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After the practice match with Hikawa, the weeks pass with Chihaya feeling lighter on his feet than he has in years. To say he’d been freed of the chains weighing him down would be overly poetic, but Chihaya can’t deny the sentiment entirely. It feels silly, in retrospect, trying to do it all himself. Sports have different positions for a reason. But even so, it’s a new feeling—letting himself breathe and trusting someone else will be there to spot him.
Chihaya slips back into it sometimes, always so quick to brush others off, but he’s learning. The guys he’s met at Kotesashi are driven and persistent, but past that, they look out for and push each other. He knows they’d no sooner give up on themselves than they’d give up on him.
So he watches each pitch carefully, stays calm and aims within the strike zone, and he runs.
It feels good to watch a pitcher’s eyebrow twitch as he bunts and fouls pitch after pitch, only to leave them all in the dust with a straight shot down the middle. It feels good to watch an infielder’s hand stutter to a stop before they can throw the ball, watching in despair as Chihaya slides across home, dirt all up the side of his leg. He’d never thought his baseball was boring, but he never quite realized just how fun it really was, either.
Memories and faces that used to torment Chihaya’s dreams drift further into the distance as his confidence grows. Knowing they’ll face Hikawa and Teitoku again excites him instead of drowning him in dread. Kotesashi is a ragtag team, but it’s a decently good one. He couldn’t be a team player with his senior league, but it’s not beyond his reach anymore.
Some of the guilt lingers. In the end, leaving that match with their first victory, he still couldn’t turn back to look at the one he’d slighted. If Kiyomine and Kaname were two faces he wished he’d never have to see again, Makita was another. It wasn’t that he’d done anything to Chihaya. In fact, it was the opposite.
He hasn’t made up for dismissing Makita’s efforts yet. That chance will come when they play in the summer tournament—is what Chihaya finds himself hoping. He knows the second year Kirishima is their starting pitcher, but he also knows that Makita wouldn’t just accept that. He’d challenged them, after all. I won’t lose next time, he’d said.
Chihaya just wasn’t expecting to hear from him again until they faced off in the tournament.
He’d honestly forgotten his old teammates had his contact information. After all, he’d ignored every invitation to go eat together, to play baseball with them outside of practice. He’d silenced the team chat at some point. Countless times, his finger had hovered over Delete Contact and Block, but he’d never been able to completely cut off his senior league team. Now, Chihaya wishes he had.
hey cn we tlk
Leave it to Makita to send something so out of the blue without even bothering with formality.
Chihaya thinks about ignoring it. Makita would probably get distracted in three seconds and forget he ever sent the message, and they’d move on with their lives.
But why message him now? The summer tournament is already underway. The only thing on his mind should be improving his pitches. If all he wants to do is brag to Chihaya, he doesn’t want to hear it.
i don’t have anything to say. bother your teammates
He’s hardly lacking in helping hands and listening ears. Then again, at a powerhouse school like Hikawa, one’s teammates are just as much one’s competition.
u dnt have 2 tlk jst come 2 our old practice field
Chihaya’s eyebrow twitches at the request. Makita has always gone at his own pace, and he’s always tried to rope Chihaya into it. Maybe he owes it to him to just give in this time, but Chihaya’s still ticked off about it.
if you’re asking me for a favor, at least ask properly
i’ll b there @ 5
Chihaya sighs. It seems he has no choice in the matter, especially if he’s really trying to change from the person he was in junior high. He has a few hours to kill, so he decides to take his bike out and shop nearby instead of letting himself get antsy at home. Might as well treat himself to a new CD for the trouble.
When the sun finally starts hanging low in the sky, Chihaya walks his bike down the old path he’d followed so many times to the field he’d left behind. It looks the same, from the green batting nets to the shaded dugout, the dirt recently raked. The setting sun casts it in an orange glow.
Makita sits on one of the benches in casual clothes, something Chihaya realizes he’s never seen him in. A strange feeling churns in his gut, a nausea not so unlike what he’d become intimately familiar with at one point in time, yet different still.
Chihaya chains his bike up nearby, then steps into the grass that surrounds the field. Makita looks up at the sound of his footsteps, surprise written on his face. “You showed up.”
Chihaya bristles. “I had nothing better to do,” he grits out, taking a seat on the other end of the bench, leaving a large gap between them.
“Hah, right,” Makita laughs. It doesn’t sound malicious, but it doesn’t sound friendly either. “Guess I thought it’d be like before.”
It’s as if he’s poking at Chihaya’s pain points on purpose, but Makita isn’t smart enough to do that. Chihaya looks away without responding.
“Oh, here,” Makita says, and something cold touches Chihaya’s hand. He jolts, looking back to see a canned lemonade held out to him, condensation glistening on its surface. Another can sits by Makita’s side, already opened. “I figured you’d bike here, so yeah.”
Chihaya takes it from him automatically, but doesn’t crack it open. “Thanks,” he says, holding the chilled metal between both hands. He should ask what Makita wants, probably. If only he knew how.
“Saw you guys made it through the first two rounds.” Makita looks straight ahead across the field, leaning back on his hands hooked around the back of the bench. “Congrats.”
“Thanks,” Chihaya says again, without offering his own platitude. It was inevitable that Hikawa would make it this far, too. He tries not to think about the long road to the final round, if they even make it. Then he mentally kicks himself for thinking they won’t.
“I still can’t really believe you joined a baseball club at a public school.” Makita clicks his tongue. “It’s better than quitting forever, though.”
If only he knew it was all by complete coincidence. Quitting forever was, for all intents and purposes, Chihaya’s plan.
“I met some interesting people,” Chihaya says, because that was all it really took. Before this, he never would’ve imagined a world where he became teammates with the infamous genius battery, let alone friends with them. The whole team is full of idiots, as far as Chihaya is concerned, but that might just be why it works.
Makita doesn’t say anything, and Chihaya looks up from his hands to see him frowning at the ground, eyebrows furrowed.
“So we weren’t, then,” Makita says flatly. “Interesting enough.”
Chihaya’s lips part, but no words come out. Does Makita think Chihaya quit because he didn’t like the team? Or is it just anger on their behalf?
“That’s not it,” he denies immediately, then looks away. “I don’t know.”
It wasn’t that they were uninteresting. On the contrary, it barely had anything to do with the team at all. In a way, Makita had exacerbated it. He was the constant reminder that Chihaya would never grow taller, would never become stronger. Seeing him ignited a terrible emotion in his chest that he could never fully stomp out, but Chihaya hated himself for it, not his team.
“But it is, isn’t it?” Makita retorts. “Thought you just liked keeping to yourself, but you seem close with those guys, and it’s only been a few months.”
The bitter twist to his lips, childishly pouting, almost makes Chihaya laugh. Kotesashi isn’t a team to be jealous of. Most of them just happened to have similar baggage and Kaname’s ridiculous obliviousness helped to get over it. Under extraordinary circumstances like that, it’s hard not to form some sort of bond. Plus, the majority of them were novices. They had to spend a lot of time together if they wanted to get any better.
But the clench of Makita’s hands tells him it’s not funny. “Years,” he says. “I tried to be your friend for years. Did you even notice?”
Defensiveness rises in Chihaya’s chest. It was just a senior league—they weren’t even classmates. What obligation was there to become friends? Back then, any time spent horsing around was time wasted that could’ve been used to improve himself. The value of one outweighed the other every time.
But then Chihaya thinks about the celebratory dinner Kotesashi had together after their first win, the sheer joy Kaname radiated over hitting the winning run after trying and failing for so long. He thinks about Kiyomine challenging them, almost insensitively, but still observing their conditions and adjusting accordingly. He thinks about the extra hours they’d spent together after school to run the same drills with Todo over and over until he could throw to first base without hesitating. He thinks about Yamada’s unwavering positivity as he wrangles them into a functional team, day after day, despite the odds being against them.
Had he been missing out before?
“It’s not like it was just you I ignored,” Chihaya says, though it sounds like a weak excuse to his own ears.
“Yeah, I know!” Makita exclaims, throwing his hands up in exasperation. “Everyone liked you! Everyone thought you were cool!” His voice rises, and Chihaya’s face warms as he speaks. “All we wanted was to play baseball with you—like, actually with you—and then you were gone!”
Riled up, Makita stops to chug his juice, then drops the empty can on the ground and stomps it flat with a metallic crunch. “You never even gave us a chance,” he mutters. He picks up the can and tosses it at a garbage bin several feet away with impressive accuracy.
The accusation stings, but it rings true. Chihaya hadn’t cared back then, single mindedly focused on the regimen he fought to keep up with. He hadn’t thought it would bother anyone when he left. It wasn’t always intentional, but Chihaya stole the glory as much as he could to make up for what he lacked. Leaving meant the others got a chance to shine, to steal more bases, to have the highest batting average. Makita always had the potential to surpass him—it was inevitable.
Chihaya doesn’t feel nostalgia for his old team. He doesn’t miss them. Recently, he’d learned that one of Todo’s seniors is on the team they’re playing next, and it’s clear that showing him how far he’s come means the world to Todo. But Chihaya doesn’t have anything to prove to Makita so much as he has something to prove to himself.
“I never really got it,” Makita says, shaking Chihaya from his thoughts. “One day, you just changed all of a sudden.”
Does he mean that day? The one Chihaya would do anything to forget?
Makita leans forward, hunched over his knees. “I couldn’t imagine that someone as good as you would ever quit. I thought it had to be my fault, or something.”
Chihaya’s fingers feel numb, and it’s not from the lemonade. That day. The words he’d said that he could never take back, the disgusting envy he’d wanted to purge from deep inside.
“You don’t remember?” Chihaya asks quietly, disbelieving. How could those words have only tormented him alone for all this time? Sure, Makita had acted unphased by it even while the others commented on it being out of character for Chihaya to say, but still. It had to have bothered him to have his efforts brushed off like that, right?
“Remember what?” Makita turns his head toward Chihaya, confused. Chihaya lowers his own further, resting it against the cold metal can.
“I’m an idiot,” he whispers, closing his eyes in shame. He’d been so trapped in his own head, unable to see past his insecurities, never realizing that nobody else cared—at least, not in the way he’d thought.
It should’ve been obvious. Why would an idiot like Makita give a damn about his height or his strength if he still played well? Why would anyone? Wasn’t the fact that he’d gotten scouted proof of that? He’d become so self pitying that he never imagined someone else would blame themselves for Chihaya running away. Makita hadn’t taken his words as anything but what it sounded like to him: a compliment.
“If it was ‘cuz of all those times I talked about how I grew or gained weight,” Makita says, apparently not hearing Chihaya, “I wasn’t trying to, like, rub it in.” He scratches the back of his neck, a slight redness appearing over his cheeks. “I mean, at some point, yeah, I thought riling you up was the only thing that’d get through to you. And I said some really shitty things. But you never reacted to that, either.”
He seems flustered, almost like he’s grasping for words. Chihaya is honestly a little surprised Makita has the self-awareness to realize that his frequent growth updates felt like little more than digs at Chihaya’s confidence. He watches Makita pick at his nails, uncharacteristic nervousness making him seem small.
“I just, ugh,” Makita groans, rubbing a frustrated hand through his already messy hair. “I just wanted to feel like you saw me for once.”
An ironic thing to say after turning his face away so Chihaya can’t see it. He feels another pang of guilt against his ribcage.
“It wasn’t that,” Chihaya says, trying to ignore the last part, unsure what to make of the tight feeling in his stomach. If this conversation were a game, he’d be losing it. All he’s done is deny, deny, deny, without offering any explanations.
“Then what was it? Get angry at me or something, man. You don’t have to hold back.”
It’s a little funny that Makita is making himself such a willing target of whatever grudge he thinks Chihaya holds against him, but Chihaya shakes his head. “There’s nothing to get angry about. It’s not your fault I quit. It’s mine.”
“What do you mean?” Makita’s eyes are on his face again, looking for the explanation he never got, and Chihaya keeps his gaze trained on the dirt beneath his feet. Even if he tells him, Chihaya doesn’t think Makita will understand the implications of the full reason, just like he hadn’t understood it back then. So he settles for a half-truth.
“I couldn’t see the results of my efforts anymore, and it made me feel like I was wasting my time. I thought poorly of myself, and I was afraid nothing would ever come of the work I put in, so I tried to convince myself I hated it all. I wanted to forget about everything.”
It feels strange to say it aloud. Chihaya is used to lying, used to obfuscating his real feelings beneath layers of excuses and sarcasm, so he feels laid bare trying to explain himself. He hadn’t really needed to with Kotesashi. They were curious during and after that match, he could tell, but they had accepted that he’d deal with it on his own.
“But… you don’t hate baseball, right?” Makita makes it sound completely unimaginable, like the very idea doesn’t fit in his worldview.
Chihaya can’t help but let out a laugh. “I don’t. I never did.”
Makita sighs in relief, and it’s absurd, isn’t it? That he’d be so worried about how Chihaya feels about baseball.
“It probably sounds like nonsense to you,” Chihaya says, because Makita would never quit over something like that.
“It doesn’t,” Makita disagrees. “Sure, I can’t really relate. Stuff like that just makes me wanna work harder. But you never say what you're thinking, and I’m not that smart, so I’m not gonna get it unless you make it really obvious. So… I think I get it now. And I’m glad I didn’t make you quit.”
He sounds so genuine. Chihaya holds his can against his cheek, no longer as cold as it was after being held between his hands for this long, but enough to help with the heat that seems to have come from nowhere.
“Only a self-obsessed gorilla like you would think that,” Chihaya says, because insults are the first crutch he leans on when he feels uncomfortable.
Makita sticks his leg out to lightly kick Chihaya’s with a snort, not rising to the bait like he does with Kirishima. “Yeah, whatever.”
Chihaya doesn’t know what else to say, so he finally opens his drink, taking a few sips to pass the silence.
“You still haven’t looked at me, y’know.”
He pauses with the can against his lips. That’s not true, he could deny again, because how else would he have glimpsed the range of expressions Makita wore as he talked, the anger and the frustration and the nerves he displayed so openly? But that’s not what Makita means.
Chihaya still can’t meet his eyes.
It’s a stupid hang-up, but one he can’t get over. But he can’t explain it in a way that wouldn’t completely embarrass himself, so he tries his best to turn toward Makita and look at him properly, because he probably deserves that much.
He’s never been more grateful for his glasses and the glare he hopes they cast over his eyes. Sitting down, they’re closer to eye level, and Chihaya has nowhere to hide. Makita is calm and still, the opposite of how he usually is, almost like he’s trying not to scare Chihaya away.
Makita looks at him for a moment, like he’s some sort of puzzle to solve. Then, his hands come up to clamp around the sides of Chihaya’s head, flattening his hair over his ears and forcing him to look at Makita dead on.
“What are you—?!” Alarmed, Chihaya puts an arm up to try to push Makita’s away, but he doesn’t budge. His cheeks are squished together, making his protests come out muffled.
“When I first saw you with Kotesashi, I thought you hadn’t changed at all. But you actually look totally different,” Makita says, as if he’s just realized it.
He leans imperceptibly closer, picking Chihaya apart. His eyes are sharp, eyebrows slanted in thought, and Chihaya sees himself reflected in pools of forest green. The world doesn’t end when he meets Makita’s gaze, but the idea of being seen through is nearly worse than the shame he anticipated.
“O-obviously I wouldn’t look the same as I did back then,” Chihaya stammers, adjusting his glasses self-consciously. “Though I can’t say the same for you.”
“Not just that kinda look. Like, something about you changed.” He lets go of Chihaya’s face, dropping his hands into his lap. It takes all of Chihaya’s willpower not to close himself off and turn away. A part of him wants to know what Makita sees in him now.
“Like what?” he asks cautiously.
“You’re really friends with those guys, huh?”
It’s not what Chihaya expects him to say, but there’s no real point in denying it now. “I guess so. Hard to believe for a boring person like me, right?” Chihaya just can’t resist poking at him.
“Weren’t you listening earlier? I said you’re cool.” Makita rolls his eyes with a huff. “You’re not boring. Just said that stuff ‘cuz I was pissed off.”
Well. Throwing barbs as a defensive reflex is something Chihaya can certainly relate to.
“Whatever, that’s not the point,” Makita shakes his head. “It’s good you found them, since it got you to play again. You look like you’re having more fun with them than you were with us.” It looks like it hurts him to admit it, just a little bit.
It has been fun, and it’s not just the baseball. After all, not many can say they’ve played baseball with a former genius turned amnesiac who believes himself to be this generation’s greatest comedian. He’d had fun before, too, even if Makita didn’t get it, but with this specific group of people… maybe Yamada was onto something when he said that it had to be fate bringing them together.
“Let’s play against each other properly in the tournament,” Makita says. “I swear I’ll surpass Kirishima-san as a pitcher, so you better keep working hard too, alright?”
Chihaya blinks in surprise, taken aback by the sudden determination in his voice. “You know there’s no one I’m fighting against to be a starter, right?” he asks jokingly. As long as they make it to the end, Chihaya will be there.
“Wait for me, then.”
Stunned, Chihaya loses his ability to form words and makes a vaguely affirmative sound instead. Doesn’t Makita realize how he sounds? Feeling somewhat like he’s been punched in the stomach, Chihaya reaches for his half-full lemonade and chugs it. He hopes it’s enough of a distraction that Makita doesn’t notice the fact that he’s blushing.
Makita stands up, stretching his arms above his head while the setting sun and purple sky silhouette him. He spots a lone baseball abandoned under another bench and picks it up, lightly tossing it in one hand. It gives Chihaya enough time to recover before Makita turns toward him.
“Wanna play some catch?”
The rejection he’d usually pull out doesn’t even make it to his lips. “Can you actually control yourself, this time?” Chihaya teases, standing up and following Makita onto the field.
“I’ve been practicing!” Makita replies indignantly. “Just you wait, I’ll blow you away.”
“Sure, sure,” Chihaya says, waving a hand dismissively. “Save that for the real match.”
Makita throws the ball at him, a strong pitch that whizzes through the air before landing squarely in Chihaya’s hand. Pinpoint accurate—not that he’ll mention it. Without his glove, the skin of his palm stings, but Chihaya doesn’t mind it. He looks at the redness blooming on his skin, flexes his hand experimentally, and remembers the first time he’d caught a real pitch, long before he knew anything about physique or theory.
When Chihaya throws it back, he can’t help the smile that stretches across his face. The ball lands in Makita’s waiting hand with a satisfying smack, and he shoots a grin at Chihaya that’s just a little different than when he’s trying to show off. Chihaya thinks it suits him that much better.
—