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There are seven hundred kilometers between Ozuna Asakawa and Tokyo. That’s eight hours and fifty-six minutes by train. That’s nine hours and eight minutes by car. That’s all of your polished smiles and hidden fears rolled up in one long journey.
There are seven hundred kilometers between Ozuna Asakawa and Tokyo, and you have candy wrappers under your feet and a sleeping boy in the passenger seat.
You decide to make the trip once all the buttons of your jacket are gone and you’re holding your diploma under cherry blossoms and sunny skies. You decide to pack all your things, all three years worth of accomplishments and defeats, of cowardice and pain, of victory and glory, and put them in the trunk of a rented old car you don’t think will last long enough for you to reach your destination. You pack all your stuff and take all your money, and you don’t particularly feel sad about leaving your room empty and lifeless. You have to go anyway.
This is how it ends.
Kuramochi leaves the night right before you do, hand scratching the back of his neck and teeth biting around the farewell he doesn’t want to voice out. Especially to you. But then again you are the only ones in the staircase overlooking the grounds and he has already said goodbye to your underclassmen, so it’s you and him and all the things you never told each other because that’s how you both roll.
“Don’t crash,” he ends up saying, and that’s the closest to a friendly goodbye as you are ever gonna get.
You smile around the lump in your throat and say, “Don’t kill anybody.”
The next morning the dorms are silent, your team is gone and you slip out like a ghost, sun still not up and darkness hiding in the angles of your face.
“Can we stop at Osaka?” Sawamura chirps over the music, his sunglasses making him seem like a tourist. His feet are on the dashboard, and he’s trying and failing to read the map you’ve so carefully memorized. “We can have lunch there. I’m so hungry.”
You snort over the wheel, staring straight ahead at the endless open road.
“You just ate like, five chocolate bars,” you say, rearview mirror catching the warm smile you don’t manage to hide in time. “How can you still be hungry?”
Sawamura drops his feet off the dashboard, but the print of his sneakers are still there, something you’ll scold him for later, laughing and snickering and ignoring his high-pitched whines.
“It was one chocolate bar, Miyuki Kazuya,” he grunts, full red lips forming a pretty pout. “Besides, I’m a growing boy and I need nourishment.”
You glance at him out of the corner of your eye, staring out rolled down windows, wind combing his hair back and making his loose shirt cling to his chest like a second skin.
“Don’t say such complicated words, you’ll just hurt yourself.”
The boy in your car throws his chocolate bar wrapper at your face.
It’s the last game of your high school baseball career and you lose. Seido doesn’t score that last run, Seido isn’t fast enough, Seido fails that last throw by mere seconds, and so you all lose, sweaty and dirty and crying. You think to yourself, we could’ve won. You think to yourself, we played well. You think to yourself, it’s a good way to go, though.
You smile at Kuramochi and pat Nori on the back and say, “That was one hell of a game,” because it was. Because you had fun. Because it may be the last game of your high school baseball career but not the last game of your life, so you endure it.
You endure the disappointment. You endure the tears and the crying and the pride of tough freshmen players that try to play it cool.
But when you turn around, when you put the last of your gear away and look at the field, you see the figure standing on the mound, looking at the emptying bleachers. The figure standing on the mound with his mitt still on and his cap crooked on top of his messy hair, crooked like the smile you’ve given all of your teammates.
“Sawamura, we have to go,” you say when you come closer.
Tear tracks on dirty cheeks and white teeth biting down on full lips. He turns to you, the world gray except for him and the color of his eyes. Molten gold trained on his feet, on cleats firmly buried in the ground.
“I’m sorry,” he chokes, tears falling freely. “I am so sorry.”
It’s not his fault. It’s nobody’s fault, really. Just bad luck. You want to tell him that, but somehow your voice is gone, dry and dead around the lump of emotion in your throat. It’s gone, just like the false bravado and the smooth smiles and the way you have managed to hide all your sharp edges until now.
You knock that cap out of the way, tangle your fingers in sweaty hair and pull him in. Hands catching on your uniform and golden eyes safely tucked against your chest.
“So am I,” you whisper.
You pass a sign two hours into the trip and Sawamura chokes on his coke.
“Oh god,” he says, excitedly. “Oh god, Mount Fuji.”
You ignore him, foot steady on the accelerator until a hand circles your wrist. Long, warm fingers and callused palm holding you, feeling your pulse jump at the sudden touch. You dare a quick glance to your left and sigh.
“We are on a schedule,” you say, mentally scolding yourself for using the plural when the boy in your car shouldn’t even be here with you.
Sawamura pouts. “I don’t want to climb it, I just want to see it,” he complains.
If there’s one thing you’ve learned about him is that he always gets what he wants. He’s relentless and headstrong, and when he sets his mind to something, he never backs down. He didn’t back down against Azuma, he didn’t back down against Yakushi, he didn’t back down against Inashiro.
He doesn’t back down now, fingers pressing harder against your pulse point. His sharp edges still his best weapon.
You sigh.
“Five minutes.”
The sky is painted gray above you, and the route is an undulating line in your map. Your eyes go through it one last time, making sure your know it by heart before you actually make yourself start the engine. Before you make yourself disappear. Spring break and school break and life break. You and your insecurities and the search for something you doubt you'll find.
The sky is still painted gray when there's a knock on your window, Seido like a watchful giant in the background. Bright gold and pouty mouth pressed against the glass.
"What are you doing here?" you ask, rolling the window down, eyes zeroing on the battered backpack.
Sawamura scowls even harder.
"What does it look like I'm doing?" he asks right back, rounding the hood of the car and slipping in shotgun like liquid, strong arms pitching his bag to the back seat, his most beautiful cutter. He closes the door with too much force and looks at you, arms crossed over his chest like he's mad at you for not inviting him on your secret trip.
You let a laugh roll from your mouth, shocked.
"Don't be so selfish," you say, trying to keep your smirk in place and not give in to the warm feeling somersaulting inside your chest. "This isn't about you."
With a cocky expression that seems more appropriate on Kuramochi’s face, Sawamura arches a brow, used by now to your tricks and your lies. Unfazed by it all, like he's indulging you and not the other way around. He stares at you for what it feels like an eternity and maybe, just maybe, that’s actually what he’s been doing all along.
You open your mouth, lick your lips, click your tongue, but nothing comes out.
It is always new to be speechless, to feel weak.
The sky is a little less gray when Sawamura grabs your hand. Hard plastic case pressed against your palm, title scrawled all over the cover in ugly calligraphy. A peace offering you stare at because of all the things you planned, you never thought of music.
But this is Sawamura Eijun, and so he gives you a mixtape to play during the trip, a narrator to tell you stories as you move forward.
He sighs, puts on his sunglasses even though there's no sun yet. He gets comfortable in his seat, in your car, in your life.
"So," he says, your hand still clutching hard plastic. "where are we going?"
Five minutes turn into an hour, car unadvisedly parked in the road shoulder. Excited fingers pulling you towards the guard rail, pointing at white peaks and low clouds. Saying, "That is so beautiful." Saying, "Hey, let's take a picture." Saying, "Smile."
You have a strong arm around your waist and Mount Fuji at your back, still miles away. You have a cheek pressed against yours and a phone in front of you, a clicking sound every time a picture's taken. You have a voice rumbling in your ear, talking nonstop. Words like bullets, piercing your body. You have an arm around wide shoulders, not sure why you're giving in, but pressing a little closer, holding a little tighter.
There are nine hours and eight minutes to Ozuna Asakawa. You manage you make it ten.
Yuki told you it was difficult. He put a hand on your shoulder and said, "It will hurt."
Now you see what he meant. The summer is gone and you are no longer part of the only family you have ever known, that has ever accepted you. Now you just stare out of your classroom window and sigh at green fields and white diamonds.
The winter is almost upon you and so is your birthday. Eighteen and as lost and confused as you ever were.
"Stupid math," Kuramochi whines in front of you, fingers turning the pages of his book as quickly as he runs to third base. "How do you even solve this?"
You ask yourself that same question every day.
By the time you arrive at Osaka, it's noon and you can't feel your legs. Sawamura is begging you to stop and eat at an actual restaurant instead of ordering takeaway and eating on the road. Maybe it's exhaustion creeping up on you, or maybe the way Sawamura's eyes shine and his voice whines, but you park the car in downtown Osaka and jump out as fast as the freeloader you're traveling with.
You do order takeout in the end, but you sit down in one of Osaka's parks, pretty pink and bright green, and eat slowly under flying cherry blossoms and chirping birds. Sawamura spreads the map before both your eyes and he follows with long fingers the route you've marked in red. He seems soft somehow, completely different from the excited leader that steps on the mount in every game. He looks soft and far away, your hand tempted to reach out and touch him. To keep him close.
"So, why this place?" he asks suddenly, turning to you like sunflowers turn to the sun.
You swallow around a mouthful of noodles, around a mouthful of uncertainty and emotion.
"I just want to see the ocean," you say with a big grin. Covering up the cracks in your mask.
Sawamura hums, eyes going back to the map. He looks so pretty under the cherry blossoms snowing down on both of you. So pretty under spring skies and Osaka green.
You manage to turn ten hours into eleven.
You go home for the winter holidays because you’ve got stuff to take care of. Because you need to study and do some research on possible universities, and if there’s one place you can do that peacefully, it’s at home. You can count on your father to never bother you. Talk to you. Notice you.
You go home and open books and cook meals and go over different websites about university programs. You look at the empty walls of your room and at the empty space in the house. You look at frames and albums and shrines, incense stick always burning.
You find one of her old photographs, pretty white dress frozen in time. The ocean crashing against her feet. You look at the date, mentally doing the math Kuramochi hates so much. She was your age. She was young and healthy and alive. She was probably as confused about life as you are now.
You go home and you turn on your laptop and you search for white shores.
When the Todai letter arrives, you don't know if to feel relieved or distressed. It was your first choice, a great opportunity encouraged by teachers and classmates alike. And yet you feel so unprepared, so immature, like you’re not ready.
You are eighteen, you tell yourself. You are eighteen and you're expected to be an adult. Right here, right now. But when you look at yourself in the mirror, when you stare at your reflection, you see nothing but a little kid with unresolved issues and piled-up insecurities. You see a little kid encouraged to grow up too fast by teachers and classmates alike. You see a little kid with his nose broken and glasses cracked and no clear future.
You rent the car the very next day, trying with all your might to hide your fear and desperation.
Trying to pretend you aren't doing this to run away.
When the ocean shows up on your left, Sawamura presses his face against the window. He's soft from sleep and from surprisingly quiet music. The way his eyes shine when they look at you makes you forget about the immensity of the sea behind him, about what you've come here to see.
It's like he rivals the sun itself, shining brighter that you've ever seen. And you've seen him shine so bright, so high.
"Are we there yet?" he asks, taking off his sneakers and sitting cross-legged on his seat. Body contouring into impossible shapes.
You really want to reach out and touch him. Instead, you grab the wheel with both hands and squeeze.
"Not yet," you say.
Two more hours to go.
After you lose your last game, Sawamura sits next to you on the bus. He sits next to you with his eyes red and his head down and his Seido cap missing. You don’t usually share your seat because the captain rides alone, because the captain must seem untouchable, because the captain has to show strength.
Today you share your seat because you are no longer the captain.
Today you share your seat because the boy next to you is still sobbing, right hand rubbing furiously at his nose, making it pink and shiny. Left hand closed in a fist over his knee, pressing down down down. He’s sobbing, breath rattling his frame. Looking tiny in his dirtied uniform and wide shoulders. He’s sobbing, not meeting your eye because he’s mad at himself, because he’s ashamed, nevermind how many times you’ve told him not to be.
You rest your head back, looking up at the white, metallic roof. Still hearing the ping of a bat, the strong explosion of a ball against your mitt, the umpire calling a strike out. You still see the fence and you still see your team and you still see the blue, blue summer sky.
Today you share your seat, chest swelling up with emotion as you cover Sawamura’s left hand with yours, heart skipping a beat as it relaxes under yours, breath catching in your lungs as he lets your fingers lace together, warm and callused and desperate.
Today you share your seat for the first and last time.
There’s salt on your skin and sand in your shoes and the wind tangles up your hair into a mess. You stand on a deserted beach in early spring like barbarians that go against Japanese custom. It’s chilly and you’re cold, but you don’t want to move. You don’t want to go.
“Hey, Miyuki Kazuya,” Sawamura calls behind your back and when you turn around, he lifts his phone and takes a picture. A warm smile on his face that makes your forget about the cold in your bones.
He laughs, breeze carrying the sound and muting him. He laughs and takes another picture before locking his phone and taking off his shoes. Taking off his socks. Slipping his phone inside and looking at you with a grin.
“You don’t have the balls,” he yells. “Race you,” he yells. “You can’t catch me,” he yells.
Laughing at his own private joke, he takes off, running towards the clear water, sunset framing his silhouette. He takes off, sand flying everywhere, breeze catching his ridiculous laugh again. He takes off, long limbs and strong muscles defying gravity.
He runs—
You’re standing on a precipice, the world unstable before your eyes. You’re standing on a precipice, trying to maintain the balance between fear and excitement. You’re standing on a precipice and you know how you got here. You know the steps and the choices you took. You know you had to end up here eventually, face to face with buried insecurities in your chest and the blank spaces in your future.
You know you had to end up here, but you didn’t expect it to be this soon. You didn’t expect to reach this point before doing all those things you promised yourself you would do.
And despite the fear and the uncertainties, there’s a voice at your back, cheering you on. There’s a voice at your back that warms you up, that sets you on fire. There’s a voice, and you may not know many things, but you know who this voice belongs to.
You know how much you want that voice in your life.
—and you run after him.
After days and months and years, you run after him. For once in your life, you run after him. Not laughing but desperate. Like a dying man, arms outstretched towards Sawamura, reaching out for him. Both wanting to touch him and afraid of doing so. Afraid of getting burned, of getting hurt, of getting left behind even if it’s you who’s always one step ahead.
Sawamura screams when he touches the water, clothes wet and ruined. He screams when a wave licks at his waist, trying to steal his warmth away. He screams when your hand catches in his clothes, turning him around. Golden eyes that look at you with surprise. So bright, so tall, so real.
The waves crash against the shore, against your thighs, against your soul. The waves push him towards you, expression clear as the water that seeps into your joints, body shivering under your hands.
“Caught you,” you say.
He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, leans in.
“Yeah, you did.”
The kiss, it tastes like salt and sand and affection. It tastes like eleven hours. It tastes like defeat and apologies. It tastes like desperation, like fear. Like patience, like hope and adventure, Sawamura parting his lips to let you in, tongue soft in your mouth, breath warm against your cheeks. You chasing the leftover smile from his mouth.
The kiss, it tastes like glory.
Later you will leave the beach, lips upon Sawamura’s, insistent and hot. Not caring about people seeing you, about people judging you, about their chatter and their whispers. Later you will get to the car, clear the back seat and press Sawamura into the worn leather, your hands on both sides of his head, his fingers running under your shirt. Later you’ll both fog up the windows, pants tangled around your knees and Sawamura’s mixtape playing in the background, a groaned please, say my name into your ear.
Later you’ll make the trip back. Nine hours and eight minutes this time. No detours.
Now you just frame Sawamura’s face with your hands and kiss him hard, holding on to him.
There are many things you don’t know about your future.
But you do know you want Sawamura Eijun in it.