Archive of Our Own

Koushuu stares out the window of the chartered bus from Naha airport, watching as the bright strip of sea parallel to the highway gives way to hills laden with unfamiliar flora.

It’s his third time coming to Okinawa for spring training, so he knows by now what to expect. It’s a rigorous schedule, but the intensity of it pales in comparison to the training camp Coach Kataoka used to cram into the first week of winter break. It’s just a longer haul, and the stakes are higher. Aside from that, it’s the same as what he’s used to: baseball, day in and day out. Nothing to be anxious about.

What’s frustrating is that he is anxious—more anxious than he was his first time here, and for a worse reason. He’s anxious because this year, he’ll be at spring training with Sawamura.

He frowns at the faint reflection of himself in the window and tries to focus his eyes on something further off. Honestly, it’s frustrating that he cares at all. Sawamura should just be an old classmate to him, a senpai he used to be close to. That’s all he was, until after their two summers together had already passed. Everything that happened afterward was insignificant in the grand scheme of things, a meaningless echo of the closeness they’d once had on the field. Koushuu used to tell himself that, insistently, but at some point he started to believe it. Start to finish, even including the vicious onset of his feelings, the whole thing only lasted a couple of weeks.

Koushuu has wondered sometimes what it would have been like if he’d figured his feelings out sooner. If he realized it the first time they played at Koshien together instead of the second, maybe he’d have gotten a whole year with Sawamura. The end result would have been the same, he’s sure, but at least they could have had more time.

Instead he chalked his restless feelings up to annoyance, admiration, jealousy, respect, affection—anything other than what it was. By the time he came to terms with the reality of it, it was too late; the third years had already retired from the team. A desperate urge to confess his feelings still burbled up inside his chest, but he told himself it wouldn’t be fair. Sawamura was already moving on from the team, looking toward his future. He didn’t need that kind of distraction, even if Koushuu thought there was the faintest chance Sawamura might actually like him back.

He was fully prepared to take his secret crush with him to his grave. He just wasn’t prepared for Sawamura.

“Hey, wolf-boy,” came a familiar voice late one night, when Koushuu was out practicing his swing. Koshien had ended just a few weeks ago, but he wasn’t about to let his muscles atrophy by letting up on practice. He was sure Sawamura wasn’t either, even if he technically wasn’t part of the club.

“Sawamura-senpai,” Koushuu said. He hadn’t seen Sawamura up close in a few days, and the sight of Sawamura’s warm grin made his heart start to pound foolishly in his chest. This was pointless, he told himself. These feelings weren’t worth anything at all.

“Your swing’s still looking good. Okay if I join you?”

Koushuu nodded, and they took up spots a few paces away from each other. After a while Sawamura made some small talk about the other second-years, and Koushuu responded by asking him about the draft. It wasn’t far off, and the team was all eager to see if their star third years would get picked.

“I can’t talk about it, I’m too nervous,” Sawamura said, and grinned. “Let’s talk about something else.” His grin faltered a little, then, and something in his posture changed. “Hey,” he said, “um.” His eyes flicked around, side to side, as if to make sure no one had joined them.

Koushuu frowned. “What?”

“If you have no idea what I’m talking about, then you can completely ignore me,” Sawamura started, “and in that case I’m really sorry in advance. But I have to ask you.” The hair at the back of Koushuu’s neck started to stand on end, and an impulse to interrupt overtook him. He wasn’t quick enough, though; Sawamura just blurted it out: “Do you maybe like me, or something?”

A chill went down Koushuu’s spine, and his mouth fell open. “I—what?” His mind was racing; he didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t sure if he could lie to Sawamura’s face, but… but. “Why would you think something like that?” he finally asked, narrowing his eyes.

Sawamura grabbed one of his own elbows with the opposite hand and looked down at the ground. “I thought maybe I was just imagining it,” he said, “but during the finals, and Koshien, you seemed… I don’t know. More intense than usual, I guess. About me.”

Koushuu swallowed. “Well, you’re graduating,” he managed to say. “It was the last chance I had to play with you.”

“Yeah,” Sawamura said. “That’s what I figured. But then…” His face was turning pink, Koushuu noticed distantly. “It’s—kinda seemed like you’ve been staring at me a lot. Like… even in the bath.”

Oh. Koushuu’s stomach tumbled miserably. Shit, the bath was one of the only places he still saw Sawamura, and okay, maybe he looked forward to seeing him there sometimes, but he didn’t think he was being obvious. His face burned with shame. “I—sorry,” he said, hoarsely, before he could think twice about it. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No,” Sawamura said, shaking his head. “No, well—you didn’t? Or, I mean…” He took a breath, seeming to collect himself. “I mean, I have those kinds of feelings about you, too.”

Koushuu stared dumbly at him. “What?”

“Well, I shouldn’t say too; I mean, I don’t know if you… well. Do you?” Sawamura looked up at him with an expression like a dog waiting to be thrown a ball; hopeful and attentive, and Koushuu couldn’t lie.

“Yeah,” he admitted. “I do.”

“Oh,” Sawamura said, his face starting to change. “Oh.”

“But it doesn’t matter,” Koushuu said quickly, before Sawamura’s expression could get any brighter. “You’re graduating.”

Sawamura blinked. “Not for another six months.”

“But you’ve already retired from the team. You’re preparing for the draft. You’ve—” Koushuu wasn’t proud of how his voice faltered, but he pressed on anyhow. “You’ve got your pro career to think about.”

“Why would it not matter?”

It was Koushuu’s turn to blink. “What?”

“I know things might be different in six months,” Sawamura said, his expression starting to take on an outraged edge, “but why would it not matter? You really like me?”

“I… yeah.”

“Well, that matters to me! It makes me really happy!” He looked more mad than happy, but it still made Koushuu’s stomach swoop.

“Okay,” he said, fighting to keep his voice even. “Well, now you know.”

“What,” Sawamura said, “that’s it?” His words still sounded annoyed, but by the last syllable his tone had slipped into something else, uncertainty still wavering on hope. Koushuu felt his resolve start to crack.

“What else do you want?” he made himself say. “We can’t exactly go out now.”

Sawamura was unusually quiet for a moment. Then he took a step closer, his eyes warm and wide. “Well, I’ve never kissed anyone,” he said. “Have you?”

Koushuu’s voice stuck in his throat, and he couldn’t get his answer out. Finally he just shook his head.

“So you could be my first kiss,” Sawamura said. “And I could be yours. That would matter, wouldn’t it?”

“I… senpai,” Koushuu said, high-pitched.

“I won’t if you don’t want me to,” Sawamura said, taking another step closer. “But—I’d really, really like to kiss you.”

He was serious, Koushuu realized suddenly, a shiver ripping through him at the thought. Sawamura actually wanted to kiss him, right here. “Someone might see,” he blurted.

Sawamura gave him a bewildered look. “Is that what you’re worried about? We can go somewhere else. Behind the dorms? Or up to my room?”

The thought of kissing Sawamura in his room nearly short-circuited Koushuu’s brain, but he managed to hold onto his senses. He looked around again, quickly. Really, it was as good a spot as any; there was no one in sight, and they were out of view of any windows. It was a good spot if he was going to say yes, that is, because… because he shouldn’t. He just couldn’t quite remember why. “It won’t mean we’re going to be together.”

Sawamura’s face broke into a smile. “Does that mean you want to?”

“Well, yeah,” Koushuu said, more sharply than he meant to. “Of course I want to.”

“Okay,” Sawamura said, gently. His hand lifted, and Koushuu realized Sawamura was reaching up to stroke the side of his head with his fingertips.

Koushuu bristled. “You don’t have to do that. I’m not actually a wild animal.”

“I know,” Sawamura said, still smiling. “I just like your hair. I’ve always wanted to touch it.”

“I—like your eyes,” Koushuu said, before he could stop himself.

Sawamura looked delighted. “Yeah?”

“They’re really nice.” Koushuu swallowed. “I like a lot of things about you.”

“Alright,” Sawamura said. “You can tell me the rest of them later. Can I kiss you now?”

Koushuu drew a small breath. It was too late to pretend this never happened. Even if he said no, the possibility of it would be all he'd be able to think about for weeks, for months, maybe forever. And he really, really wanted to say yes. Slowly, he nodded. “Uh-huh.”

“Okay,” Sawamura said, his breath warm on Koushuu’s lips as he moved in.

Koushuu had never really expected his first kiss to be anything special. He figured it would happen at some point, and he’d probably forget about whoever it was by the time he was an adult.

He was sure now, though, that he’d never, ever forget this. This was Sawamura, his team captain, his ace pitcher; the person who had consumed his thoughts for most of the last two years. That Sawamura was gently pressing his mouth to Koushuu’s like a sacred ritual, his fingertips brushing Koushuu’s arms. Koushuu closed his eyes and lifted his burning face a little, and Sawamura pressed back, leaning into him.

“There,” Sawamura murmured, as he pulled away. “Now you’ll always be the first person I ever kissed.”

A shiver streaked down Koushuu’s spine. “Senpai, I—” Then he stopped, unsure what he meant to say. Their faces were still so close; he could almost feel the heat coming off Sawamura’s pink cheeks. The air between them felt dense and still. He leaned in again, and Sawamura did too. Maybe they didn’t need to do this, maybe it wouldn’t mean anything, but… but their lips were meeting again. Nothing else seemed to matter.

“Oh,” Sawamura whispered, when they parted. His eyes looked glazed over; it was unfairly attractive. “Yeah.”

“…Yeah?”

“Yeah, I can’t believe you didn’t want to do this,” Sawamura said, and kissed him again.

That was how Sawamura became his second and third kiss, and then more—Koushuu lost count somewhere around the point where Sawamura’s hands slipped into his hair, cradling the back of his head as they kissed to make up for lost time.

The few weeks that followed his first kiss were honestly some of the best of Koushuu’s life. Sawamura had new third-year roommates who seemed to spend all their time at cram school lessons, so whenever they were both free they could usually hang out in his room, talking and kissing and eventually, tentatively, exploring a couple of other firsts.

It felt like a wonderful dream, and he should have known he’d wake up from it abruptly. In the end, it didn’t even take until Sawamura graduated.

The draft was in October, and Sawamura got picked in the second round by Sendai’s Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles. Koushuu knew he should be happy for him, and on some level he was. All he could think about when he heard the news, though, was the distance on the map between West Tokyo and Sendai. Then he felt stupid—as if that would be the most important thing separating them. Sawamura was going to play in the NPB, while Koushuu was just a high school catcher. He’d known that much from the start.

“I don’t know if we can keep this up,” he told Sawamura, a few days later, after they had gotten a little privacy again.

“What,” Sawamura said, grinning up as he rested his head on Koushuu’s chest, “did I tire you out?”

“No,” Koushuu said, “I mean—” His throat went suddenly tight. “I mean doing this. Like… now that you’re leaving.”

“Huh? I’m not leaving until the spring.”

“I know,” Koushuu said. “But we’re not going to stay together once you leave.” It was stay together, now, even if they didn’t talk about it; Sawamura was obviously more than just the first person he’d ever fooled around with.

Sawamura sat up. Then he looked down at his hand on Koushuu’s stomach. “We could, you know.”

“No,” Koushuu said quickly. They’d talked about this before, once. He’d pushed it far enough, giving in to the desire to be with Sawamura now. There was no way he was going to be a distraction to him once he was starting his career. “I don’t want that.”

Sawamura was quiet for a moment. “Okay.”

Koushuu regretted starting this conversation now, but it was too late, something compelled him to press forward. “So there’s no point, is there? I mean—this isn’t going to work.”

“I thought we were going to enjoy it,” Sawamura said. “For as long as we can.”

“Yeah, well.” Koushuu’s stomach felt leaden. “Maybe I can’t enjoy it now.”

“…Really?”

It was awful to hear Sawamura sound as crestfallen as he did; awful enough that Koushuu wondered if doing this with him was a mistake all along. He swallowed. “Yeah,” he said, hoarsely. “Kind of. It sucks to think about.”

“Can you not think about it, then?”

Koushuu closed his eyes. Shit, he didn’t mean for this to happen. He didn’t mean to say it now. It was true, though; he wasn’t going to lie about it. “I don’t think I can just stop. I’m—sorry.”

“Oh,” Sawamura said, and just when Koushuu was wondering if he might still be able to salvage this, to take it back, he realized that Sawamura was starting to cry, wiping his eyes quietly with the back of his hand, and—god, no, it wasn’t like he could do this twice.

“I’m really sorry,” he said again, and then put his arms around Sawamura and hugged him tightly as tears prickled in his own eyes.

“No,” Sawamura said, muffled in his shoulder, “I know, it’s okay. It’s—” His voice seemed to give out, and Koushuu clung to him and stroked the back of his head, and when he wondered if it would be the last time he’d ever get to touch Sawamura’s unruly hair, he started to cry, too.

The rest of the school year was pretty miserable. Koushuu tried to avoid Sawamura wherever he went, and thanks to Sawamura’s retirement, he was mostly able to. On graduation day, though, when he went with Taku and Asada to see off all the third years, the distance he’d created didn’t make it any easier to say goodbye.

He thought he’d feel better once Sawamura was gone, but for a while he just missed him more. The summer baseball season made him think about Sawamura constantly, and more than once he thought about calling Sawamura on the pretense of needing baseball advice, just to hear his voice. He didn’t, though; he knew it would be unfair. He’d told Sawamura at graduation that he didn’t think he could handle staying friends.

It was the end of Koshien and the anticipation of his own NPB draft that finally made recovery seem possible. High school was too intertwined with Sawamura for him to ever really get free of his influence there, but now he was looking ahead, figuring out his own path, his adult life. He got drafted to the Hokkaido Nippon Ham-Fighters, where Furuya had gone the year before, and he had a whole new set of concerns to take his mind off a long-past relationship.

He moved to Hokkaido, and he liked it there. His classmates at Seido teased him that the colder weather would suit his icy personality, but maybe there was something to it; he’d never enjoyed the humid summers in Tokyo, and his first winter with real snow wasn’t as bad as he’d feared.

He played in the secondary league up there, the Ham-Fighters’ farm team, for two years. He actually got to catch for Furuya for a while, which made him oddly nostalgic, but halfway through his first summer, Furuya got called up, and then there was no one else he knew. Still, it wasn’t bad. He wasn’t friends with the other players, exactly, but he got along with them well enough, and despite his meager salary he had a comfortable dorm apartment with a view of distant mountains.

He would have been happy there, he thinks, working his way up to the first string in Sapporo, maybe making some actual friends. But just when he was starting to feel clear-headed about the path in front of him, it all changed: his contract got traded, and he was told to go pack up his things.

Against all odds, he was going to Sendai. Sendai, where just last year Sawamura Eijun had made his debut as the rookie pitcher poised to shake up the team’s bullpen and give them a fighting chance at winning a title. Their backup catcher had been injured the previous season, so it seemed like they’d traded for a prospect just in case.

It only mattered because his high school self wouldn’t have believed it, he told himself. He didn’t care now that he was joining Sawamura’s team. He’d held firm to his resolution that he didn’t want to be friends, and he’d barely talked to Sawamura in three years. Just quick hellos on the rare occasions they crossed paths, and texts on their birthdays—nothing more than an impersonal LINE sticker, at least on his side. On Koushuu’s last birthday, Sawamura wrote him a nice note congratulating him on the draft and wishing him well, but that was just Sawamura. Koushuu remembered him thanking the opposing teams’ players earnestly for their three years of baseball; of course he’d send nice texts.

On this year’s birthday though, a few weeks ago, Sawamura’s text was shorter:

Happy birthday, wolf-boy!! I hope you had a good year! I can’t believe we’ll be on the same team again soon, can you? I’m looking forward to working with you again! See you at spring training~

Koushuu frowned and put his phone away before his heart could react. Sawamura hadn’t texted him when the news came out, but he’d heard it, obviously. Maybe he’d been waiting until now for his chance to say something. Anyhow, it wasn’t really anything. Of course Sawamura would say he was looking forward to working together; that’s what he’d say to any new teammate.

It wouldn’t be weird being on a team with him because they’d both moved on a long time ago. Sawamura was probably dating someone—he was a rising star now, and he was outgoing enough to connect with people easily. Koushuu hadn’t dated anyone else, but still, he was over it. He was fully focused on his own career, now. His feelings for Sawamura, whatever they might have been once, were far behind him now.

*    *    *

It doesn’t take long for Koushuu to realize how badly he’s fooled himself.

Sawamura is already warming up with the lead catcher when Koushuu arrives at the practice grounds, and Koushuu can’t help but stare the second he catches a glimpse of Sawamura’s windup. He’s seen Sawamura at spring training before, of course, but last year Sawamura just gave him a small wave. It was nothing like the grin that spreads over his face as they make eye contact now. Koushuu purses his lips and tells himself, again, that there’s nothing to get excited about.

Two hours into the first day of warm-ups, all the second-string catchers are called over to a part of the field where Sawamura and the other top pitchers are standing.

“You’ll get 15-minute rotations with each pitcher,” the assistant coach explains. “You can call for what you want, but I’ve asked them to mix it up—you’re going to get some pitches you’re not expecting. This isn’t going to be easy stuff to catch.”

At least they’re warning them, Koushuu thinks. Maybe they don’t want the newbies to think the team’s main rotation forgot how to pitch. He’s refreshing himself on the bullpen’s tougher pitches when the list of starting pairings gets to: “Okumura, you’ll start with Sawamura.”

He swallows hard. Somehow he didn’t even think about actually working with Sawamura. He definitely didn’t think it would happen this soon. He meets Sawamura’s eyes and gives him a small nod, and tries not to look as Sawamura smiles in response.

“Hi,” Sawamura says, when they’re walking off to their assigned spot. “How have you been?”

“Fine,” Koushuu says. “How’s your rotator cuff?”

Sawamura turns to look at him. “You heard about that?”

“I read up on everyone,” Koushuu says, maybe more defensively than he needs to. It’s true, though; he just happened to see in an article last month that Sawamura was in physical therapy after the end of the last season.

“I’m all good now,” Sawamura says. “One of my new pitches was straining my shoulder, so we took it out of rotation.” He grins. “I’m down to eight now.”

Eight pitches, Koushuu thinks, and shakes his head in amazement. Sure, he had that many when Koushuu worked with him, but that was in high school. Most pitchers can’t hone that many pitches to a professional level—it’s what Sawamura is known for, even now. “I look forward to seeing them,” Koushuu says, neutrally.

“Oh, you’re not getting my good pitches today,” Sawamura says. He’s still smiling; does he always smile like this? It hurts Koushuu’s face to think about. “I’ve got about six other ones I’m still working on, and Coach said I could try them all out on you guys.” He winks. “Don’t let them get past you, alright?”

Koushuu tries to push down the thrill that goes through him at the challenge. “I’ll do my best.”

He puts his mask down and sets up behind the practice plate as he thinks through what to call for. He isn’t sure it matters; it sounds like Sawamura has his own plans, but… still, he knows what pitch he most wants to see. That pitch feels seared into his memory, the way it felt when it connected with his glove as the batter swung, the moment they made it to Koshien his second year. It isn’t anything special, isn’t one of the moving pitches he’ll probably get instead, but he can’t help himself. He gives the signal and sets up for it, an inside fastball over the plate.

Sawamura grins, and Koushuu feels his heart constrict. Of course Sawamura isn’t actually going to give it to him, he just said… But somehow Koushuu knows, as soon as Sawamura starts his windup.

Sawamura’s arm has gotten stronger since high school, and the sound the pitch makes when it hit Koushuu’s glove seems to resonate through his entire chest. He makes himself nod curtly as he throws the ball back. “Looks good,” he calls out, like he used to.

Sawamura laughs and yells, “You get one freebie!”

The rest of Sawamura’s pitches are as devilish as promised, some outright wild, but Koushuu somehow manages to stop all but one.

“Okumura, third base,” the observing coach calls out, as Koushuu dives for the ricocheting ball. He reacts on instinct, rearing back and throwing from his knees as Sawamura ducks down. There’s no third base, of course, much less a third baseman, but Koushuu thinks the throw wasn’t bad. He still wishes he hadn’t let the ball get behind him, no matter how sharply it hit the dirt.

“Nice, Okumura!” calls Sawamura, smiling, and he feels a little better.

He knows the odds are he won’t get called up this year. Most players don’t, as a rule, and the Eagles already have two good catchers on their active roster.

So this might be it, for all he knows, his only chance to ever play with Sawamura again. He never thought he’d get a chance like this, so he’s going to enjoy it, even if it doesn’t mean to him what it once would have. It’s still Sawamura, the person whose partnership he always valued the most.

He tells himself that’s why he keeps catching himself wanting to smile.

The first-team players have separate mealtimes and their own housing in Okinawa, so he doesn’t see Sawamura much outside of daily practice, especially once the full team reports for training and the practice shifts from pitching drills to scrimmages, and then actual games. He only gets to catch in two of their preseason games, first for the team’s other leadoff pitcher, then for Sawamura. He’s just relieved he does okay; the thought of being relegated to the second string forever doesn’t bother him nearly as much as the thought of embarrassing himself in front of his senpai.

“Hey,” comes Sawamura’s voice, when Koushuu is leaving the locker room after his shower. “Good job today.”

“Thanks,” Koushuu says, slinging his bag up on his shoulder. “You too.”

Sawamura starts walking next to him as he makes his way down the hall toward the bus that will take him back to his hotel. “Can I ask what you think I should do about my rising fastball? I was working on it over the offseason, but the other team got a hit off it twice today.”

Koushuu glances over. “Don’t you have a pitching coach?”

“Well, yeah.”

“And a full-time catcher?”

Sawamura shrugs. “He didn’t catch for me today; you did. I want to hear what you think.”

Koushuu pulls his lips between his teeth and lets out a breath. “I think your control of it might be hurting you,” he says, after a second. “Your other moving pitches still have that weird irregularity, but that one hit the exact same part of the zone every time.” He shrugs. “Beyond that, I think they just were just targeting it and hoping to get lucky. Or else I was too predictable in calling for it.”

“Nah,” Sawamura says. “Your calls are good. My pitching coach said the same thing about it being too consistent. He’s going to have me try changing up my grip a little.”

Koushuu frowns and hitches his bag up again. “Okay,” he says. What was Sawamura asking him for, then? Some kind of test?

Sawamura seems to notice his expression and gives him a small smile. “I just wanted to hear what you thought,” he says. “You know my pitches pretty well, you know?”

“They’ve changed,” Koushuu said. “You’re a lot better than you used to be.”

Sawamura laughs. “What is that, a backhanded compliment?”

“No,” Koushuu says, frowning again. “You were really good before. It’s just—different. I mean, you’re a pro now. Of course it’s different.”

“Yeah?” Sawamura’s face settles into a smile. “Well, you’ve gotten better, too,” he says. “I don’t know if that makes you different, though.”

“What does that mean?”

Sawamura lifts a shoulder. “You were always getting better,” he says. “It’d be way more surprising if you’d stayed the same.”

Koushuu stops walking. Ahead of him, Sawamura turns around.

“What’s wrong?”

“I left something in my locker,” Koushuu lies. “You go ahead. I’ll see you later.”

Sawamura looks at him for a second. “Okay,” he says. “Yeah. See you later.”

Koushuu turns and walks quickly away, unsure what came over him. They were just making small talk; it wasn’t like Sawamura was encouraging him to think about the past. He just—is, suddenly. He doesn’t want to be.

He goes and opens the locker he’s using, stares into its depths, and tells himself to get a grip. It was high school. It’s not like either of them is actually the same. He swings the locker door shut and waits a few minutes before heading back out, just in case.

He avoids talking to Sawamura one-on-one for the rest of spring training.

It isn’t hard, with how busy they are. He was put through the paces in his last two spring trainings, of course, but this feels different. Maybe it’s the pressure of being a new trade, an unknown quantity, or maybe it means… no, he’s not going to think about it. They aren’t going to call him up. It’s better to believe it.

Maybe he was holding out a little hope, though, because it still hurts when he gets his assignment out to Yamagata on the second string. It’s just as well, he tells himself. He’s not sure he was ready to play with Sawamura again.

It’s three days later, back in his new dorm apartment, that he gets the call from his manager.

“We finalized Ikeda’s trade to the Buffaloes today,” his manager says, as soon as brief pleasantries are done.

Koushuu blinks. Ikeda is the lead catcher, the one who played in most of Sendai’s games last year. “Weren’t you worried about Yoshida getting injured?” he asks, about the back-up catcher, before he can think better of it.

“Yoshida’s been fine since his surgery last year,” the manager says. “We didn’t bring you on because of him. We think you have a lot of potential.”

“I… see,” Koushuu says, not daring to breathe.

“So you’ll be here in Sendai,” the manager says. “Yoshida is stepping up to become primary catcher, and he’ll help get you up to speed. We’ll see you in three days.”

“I understand,” Koushuu replies, numbly. “I’ll be there. Thank you.”

The manager gets off the phone quickly, and Koushuu stares down at the call ended screen. Then he laughs out loud, like he hasn’t felt himself do in years. He’s going to play in Sendai, on the first string of a professional team. It’s—actually happening. He stares in shock at his phone for another minute, then finally thinks to text Taku, then his parents, and then Asada and Yui and Yuuki.

Then he stops short. Does Sawamura know? he wonders. No, probably not; the back office wouldn’t share inside info like that with players. Maybe they’ll be telling him soon, though. Maybe there’ll be an announcement about the trade, and Sawamura will guess.

He opens up their LINE chat, reluctantly, and stares at the last message on the screen.

I’m looking forward to working with you again.

> Maybe we’ll work together sooner than I thought, he writes. He stops and looks at it. It’s dumb to feel nervous about something like this, he knows. It’s not like Sawamura won’t find out. He exhales quickly and hits send before he can talk himself out of it.

His phone is already starting to buzz with replies to his texts, excited exclamations of congratulations from his family and friends. Somehow when it vibrates in the long tones of a call, though, Koushuu knows it’s not any of them. He steels himself and picks up the phone.

“Hi.”

“Koushuu!! You’re on the first string??”

Koushuu’s breath stops in his throat. Sawamura still calls him wolf-boy in his annual texts, and at spring training he called him Okumura, like everyone else. He doesn’t know if Sawamura meant to use his name now or if it’s just his exuberance spilling over.

“Yes,” he says. “The manager just called me. Ikeda’s been traded.”

“Okay,” Sawamura says. He sounds like he’s trying to catch his breath. “Okay, okay. There were rumors, and—I mean, shit, I like Ikeda, but—” He stops short. “We’re going to play together.”

“I’ll just be the backup catcher,” Koushuu mumbles.

“Koushuu!”

Please stop saying my name, Koushuu wants to say. Unfortunately, he learned some social skills in high school. “I know,” he says. “I know it’s a big deal.”

“It’s a huge deal!” Sawamura exclaims. “We—I mean, you need to go celebrate!” He pauses, and the echo of what he started to say hangs in the air. “I mean,” he says after a second, “I don’t know if you know a lot of people here, but… if you don’t, maybe I could buy you a drink?”

It’s a really, really bad idea. How is he supposed to say that, though? Sawamura is just trying to be friendly with him now that he’s here with no one else. He closes his eyes and breathes in deeply, then exhales and lets the temptation pass. It might be better to set some boundaries now, even if it hurts. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he says, finally.

“…Oh.”

Koushuu winces. It feels worse than he remembered, hearing that disappointment in Sawamura’s voice. “It’s just, we’re already going to be teammates again,” he explains. “I don’t know if we can be friends, too.”

“I’m friends with a lot of my teammates,” Sawamura objects, which really isn’t the point. “I go out with them all the time!” Then, seeming to alight upon an idea, he says, “Actually, what if we all went? I could introduce you to them.” Koushuu hesitates, and Sawamura presses on: “They’re going to be your teammates now, too. It wouldn’t be bad for you to get to know them!”

Koushuu puts the tip of his teeth between his tongue and bites down on it slowly. It’s not an unreasonable offer. He does want to get to know the guys on the first string, who he only interacted with minimally in Okinawa. It’s just hard to disentangle that sensible desire from the unadvisable pull of seeing Sawamura.

“Some of us were probably going to go out anyhow,” Sawamura says, when Koushuu has been silent for a while. “How about I just text you the name of the bar, and you come by if you can? We’ll be there around seven.”

“…Okay.” He doesn’t have any good reason to turn that down. At least this way he can go late and avoid the possibility of being there just with Sawamura. “I’ll try to make it.”

Sawamura congratulates him again and texts him the address, and Koushuu pulls the map up on his phone. It isn’t far from where he’s staying. He sighs and turns the phone face-down. He’ll go, definitely. He’ll just try to avoid staying long.

He decided he’d arrive 45 minutes late, to be safe, so at 7:45 sharp he finds himself in the foyer of a wood-paneled beer hall in a German style. It’s a Friday night, and the place is a cacophony of music and voices.

“Would you like a table, or are you here for the bar?” the hostess asks.

“I think the people I’m meeting are already here,” Koushuu says. “Um, Sawamura?”

“Oh, of course,” she says, seeming to brighten. “Right this way.”

Koushuu follows her nervously as she walks him toward a semi-private alcove near the back of the bar, where he spots Sawamura immediately amidst a table full of off-duty athletes.

“Oh, he’s here!” Sawamura exclaims, as soon as he looks up. “Wolf-boy!!”

Koushuu lifts a hand. “Hi,” he says. “Sorry to impose on all of you.”

The rest of the table, half a dozen Eagles players with familiar faces, greet him warmly and offer their congratulations as he scans the table for a place to sit.

“Here, I’ll get another chair,” one of them says. It’s the outfielder Hiroda, who’s standing up from the end of the table, the spot next to Sawamura. “You sit down.”

Koushuu nods his thanks and, with some hesitation, sits down in the corner between Sawamura and the wall.

“Hi,” Sawamura says, smiling at him.

Koushuu nods. “Hi.”

“What do you want to drink? It’s mostly beer here—I hope you like beer; they have a lot of kinds… Here, take a look.” Sawamura grabs a laminated menu from the middle of the table and slides it in front of him. Koushuu stares down at it.

He didn’t have any idea there were so many different types of beer. He kind of just thought beer meant Asahi, Sapporo, or Kirin. He’s never tried any of those, either, but at least he’d have a one in three shot of picking whichever one is best.

Next to him, Sawamura laughs. “I know, I know, it was overwhelming for me at first, too. Do you want something light? Or hoppy?”

“Uhh,” Koushuu says. “I don’t know.”

“Hmm, well, do you like regular lager beer?”

Koushuu shifts uncomfortably. “I’ve never tried it,” he admits.

“You’ve never tried—beer?”

“Is that weird?” Koushuu asks, frowning a little. “I mean, I just turned 20…”

“Wait,” Sawamura says, “have you never had any alcohol?”

“…No?”

“Oh,” Sawamura says, and blinks. “Sorry, I… I would have suggested something else.”

Koushuu shrugs stiffly. “I’ll try it now.”

“Are—you sure? You don’t have to!”

Honestly, Koushuu just hasn’t gotten around to it. It wasn’t worth the risk of getting in trouble for drinking underage when he was a second-string player in Hokkaido, and it’s only been a few weeks since his birthday, most of which he spent at spring training. He figures he should try it eventually, it’s just… he knows sometimes people say things they don’t mean to, when they’re drunk. It feels like a dangerous idea when Sawamura’s body heat is sinking into his arm.

He can’t say that, though, and he doesn’t have a better excuse. “It’s fine,” he says. “I want to.”

“Oh,” Sawamura says, “well then!” He tilts a little closer, and then, before Koushuu can register what’s happening, Sawamura’s arm is slinging around his shoulders. “This Sawamura Eijun will be honored to buy you your first ever adult beverage! Let’s see, what should we go with…”

Koushuu feels his entire body lock up as Sawamura’s breath unfurls on his cheek. It’s warm and smells sharply of beer, and he finally thinks to wonder if Sawamura might be drunk.

“What kind of flavors do you like?” Sawamura is asking. “Like, in general? Sweet or bitter or…?”

“...Just regular beer is fine,” Koushuu gets out.

“Nooo, it should be something you’re gonna like!”

Across the table from them, the Eagles’ shortstop—Fujita, Koushuu thinks his name is—is smiling. “Is he causing trouble for you?” he asks Koushuu.

Koushuu frowns slightly. “No,” he says, automatically. “He’s just helping me pick a drink.”

“It’s his first time!” Sawamura says, which Koushuu really wishes he would stop saying. “Fujita-san, what do you think would be good?”

Fujita raises his eyebrows. “Probably just a regular beer?”

Sawamura makes a dismayed noise, and Koushuu suddenly can’t handle it any longer; he lifts Sawamura’s arm off him with one hand and ducks out from under it. “Please just order whatever you like best, Sawamura-san.”

Sawamura blinks at him, his face still uncomfortably close. “Sure, okay!” he says, after a second. He flags down a waitress and orders something—Koushuu doesn’t try to listen for what—and then twists in his seat to face Koushuu again. “Have you met everyone? Should I introduce you?”

Koushuu nods tightly, and Sawamura grins and—to Koushuu’s relief—turns back toward the rest of the table to give him a rundown on each of the players seated there.

There’s Takata, the other pitcher who joined the team the year before Sawamura—”It makes me mad how good his splitter is!” Sawamura exclaims. “But also, he’s secretly a master baker, too”; and Iwami, the lead-off batter—“he’s like a ninja,” Sawamura enthuses, “you won’t believe how many bases he’s stolen”; and finally Kiriyama—“best left-fielder in the Pacific League!” Sawamura says. “And look how handsome he is, isn’t it ridiculous?”

It is a little ridiculous. Kiriyama is so tall it’s a wonder he didn’t choose basketball, with a long, straight nose and a perfect coif of hair. He looks more like a model than an athlete, Koushuu thinks.

“Nice to meet you,” Kiriyama says, giving him an easy smile. “And glad to hear we’re getting you on the roster. Sawamura’s told us how good you are.”

“We only played in high school together,” Koushuu replies. “He’s never seen me play as a pro.” He realizes too late how curt he sounds—it’s not at all how he should be speaking to an older teammate, even if his language is technically polite. But Sawamura lets out a raucous laugh next to him, and that softens it just enough.

“Of course I have!” Sawamura says. “Don’t be silly, wolf-boy.”

If he means in spring training, Koushuu doesn’t think that really counts, but he doesn’t feel like arguing the point. “Are you really going to keep calling me that?” he asks instead.

“What, ‘wolf-boy’?” Sawamura says, blinking at him with wide eyes. “Do you not like it?”

Koushuu feels his stomach churn. It’s not a matter of liking, it’s just—too much like high school, too much like nothing has changed. “It just sounds a little ridiculous,” he grumbles.

“Don’t worry,” Iwami says, from Sawamura’s other side, “he’s given us all ridiculous nicknames, too.”

“Yeah, take Eel-sama’s word for it,” Fujita says, grinning.

“…Eel?” Koushuu repeats.

“Because he’s slippery!” Sawamura exhorts. “You can’t catch Iwami-san stealing bases, just like an eel!”

Iwami gives a fond sigh. “Couldn’t I have been a cheetah or something?”

“No, no, I’ve already got a cheetah lead-off man! He’s playing in college now but he’ll go pro someday, you’ll see!”

They’re interrupted then by the waitress returning with their round of drinks. Sawamura pushes a glass of something amber in front of Koushuu and smiles at him. “I asked the waitress what she thought would be best,” he says. “See if you like it.”

Koushuu eyes the drink warily, but he picks it up and takes a small sip. It’s cold and mostly bitter, but with a hint of sweetness. He doesn’t think it tastes like anything special, but he doesn’t mind it. “It’s fine,” he says. “Thanks.”

Sawamura beams. “Of course! We’re celebrating, Koushuu, I’ll buy you as many drinks as you want!”

Koushuu winces. “Maybe you should call me ‘wolf-boy,’ after all.”

“—Oh,” Sawamura says. “I—right, that’s what I meant!” He’s uncharacteristically quiet for a moment. Then: “Sorry,” he says, just loud enough for Koushuu to hear.

Koushuu shakes his head. “It’s fine,” he says. His cheeks are hot; he takes another sip of beer to distract himself.

Sawamura has a fresh beer in front of him, too, something pale yellow; he lifts it and takes a big gulp as he turns away. Koushuu wonders who bought Sawamura his first beer, and the thought makes his chest feel inexplicably tight. Maybe it was Fujita, who’s teasing Sawamura now about his eating habits as Sawamura tries to cajole him into ordering a pretzel. They seem close, he thinks; Sawamura slips into friendly speech with him the way he used to do with Miyuki-senpai. Or maybe it was Iwami, whose beer Sawamura steals a sip of as Koushuu watches. Iwami objects and tugs it away, but Sawamura goes with it, leaning all the way into Iwami’s space.

Koushuu takes another sip of his own drink and looks away. Sawamura’s always been like that: overly familiar with everyone, too charming for anyone to shut him down. It doesn’t mean anything.

Then his grip tightens around the glass handle of his mug as he realizes that even if it did mean something, it’s none of his business. Sawamura could have slept with any of them, could be dating any of them, and he’d have to be fine with it. The thought sends a streak of fury down his spine.

He doesn’t think he was actually a jealous boyfriend when they were together. He tried not to be, at least, and Sawamura made it easy: any time Koushuu’s hackles got raised by someone getting too close, Sawamura always tried to soothe him with a smile or a squeeze to his hand. Really, he didn’t even need to do that much. The way he stared into Koushuu’s eyes when they were alone was enough for Koushuu to know Sawamura was all his.

Before Sawamura pried his confession out of him, though, it was another story. Everything used to make him jealous—every time Sawamura laughed with Miyuki, or praised Yui, or traded texts with Amahisa; Furuya, calling Sawamura by his first name; Kuramochi, wrapping him easily in a headlock. Koushuu was a wreck back then, and for the longest time he didn’t even know why.

Now he knows better, and the pit of outrage forming in his stomach makes him feel sick. He can’t be jealous now. It’s been three years, and they broke up. It’s none of his business if Sawamura has moved on.

He watches silently out of the corner of his eye as Sawamura drains his beer and waves down the waitress for another. Sawamura leans over the back of his chair with one elbow as he talks to her, and Koushuu thinks to wonder for the first time if Sawamura likes girls, too. If he had to guess, he’d imagine Sawamura does. He enjoys people in general, just like they enjoy him—right now the waitress looks like she’s fighting back a smile, crossing out his order as he changes his mind for the third time.

“—Okumura, do you want another beer?”

Sawamura called him Okumura this time, Koushuu realizes, not even wolf-boy. He knows he has no right to find it irritating.

“No,” he says, “I’m still drinking this one.” He’s barely taken a few sips of it, but he’s starting to wonder if it’s what’s making him feel this way: overheated, his chest too tight. He switches to the glass of water in front of him, hoping it might cool him down.

“Okay,” Sawamura says, and adds a large pretzel to his order.

Koushuu doesn’t really feel like drinking his beer anymore. He doesn’t really feel like being here anymore, forced to witness the new world Sawamura’s made for himself. He’s supposed to be part of this world now, somehow, but he doesn’t think he has any place in it. He won’t even be Sawamura’s main catcher. Just like in high school, he’ll be stuck watching from the dugout as someone else plays that role.

He stares down at the menu, pretending to read it, and lets his attention pull away from the table around him. He can tell himself whatever he wants about meeting his new teammates, but he knows in his heart that he came here for Sawamura. Sawamura seems to be ignoring him now, and even though he knows that should be what he wants, it just makes him feel worse. He’ll just sit here a little while longer and then say he has to leave. Sawamura probably won’t care. He really was just going out with his friends anyhow.

“Oy, get your own beer!” he hears Fujita say, as Sawamura laughs next to him. Sawamura’s laugh is bright and jagged in Koushuu’s ears.

“I did, it’s just not here yet! Plus, I wanted to try the—stomp?”

“Stout,” Fujita says. “Try Kiriyama’s, why don’t you?”

“Kiriyama-senpai!” There’s a wooden screech next to Koushuu as Sawamura rises out of his chair. He leans over the table, practically sprawling onto it, as the rest of the team objects. “Kiriyama-senpai, can I try your beer?”

“Jeez, get off the table!” Iwami says.

Sawamura pushes himself up, but instead of sitting back down in his chair, he rises out of it entirely and goes around the table to entreat Kiriyama directly.

Kiriyama hands him the beer, and Sawamura takes a sip. “Whoa, it’s so sweet!”

“It’s a chocolate stout,” Kiriyama says, mildly.

“I can taste it!” Sawmura’s is at the other end of the table now, but somehow his voice sounds even louder. “Do you like chocolate, Kiriyama-senpai?” He laughs again. “I bet you get a lot of chocolate on Valentine’s Day, right?”

“Not so much these days,” Kiriyama says, “but—” Then he stops and laughs, and the other end of the table laughs too. Koushuu looks up, reluctantly, to see that Sawamura has slid down to sit right in Kiriyama’s lap, one arm wrapped around his neck.

“Senpaiiiii,” Sawamura sings.

Koushuu looks away and grips his chair vengefully. It’s not—Sawamura’s not actually… Koushuu’s heart sinks. He doesn’t know. Sawamura could be dating Kiriyama, for all he knows. He remembers Sawamura sitting on his lap that way once, when the team was all in his room playing video games. Hardly anyone knew about them, but no one questioned it; Sawamura could get away with things like that. After a while he rested his head on Koushuu’s shoulder, and when no one was watching Koushuu slipped a hand under his t-shirt and used his fingertips to map out the warm skin of Sawamura’s lower back.

Koushuu swallows, angry that he’s starting to get turned on by the memory. It was later that night, after everyone left, that they went further than kissing for the first time. He tries not to let himself think about the weight of Sawamura straddling his thighs, the way Sawamura gasped and stiffened as Koushuu explored further with his hands. Koushuu clenches his jaw. He should leave before this gets any worse, he thinks, and stands to go.

“The bathroom’s over there,” Fujita tells him, pointing.

Koushuu shakes his head. “I’m not feeling well,” he says. “I’m going to go home.”

“Wait,” comes Sawamura’s voice. “Wait, wait, Okumura, you’re—leaving?”

Koshuu dares to glance over and sees Sawamura staring at him with wide eyes. He nods.

“But—you just got here! You didn’t even drink your beer!”

“I didn’t like it,” Koushuu half-lies. He didn’t mind it; he just can’t imagine enjoying it here.

“Well, let me get you another one! Or—a coke? Iced tea?” He’s standing up off of Kiriyama, at least, Koushuu notes with a flash of satisfaction. Then Sawamura makes his way unsteadily around the table and claps his hands on Koshuu’s shoulders, and Koushuu regrets his relief. Nothing could be as bad right now as this: Sawamura a breath away from him, staring at him imploringly. His skin is still tingling with arousal from his unwise reminiscing. “Stay, please,” Sawamura says, his voice a little softer. “I wanted you to be here.”

Koushuu bristles. “Do you really care?”

“Huh?” Sawamura blinks at him. “Of course I care! This was—why?” He frowns, his face screwing up like he’s trying to get his words straight. “I mean, I—wanted everyone to meet you.”

Koushuu picks Sawamura’s hand up and guides it off his shoulder. “I appreciate you inviting me,” he says, without any feeling. “I’m looking forward to being part of the team. I don’t want to intrude any more, though.”

“You’re not intruding!” Sawamura’s hand comes back and lands on his chest, and Koushuu is momentarily knocked off balance; he falls back into his chair, and before he knows it Sawamura is straddling his knees. “You wouldn’t have come otherwise,” Sawamura says. “I know that, and—I get it, okay, I do, so I thought—I thought this would be better.”

Koushuu is frozen, his hands gripping the sides of the chair under him. He can barely follow what Sawamura is saying. “Senpai,” he says, “please stop.”

“Stop?” Sawamura asks, and looks at him with round eyes. “Stop—what?”

“Stop acting like we can be friends,” Koushuu says, his chest going cold as he speaks. “I told you we couldn’t. Maybe you can, but—” His voice falters. “I can’t.”

Sawamura’s lips part slightly, and then he blinks a few times. “No,” he says, “that’s—that’s not right.” He shakes his head violently and then loses his balance; he falls sideways and Iwami catches his arm.

“Sawamura, how about you leave our new rookie alone?”

“No,” Sawamura insists. “I need him to stay.”

“You don’t need me here,” Koushuu says, and tries his best to push Sawamura away. “You’ve got your teammates.”

“No,” Sawamura says again, “no, no—I need you. Don’t you remember how amazing we were together?”

Koushuu takes a small breath and swallows hard. “Senpai,” he says finally. “You’re drunk, aren’t you?”

“I… maybe,” Sawamura admits. He shakes his head again, but this time he grips Koushuu’s arms to keep his balance. “But—listen, okay? Listen, please, you—you don’t know, okay, you have no idea. I missed you so much, Koushuu.”

A shock goes through Koushuu’s body, and for a second he’s struck breathless by the possibility that Sawamura means it. “Did you,” he says, neutrally.

“Yes! I missed being in a battery with you. You’re such a good catcher, you know that? You were always so good, and you—took good care of me. Really, really good care.”

Koushuu feels his cheeks go pink. “Senpai,” he warns.

“And I just—I loved being around you,” Sawamura says, softly. “I still love it.”

Koushuu is frozen, still clutching the seat of his chair. Sawamura is on his lap now, fully, and his face is so, so close. Koushuu swallows, staring at Sawamura’s huge, earnest eyes. Then he closes his eyes, takes a breath, and looks past him.

“He’s really drunk, isn’t he?” he asks Iwami.

“Uh-huh,” Iwami confirms, and comes to pick Sawamura up by his armpits. “Here.”

Sawamura tries to fight him, but Koushuu pushes his chair backwards and manages to stand up, and Sawamura is forced to slide off.

“Sorry,” Fujita says to Koushuu, as he comes to help get Sawamura into his chair. “Probably should have cut him off sooner. He gets kind of… effusive.”

“Right,” Koushuu says, and swallows again, stepping back. “So he’s… always like this?”

“When he’s drinking?” Iwami says, and laughs. “Yeah, he told me I had pretty eyes once.”

“You do!” Sawamura says, hotly. “They’re a nice shape!”

“He said he’d marry me if I wasn’t taken,” Takata chimes in, grinning.

“Because you gave me homemade bread!” Sawamura protests. “And that was—” He looks at Koushuu, imploring. “I was joking.”

“It’s not a night out until Sawamura’s told us all he loves us and wants us to be happy,” Kiriyama says, smiling behind his beer at the end of the table. “You’ll get used to it.”

“Well, sorry for wanting you all to be happy,” Sawamura huffs.

The rest of the the table joins in, laughing and bickering, and Koushuu takes another step back, his stomach churning. He never believed it, he tells himself, he knew Sawamura was drunk. But the sick feeling rising up in his chest tells a different story. Maybe he wanted to believe it more than he’s letting himself admit.

Before Sawamura can stop him again, while he’s still arguing with his teammates, Koushuu turns and escapes as fast as he can.

Koushuu wakes up the next morning to his phone buzzing insistently on the nightstand next to him. He picks it up and frowns blearily.

Sawamura Eijun, the screen reads. He frowns and hits the power button to decline the call. A second too late, he realizes he should have just silenced it. He could have pretended to be asleep. No, he was asleep, he realizes, his frown deepening as his head clears. It’s not even 8 in the morning—what is Sawamura doing, calling him this early?

Before he can bring himself to ask what Sawamura is doing calling him at all, a series of messages pop onto the screen.

> sorry, i hope i didn’t wake you up
> i brought coffee if you want it
> if you don’t want to talk, i’ll just leave it

Koushuu stares at the messages, confused. Then, as if by impulse, he throws the covers off of himself, walks to his front door, and pulls it open.

“Oh,” Sawamura says, and blinks at him. “Hi.” He’s bent down with his hand hovering near a cup of takeout coffee, and for a second he seems unsure whether he should leave it or pick it back up. Finally he grabs it and stands up, then holds it out. “This is for you.”

Koushuu looks at it for a second before lifting his hand to take it. “How do you know where I live?” he asks, in lieu of thanks.

“It’s a team dorm, Koushuu,” Sawamura says, smiling a little. Then the smile drops, and so does his gaze. “I mean—Okumura.”

Honestly, Koushuu still hasn’t decided which way of addressing him he dislikes more. He lets it go, though, and just says, “But you don’t live here. And my name’s not listed.” Even though the dorms are mostly for second-string and no-name first string players, they still have some level of security around them.

“I used to live here,” Sawamura says. “I kept my old card key and told them I lost it so I could visit my friends who still stay here. They told me about you moving in, too.” His smile starts to return, this time with a sheepish tinge. “Sorry, this is probably weird, huh? I’m not—stalking you or anything, I promise.”

Koushuu lets out a soft huff. “I didn’t think that. You just surprised me.”

“Well, sorry,” Sawamura says, and meets his eyes. “That’s all I came to say, anyhow. I wanted to apologize.”

“For—what?”

“For everything, last night. I wasn’t very nice to you.”

Koushuu frowns. Admittedly he had been annoyed with Sawamura last night, but he couldn’t say it was Sawamura’s fault. Sawamura had done nothing but try to include him. “What,” he finally says, “buying me a drink and introducing me to your teammates wasn’t nice?”

“Our teammates,” Sawamura corrects. “And no, not that. I said some stuff I didn’t mean to, you know? And—did some dumb stuff, too.”

Koushuu feels himself straighten as it occurs to him that his reactions last night may have been easier to read than he hoped. Storming off probably wasn’t the smartest move, even if Sawamura didn’t notice at the time.

“It’s fine,” he says, swallowing as he shakes his head. “You were drunk. Your teammates told me. I know you didn’t—mean any of it like that.”

Sawamura looks at him for a few seconds, watching his face. “Hey,” he says, finally, his voice a little softer. “I want to talk to you about something, actually. Can I come in for a minute?”

Koushuu doesn’t really think he should say yes—the only seating he has is two floor cushions not far from his unmade bed, and he’s still not totally sure he’s awake—but he can’t make himself tell Sawamura to leave. He at least asks Sawamura to wait while he tidies up and uses the bathroom and makes himself as presentable as he can be in the clothes he slept in. Then he takes a few long sips of the coffee Sawamura brought him and sits down on the cushion next to Sawamura.

“Okay,” he says. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I did mean it,” Sawamura says. “Everything I said last night. That’s not why I was apologizing.” He takes a quick breath. “I… I mean, you know that, right?”

Koushuu frowns and tries to remember what Sawamura actually said. It wasn’t what he said, anyhow; it was his own stupid reaction to it. “Sure,” he says, finally. “We were a good battery in high school. You missed playing with me.” He nods. “I believe you.” Of course, not even that meant what he might have hoped it did, once. Sawamura is just sentimental.

But Sawamura shakes his head. “No, not that I missed playing with you. That I missed you. How much I loved being with you. That was—” He smiles suddenly, looking down at the ground. “That was a dumb thing to say, but you should at least know I meant it. That’s all. As long as you do, then—I’ll just apologize, and leave you alone. And… I hope we can be friends again, okay?” He lifts his eyes and gives Koushuu a small smile. “At some point.”

He moves to stand up, but Koushuu shakes his head. “Wait,” he says, his face heating as his brain starts to catch up. No, he tells himself, he’s—fooling himself again. “Why was it a dumb thing to say?”

Sawamura doesn’t respond for a few seconds, his face caught in a rueful expression. Finally he lets out a breath and leans one shoulder against the wall. “You know, I had a whole plan for getting you back once,” he finally says.

Koushuu’s brain goes silent. “—Huh?”

“Yeah, I know. I think I read too much shoujo manga as a kid.” He gives a crooked smile. “Well, as an adult, too.”

“What kind of plan?” Koushuu asks foolishly, echoing the words to stall as he tries to make sense of them.

“Not a good one,” Sawamura admits. “I mean, I figured the odds were you’d either get drafted to a team near Tokyo or go to school in Tokyo, and then I thought I might have some actual leverage to get traded back there before I became a free agent. I mean, how dumb is that, right? As if I could just convince them to let me go by getting good enough.” He laughs softly. “And then you went and got drafted to Hokkaido, which should have been the first sign I had no idea what I was doing.” He tilts his head so that all Koushuu can see is the curve of his cheek. “Anyhow, I realized pretty quickly that I was stuck here. But it took me longer to realize that the whole thing was pointless to begin with. I mean, getting you back, like it was a game I could win if I just tried hard enough, you know?” He sighs softly through his nose. “It almost felt like some kind of punishment, you getting traded here after I finally figured it out.”

“Figured out what?” Koushuu manages to ask, his voice barely a whisper. No, he knows what Sawamura is saying, he knows, and yet—and yet it makes no sense, either.

“I mean, you broke up with me,” Sawamura says, his rueful smile returning. “And I told myself it was just because we weren’t going to be in the same place, but—you said from the start it was just until I graduated. Even before the draft. I made myself ignore that, you know? And when I thought about it, I finally realized I ignored what you wanted from the very start. I was the one who wanted it to happen, and I talked you into it. And—I’m sorry.”

“Wait,” Koushuu says, his mind stumbling as he catches up to what Sawamura is actually saying. “Wait—no.” He scrambles from his cross-legged seat onto his knees. “You thought I never wanted to date you?”

“You told me you didn’t,” Sawamura says, looking at him. “More than once.”

“Yes, but—!” Koushuu’s heart is starting to pound in his throat, panicked. “But I changed my mind! You don’t seriously think you—forced me, do you?”

“No, but I convinced you. And you ended up getting hurt.”

Koushuu stares at him, too many thoughts shoving their way through his head for any of them to get out. He doesn’t even know what he wants to say. That he would have gotten hurt anyhow? That it’s as much his fault as Sawamura’s if he did? Or—to get to the real point—that he still wants Sawamura back, too?

In the end, he can’t summon up enough of the reckless courage of his youth for the last option. “I never regretted it,” he says instead, his eyes locked on Sawamura’s face. “I swear, I didn’t.”

Sawamura holds his gaze. “Oh,” he finally says. He smiles and looks down. “Thanks, Okumura. That means a lot to me.”

“You can use my name,” Koushuu says, before he can stop himself. “If you want.”

Sawamura shakes his head. “No, I get it. What you said about not being able to be friends with me. You shouldn’t have to be.” He does stand up this time, leaving Koushuu sitting helplessly on the floor. He’s zipping his jacket back up by the time Koushuu can decide to speak.

“I can’t be friends with you because I still have feelings for you,” he blurts, to Sawamura’s knees. He braces his hands on his thighs and stares at Sawamura’s shoes. “That’s why I left last night.”

Sawamura’s legs don’t move for several beats. Then, slowly, Sawamura sinks back down to the floor. “Wait,” he says, his voice fragile. “You do?”

“I thought it was obvious.”

Sawamura shakes his head quickly. “No. No, I—that’s why you left? Because…”

“Because I was jealous, okay?” The words come out more harshly than Koushuu means them to; his chest feels tight. “And I was mad at myself for thinking the way you were acting might have meant something.”

“It did, though,” Sawamura breathes. “It—Koushuu, it did.” He swallows visibly, his eyes wide. “I mean, I know I drank too much. I was just nervous, and I didn’t know how to… but if—” He blinks. “If you still like me, then—”

“Senpai,” Koushuu cuts him off, his voice strained. His chest feels even more constricted now, like he can’t draw a breath. “Even if I feel that way, it’s been three years. And we’re teammates.”

“Oh,” Sawamura says, softly.

“We don’t even really know each other now.”

Sawamura is quiet for a long moment, and Koushuu holds his breath, waiting. “No,” Sawamura finally says. “Maybe not.” Then he stands up again, leaving Koushuu to stare up at him. “I understand,” Sawamura says, and gives him a wavering smile. “I’ll see you at practice, okay?”

This time Koushuu is too slow to stop him, and before he can react, Sawamura is stepping out of the door, closing it behind him.

“Shit,” Koushuu whispers out loud, and stares down at his knuckles. He realizes, too late, that he was waiting for Sawamura to tell him he was wrong.

Was he wrong, though? It’s what he’s told himself, over and over again since he got here. It was three years ago; they’ve both changed. It would be stupid to think they could just pick up where they left off, even if—

He swallows hard and tightens his fists. Even if they both want to. A possibility he hadn’t honestly thought about until now.

There’s a part of him that wants to chase after Sawamura, or to call him, tell him he changed his mind. But there’s one thing he’s known all along: it wasn’t just him who got hurt, the last time. He unclenches his hands and forces himself to take a breath. Teammates, he tells himself. They’re teammates now; that’s what he needs to focus on. And then, like Sawamura said, maybe someday they can be friends. And only then, maybe—

A sharp pang of hope spikes through his chest, and he forces it down a second too late. Its traces wash through him slowly, spreading out to the tips of his fingers and toes. No, he shouldn’t get ahead of himself, he thinks. The rapid beating of his heart is irrelevant.

> thank you for the coffee, senpai, he texts, when he trusts himself not to say more. i’ll see you at practice.

The season starts, and Koushuu makes his debut as a full-fledged member of the first string. He doesn’t have to catch for Sawamura, thankfully, and his performance is solid. He only gets on base once, with a walk, and doesn’t have any notable plays, but the pitching is strong. That’s what matters most, whether he can give himself any credit or not.

“Nice work, Okumura,” Sawamura tells him after the game, smiling as they leave the dugout.

“Thanks,” Koushuu says, and gives him the same curt nod he’s given everyone else. There’ll be time later to figure all of this out, he tells himself. There’s no need to rush things.

He maintains that line of reasoning for about three days, until it finally occurs to him, lying awake in bed one night, that he might not have time. Surely Sawamura would have plenty of options when it comes to dating. What if Koushuu turning him down is what pushes him into a new relationship?

The thought is almost enough to make him grab his phone and call Sawamura right then, at one in the morning. But he stops himself, again, and remembers the awfulness of holding Sawamura as he cried. He won’t let himself do that to Sawamura ever again.

Which means… he takes a breath and turns it over in his head. Which means if they have any chance of dating again, it can only be if he’s sure this is it for him, forever. At least unless Sawamura decides to break up with him, which he’s not sure he can imagine. Sawamura would never have let anything get in their way, he thinks, and sighs as he rolls onto his side.

Honestly, he was just as stubborn as Sawamura, back then. He was sure he knew what was best for Sawamura, even if it wasn’t what Sawamura wanted. He presses his face into the crook of his elbow and sighs again. It’s not like he can regret it. He knows he never would have been happy, feeling like he was a distraction to Sawamura back then. But can he honestly say now that a relationship would be worse for either of them than their current, awkward acquaintance?

No, of course not, he thinks, and lets out a frustrated huff as he rolls onto his back. That’s not the issue now. The issue is that he’s not 16 anymore; he hasn’t spent the last two summers memorizing each one of Sawamura’s quirks; he’s not as sure of what he wants as he was then. And even if it sounds like a good idea now, what if one of them gets traded again? Sawamura as much as said that he moved on, before the universe put them back on the same team. There can’t be that much holding them together.

So he decides to keep his tangled feelings to himself, and he tries not to be disappointed when he arrives at practice and Sawamura seems to have put their last conversation out of his mind. There’s a small, awful part of him that hoped Sawamura would seem distracted, that he’d have an excuse to bring his feelings up again for the sake of the team. But Sawamura pitches well, in his first appearance of the season, and he doesn’t seem to have any issues with focus or control.

He’s a little mellower than Koushuu remembers, from his days monitoring Sawamura’s condition and moods, but that’s probably just a matter of age. Koushuu tries not to think about the fact that his teammates know this version of Sawamura better than he does—the brash self-certainty transformed into real confidence; the valleys of self-doubt solidified into self-knowledge. Koushuu remembers watching this version of Sawamura starting to form, remembers helping it form. He was Sawamura’s confidant more than once, on late nights when Sawamura started to think seriously about his future. Now Sawamura is living that future, and Koushuu wishes he had gotten to see the leaps Sawamura must have taken in between.

There’s no going back and and capturing something that’s past, though. He knows it’s up to him if he wants to be a part of what comes next.

It’s five weeks into the season when Koushuu is finally told he’s going to catch for Sawamura in a game.

“Just trying some things out,” the manager tells him. “You’ve been doing well out there, so it’ll be best if you can get comfortable working with all our starters.” Then he smiles. “Plus, it’ll be a good story, right? A Koshien battery reunited.”

Koushuu just nods.

He hasn’t practiced much with Sawamura since spring training, so he spends some time preparing in the days before the game—making sure he’s got a good grasp on Sawamura’s current lineup of pitches, going over game intel with him. Sawamura talks to him about how each of his pitches is feeling and takes notes as Koushuu talks, and nothing about it seems strange at all. If anything, Sawamura is easier to work with than the other pitchers, even beyond any advantage of familiarity. He’s open from the start about his strengths and weaknesses, and he seems to have done plenty of his own research on the team they’re facing.

“It’ll go great,” Sawamura tells him, as they’re finishing their final prep before the game starts. “Just call for whatever you think will work. I trust you.”

Halfway into the bottom of the first, Koushuu starts to wonder if that trust was misplaced.

It’s not Sawamura’s fault, he thinks, that they’re already facing runners on first and second with just one out. The first hit was half-luck, off-center contact with Sawamura’s changeup that barely managed to get past the third baseman’s glove. Then the runner moved aggressively for a steal, and with the distraction of Koushuu’s fruitless pickoff calls they allowed a walk. Maybe he should have just let the guy run and tried to get him at second, Koushuu thinks, pointlessly. At least he could have let Sawamura focus on the batter.

Movement catches his eye, and he looks up as Sawamura, on the mound, turns around and raises his hands above his head, then claps his hand and glove together. At least we got him to stop yelling at the fielders, Iwami told Koushuu with a grin, after Sawamura’s first appearance. It bugs Yoshida, like Sawamura’s giving away his strategy or something. But it’s not like it’s any secret that he mostly pitches to contact.

Right, Koushuu thinks, forcing himself to focus. Of course a double play was already on his mind, with this setup, but until now it felt like a desperate hope. Sawamura turns back and grins at him as the cleanup batter steps into the box, and Koushuu can tell what he’s trying to say, so clearly he can almost hear it. Relax, wolf-boy. This is what I’m good at.

Koushuu picks the pitch—a wobbling fastball near the center of the zone—and Sawamura nods and starts his windup. Koushuu sets up, but he’s sure the ball won’t find his glove; it’s a question of whether Sawamura can get the movement on it just right, the perfect irregularity to turn a hit into…

The batter makes contact and huffs in frustration as the ball angles too sharply toward the ground. In an instant the shortstop has scooped it up and rockets it to second base, and the second baseman sends it to first with time to spare. The home team fans all around them groan, but all Koushuu can see is Sawamura jogging toward him, grinning ear to ear.

“Told you it would go great!” Sawamura calls, when he’s near enough.

“We have eight more innings, senpai,” Koushuu says mildly, but he smiles and lifts his glove. “Nice pitch.”

“Nice call,” Sawamura says, and beams as he taps their gloves together.

The game does go well—they win 5-0 and Sawamura pitches through the 7th inning, keeping his pitch count economical after their messy start. When it’s over, Koushuu heads straight to the showers, sighing in relief as the hot water eases his tense muscles. Luckily Sawamura showered and changed after he was taken out; he’s sitting in the lounge and icing his shoulder when Koushuu comes out.

“Good game, wolf-boy,” he says. He seems to have figured out that the nickname is the form of address that turns out to grate on Koushuu the least.

“Uh-huh. You, too.” He shifts his bag up on his shoulder. “Make sure you stretch well before you sleep tonight.”

It’s a foolish reminder, patronizing, but Sawamura just smiles. “I will,” he promises.

Koushuu can’t look at him, suddenly, so he just nods and turns away, and he makes sure he gets a seat far away from Sawamura on the bus.

Later that night, he finds himself rolling back and forth on his hotel bed in the dark, too wound up to sleep. The image of Sawamura through the bars of his catcher’s mask feels burned into his eyes, unable to be cleared away. It’s paired with a pressure in his chest that feels like regret, except he doesn’t regret the past; he can’t. He made the only decisions he could.

He doesn’t want to wake his roommate with his restlessness, so finally he gets out of bed and goes to slide the balcony door open to step outside. When he does, there, sitting twenty-odd floors below him, is the tiny shape of Sawamura by the pool. Of course, he thinks, and grips the railing tight as the weight of his emotions finally hits him, hours belated. It’s not regret he’s feeling, not the dull ache of mistakes that can’t be changed. It’s something urgent, alive; the breathless moment between the runner charging for second and the pitcher’s release, when he knows the rest is on him to solve.

Five minutes later, he’s shuffling out of the elevator in his room slippers, then down the hall and through the fitness center out to the pool. He’s interrogated his own feelings the whole way down, needing to be sure this isn’t an impulse he’ll regret. But by the time the back of Sawamura’s head comes into view, he’s exhausted all of his doubts.

“Hey,” he calls.

Sawamura spins around to look at him. “Oh—hi.” Then he smiles sheepishly. “I couldn’t sleep,” he says. “I stretched, though, promise.”

“That’s good. Can I join you?”

Sawamura blinks. “Uh-huh.”

Sawamura is sitting at the concrete edge of the pool in a sweatshirt and gym shorts, his legs dangling into the water. He moves the sandals next to him, and Koushuu sits down, kicking off his slippers and rolling his own pajama pant legs up so he can put his feet in, too. The water is warm and easy on his skin.

“I had fun pitching with you today,” Sawamura says, when Koushuu doesn’t speak first. “We make a pretty good battery, don't we?”

Koushuu nods. “We do.”

Sawamura smiles, lit up by the underwater lights, and Koushuu can’t put it off any longer.

“Senpai,” he says, softly. “When we talked, last time, I didn’t mean to turn you down.”

Sawamura reacts slowly; his eyelashes flutter first, then his lips part, and then his legs stop their slow churning of the water. “Oh,” he says finally, measured. “Then what did you mean?”

“I wasn’t sure,” Koushuu admits. “I was surprised by what you said. And I was—scared.”

He thinks Sawamura will ask him what he was scared of, but Sawamura just presses his lips together, as if in thought, and then nods. “Yeah,” he says. “I get it.”

“I keep thinking about what would happen if one of us got traded,” Koushuu says, and looks out over the water, the small crescents of light radiating outward from where they’re disturbing the surface. “Sendai’s not really close to anywhere else, so it would be hard. And like you said, it’s not like we have much control.” He takes a breath, confirms to himself a final time what he thought about in the elevator ride down, and continues: “But it’s been three years since you joined the team, and I doubt they’ll want to trade either of us this season. So after this year, the most it would be is five years until you’re eligible for free agency. And I decided I could wait that long.” He dares to glance up and over at Sawamura. “How about you?”

Sawamura is staring at him with a wide-eyed expression. Koushuu feels his chest contract, and a tendril of doubt curls up in his gut. What if this isn’t want Sawamura wants at all?

But then Sawamura laughs, and Koushuu can tell that it’s a warm laugh, happy. “Oh my god, Koushuu,” he says, grinning. “You’re supposed to ask someone out before you ask for five years of their life. No, wait, six years.” His grin widens, softens into something Koushuu reads as fond. “You’re thinking that far ahead already, huh?”

“Yes,” Koushuu answers, honestly. “I had to be sure.”

Sawamura’s smile doesn’t fade, but something flickers in his eyes, and he looks back at the water. “Are you?” he asks. “Really sure? It’s okay if you’re not, you know. I can—wait.”

“I’m sure,” Koushuu says. “You were right that it was never really about the distance, before. I would have been okay with that part of it.”

Sawamura gives him a curious look. “You’re sure putting a lot of thought into the worst-case scenario, huh? You know, there’s a decent chance we could both be here until we retire.” He pauses, then asks, “Would you be okay with that, too?”

Koushuu stops, caught momentarily off-guard. It’s true; he’s spent more time considering the permutations of them being separated than anything else. The fact is that it could be years just like this, years of catching for Sawamura, traveling with him, winning with him. “I—” he says, and then his throat closes up. No, he hadn’t really let himself consider the possibility of having everything he wants. Leave it to Sawamura to think of that. “Yes,” he finally gets out, ragged. “Definitely.”

Sawamura smiles, then, and looks out over the water again. “Okay, then,” he says. “Me, too.”

They sit for a while after that, not saying anything. They’re in plain view out here, Koushuu is acutely aware; they shouldn’t do anything rash. But when he shifts his hand a little toward Sawamura’s on the concrete pool edge, Sawamura puts his hand down next to it and links their pinkies together, and it’s enough to make all the hair on his skin stand on end.

“Are you sharing a room with anyone?” Sawamura asks.

Koushuu’s back goes rigid as he nods.

“I’m not,” Sawamura says, softly. “But I know it’s late.”

Koushuu swallows hard. They have another game tomorrow, but of course Sawamura won’t be in it. It’s unlikely he will, either, with Yoshida in the starting lineup. The thought of falling asleep after slipping back into his room seems impossible, anyhow. “I don’t mind.”

“Okay,” Sawamura says quickly, and pulls his legs out of the water, pushes himself up onto his feet and helps Koushuu stand up with him. He gives a boyish grin, almost shy, and Koushuu isn’t sure he’ll be able to make it to the elevators. “Come on, then.”

They make it up to Sawamura’s floor, somehow; everything around Koushuu feels unnaturally crisp and clear, and yet he can’t seem to hold onto any of it long enough to string a coherent chain of memory together. All he can think about is the present moment: Sawamura tapping his keycard against the pad on his door; the relief of the green light that blinks on as the lock turns; Sawamura taking hold of his forearm and tugging him inside.

“Senpai,” Koushuu says, as soon as the door closes behind him. The room is still dark; he can barely see Sawamura’s face when he turns. He doesn’t care. He steps in, meaning to make Sawamura kiss him; but when he pulls Sawamura in by his shirt, Sawamura just wraps his arms around him, and on instinct Koushuu does the same, clutching him tightly. One of his hands is on Sawamura’s neck, and as he slides it gently into Sawamura’s hair, his throat goes tight again.

“I missed you,” Sawamura whispers, squeezing him firmly. “So much, Koushuu.”

Koushuu nods wordlessly into his shoulder and doesn’t let go.

“Let me turn on the lights, okay?” Sawamura says, after a while.

Koushuu pulls away, wiping his face to make sure he hasn’t cried, and Sawamura goes around to each of the light switches, leaving them half-dimmed. Then he sits down on the foot of the bed, turning to bring one knee up onto it, and Koushuu sits down next to him.

“Can I kiss you?” Sawamura asks.

“Yes,” Koushuu says, and swallows. “You should.”

“Okay.” Sawamura smiles as he leans in. “Good.”

It’s been more than three years since he last kissed Sawamura—since he last kissed anyone. He doesn’t actually remember the exact last time they kissed, but it doesn’t matter; it was nothing like this. This is more like their first kiss: solemn and deliberate, like a promise being sealed against his lips. He exhales, feeling his breath reflecting back to him as Sawamura pulls away. Then he blinks his eyes open, takes in the wide-eyed expression on Sawamura’s face, and takes his face to kiss him again.

“Oh,” Sawamura breathes softly, as Koushuu parts his lips. “Oh, god—” Then his tongue finds Koushuu’s and he stops talking. Koushuu puts a hand on his knee and feels it shake as their mouths fit together, the muscles there tensing, undoubtedly all the way up his thigh. Koushuu tests that theory, his fingertips slipping under the hem of Sawamura’s gym shorts, and Sawamura exhales heavily and puts a hand on his waist as he breaks the kiss.

“We—” Sawamura says, breathless. “We don’t have to rush.”

Koushuu blinks. “Okay.”

“I mean, we can,” Sawamura clarifies, and goes pink. “If you want. But I didn’t want you to think—I mean, you can sleep here either way."

“Oh,” Koushuu says. He frowns slightly. “What do you want?”

“I want a lot of things,” Sawamura confesses, not breaking his gaze.

“Well,” Koushuu says. “Me, too.”

“Oh.” Sawamura’s voice is quieter than usual. “Okay.”

“We’ve done some of them before,” Koushuu reminds him—as if he needs to remind him—and traces a small circle on the skin of Sawamura’s thigh. He’s thinking about one thing in particular, now; a memory of biting at that soft patch of skin as Sawamura keened above him on his bunk at Seido, a pillow clamped over his face preemptively to muffle his voice. It didn’t help enough; the wobbly wail that escaped him when Koushuu finally licked the head of his cock could probably be heard two rooms over, but he couldn’t make himself care. He did it again, his arms hooking around Sawamura’s legs to keep him still, and Sawamura writhed and moaned his lungs out into the pillow as Koushuu worked to get the hang of it. He’s pretty sure he could still do it alright now, he thinks, and feels his face flush hot.

“Wait,” Sawamura says, and puts a hand over his. “Wait, I—should tell you something.”

A prickle of unease crawls up Koushuu’s back. “What?”

“I’ve slept with other people,” Sawamura says, bluntly. “I mean, I know it was a long time ago that we dated, so you probably have, too, but I just thought I should—”

“I haven’t,” Koushuu interrupts. He stomach swirls with acid, and he swallows reflexively.

“—Oh.” Sawamura goes quiet. “I… well…”

“You don’t have to apologize,” Koushuu says, too sharply.

“I wasn’t going to!” Sawamura squeaks. It sounds like a lie; guilt is radiating off his face. “I just… wanted to tell you. In case—it bothered you.”

“Why would it bother me? I broke up with you.” Distantly, he’s aware of how unconvincing his own voice sounds.

“I know.” Sawamura runs his fingertip back and forth over a patch of bedspread. “I never… I mean, I didn’t, for a while. But, you know, after I realized it was really over, I thought…”

“You really don’t have to explain,” Koushuu says, trying desperately to make his voice earnest. He is earnest; it’s the truth. “It’s not my business.”

“No,” Sawamura agrees. “But I thought it might mess things up if you realized, um—you know. During.”

“Oh,” Koushuu says, and feels his face heat. Yes, Sawamura has a point there. His throat feels half-swollen now, and the churning of his stomach has more or less killed his arousal. “That’s very considerate of you.”

“Koushuu,” Sawamura says, and slides his hand from Koushuu’s waist down to his hip.

“No, it’s fine,” Koushuu says, tensing. “It’s—fine.”

“Okay,” Sawamura says, and gives him a small smile. “Sorry if I messed things up, anyhow.”

Koushuu shakes his head quickly. “No.”

“Well, it feels like I did,” Sawamura says. “It’s okay if you don’t want to do anything else now.”

“I know that,” Koushuu says, clipped. He’s really being an asshole about this, he can tell, and he doesn’t want to be. He’s not angry; it would be ridiculous to be angry. No, it’s not that. It’s… “I’m just jealous,” he confesses, as the fact of it hits him.

“That’s kind of what I was afraid of.”

The feeling isn’t as awful, though, now that he’s named it; with each breath it seems to ebb a little, retreating from his throat into his chest: a soft, pulsing ache. There’s no sense in fighting it, he decides; he’ll just have to feel it, and then try to let it go. “Did you go further with them than we did?” he asks, turning Sawamura’s bluntness back on him.

Sawamura hesitates for just a second before he nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Another wave of acid sloshes fiercely in Koushuu’s stomach, but he’s prepared for it this time; it fades more quickly than the last.

“You were still my first, though,” Sawamura tells him, his voice sincere. “I’ve never thought about it any other way.”

“Okay,” Koushuu says, again. Good, he doesn’t say, because it seems ungenerous, but—he is glad. Sawamura must have known it would have helped to hear it. “Thank you,” he finally says, when his muscles have mostly unclenched. “For telling me.”

Sawamura nods. “Sure.”

He’s waiting, Koushuu realizes, to see how Koushuu is feeling now. He takes another breath and tries to figure it out, himself. The ache of jealousy hasn’t left him, but it’s tempered now; he thinks he can set it aside. He’s not as urgently aroused as he was before, either, but the possibility of it is whispering through his veins again, now that the more ugly feelings inside him have been quieted.

“I’m okay,” he says, and squeezes Sawamura’s forearm lightly.

“Okay,” Sawamura says, and starts to stroke his side again. “I’m glad.”

“I want that, too,” Koushuu says, as heat starts to build in his stomach again.

“Want what?”

“Everything you’ve done,” Koushuu says. The thought seems to solidify in him as he voices it, grounding him. “I want you to do it with me.”

“Oh,” Sawamura says. He looks more surprised than Koushuu thinks he ought to. “Are you sure?”

“Senpai,” Koushuu says, a warning.

“I—no, it’s just… You’ve been so—careful? I thought maybe you’d want to take things slow.”

Koushuu shakes his head. “I told you. I decided.”

“Right,” Sawamura says, and smiles slowly. “Yeah. Me, too.”

“Okay, then.”

“Okay,” Sawamura says, and leans in to kiss him.

It doesn’t take long for Koushuu to get hard again, especially once Sawamura lies back and tugs Koushuu down to hover over him. Sawamura gasps and slides his hands up the backs of Koushuu’s thighs as Koushuu kisses him, and Koushuu starts to rut against his stomach before he can stop himself.

“Oh, my god,” Sawamura moans, and holds him there, one hand cupping his ass to urge him on. “Koushuu.”

“I want,” Koushuu whispers, and shifts to slide their groins together instead, “Senpai, I want—”

“Oh, fuck,” Sawamura whimpers, and sits up straight. “Stop, stop, Koushuu, I’m—” He laughs breathlessly as Koushuu stares at him, uncertain. “We’re not gonna do more if you make me come in my pants,” he says, grinning.

Koushuu blushes. Maybe it was instinct coming back to him. He did that plenty of times, back at Seido. But they’re not in a cramped dorm bed now, and they have this room to themselves all night. He takes a breath and calms himself forcibly as Sawamura crawls away.

“Just so you know,” Sawamura says, as he comes back to the bed, “I, um. Don’t always bring this stuff with me on the road.” He drops a condom and a bottle of lube in front of Koushuu on the bed, and Koushuu’s eyes go wide.

Oh, he thinks. Right.

“I mean, not that I was expecting anything to happen!” Sawamura babbles, as Koushuu tries to recover from the thought that Sawamura’s offering has planted in his mind. “It’s just, it didn’t take up much room, or anything, and you know, better safe than sorry, right? That’s what my grandpa always told me! I mean—no, forget I said that, that’s not—”

He sits back down on the bed, and Koushuu puts a hand on his thigh.

“...sexy,” Sawamura finishes, blushing.

There’s some negotiation, after that; Koushuu asks if Sawamura will fuck him, something he spent no small amount of time thinking about in high school, but Sawamura convinces him to try being on top first; it’ll be easier, he says, and anyhow Koushuu’s the one who could still end up in a game tomorrow.

“It’ll be good, I promise,” Sawamura says, as he hands Koushuu the lube, and the shiver that floods down Koushuu’s back is enough to make him forget about anything else.

Sawamura was right, of course; it’s more than good—his first push into Sawamura nearly knocks him breathless, and for a despairing moment he thinks he might come before he’s even gotten all the way in. But Sawamura grips his arms and moans something soft and pleading near his ear, and he manages to hold on.

“Koushuu,” Sawamura whimpers, and wraps his legs around Koushuu’s back. “Please—please move, Koushuu, oh—please.”

Koushuu moves, and—well, it’s not like Sawamura was ever quiet when they fooled around before; he can’t be surprised. But it’s a new shock to his senses, like this, and Sawamura’s breathy moans combined with the gut-punch intensity of being inside him have Koushuu on the edge before he’s managed more than a few weak thrusts. He slows down, trying to get a grip on himself, and Sawamura just clings to him more tightly.

“I missed you,” he’s babbling softly, near Koushuu’s ear, “I missed you so much, Koushuu—all the time, I never stopped thinking about you—”

“Senpai,” Koushuu groans.

“Koushuu,” Sawamura whimpers back, burying his face in Koushuu’s neck, “I—don’t wanna lose you again, ever, please, please—oh, god, Koushuu, more, please—fuck—!”

The last cry comes as Koushuu abandons the hopeless cause of outlasting him and acquiesces to Sawamura’s plea, fucking him as hard and fast as he can for the span of a few perfect seconds that he’s sure he’ll never forget. Sawamura is still pleading for more when it catches up to him, though, and he comes in a helpless rush, too soon. When he finally comes down from his last, frantic burst of thrusts, Sawamura is wrapped around him, panting in pleasure but still hard against his stomach.

Koushuu decides in an instant what he needs to do next, and about as quickly he’s pulled out and pushed himself down on the bed to take Sawamura into his mouth.

Sawamura jolts and makes a high-pitched noise, then covers his own mouth with the back of his hand. It does absolutely nothing to hide the drawn-out moan that leaves him as Koushuu impulsively slides two fingers back inside of him, fucking him with them as he starts to use his tongue.

“I’m—Koushuu—oh, oh, god,” Sawamura groans, and then covers his face with both hands as he comes promptly in Koushuu’s mouth, his body buckling up off the bed.

Koushuu still feels a little embarrassed by his own lack of stamina, afterward, but Sawamura’s radiantly goofy afterglow goes a long way toward easing his mind.

“Oh, my god, Koushuu,” Sawamura giggles into his neck, long after they’ve cleaned up and gotten into bed. “That was—amazing.”

“Uh-huh,” Koushuu says, and runs his hand down the back of Sawamura’s t-shirt. He’d worry that Sawamura was still trying to ease his jealousy, if it weren’t for how he remembers that Sawamura was always like this after sex: exuberant and unrelentingly effusive.

“I want to do this again when we’re home,” Sawamura says. “I want you to come to my place, okay?”

“Okay,” Koushuu agrees.

“And I can go to your place, too.”

“You’ve been to my place. It’s not really made for guests.”

“I don’t care about that,” Sawamura sighs. “I want to see where you live. More than I did, I mean. I want to learn everything I missed about you, Koushuu.”

“Okay.”

“I really did think about you all the time,” Sawamura says. “Even though you broke up with me, I swear, I never stopped—”

He stops himself mid-sentence, and Koushuu looks at him. “What?” he asks.

“I… nothing,” Sawamura says, and then blushes when Koushuu doesn’t move his gaze. “Nothing I should say when we’ve only been together for a couple of hours.”

“Oh,” Koushuu says, and feels himself smile as he realizes what Sawamura means. “I did tell you I’d wait five years for you,” he reminds him.

“You did,” Sawamura says, and snuggles into his shoulder. “Very unnecessarily, too.” He smiles up at Koushuu, soft and confiding. “The manager said he thought we were a good team tonight.”

Koushuu’s heart leaps. “Really?”

Sawamura nods. “It was on TV,” he says. “You can watch it later. He said he can see us having a great future together in Sendai.”

Koushuu wraps an arm around his back and tries to let himself imagine it: a real future as a battery together, as everything together. They could even live together, someday—he could learn to cook and make breakfast for Sawamura in the morning; they could fall asleep together watching game reruns on the couch.

He can tell himself all of this, but he’s not sure he can actually picture it. He doesn’t mind, though, because he’s sure Sawamura can. Quite possibly he has all along.

“Yeah,” he says, and weaves his fingers into Sawamura’s hair, holding him close. “So can I.”