Chapter Text
The heavy footfalls of a lone figure echo around the empty field as Kazuya watches from the hill, his breath curling as it escapes into the chilled night air. The thud of footsteps draw closer as Sawamura continues to jog, that stupid tire dragged along behind him. With a heavy sigh Kazuya makes his way down to the field to pull him away before he overexerts himself, again.
He probably could have left this job to Kuramochi since the two are roommates, but that would be depriving Kazuya of his fun. As loud and obnoxious as Sawamura may be, he always has the best responses.
“MIYUKI KAZUYA!”
As if on cue Sawamura jogs towards him like an overexcited puppy with no concept of the fact he’s about to be scolded. If only Kazuya could be so carefree, it must be easier to be an airhead, if the only thought he ever had was of throwing a ball his life would be far easier.
“Still with the disrespect, there should be a Senpai in there” Kazuya says and Sawamura who is only a foot away stops and pouts at him, his brow furrowed “And if you don’t stop shouting, you’re going to burst my eardrums.”
“Miyuki Kazuya refuses to catch for me, so he is undeserving of the title Senpai!” Sawamura leans back on his heels and grins widely “And you don’t need to be able to hear to catch for me.”
“Ah yes, because my only purpose in life is to catch your pitches. It’s not like I’m captain of the team or anything, or that I might use my ears for something other than baseball.” Sawamura is flushed pink from exertion and his shirt is soaked in sweat and Kazuya reaches out to tug at it “I’d worry about you catching a cold, but you’re an idiot so it doesn’t really matter.”
Sawamura slaps his hands away and his cheeks puff up in irritation causing him to resemble an angry chipmunk.
“Forget your ears, it’s your mouth we need to worry about and your nasty personality.” He crosses his arms across his chest in a weak attempt to look intimidating, but it just makes Kazuya want to laugh, “Now you have to catch for me”
“I’ve come out to stop you running and now you want me to catch for you,” Kazuya says, lips twitching as they usually do when he’s poking at Sawamura “You must have a baseball for a brain.”
Kazuya would normally take his time in winding Sawamura up, really enjoy himself, but as much fun as he’s having, he doesn’t want him to actually get a cold and the chill is starting to get to him as well. So instead he grabs Sawamura by the back of the collar and tugging him towards the dorms ignoring the shouted protests from the younger boy.
"How many times do you need to be told to not overwork yourself Bakamura?"
This resulted in a practically unintelligible tirade at a volume which resulted in the beginnings of a headache. Kazuya removed his glasses and rubbed at his eyes in what he knew to be a futile effort to prevent it. But when he opened his eyes again, he had to take a step back as Sawamura had stopped his incessant rambling and was looking at him intently with the same intensity he reserved for the mound.
"What?” Kazuya says resisting the urge to tug on his cuffs.
Sawamura jumped a little at his question clearly lost in whatever he'd found in Kazuya's face. He discretely rubbed around his mouth thinking there was rice or some other food there. Sawamura blinked once before biting his lip.
"Nothing. Just... I've never seen you without glasses before." Sawamura answered in a low mumble the pink on his cheeks getting darker.
Sawamura now free from Kazuya’s grip turned on his heels and headed toward the vending machine and Kazuya caught off guard took a second before he followed him.
Sawamura was stood by the vending machine repeatedly pushing one of the drink options. Kazuya came and stood beside him placing some money in the machine and selecting the option. The drink tumbles out and Kazuya snatches it up and takes a swig, though he doesn’t care for the taste and passes it over. Sawamura stares at it as if it’s about to grow a second head.
His face is getting pinker by the second and it is becoming increasingly clear that the flush to his face no longer has anything to do with physical exertion. Sawamura is blushing like he’s the heroine from a shouju manga confessing to her crush. Which thinking about it like that gave this conversation some context.
“I don’t wear them when I’m catching so you’ve definitely seen me without them” Kazuya says turning toward the machine to get a drink that isn’t an assault to his taste buds. “Why does it matter?”
"It doesn't.” Which is said far to quickly for Kazuya to have any belief in.
He bends down to collect his drink, so he misses the rest of Sawamura’s response which is muttered into the rim of the can he is now chewing.
Popping the tab of his can and taking a drink of his coffee Kazuya studies Sawamura. The expression he’s wearing now is very Un-Sawamura. He’s flushed and jittery, he looks like he’s going to bolt any second which has never been an impression Kazuya has ever gotten from Sawamura “I’m going to be Seidou’s ace” Eijun. Frankly it’s giving Kazuya invader of the body snatchers vibes. Confidence and Sawamura are synonyms in his mind.
“If you want a response, you’re going to have to speak so I can actually hear you.”
"I said..." Sawamura begins before stopping and closing his eyes, he takes a second to compose himself. When he opens them again, he turns those bright burning eyes right on him, and it’s the Sawamura who can stare down any opponent from the mound. He starts again but louder this time, "I said, I just wanted to know if your eyes were as pretty with glasses as they were without."
Then without saying anything else or before Kazuya could even begin to think of a response, he throws his can in the trash, says goodnight, and marches towards the baths like he hasn’t completely shifted the dynamic of their relationship.
So, as it normally goes for Kazuya, he’s the one that must sort through the possible ramifications of that statement.
Really, it’s not much of a shock given what he’d already figured out, the blushing being the big neon sign. On the most obvious level Sawamura thought he was pretty. Or at least that he thought his eyes were pretty, which probably meant that he was gay. Although, he has seen him blush around that manager girl so maybe bi. The point is he’s clearly attracted to him which Kazuya is used to, he’s not vain but he knows what he looks like.
Now did that also mean Sawamura liked him?
Finding someone attractive and liking them in a romantic context were two completely different things. You can find someone attractive without liking them. Kazuya himself was a prime example of this. He was a good-looking guy, but he knows his personality can be off putting, that’s why he doesn’t real have any friends. Unless you count Kuramochi who’s managed to stay by his side through sheer force of will.
But Sawamura wouldn’t have been so flustered if this was only a passing attraction. Perhaps his shitty personality wasn't a big enough deterrent.
Which leaves a couple of conclusions that can be drawn:
1. Sawamura thinks that Kazuya has pretty eyes but that’s as far as it goes. He was just flustered from finding something attractive about a boy.
Plausible but the least likely in his opinion
2. Sawamura thinks that he has pretty eyes and is attracted to him but feels nothing deeper because Kazuya has a shitty personality.
This is a definite possibility, Sawamura has lamented over his twisted personality in the past.
3. Sawamura thinks that he has pretty eyes, is attracted to him and likes him.
Now this one is a problem. If option three is the correct one the Kazuya basically just got confessed to, by his battery partner, who he’s going to have to give an answer too.
Clearly the response should be, "sorry but I don't feel the same way", not Kazuya’s usual go to when it comes to rejections, but this isn’t the usual confession. Sawamura is resilient so it's doubtful it would bleed into their baseball. The words feel heavy on his tongue though because he knows it’s a lie. Kazuya has been drawn to him from the moment he caught that first pitch. He has created a carefully maintained distance between himself and the way he feels. He doesn’t want his sexuality to be a determining factor in his career. Baseball is all Kazuya has, being gay isn’t going to stop him from getting what he wants.
Plus, before he gets all bent out of shape, he also has to consider the possible fourth option. 4. Sawamura is an idiot who doesn't think about what he's going to say before he's said it. Which means Kazuya could come up with multiple theories as to what he meant but none of them matter because Sawamura doesn't even know what he meant.
Kazuya groans long and loud crumpling the can in his hand and throwing it in the trash with Sawamura's.
Option number is probably the strongest possibility but also the hardest to deal with. He’d have to get Sawamura to understand his own feelings before he could do anything about it. The first-year pitcher may have made his life fun and interesting, but he also made it really fucking hard.
He needs another coffee.