

"That's too short…" Eijun whispers, gesturing between Mei and himself. "Let's hug again!"

Mei chuckles, leaning away from Eijun.

"Stop being so shameless!" Mei says, crossing his arms and shaking his head.

Eijun smiles down at Mei, enjoying the pleasant beating of his heart, that's probably running to one eighties per minute, and the furtive glances Mei sends him.

Eijun will stop pushing for now, satisfied that he did get to spend time with Mei, however short of a time it is, but at least this is still a step forward. And he did get a bonus hug.

"Stop looking at me like that," Mei says, hand starting to hide his face. 

Eijun lightly lowers it, smiling sillier.

"Sorry, I won't push anymore--"

"What?"

"I mean, I'll be satisfied with a small hug," Eijun says, feigning cool with a shrug, feeling the hand he used to hold Mei burn. "For now, anyway~"

Mei gapes at him, putting his hands to his waist, looking at Eijun up and down.

"You are unbelievable…"

Eijun winks, sending Mei chuckling.

"Anyway," Eijun says, taking the bag off his shoulder and offering it to Mei. "Here, there are twenty brownies there, you can probably share…"

Mei eyes it before taking it carefully and Eijun swears he's coming alive just by feeling Mei's skin against his.

Kill him now and Mei could revive him.

"Hmm, are you sure they're not poisoned?" Mei asks with a small smile, looking at Eijun through his lashes.

Seriously.

"I told you it's poisoned with my love," Eijun says and immediately felt this strong feeling of killing himself for not holding his tongue, so he just covered his mouth with his hand.

Mei gasps as his mouth slowly falls open, blinking at Eijun with these beautiful big, blue eyes, the corner of his mouth twitching.

"Sorry," Eijun mutters behind his hand, chuckling. "It just slipped out…"

Mei looks away, slowly covering his mouth with Eijun's tote bag.

"You're really shameless…"

Eijun smiles wider, puffing his chest. Eijun shrugs.

"Call me if you like them--"

"I'll text you," Mei firmly says, looking sternly at Eijun, latching the tote on his shoulder.

"Let's have a video call--"

"Shameless!"

"We won't see each other, though…"

Mei tilts his head side to side.

"I mean we could probably watch each other on a game…"

"Oh, so you mean you want to have a tryst?" Eijun says, leaning towards Mei with a smirk.

"No!"

Eijun leans away, raising his brow at Mei.

"Uh-huh…"

"No!" Mei says, tapping on Eijun's arm once. "That's not what I said."

Eijun nods, narrowing his eyes at Mei.

"Okay…"

"Seriously," Mei says, chuckling.

"Okay, since you won't admit you want to have a tryst, I'll be the one to ask--"

"No."

Eijun sighs exasperatedly, looking up at the sky. 

"So can we just video call?"

Mei looks at him at the corners of his eyes, pursing his lips.

"Only sometimes," he finally says.

And Eijun's sanity returned.

"O-okay! That's so… nice… really well… I…"

Mei shakes his head, looking away as he smile small.

"Yeah, well…"

Eijun nods.

"Yeah, I think…"

"Mhm, I think we need to…"

"Go back," Eijun finished, pointing with his thumbs. "I think we need to…"

"Go, yeah," Mei says, running his fingers through his hair.

Eijun doesn't want to go. It's like he's high up the sky drop and he doesn't want to go back down. He's been so full of Mei that he didn't want to go back to the emptiness of no Mei.

"Should I, I dunno, walk you to your bus or…?"

Mei snaps his head to look at Eijun's eyes, brows upturned.

"What?"

"You know because people might… ambush you or something."

Mei raised his hands, shaking his head.

"No, no it's fine, they'll all be just that."

"Right," Eijun says, remembering his hatred toward those people. "I feel like I should walk you to your team."

Mei grabs Eijun's arms, shaking his head harder.

"No, it's fine, they don't have guts to directly attack me--"

"But they have guts to attack you in front of your team and my team--" 

"No, no," Mei says, looking at Eijun in the eyes and there's this strong gravity pulling at Eijun, again. "It's gonna be fine. I'll-I'll let you watch me go. Like this."

Actually, Eijun just wanted to be with Mei more. He didn't want to go yet. But as Mei's hands slipped away from Eijun's arms, he just couldn't ask him to stop from going.

Mei didn't give him any right. Yet.

Mei waves bye, smiling slightly and Eijun wanted to run toward him, cling on to him, but that's it for today.

"I!" Eijun says and Mei stops. Eijun immediately closed the distance between them, stumbling and fumbling even on flat ground. "I'll see you on finals…"

Mei smiled coolly, head tilting down in a small nod.

"From now on we're enemies," Mei says.

"We are…"

Mei looks down, nodding.

"But don't you think I hate you…" Eijun says, pouting but he's seriously eyeing Mei. Mei looks up at him through his lashes and Eijun's gone through. "I'm pretty sure I really like you."

After saying that, Eijun groans, hiding his hot face from Mei, who he could hear groaning as well.

"Eijun, you couldn't just say that…" 

"Sorry, it slipped…"

They stand there, staring at each other. Mei with his brows furrowed and disbelieving smile and Eijun with a sheepish smile, his shoulders going up his ears, both red in the face.

"Let's battle it out in the field," Mei says, breaking the silence.

"Let's," Eijun says, extending his left hand to Mei.

Mei eyes his hand and, instead of giving Eijun his hand to shake, he placed a fist on top of Eijun's palm.

Eijun looks at Mei's fist closely, weighing it on his hand.

"Aww, look, a care bear paw!"

---

"Hmm, Sawamura must have said something," Jun notes. "Look how red Narumiya is."

"He could blush," Tetsu wonders.

"Do you think we could use Sawamura against Inashiro?" Ryo asks, plotting on using Sawamura against Narumiya.

"Sawamura's currently indispensable to the team," Kazuya says, misinterpreting Ryo's dark thoughts. "And if he want that Ace number, he'll have to perform oh!"

"That idiot, what's he doing stumbling like that?" Youichi exclaims.

"Masuko," Jun says, grabbing him by the collar. "You can't help him!"

"U-uga!"

"Oh, Narumiya's down!"

"What did they talk about that they have to fall like that?" Kazuya mutters, shaking his head.

"Look at them, sappy beings, looking behind each other for a last glance," Jun says, tugging on Masuko's collar even more. "I swear I've read something like that last time…"

"Dramatic, aren't they? I guess I'll have to teach Sawamura a lesson…" Ryo says, cracking his fingers.

"Masuko, can you stop struggling? I can't watch…"

"Jun, I can't breathe, ugaaa."

"A-ah, sorry."

"Guys, Sawamura's here, scram!"

*

Eijun (20:32): Mei Mei
Eijun (20:32): care bear
Eijun (20:33): did you like them?

Mei (20:34): they're actually good

Eijun (20:34): right? I made them
Eijun (20:34): for youuu

Mei (20:35): I didn't know what to expect
Mei (20:35): you did a good job

Eijun (20:37): Mei
Eijun (20:37): you're actually really good at playing with my feelings

Mei (20:38): what?
Mei (20:38): I'm not playing with your feelings. I'm complimenting you.

Eijun (20:39): stooop
Eijun (20:39): let's video call!

*

Kazuya knows there's a lot of hurdles in the Sawamura-Narumiya relationship.

They're both egotistical, proud pitchers, but seeing as Sawamura's actually having an initiative to starting a relationship and wooing Narumiya, it's all good.

In addition, Narumiya's playing it really timidly, something Kazuya didn't know would be the case judging by his personality. But then again, it's not like he's openly telling Sawamura off, so there's a high chance that whatever Sawamura's doing is actually really effective.

And Kazuya is certain that even if Narumiya tells Sawamura off, Sawamura would go relentlessly after him even more.

What more, with their situation of being rivals from another schools, it could get really messy.

And this is one of the highest hurdle there is.

It's not like Kazuya isn't confident in his team, he is. Everyone worked hard for that ticket to Koushien, but as fate would have it, Seido lost to Inashiro.

And this is when Kazuya thinks everything will get messy. As Sawamura bows weakly to Inashiro, unseeing and dazed, and Narumiya, with tears running down his face, furtively glancing at Sawamura.

Kazuya doesn't have the guts- or heart- to meddle for now.

---

Mei (19:46): Eijun
Mei (19:46): Eijun?
Mei (19:47): you are not angry at me, are you?
Mei (19:47): Eijun please

---

Mei (12:07): it's our break
Mei (12:07): I'm eating lunch
Mei (12:07): what are you doing?
Mei (12:08): are you eating? Eat
Mei (12:08): at least read my messages

---

Mei (21:34): I mean, I know you're upset
Mei (21:35): Eijun
Mei (21:35): talk to me

---

Mei (16:04): we're leaving for Osaka the day after tomorrow
Mei (16:04): and you haven't spoken to me
Mei (16:05): tell me what you want now

Mei (23:27): okay

---

Eijun (04:14): care bear
Eijun (04:14): hi
Eijun (04:14): I'm not angry at you
Eijun (04:15): I don't think I can
Eijun (04:15): you are you angry at me?
Eijun (04:16): I'm sorry
Eijun (04:16): I'm eating well. I mean, I can eat, but I have to down food with difficulty.
Eijun (04:17): I couldn't sleep
Eijun (04:17): I haven't slept

Mei (04:23): Eijun

Eijun (04:23): hi Mei Mei

Mei (04:25): do you think I can go there

Eijun (04:25): can I go there

---

It turns out Mei's already planning on storming Seido today even if Eijun didn't give him any permission.

Eijun hurriedly washed his face, brushed his teeth and changed to wait for Mei by the visitor's entrance. Not even thirty minutes later, a solemn, quiet and downcast Mei appeared, hands inside his jacket pockets.

They stared at each other for some seconds, unblinking and just… quietly watching.

Eijun breathes in as if to gather his shattered courage just to talk to Mei.

"Hey."

Mei pursed his lips, looking at Eijun up and down, before nodding. He walked slowly to where Eijun stands, stopping just slightly away, close enough for Eijun to smell that clean powdery smell of his.

"Bold of you to say hey after days of not texting me."

Eijun, who haven't slept a wink yet and had a migraine going, actually heaved a sigh and felt light for the first time in days.

At least there's still this constant in Eijun's suddenly full of whirlwind sadness life.

"I'm upset," Mei continues, voice still quiet. Eijun wanted to collapse on Mei. "So I would appreciate it if you could just…"

"Hmm?"

Mei looks away, brows upturning, biting his lip.

"Nevermind," Mei says, blowing a big breath out. 

"What is it?" Eijun asks, peering at Mei.

Mei shifted his eyes, looking everywhere except Eijun. He began playing with his jacket zipper.

"So… do you want to invite me in or something?"

Eijun starts. He must have been too dazed to forget common etiquette. He'll have to keep this quiet from his mom or he'll be disinherited.

"Right, uhm, please come in," Eijun says, leading the way. "Uhh, do you want to come inside my dorm or…?"

Mei lightly walks just feet behind Eijun, eyes wide and his brows raised.

"Hmm, I think it's better if we're out in the open…"

Eijun chuckles.

"It's not because you're scared I'd do something to you if we're alone in my dorm, is it?

Mei stutters, mouth closing and opening as he mutters something unintelligible. He huffs.

"No!" Mei says just as they broke out of the indoor buildings and into the mountain stairs.

Eijun chuckles.

He doesn't know the reason Mei even want to come here. What Eijun does know is that he wants to see Mei, that's why he asked if he could visit Mei in Inashiro.

He doesn't want to get his hopes up, but Eijun couldn't help but hope Mei's here because he also wanted to see Eijun.

They climbed the stairs, only stopping halfway so that they could lie down the grassy slope.

There are still stars around and Eijun noted how pretty they look. Eijun suddenly thought of a pick up line for Mei just looking at the stars, but when he glanced at Mei, he saw him already staring.

Mei immediately snapped his head forward, pretending he didn't just got caught sneaking a glance at Eijun.

Eijun didn't need to pretend, though. He's been openly going after Mei and he thinks he explicitly stated that he likes Mei, so he didn't reserve much shame as he just openly stared at Mei's side profile, going as far as to shift to his right just to look.

"Did you break your neck?" Eijun whispers, using his right arm as a pillow.

"I don't know what you mean," Mei immediately says, scoffing.

Eijun chuckles.

They stayed quiet for a while where Eijun kept looking at Mei and Mei tried watching the stars and not Eijun. He slips, though, but at least he didn't stare at Eijun as shamelessly as Eijun stares at Mei.

"I wanted to see you, that's why I wanted to go to Inashiro…" Eijun says, his left hand playing with the grass blades between him and Mei. "You?"

Mei looks at him before looking away again.

"Huh?" He asks, eyes wide and his left ear reddening.

"Why did you suddenly want to come here?" 

Mei clears his throat, swallowing hard. Even from where he is, Eijun could tell he's frowning.

"Uhm, Katsuyuki wanted me to tell you he's, yeah, he wanted to apologize."

Eijun's brows slowly raised and he found it hard to close his mouth.

"What?" He breathlessly asks.

Mei sighs, shuddering.

"Uhm, he says he's sorry he broke you," Mei says, his cold blue eyes electric as he turned to look at Eijun. "He says he just needs to do that so… so we could get you out… to win. Because if we couldn't take you out, we'd lose…"

Eijun, who became numb after days of crying to himself, doesn't feel anything.

He couldn't fault Mei and his teammates for winning. It's nothing personal. It's just for their gain to win. Eijun's certain they're not… hostile.

Someone like Mei… no way.

Mei heaves a heavy, shuddering sigh.

"We're… Eijun, I mean… I just…"

"It's fine," Eijun whispers, nodding. 

Mei sighs again, closing his eyes.

"I… I wanted to check on you, that's why," Mei whispers, looking at the stars and even from Eijun's position, he could see stars reflected on his eyes. Mei swallows. "You didn't answer my texts and… that wild pitch… I know it."

"Wild pitch, huh…" Eijun says, chuckling. "Our ship should be called wild pitch southpaws…"

"Hmm? What do you mean ship? What's ship?" Mei asks, turning to Eijun.

He looks so comical and innocent.

Eijun laughs, for the first time in days. He laughs truthfully. He plucked out the grass blades before throwing it overhead.

"Mei, stop, I don't think I could laugh now." 

Mei opens his mouth before closing it, snubbing Eijun before turning back to the stars.

"I was just asking…"

Eijun mellowed his laughs to a smile, remembering he's on the boat alone at the moment. And that this isn't the right time to worm his way to Mei's heart.

"Sorry, care bear," Eijun says, taking a big breath. It's just so easy to forget everything when there's Mei… "Uhh, I guess, if you came here to check up on me, as you can see, I'm not doing better…"

Mei bites his lip, head burrowing deeper on the grass and it could only be Eijun's imagination, but it seems like there's this tear trying to escape his eyes.

"I haven't slept yet," Eijun continues, gripping on the grass harder. "I feel like everything's… everything's my fault. And then the senpais just left the dorms… if it weren't for that pitch…"

"I'm sure," Mei starts, looking at Eijun. "It's not just you who feels that way. I'm sure, everyone who played on the field felt that same thing."

"But still… I'm just a first year and I've ruined--"

"Stop that," Mei interjects, looking sharply at Eijun, his left hand thumping lightly on the ground just beside Eijun's own hand. "It's… it's how you grow. It's how I grew. You need to fail for you to grow."

Eijun loudly sighs.

"How do we fall down so hard…?"

"It's because we know how to stand up."

Eijun smiles at Mei, who turned to smile up at the stars.

And suddenly he's breathless. Or that he just forgot everything except for Mei. And suddenly he's back on the mountain in his hometown, looking at the medley of pinks and violets and reds and blues of the vast sky, gulping the air fast after the hike and here's Mei, smiling up the sky.

"I know a song," Eijun suddenly says, feeling a tear escape his right eye. 

Mei looks at him, brows raised.

"Look at the stars, it says," Eijun starts, clearing his throat. "Look how they shine for you. And all the things that you do."

Mei smiles at him, however small it is, Eijun considered it his win. It gave him the confidence to lightly, slowly touch Mei's hand, waiting for him to pull out.

Eijun raised his eyes on Mei, who had his eyes closed and a small smile playing in his face. Eijun held Mei's hand more firmly, even tighter, just to keep breathing and being alive.

So then I took my turn
Oh, what a thing to have done
And it was all yellow

"Your skin," Eijun sings, drawing an awkward circle on Mei's palm. "Oh yeah, your skin and bones, turn into something beautiful. You know…" Eijun hesitates, entwining their hands. He whispers, "You know I love you so."

And felt Mei squeeze his hand.

---

"Those aren't who I think they are right?" Haruichi asks, pointing.

"Shh, Haruichi," Youichi says, clicking on his phone. 

They've gathered around the slope of the mountain stairs to try and get some pictures taken.

"Don't you have your phone with you?" Kazuya asks Haruichi from his place next to Sawamura, trying to get a beautiful shot. "Come try get some pictures, I'm sure Sawamura would buy them if they're just perfect…"

"Shh!" Youichi shushes the crowd, watching really closely.

Sawamura stirred slightly only for him to nuzzle against Narumiya's hand he's holding. Narumiya stirred only for him to squeeze his feet between Sawamura's.

Kazuya couldn't help but coo, raising his flip phone to capture the cute moment, feeling a bit proud.

He looks up at Youichi, who's clicking madly with his phone.

"We're good," he says, offering a hi-five.

Youichi rolls his eyes.

"We didn't do anything," Youichi says, but hi-fived Kazuya.

"Senpai, could you please stop moving around?" Furuya coolly says, side eyeing Kazuya. "I'm trying to get some photos…"

---

Eijun (12:03): hey care bear
Eijun (12:03): guess what 
Eijun (12:04): guess!

Mei (12:06): whaaat

Eijun (12:06): I bought our pictures!

Mei (12:07): what?

Eijun (12:07): they're really good, actually, especially Haruichi's!

Mei (12:08): Eijun, back up for a minute, what pictures?

Eijun (12:09): apparently, the guys saw us earlier and took pictures!
Eijun (12:09); want me to send you some?

Eijun (12:16): Mei Mei?
Eijun (12:17): care bear?

Mei (12:18): do I at least look good in them?

Eijun (12:19): of course
Eijun (12:20): the stars shine for you, after all

Mei (12:23): you flirt!

*

Eijun remembers it all.

The feelings he had when he woke up from a deep nap only to see Mei still sleeping. He barely slept for days and yet here he is, feeling rested and well, holding Mei's hand.

It's one of the most serene moments in his life.

Osamu Dazai said this: at the very least, I don't believe romance comes down to chance. I believe it comes down to volition.

And oh it's so true.

As Mei hesitates in front of Eijun, looking like taking a step forward would be like jumping from a tall building, only for him to take Eijun's hand, tightly clasping it with both of his hands as if embracing Eijun, bowing slightly.

As Mei looks back, smiling small, brows upturned as he mutters,

'Wait for me, all right?'

It comes down to volition. Love.

---

Eijun (12:05): hi care bear
Eijun (12:06): you're at Osaka by now, right?
Eijun (12:06): you'll be so busy
Eijun (12:07): so I won't bother you much
Eijun (12:07): just dropping by to say hi

Mei (12:26): hi
Mei (12:26): Eijun, you're fine

Eijun (12:27): you're finer

Mei (12:28): look, that's not what I meant

---

Eijun (04:45): you have a game today, right?
Eijun (04:45): kill them all, Mei Mei
Eijun (04:46): for everyone here at West Tokyo
Eijun (04:46): for yourself

Mei (04:49): good morning Eijun
Mei (04:49): thanks for the pressure

---

Eijun (16:47): Mei Mei
Eijun (16:47): we watched some of your games
Eijun (16:48): take a rest. drink water, it's too hot.

Mei (17:14): thank you! Ahah 
Mei (17:14): and we actually have a break tomorrow

Eijun (17:15): oh good, have a lot of rest

Mei (17:15): mhm I just had my massage
Mei (17:16): how's your training?

Eijun (17:17): actually, it's weird
Eijun (17:17): it's good, at least, just weird

Mei (17:18): weird how??

Eijun (17:18): I was pitching fine but I feel like my pitch ran away
Eijun (17:18): I don't really know how to explain.

Mei (17:19): oh I see. 

Mei (17:23): Listen, take it slow for now

Eijun (17:24): okay??

Mei (17:25): Katsuyuki says your hit isn't painful so

Eijun (17:27): even then please tell him I'm sorry

---

Eijun (23:21): good night, care bear

---

Mei (16:26): hiii
Mei (16:27): quarter finals, Eijuuun
Mei (16:27): what are you doing?

---

Mei (16:43): Eijuuun
Mei (16:43): heeey
Mei (16:44): what's happening to you??

Mei (17:23): I'm good if you want to ask
Mei (17:24): just saying

Mei (20:34): did you lose your cell?

---

Mei (04:28): at least read my texts

---

Mei (19:02): can you still wait for me?

*

Kazuya should just give up. With the Captaincy and the arrangement of the new team, he doesn't really have the time to play matchmaker.

Another thing, he doesn't know what to do with Sawamura. Youichi and him even fought over the kid, just because Kazuya doesn't do anything about it.

Cruel as it is, Kazuya has to prioritize the team first, Sawamura just has to figure things out himself. Kazuya does know Sawamura's headstrong, so he's confident he'll pass this hurdle.

He just has to support by the side.

---

"Hey."

Eijun sighs, blinking his eyes, feeling the rip in his sides.

It's been days since the coach put a hold on his baseball practice. Just run, he said. Eijun did run. Ran until he couldn't move a muscle anymore. Or when there isn't anyone else around, he still ran. Until he could see a mirage of Mei, he runs.

Now his mirage of Mei speaks. He must have been so tired today.

"What have you been doing the past days?" It asks, arms crossed up on the grassy slope.

Eijun, as per his tradition whenever mirage-Mei appears, sits down on his tire, wishing he'll be tired enough to hallucinate Mei for longer.

"Eijun," he calls, stomping over the fence, holding on to the netting. "What the hell?"

And isn't it weird, how real this mirage is?

Mei bangs his hand against the fence, creating ruckus. Eijun's eyes widened as the blood drained from his head, standing slowly.

"M-Mei? You're real…?"

Mei gnashes his teeth, glaring at Eijun.

"Damn brat! I came all the way here after a whole day of travel and you're thinking I'm not real? What are you? Huh?"

Eijun jumps, scared for his life. A bit. Jolted alive after days.

"S-sorry, I'll…" Eijun hurriedly tried removing the band around his waist, all the while Mei kept shaking the fence and shouting.

"And what the hell is that appearance? Do you still eat? It looks like you're on drugs! I'll kill you if you are! Damn brat!"

"I'm almost there!"

"Do you still sleep? How dare you… you didn't even answered my texts… Damn, after days… and you're…"

Eijun runs in front of Mei, just outside of his reach, that even through the netting, his hands wouldn't reach Eijun. Eijun's scared.

"What are you doing here?" Eijun asks, breathless.

Immediately, as if he isn't angry, Mei's nostrils relaxed, his frown smoothened, and his mouth fell. A moment passes where Eijun just watched Mei look at him, the redness of his neck rising up to his face.

Mei tried to feign his cool, but he just stutters. He removed his hands on the fence, crossing it across his chest. He cleared his throat and puffed his chest.

"Nothing, I was just… by the area. I decided to drop by and… and see what Seido could be doing. Now."

Eijun doesn't need to hear it. He wanted to, but he's seen it, anyway.

He weakly smiled and reached out to the fence, mimicking Mei's previous stance earlier.

"I'm not doing well, Mei Mei…" Eijun says, aware of Mei's strong stare. Eijun looks down. "Baseball has been my life…"

"Baseball is your life," Mei says, leaning on the fence just beside Eijun. "You're not even starting and it already sounds like you're already quitting."

"Do you think… I could do it?

Mei glanced at him before looking straight at the darkening sky.

"Do you think you could do it?" Mei asks back.

Eijun would want to say yes, he could definitely do it, but that'll be lying. He released a shuddering sigh.

"Would you…?" Eijun looks at the side, not meeting Mei's eyes. "I mean… I want to do it."

Eijun could feel the fence sag as Mei's weight lifted and saw Mei forcefully meeting his eyes.

"Okay."

*

Kazuya is starting to get scared, to be honest. The first couple of weeks, Sawamura looks so down, couldn't even down the last bowl of rice, he could be seen looking in during practices and Youichi swears he could hear him cry every night.

Now, he runs during practices, minding his own business and dashing at the moment the bell rang, only to come back at the last minute before curfew looking so refreshed.

Kazuya wanted to ask, of course, but it's not like he doesn't really have a clue of what's going on.

---

"Water, I said!" 

Kazuya whips his head, hearing a voice that's familiar. He saw a red-headed boy shouting at Kanemaru, who had this dazed look in his face. 

"Cold water and towel! Bring it in field… the one farthest away!" He says before dashing to the direction of field B.

They're currently just heading to dinner, having finished the official practices. Kazuya thought it's a normal day, but apparently, with Shirakawa here, it won't be that normal anymore.

Kanemaru, along with other first years, hurriedly complied to what Shirakawa said. Kazuya saw Haruichi dashing up to field B, holding bottles of water against his chest.

Kazuya hailed Tojou, who had towels slung over his shoulders, to ask what's happening.

"Uhm, Miyuki-senpai, I don't know what really happened, I just saw Narumiya fussing over Sawamura--"

Kazuya didn't even need him to finish before getting the gist. He ran.

There Kazuya saw several first years milling around and some people who shouldn't be here in Seido kneeling down near Sawamura… and under Sawamura.

"Don't put your arm around him," Carlos says, putting yet another towel on Sawamura, who already has his torso covered by wet towels. "You'll make it even harder for him to breathe."

Mei whines, lightly embracing Sawamura's head resting on his lap. He has his lip between his teeth and his eyebrows drawn together, looking down at Sawamura.

"Shouldn't he wake up by now?" Mei asks, looking at Shirakawa. "Hey, Katsuyuki, just do that thing already."

"Stop whining," Shirakawa snaps, snubbing Mei. He opens one bottle before putting some water in the cap. He almost has his pinkie in the water but then he offered it to Mei. "Hey, you do it."

"Why me?"

Carlos stopped what he's doing and stared at Mei with wide eyes and raised brows. Even Shirakawa had his brow raised.

"Because…" Shirakawa starts, trailing off as his head tilts to the side. A vicious smile plays in his lips.

Mei's nostrils flared, snapping his eyes at the two. Pink in the face, he snatched the bottle from Shirakawa and started dabbing water in Sawamura's lips gently with his pinkie.

Sawamura stirred but only his head.

"Just do it," Mei says, eyeing Shirakawa and setting down the bottle.

Shirakawa then kneeled closer to Sawamura and pressed his fist on Sawamura's heart, drawing a circle.

Immediately, Sawamura jolts awake; Mei's hands on his shoulders only prevented him from standing up. Sawamura coughs and Mei let him sit, rubbing his bare shoulders, shushing.

Shirakawa cleared his throat and stood up.

"Rest there for a while," he says, voice low. "You can't stand up suddenly or you'll collapse again."

"Damn, mate," Carlos says, shaking his head. "We went here because you're late…"

"Sorry…" Sawamura rasps out.

"How dare you make us wait…" Mei says, patting Sawamura on the back. 

Sawamura started looking back before Mei pushed his head to look forward. Lest Sawamura could see how red and worried Mei is.

---

Carlos ended up helping Sawamura to his room, his arm slung around Sawamura's waist, supporting his weight.

Before leaving, Carlos even threw Mei a teasing smirk, which Mei rolled his eyes at.

When Sawamura and Carlos are ways away, the remaining people looked at each other. From Mei, who's still kneeling on the ground, and Shirakawa, who had his hands inside his back pockets, to Kazuya, who stands frozen.

Unprecedentedly, Mei threw dirt at Kazuya.

"Stupid," he says, glaring. He tried standing, but his knees were wobbly so he almost stumbled back to the ground. Shirakawa catches his arm and yanked him up. Mei clears his throat, sharply looking to the side. "Let's go."

They quickly walked to where Sawamura and Carlos went. Everyone kept quiet, watching.

Youichi bumped his shoulder, jolting Kazuya.

"We're fucked…"

---

Eijun draws another line on the ground with his toe, looking down and cringing under the weight of his new friends' stares.

Not to mention, they're alone inside Eijun's dorm. The dorm is big, but with three boys towering over him, it seems like the room is shrinking in size.

Eijun just finished his ten minute bath to join them immediately to try and play good host. Mei doesn't want him to take a bath at first, saying 

'you could collapse if you're dizzy and hit your head and you could forget everything!'

To which Carlos replied,

'I mean, he's not wrong, but I think you should go'

And Katsuyuki supported with,

'wash off the dirt and sweat off, so that no bacteria could infect you'

So Eijun took a bath in haste, only to see the three Inashiro kids lurking outside of the bathhouse.

"So…" Carlos starts from Eijun's right, but trails off.

"It's uncomfortable here," Katsuyuki says, but he's leisurely going through Eijun's bookshelf. "You're reading Osamu Dazai, too? Did you…" he opens one book and frowned. "Oh? This is old."

"Yeah, actually, my dad loved Dazai and I got influenced…"

"Hooh I thought you got it from Mei--aw!"

"Can you guys go out for now?" Mei snaps after hitting Carlos' arm. 

"But we don't know where else we could go," Carlos says, sitting on Eijun's bed.

Mei's mouth falls open and his eyes widened.

"Get up from there!" He says, stomping his feet.

Instead of getting up, Carlos scooted closer to Eijun.

"It's comfortable here!"

Mei's nostrils flared, glaring at Carlos. Meanwhile, as Katsuyuki kept going through Eijun's bookshelf, he arrived at the video games section.

He held one game up and caught Carlos' attention.

"Oh!" He starts, eyes as wide as his smile. He looked at Eijun. "Can we play?"

Eijun nods, pointing at the dorm TV. The two immediately went over and set up work.

"There are consoles there," he says before standing up, striding to his study. "If you ever got thirsty, here's my wallet; there are vending machines outside."

"Hooh how generous of you," Carlos says, already setting up the game.

"Quite opposite of Mei," Katsuyuki says, from his place beside Carlos.

"You don't say," Mei says, rolling his eyes. He glanced at Eijun, who shifted his gaze elsewhere. Mei steps closer at Eijun, whose heart pounded like how a drum would. "Are you trying to escape?"

"I'm n-not going anywhere…"

"If you think you're safe just because they're here, you're wrong," Mei continues, eyes glinting even sharper. "Those two won't rescue you."

The game opening song resounded in the room. 

Eijun took a step back, guiltily excited and more than aware that he's wrong in the head. He fights a blush as he discreetly blew a calming breath.

He swerved around Mei to try and put some space between them.

"I'm not actually--"

"Stop moving," Mei orders, yanking Eijun's arm.

On one side of the room, avatar fights could be heard, while the players themselves are quiet.

Meanwhile, Eijun tried not to burst into a smile, pursing his lips instead.

Mei studies Eijun, looking everywhere and nothing. Eijun enjoys, of course. Especially when Mei started pulsing his fingers on Eijun's shoulders, elbows, wrists, even his sides, presumably trying to find probable injuries. Eijun's only problem is how to keep a straight face.

With every shift, Eijun could smell Mei. He wanted to shake every time Mei's fingers touched a part of Eijun's skin. His breath hitches and his mouth dries up whenever Mei glances up at him.

Eijun put his hands on Mei's shoulders and Mei, wide-eyed, looked at Eijun. Eijun pushed him gently, however desperately he wanted to hug Mei so tightly.

Eijun smirked, mockingly leaning at Mei.

"If you just wanted to get close to me, you should have said so earlier, so that I kicked them out, too, care bear."

Mei scoffed, rolling his eyes. Ignoring Eijun's will power, Mei stepped closer, even closer than before, his hand touching his own forehead. He proceeded to put his other hand on Eijun's forehead, reaching up so that his face is literally on Eijun's face.

Eijun fought the urge to cry out but he couldn't help his hands going around Mei.

Mei looks at him.

"You asked for it, care bear," Eijun says, shakily placing his hands on Mei's back, pulling him lightly.

Mei could pull back any second; Eijun's only holding him lightly. But no. He's here, red-faced, swallowing hard and unconsciously biting his lip while looking at Eijun.

Eijun knows he's not at all trying to seduce him, no.

But Eijun couldn't help but be seduced.

"You guys are quiet," Carlos says from the floor.

Mei pushed Eijun's head, getting out of the hug.

"Did something happen?" Carlos continues, killing another avatar opponent. "Don't worry we won't look."

"Don't do anything too… salacious," Katsuyuki says, groaning when his avatar died.

"We-we didn't!" Mei says, stepping back even more from Eijun.

The hunter became the hunted.

Eijun pouts.

"After you just did that… you're not saying…"

Mei gaped at Eijun, blinking fast.

"But you just did that, right? Taking advantage of me…"

Mei stutters while the other two laughed.

"Don't tell me you did that forehead thingy?" Carlos asks, still going on a killing spree. "I told you never to do that again, didn't I?"

"And you did it to someone smitten with you…" Katsuyuki says and Carlos chuckled.

"I didn't know Mei would take advantage of my weak heart…"

Mei scoffs, looking away.

"I didn't, though…" he says and Eijun can't help but snort at how bothered Mei looks.

"Listen," Carlos says, looking back. "Could you guys go out and buy us drinks? Refreshments. Anything but coffee for me. Thanks!"

Eijun nodded but Mei gaped at him.

"Orange juice for me, thanks," Katsuyuki says, not even looking back.

Eijun snatched his wallet from the table.

"We'll be back!" He says, swiping Mei's hand on his way.

"Don't rush! We can hold out for, like, one hour…"

Mei whines. But at least Eijun has his hand.

---

"So… if you're angry, I'm sorry."

Mei sighs.

"I'm not," he curtly says.

Eijun smirks, looking at Mei sideways.

"Were you worried?"

"No," Mei says, scowling.

Eijun reached up, meaning to tap on Mei's nose, but hesitated, letting his hand fall. He squeezed his hand, instead.

Mei sighs, posture slacking. 

"You were late, so… I thought, why not practice here? Since it's a Friday, we could hangout. We asked around but no one saw you. I know you'll run in the farthest field, though… and there we saw you. You're so…"

Mei snatched his hand from Eijun and paced around. He hums to himself, running a hand through his hair. He stops by the vending machine before turning back to Eijun.

"Look, a lot of practice is good, but overwork isn't," Mei says, pointing at Eijun. "Purposive practice is useful, but blind practice isn't, remember that."

Mei turns away again, peering at the vending machines. Eijun started to walk toward him, but jumped when Mei turns back, glaring.

"And you just overworked! I think you're dehydrated and if you didn't know, there are people who die with dehydration. You were passed out and do you know how scary that is?"

In one step, Eijun has Mei in his arms, hugging him tightly and fiercely. 

"And didn't I say I'll help you?" Mei adds, weakly hitting Eijun's side. "You just have to be patient…"

Nevertheless, they hugged.

---

"I don't know if I want to be happy they're this advanced in their relationship, or scared because… Sawamura's actually practicing with Inashiro."

Youichi grunts beside him, carefully releasing the curtain from between his index and thumb. One shift in the shadow below would alert the two southpaws that there are people watching.

Youichi looks at Kazuya and shrugged.

"They're two other things," he says. "One is personal relationship, one is… personal improvement. They're different."

Kazuya slides down the wall, sitting down.

"I guess… we'll just hope that no one would remember what Sawamura's pitch looked like? And that… they could actually bring back his pitches? Haaa…"

As Kazuya rubbed and rubbed his hair, Youichi rolled his eyes by the side.

"I told you, you should do something about Sawamura's condition, look what happened, he turned to his beau who happened to be your greatest archenemy…"

And who happened to be Kazuya's root for Sawamura's heart.

*

There isn't a time where Eijun thought he'd ever get tired of chasing Mei.

Because when he talked to him that day in April, he already decided to have his eyes set on Mei. 

It's not even a love at first sight thing, but there's this bubbling feeling of intuition that Eijun wanted to be forever involved in Mei's life.

If Mei would have him, Eijun will definitely give everything, even his pride and dignity.

But if ever there comes a time that Mei decided he doesn't want Eijun, Eijun will go away. But that doesn't mean Eijun's heart won't get broken. He decided to give Mei every bit of it, after all.

Eijun will go away if ever Mei tells him so. But not like this.

Not when Eijun knows Mei couldn't possibly mean what he says. Couldn't possibly mean he wants Eijun away.

"I'll wait," Eijun whispers, holding on to Mei so tightly that even he's scared he'll suffocate Mei. "I'll wait for you. When you're ready."

Mei tried pushing him away, but even that, even that seems to Eijun that Mei still wants to hold on to Eijun. With tears in his eyes and heart running too wild against Eijun's own chest, Mei couldn't possibly be telling the truth.

"Tell me," Eijun says, barely having the strength to keep them standing. He tried meeting Mei's eyes. "Mei, tell me, if that is so, if that is so tell me straight--"

"Stop," Mei says, head bowed so low, his fists vainly pushing Eijun away. "Please stop. Just… please just go."

"I won't go," Eijun says, resolute. Proving his point, he even tightened his hold on Mei. 

Not when Mei picked him up only to fall, himself. Eijun will be here, beside Mei, picking up his million pieces on the floor. He'll be beside Mei to hold him really close so that he'll be whole again. Just like what Mei did.

"I'll help, I'll stay."

Mei sags in Eijun's hold, sobbing louder. Eijun stokes his back, holding back his own tears.

Eijun won today. He got back his pitching because of Mei, so he should be happy. But Mei lost today and Eijun found himself unable to rejoice, opting to share Mei's loss.

"It's because of you, Eijun," Mei steely whispers, frozen in Eijun's hold.

Eijun could feel all the blood drained from his system, all the breath taken out, all thoughts fly out of the window, and he froze.

Mei raised his head and with red, puffy eyes, voice of steel says,

"It's your fault. All yours. So can you go? I don't want to see you anymore."

And Eijun doesn't know how he got outside of Inashiro let alone how he got back to Seido. He just knew he's somewhere inside a black hole, unknowing time, doomed and lost.

Dazai once wrote: Is it painful to be the person who waits? Or is it more painful to be the person who makes others wait? Either way, there's no need to wait anymore. That's what is most painful.

And oh is it so true.

*

Kazuya, who's actually happy and rejoicing just a few weeks prior, is once again in despair.

They've seen a picture of Sawamura who is in despair once. During his yips, but without Mei's interference, which lasted until eight days. After that eight days, Sawamura's black bags under his eyes are almost nonexistent.

Kazuya thought he'd never see Sawamura like that again. Not with Mei in his life.

But here he is, standing with bigger and blacker eye bags, lethargic and robotic.

Sawamura does perform well. Really well, in fact. Kazuya supposed that's to be expected when you train with the number one southpaw in the Kanto Region.

But there's this minute difference from his pitches before. His pitches now are powerful, but Kazuya couldn't help but think these pitches are thrown not because Sawamura wants them, but because Kazuya- the team- wants them.

And Sawamura says it now. He says,

"I'll throw whatever you want to help the team."

Which angers Kazuya more. He does feel for Sawamura and is grateful that he has the team in the forefront of his mind right now, but Kazuya doesn't want that blind following.

Kazuya wants Sawamura's own conviction and right now, Sawamura just wanted to be used, with the way he said that.

Kazuya's blood boils. If he isn't injured right now, he would've grappled with Sawamura right here on the mound. 

Youichi elbows his arm lightly, careful not to jostle him more.

"That's good!" Youichi tries, smiling shakily at Sawamura. "You're doing great."

Sawamura did nothing but bow slightly, not even smiling and blushing the way he used to whenever he heard some compliments.

This Sawamura standing right here on the mound is someone, in Kazuya's eyes, who lost his individuality.

Or someone who just lost his heart.

"Perform well, I'm sure Mei's watching."

Call him vindictive, he is. He watched with satisfaction how Sawamura's bleak façade lifted to one that's hurt. He's already struggling to breathe, already clutching at his chest, blinking fast and, bless, tears started streaming down his face.

Mei's name became a taboo that first night Sawamura returned from Inashiro. It's like this but even more subdued. He just bursted to tears and everyone knew what happened. No one spoke of Narumiya Mei and Inashiro, from then on.

No one even jokes with Sawamura now. No one even hangs around him. Because it's like no one wanted to deal with a messed up Sawamura.

Except for Haruichi, that is, and Youichi and, to a smaller degree, Kazuya.

Youichi tugs in his arm, glaring at Kazuya. He pulled him just outside the mound, not close enough to the people huddling Sawamura and not too far away that they could still hear Sawamura's ragged breathing.

Kazuya looks at Youichi, who narrowed his eyes at him, frowning.

"What the hell, man? Huh, Kazuya? He's doing good. We're almost to the end, what the hell? Why did you have to say that? Are you stupid? Right before that monkey?"

Kazuya doesn't even have to look behind to see who the monkey Youichi's pointing at. Todoroki Raichi is Sawamura's match. That's why Kazuya wanted to bring out Sawamura's individuality. So that he could face Todoroki with his all, because Kazuya believes Sawamura's already bested Todoroki.

"Are you planning to lose? You haven't hit yet and you're already making a fight? What are you gonna do about him?"

Youichi points to Sawamura, who's currently struggling to stand up, vainly using Haruichi as his handhold.

Kazuya scrubbed his face, sighing deeply.

He stared at Sawamura who already seemed like he's heaving, Kanemaru and Haruichi patting his back and frantically looking at Kazuya with these big eyes.

"Your fault," Youichi whispers, looking nastily at Kazuya as he crossed his arms. "What are you going to do? We spent minutes in a timeout; coach is already starting to look worried. I don't want Sawamura to get taken out like this--"

"All right, all right," Kazuya says, sighing once more. He stomped toward the mound.

Sawamura looks up at him, even deader than before.

"Look," Kazuya says, swallowing hard. "Only two outs but they're Yakushi's best batters, do you think you could do it?"

Sawamura nods. 

"Do you want to do it?" Kazuya asks once more.

Sawamura stops, blinks at Kazuya, looking away.

"Sawamura… look, Mei's watching," Kazuya says, pointing at the stands. He stooped to look at Sawamura's eyes. "Show him that you- Sawamura- could use those training you did with him and that you're grateful for it. Win this for yourself."

Kazuya raised his mitt, waiting for Sawamura to bump his with Kazuya's, just like how they did it before.

Sawamura stands taller, swallows hard while staring at Kazuya's mitt, before raising his, bumping them together.

As the other fielders jogged to their places, Youichi followed Kazuya near the home plate.

"Look… that was almost sweet of you," he says. He rolled his eyes to Kazuya. "But Sawamura's broken right now. Let him be colored with sadness, that's what's making us humans- emotions. Next time, don't incite him too much."

*

"Yo, what's up?" Youichi asks, looking away from Kazuya just for a moment, knowing that Zono would keep an eye on him. He held the phone closer to his ear, walking away.

They've just arrived at the hospital for his crazy boyfriend's stunts and although they've won, he couldn't fully rejoice knowing Kazuya's future isn't certain.

"Yo," Jun says, sounding so excitedly angry. "Yo, Narumiya fucking Mei's here, I can't believe it man, do you want me to kill him now?"

"Jun, be nice," Ryo says and even though Youichi couldn't see his face, he still trembles with sympathy for Narumiya. Or Jun.

"The hell, man…"

Youichi, at the beginning, thought being a matchmaker for Sawamura and Narumiya is easy. Seeing them actually not needing his and Kazuya's help is actually a huge air to breathe. 

Then this mess happened. It's like a build up. From summer tourney, Sawamura's yips, now this.

They haven't really had any time to patch the two up since they're in the middle of a tournament, but since Fall Tourney's done, and Youichi believes they could take a breather for a few weeks, maybe it's time to practice what Seido Baseball Club does second-best: matchmaking.

"Yo, Jun-san, how does he look like now?"

"Huh? Narumiya? Hmm… not better than Sawamura, actually."

"He did refuse taking pictures from fans who approach him," Ryo added.

"Damn, they got it bad…" Jun says, grunting. "So, will you push Narumiya to Sawamura?"

"Yeah…? I think?"

"Aight," Ryo says. "I'll text Tetsu."

"What will you say?" Jun asks.

There's a silence on the other line where Youichi assumed Ryo typed something on his phone. He glanced back at Kazuya, who's now talking to a doctor.

"Cultural festival?" Jun asks, gasping. "Damn, Ryo, you're good…"

"So what's the plan, senpai?"

Jun laughs wickedly.

*

The plan is simple. It includes shoving both Sawamura and Narumiya in the 3-B's horror booth during lunch.

That would allow them to experience a crisis and everyone knows that during crisis, people get together. As it's during lunch, people will go to their lunches to eat. That said, it'll only be Sawamura and Narumiya alone in a room.

It's a good plan, if Youichi's honest.

So they are doing just that.

With a surprising cooperation from Inashiro's Carlos and Shirakawa, they'll succeed placing Narumiya by the entrance of the booth.

Currently, Youichi, Kazuya, Ryo and Jun are in the control corner of the room.

"What do you think, Ryo," Jun starts, hands resting in the laptop keyboard. "Let's leave the sounds open or nah?"

Ryo tilts his head down, smirk widening even more.

"Sure, I think that's good," Ryo says. "But not too loud; so that they can hear their footsteps."

"You're not trying to make them insane, are you?" Youichi asks, leaning toward Ryo with a huge smirk.

Kazuya scoffs beside Youichi.

"Let's just hope that they'd finally get together for real…"

"Uhh, where's Sawamura?" Jun asks, looking at Ryo.

Ryo swiped something in his phone before looking up at Jun.

"Haruichi said Furuya-kun asked him to go here… I don't know what that meant but Haruichi said Sawamura's actually--"

"Walking dead, I understand," Jun says, rolling his eyes. He looked at his watch. "It's almost twelve, let's go. We'll have to warn the others, too."

With that, they sneaked out of the control room, cordoned off horror booth as they shooed away their classmates, stood inside the room just opposite 3-B's- which is a butler café whose patrons are eyeing the four people who doesn't even look like they'll buy- texted the Inashiro kids and watched them push a docile Narumiya into the room. 

The four only exited the increasingly uncomfortable butler's café to meet up with the two Inashiro kids.

"Is Eijun in there already?" Carlos asks, face shining with excitement. "Man, I'm actually excited for this…"

Shirakawa, on the other hand, still just looks uninterested. 

"I don't care what happens, they just need to get together."

Carlos laughs at that. 

"So you do care!" He says, pointing at Shirakawa.

Shirakawa rolls his eyes.

"I don't care about the process, I just need Mei to stop brooding; he's making the entire block stupid when he's like that."

Carlos laughs in his hand.

"Look he didn't even asked us about the place, he's too occu--"

"Sawamura's here," Kazuya says, pointing at the staircase where a subdued Sawamura is climbing.

Carlos gasps, jumping from his place.

"Shouldn't we hide?" Carlos asks, making himself small behind Shirakawa. 

"No, it's fine, look," Jun says, leaning on the wall. 

Sawamura looks over at them, tilts his head slightly upward to peer at them under his wide bucket hat, before opening to the door.

"Haruichi said I should go here…?"

"He did?" Ryo asks, smirking his usual smirk. He nods. "Go on, then. Make sure you exit here, all right?"

Sawamura nods before opening the door, willingly walking inside even without someone urging him to.

When the door clicked closed, Carlos and Shirakawa looked at the Seido kids with wide eyes and raised brows.

Jun shrugs, rolling his eyes.

"That's how it is…"

"He's not really quite different from Mei…" Carlos says, smiles shakily. "If we leave him be, he'll get kidnapped… what's with the hat, though?"

"Oh, he gets photosensitive…" Ryo says, pointing to Youichi.

Carlos nods slowly, mouth clamped down. Youichi nods, shrugging.

"He still cries at night…"

"Oh dear, I'm hating Mei."

"Anyway, should we lock the door?" Shirakawa asks, looking at Ryo.

Ryo smiles wider, head tilting down. 

*

Eijun doesn't actually know what to do now. It seems like he's just existing after his teammates ordered him to do something. Eijun's certain that's not normal. 

But he trusts his teammates, especially Haruichi. If what Furuya said is true, that Haruichi needs Eijun to come here, then it must be important.

Eijun imposes himself on his teammates and a little favour is nothing if it could repay part of Eijun's debt.

He'll have to find ways to keep up with his piling debt because it seemed to Eijun like he'll be here in this hellhole for quite a long time.

He's given Mei every bit of space in his heart after all. 

Maybe it's his fault. He's still a kid and he already wanted to fall in love with Mei, which is undeniably a big deal. 

To be signing up yourself for a particular person is a big deal.

But Eijun doesn't regret anything. He doesn't regret meeting Mei, setting his eyes on Mei, shamelessly pursuing Mei, lowering his pride for Mei.

Eijun doesn't think giving his everything for the sake of being with Mei is a bad thing.

He's one to boast that he's a person who could do all these things, destroy himself in the process for the sake of a love he couldn't possibly fully understand, fully embracing this sorrow he is actually feeling right now.

Eijun thinks this will pass. That this feeling of loss should pass, just like every feeling there is. But at the same time, Eijun doesn't want this feeling to pass. That this pain is his only reminder of him being with Mei.

That Mei caused this pain and Eijun's so wrong in the head that he wants this. That at least he has this.

Eijun bumped over something solid and he falls, falls on the ground and he's aware that the sound effects are loud but he's numbed so he just let them be. Unannoyed and unbothered.

Meanwhile the person who bumped against Eijun just sits there, sits in front of Eijun, unmoving. There's this feeling for wanting to get closer to the person, but Eijun thinks that's just because he's so starved of Mei who, until recently, let Eijun hug him and embrace him shamelessly.

"Sorry," Eijun croaked, hiding his eyes under his hat. 

"No it's fine," the stranger says, which Eijun struggled to hear over the sounds.

Eijun should go, stand up and continue with the maze. But there is this person, who just sits there, unmoving. A beckoning that Eijun doesn't want to ignore.

"Eijun," the person clearly says and Eijun's suddenly sane and insane.

Eijun knows he's an egoist, a selfish person who would work hard to prove that he's entitled to be selfish.

But right here right now, under dimmed lights and loud bangs, under his hat and under the scrutiny of the one Eijun offered himself to, Eijun thinks he's never more wrong about his view on himself. 

Right now, he's no more than the opposite of an egoist. Right now he's just a lower man with a weak spirit, who wanted to run away, run away until he dies, but then he wanted to stay here, get hurt even more and he's certain he wouldn't even do anything to escape his descent to hell.

As long as he's here, near Mei. Even if Mei doesn't want him. Even if he looks at Eijun with disgusted eyes. Even if he doesn't even look at Eijun. 

Eijun unconsciously lowers his hat.

"Eijun," Mei says again and Eijun's gone through, his dignity thrown away to somewhere, his loyalty to Mei once again arising and he finds himself breathing hard just to keep alive. "Eijun."

Eijun should probably speak. He wanted to speak. But he just can't believe. He can't believe he's still pining over someone who straight up told Eijun he doesn't want to see him anymore.

He's so stupid and so reckless that he just have to fold in on himself, holding himself tightly. It's hard to bear, knowing that he just imposed, imposed himself and his feelings to Mei and he's just a nuisance. And yet Mei's here.

Eijun opens his mouth, willing himself to speak.

"I… I'm sorry…" Eijun says, scrambling to his feet. "I'll…"

Then he runs.

*

"So, why do you guys still want Mei for Eijun?" Carlos asks, hands in his pockets, leaning on the wall.

Kazuya hums, looking at the ceiling.

"I just… think they're… they'll be a good match."

Youichi nods, looking at Carlos.

"There's so much similarities, it's hard to think it's an accident."

"But don't you guys think that since they're too similar, they'll clash even more?" Carlos asks.

Ryo chuckles, patting Carlos in the arm.

"You haven't had any relationships, yet, have you?"

Carlos flinched, blinks at Ryo.

"Wh-why do you… how…?"

"That's not the point," Ryo says, placing back his hand on his pocket. "The point is that, someone would have to see part of theirself to the person they'll choose to fall in love with, so that… they could fall in love. Do you get it?"

"No," Shirakawa answers, looking down in Ryo.

Ryo tilts his head lower, smirking. Jun sighs, facing Shirakawa directly.

"True love is the love of giving, in this case, you give part of yourself to the person you're interested with," Jun says, gesturing with his hands. "But, when you already see yourself to the person you're interested with- because you're so similar, yeah-, you'll give even more of yourself because it's easy to love someone you see yourself in."

Shirakawa slowly opened his mouth, his face lighting up in understanding. Carlos has this puzzled look in his face as he looked at Jun up and down through the corners of his eyes.

"Wh-why do you guys know something like this…?"

Jun flourished his head, puffing his chest.

"That's what we do second best," he says, leaning toward Carlos. "So if you guys want to be set up, just give us your profile."

Carlos was about to answer, but a loud bang made everyone whip their head to the door to their left.

Someone's trying to open the door frantically and everyone looked among themselves, wide-eyed.

As bangs on the door could be heard, Carlos jumps up, sprinting to the door. Hand to the knob, he looked back at the rest.

"Shouldn't we open?" He asks, breathless and wide-eyed.

Shirakawa turns to the other four, brow raised.

"It could be Mei chickening out…"

"Or it could be Sawamura trying to escape Narumiya," Jun points out.

"Or it could be Narumiya trying to escape Sawamura."

"So it could be either of them really needing to escape," Carlos interjects, nodding determinedly as he backed away, slightly standing by the door side. "All right I'm gonna open."

He opened the door carefully, then Sawamura stumbles out, falling on all fours. He's gasping for air as he looked around with wild eyes.

His eyes fell on Carlos and grabbed his shirt, trying to stand up at the same time exercise dominance. Youichi, Shirakawa and Ryo scrambled up and ran beside the two.

"You," Sawamura growled as he gasped. Carlos tried loosening his hold but ended up helping Sawamura stand up. "Why did you bring Mei here? He doesn't want to see--"

"He lies," Carlos patiently says, shaking off Youichi's help to try and sedate Sawamura forcefully. "He lied. He doesn't mean any of it."

Sawamura frowns at Carlos, shaking his head, as his hold loosened.

"Look," Shirakawa says, resting a hand on Sawamura's shoulder. "If you could just calm down and talk for a bit, I'm sure it'll be all right."

And of course, as luck would permit, Narumiya chose that time to walk out the door, looking so down and drained, ashen-faced, only brightening up when he sees Sawamura, who looked back at him, cords twanging in his neck and mouth falling, before backing away and bolting out down the stairs.

Narumiya feebly strode forward, hands reaching out as if he wanted to catch Sawamura, with these puffy, big, wet eyes and red cheeks, but alas, he's too late.

Youichi knows that's what's running in his mind, that he's too late.

Narumiya turns to Carlos, face crumpling even more as he gestures around, speechless. Carlos nods, raising his eyebrows.

"That's expected," Carlos firmly says. 

Narumiya closes his eyes, doubling over. And Youichi doesn't really know Narumiya and he couldn't really force himself to like him, but seeing him like this, almost barfing because of too much emotion, uncaring of his kingly image being thrown out of the window in front of a suddenly crowded hallway, he couldn't help but sympathise.

"What would you do now?" Youichi quietly asks, hesitant but stern. As a matchmaker, he needs to lead his subjects to the path of becoming together. "He's running away, what would you do?"

Narumiya looks up at Youichi, who tilts his head. Narumiya blinks, looking away at Carlos, then at Shirakawa, then at Ryo, then at Jun and, almost hesitantly and disgustingly, at Kazuya.

They said nothing, only looking back at Narumiya.

"I…"

Carlos sighs, running a hand through his hair.

"Look, what do you want with Eijun?" Carlos says, forcing Narumiya to straighten up.

Narumiya opens his mouth like a kid, before clamping it down like a kid.

Carlos scrubbed his face, sighing harder.

"Be honest to yourself," he says, pointing at Narumiya's chest. "You don't have to tell us, but I know you like Eijun."

Narumiya shrinks within himself, biting his lips so hard. Carlos didn't ask a question but Narumiya nodded. 

"I like him so bad," Narumiya whispers, croaking and throaty. 

"And you know Eijun chased you all this time," Carlos continues.

Narumiya nodded, cleared his throat, looking away.

"Maybe it's time for you to chase him…? So that you could be together with him? That's what you want, right?"

Narumiya nodded, nose flaring and his brows furrowing.

"I want him so bad," he says, looking fiercely at Carlos.

Carlos flinched before rolling his eyes.

"Then you should go and make him."

Narumiya nodded, looking at the stairs where Sawamura bolted, biting his lip. He started to head out, but Shirakawa stops him.

"You can't possibly go at him looking like that," he says, looking at Narumiya up and down.

Narumiya frowns, looking down. Carlos elbowed Shirakawa's side, grimacing and glaring.

"I did let go of myself, right?"

They all turned to Narumiya, mouths falling like the Mariana trench, appalled.

"That's… not exactly…" Shirakawa trails off, shaking his head. He sighed. "It just seems like you're unsure of the outcome."

"Oh," Narumiya says, looking up, eyes slowly widening. "I'm not really sure. How can you tell what the heart of the person you like says?"

Carlos didn't do a good job masking his smile, upturned brows and shining face. He didn't do a good job with his hand on his chest. He certainly didn't do a good job hiding his sigh.

"Just go now, you might not see him," Carlos says, fist on his mouth.

Narumiya nodded and unlike before, he has this hard look on him, his jaw set, brows furrowed, tight lips and clenched fist. Looking like's determined to catch Sawamura.

"Just be true to yourself and tell him everything," Carlos added when Narumiya's by the stairs. 

Narumiya nodded at him curtly.

"And don't be injured!" He says, Narumiya's blond hair disappearing as he descended the stairs.

There's this moment of silence where the crowd dispersed, whispering among themselves, and the remaining six baseball players looked among themselves.

Shirakawa faced Carlos, nodded once before placing a hand on his shoulder.

Carlos' mouth opened, eyes wide, shaking his head. 

"I know what you'll say, but no."

Now Youichi doesn't really know what Carlos meant by that and he doesn't really know him, but he just wanted to utter something.

"So you're like a mom, huh?"

Carlos gasps, looking down on Youichi with wider eyes. Shirakawa chuckles. Jun barks a laugh.

Ryo hums, putting his hands to his pockets.

"That's nice of you…"

Jun scoffed, walking toward the tall windows, overlooking the entire Seido façade.

"If they could just meet over there, we'll get VIP sitting…"

*

Eijun is certain he's dead.

He left his heart at Mei's feet, he's gone through and he's only moving now because… he wants to.

He isn't sure why he wants to run. It could be humiliation and mortification. It could be because of his newfound cowardice.

But as soon as Mei isn't in his sight, he's starting to get this sinking, empty feeling in his chest. It's confusing because Eijun doesn't want to see Mei but at the same time he aches to see Mei.

Eijun stoops down, catching his breath.

Eijun's wrong in the head. He knows that. Mei pushed him away but Eijun knows he still wants Mei. He's scared of Mei, but he knows he's just overwhelmed Mei's here. He's scared of happiness and hope, that he's in despair but maybe he's just so deceived by despair that he's still hoping for them to be all right and is it bad to think that?

Eijun gave Mei his heart after all.

Eijun's so lost and confused.

"Hey! Eijun! Stay there! Don't run!"

And maybe, Eijun doesn't want that.

He straighted up, facing Mei. Eijun doesn't really see him. He could only see Mei's torso and down. He doesn't know what Mei looks like right now, Eijun just knows he has his fists clenched, his feet fussing the ground and he's breathing so hard.

"I've been trying to find you," Mei says when he's finally one foot in front of Eijun. "You…"

But Eijun knows he's wrong in the head. And he could be a hypocrite when it comes to Mei.

It's seems like Mei is waiting for him to speak, but when Eijun didn't, he sighed so heavily.

"I-I deserve this," Mei says, gesturing with his hands, still breathless. "It's what I deserve. I would've loved it if you could look at me, but at least you're not running away…"

Mei takes a half step toward Eijun and there it is, his weak heart beating so hard and so fast it's pleasantly scary.

Mei clears his throat, his hands fussing together.

"I… I know I'm… I know I'm not even… look, I know I don't deserve it, but please listen to me. I know you probably never wanted to see me--"

Eijun wanted to say 'if only you knew how much I want to see you' but kept mum.

"-- and that I could be revolting to you--"

Eijun shakes his head, already succumbing to this strong force of magnetic Mei. Right now he's at rock bottom of hellish fire and he'll stay here if it means he'll be with Mei. Because Eijun knows where ever Mei is will be heaven.

"-- there are a lot of things I want to say, but I wanted to a-apologize for throwing us just like that," Mei says, wringing his hands together so hard, Eijun's finding it hard to hold back any longer. "If you could still find it in you, t-to accept me, I-I… could I please…"

Eijun's certain he'll do everything Mei wants him to. That's just how he is. Offer every bit of himself and hope he'll be noticed.

Regardless of his pain, Eijun knows he'll still turn back to Mei. He's so lost and surely, he wanted to be found, but he wants Mei to be his finder.

It should be unhealthy, how he just depends on Mei, but it's Mei he wanted. And maybe because they haven't even tried yet, they haven't really started yet, and there's already this certainty that Eijun knows they'll be really fine, like nothing could go against them.

"And if-when I said those words, I, I didn't mean any of them, I'm just frustrated and I know my frustrations doesn't justify my actions and words and I'm so sorry I hurt you and if you ever… if you still want me, I… could you please…"

And Mei's everything Eijun wanted.

If he wanted to escape Mei, he should've gone to the dorms and hide in that remote area where most no-stringers practice their batting. If he wanted to hide, he'd go outside of Seido. If he wanted to hide, he wouldn't have gone to the main entrance, where Mei would probably go to. If he wanted to hide, he wouldn't stand in the middle of the square of food stands, where Mei will surely look at. He wouldn't go to somewhere easy to look for if he truly wanted to escape Mei. 

"I… really like… the way you joke around me," Mei continues, taking yet another step toward Eijun, sending his heart lurching to an uncontrollable wild beat. Mei sniffles. "I love it when you call me care bear. Or Mei Mei. I always want to hold your hand even if I don't s-say it. If-if you want to hold my hand, I'll let you, because I like it… so much."

Subconsciously, Eijun wanted Mei to find him. Subconsciously, Eijun hopes Mei would find him and say these very words pouring out of his mouth.

Mei reached out, tentatively, fingertips brushing on Eijun's skin and he's lit, fire suddenly burning right in the middle of a busy square and Mei's holding his hand, unaffected and unknowing of his effect on Eijun.

Eijun pursed his lips, trying to breathe evenly.

"If you want, just text me, you're… not annoying. I'm… I'm more annoyed when you didn't text me. I want to watch you bake those brownies or-or anything you do just because… I want to see you. If… if you want to h-hug me, I'll let you… if you want me to hug you, I'll hug you, too!"

Mei tightened his hold on Eijun's hand and although Eijun hides his eyes under the hat, he could tell Mei's so close, he's so close and so tangible.

"Please forgive me, I never wanted you out… of my life. I really like you."

And isn't that electrifying? To have someone you like like you back.

Surely, Eijun's a lower man, who could destroy himself just to be with the one he set his eyes on. Just to feel this other-worldly happiness and bask in Mei.

But Eijun is a hypocrite for Mei. He knows he's wrong in the head. He could show a little vindictiveness. He's hurt, after all. Just a bit of pull is okay. He thinks. He's weak, after all. He'll come back either way, being coy is nothing.

Eijun, with his lips pursed, took a step back, looking to the side- where he noticed some shoes already pointing to their direction. Mei's hold tightened even more as Eijun moved away, stumbling a half-step following Eijun.

"Eijun," he says, whines, dragging his syllables shakily. "Say something."

Eijun audibly sighs, lowering his hat even more. Mei breathes harder and shallower.

"Eijun," he says. "I like you, please say something."

And Eijun knows Mei's proud. It must hurt him as he lowers himself like this, begging for Eijun. But here he is, in the center of the cultural festival, under the gazes of maybe a hundred students from Seido and from other schools, still holding Eijun's hand, uncaring and unbothered.

Eijun at least knows how to respect someone's courage. Especially if it's Mei's.

"I like you, too," Eijun whispers and Mei became so excited and erratic, gasping as he leaned to Eijun even closer. 

"What?" Mei whispers and as Eijun could feel his hot breath on his skin, his nape hairs stood up. "What did you say?"

"I like you, too," Eijun says, shuddering. 

Mei peered under Eijun's hat, gently raising up part of his hat brim, so he could look at him in the eyes and Eijun came to get used to the dark that he squinted when he met those cold blue eyes he loves the most.

"Am I forgiven?"

Eijun nods, his shoulders relaxing and everything seems lighter.

"You still like me?" Mei asks, brows furrowed and cheeks puffy.

"I do," Eijun says, nodding. "I like you so much."

Mei nods, gasping for air.

"I like you so much, too," Mei whispers back, looking at everything of Eijun. "So much."

And just like an asteroid, he couldn't help but move. Like an asteroid he couldn't help but get attracted to Mei's magnet, just wanting to fall. 

He's tilting down, tilting to Mei, who gently removed Eijun's hat, messed up Eijun's hair even more before holding on to Eijun, bump their noses together before falling into that abyss of just EIJUN AND MEI, separated from the gaping stares of the student body around them, and just

Just Eijun and Mei.

Eijun's certain there's a clause under some rule in the student handbook about public display of affection. He's certain he'll receive some sort of punishment, but what the hell.

If Mei wanted to kiss Eijun in the middle of a square, in the midst of pointing fingers and surprised gasps, Eijun doesn't care and he'll kiss Mei. He'll hold him tight, he'll let him wrap his arms around him, he'll come back for more.

Mei's happy. Eijun's happy. They're happy.

And Eijun thinks that's what matters.

*

"Damn," Jun says, rolling his eyes.

Ryo chuckles, head tilting down.

"That's a good manga reference…" Jun says, clicking on his phone. "If I could just bring my camera here…"

"I'm happy for them and all, but what are you guys doing, taking their pictures?" Carlos asks, looking uncomfortable.

Kuramochi looks up from his corner, his phone in his hand, sighing.

"You should just do it," he says. "We told you, Sawamura pays well."

Ryo points to someone in the crowd below and Carlos squints.

"Look at Miyuki," he says, chuckling. "Last time, Sawamura didn't buy anything from him because he has a flip phone and the resolution is crappy."

"… Oh my goodness, I'll make my sister include this later …"

"Y-you guys…"

"Just do it! Sawamura will even thank you!"

Nothing to do, Carlos and Katsuyuki shrugged and whipped out their phones, cameras directed to the southpaws who are now dancing to a music only they could hear.