Manga: Bukiyou na Silent/不器用なサイレント
Tittle: I Can't Fall Asleep
Summary: Tamiya Keigo could not, for the life of him, fall asleep. So he started doing what he does best besides baseball; thinking about his loved Satoru. Somewhere along the line, he decided to create a poem… his very first poem. He is happy he didn't pursue a career in writing…
WARNINGS: might contain some OoC and yaoi (but you must already know that, since, hey, it's a shonen-ai/yaoi manga after all…)
Disclaimer: All the characters present are property of Hinako Takanaga, and whatever publishing companies have the rights to distribute it. The story, however, is mine, as so is the poem used.
Word count: around 1461, the rest are just words I wrote because I am awesome like that.
Xanyxhi: Hello! If you follow me because of my translations… sorry! Anyways, just a short story that has been on my mind for a few days. Feel free to point out anything that doesn't make sense. English is not my mother tongue, so there might be some odd words, or descriptions here and there.
I Can't Fall Asleep
It was two in the morning, and Tamiya Keigo had to be well rested for his morning practice.
He had been turning around on his bed trying to fall asleep to no avail since almost ten at night, when he went to bed after talking to Satoru through the phone for at least an hour. He might have stayed even longer, but her mother needed the phone for something. Maybe it was time to get Toono his own cellphone…
By midnight, he had given up all hopes of falling asleep soon. Of course, this was after he had attempted counting one hundred sheep, backwards, in English; however, somewhere along the counting of the sheep, they had turned into baseballs, and the baseballs had later turned into drawing pads, and the drawing pads had eventually evolved in Satoru. Needless to say, he was hornier than he was sleepy. If asked, he would say it was not his fault his little boyfriend was so cute, especially when his eyes clouded with love (and something else) whenever they were having hot, steamy—
Anyways, the point was that the baseball player could not, for the life of him, fall asleep at all.
So, he did the only thing his not so reasonable mind could think of at such hours. He created a poem about how cute and adorable Satoru was.
The boy was always making drawings of him, at this rate he might as well have another five more drawing pads full of more drawings. But what could Tamiya do for his Satoru? He was always admiring him, always trying to compare him to something else only to find there was nothing that could rival his cuteness and prettiness.
And so, a poem was his best option since there was nothing else he can (artistically) do and be proud of it.
I have heard from my colleagues,
How weird it was for me to not have a girl.
I have heard from my classmates,
How odd it was for me to take care of my kohai.
I have heard from wise, old people,
How rare was to find true love
I have heard from my parents,
When I am going to present them my partner.
I have heard from your childhood friend,
How I was such a reckless ass.
I have heard from the school president,
How he gives a damn about you and I.
But they never realize,
The true reason of my acts.
To my teammates I have to say,
I already have one I deeply care for
To my classmates I have to say,
I take care, because I don't want him to be stolen away,
To the wise, old people I have to say,
How blessed I am for finding my joy and light.
To my parents I have to say,
Thank you for being understanding when I said I was gay.
To your childhood friend I have to say,
I really couldn't care less, but for your sake I'll behave.
To the school president I have to say,
Touch him again, and I'll kick you even harder.
It had taken him forever to finish it (not really, just about fifteen minutes, he was not a poet so…), and even now he was not entirely sure it was at least decent. But it portrayed some of his thoughts that had bothered him for a while… though that last line was entirely because he had no idea what else to add while keeping it somewhat polite.
He couldn't help but think in his cute boyfriend when he was writing it. And no, not in the other way his thoughts ran whenever the raven was involved, but rather the romantic kind and infinite wonder that made him fall in love with him, even when he only watched him from afar. True, he only noticed not because he would sit in front of a window facing the baseball field, but rather the kind of expression he would have while staring out of the window… or lack of it, actually. It made him ponder about the true nature of the boy, so he continued glancing at the dark-haired boy now and then.
Eventually, he found out his name (not a small feat, either; one could never believe the lengths he went to just for that), and how he was a really talented artist (well, that fact was even harder to discover, he actually overheard a couple of students in his class who were in the art club about how this new student was amazingly talented; it was as if he tried to make up his lack of expressions by creating such wonderful drawings! Putting two and two together, it wasn't hard to figure it out who they were talking about.)
He also realized how the Art class would come out occasionally, find a nice place to sit, take their drawing pads and pencils out, and started doing whatever their teacher had told them to do. Once he had discovered this (it's a wonder why it took him so long,) he had found himself looking out for the silent boy whenever he would be either on P.E., or practicing with his team, and the Art class would come outside to do their assignment. Needless to say, those practices had never ended well for anybody (he would either swing horrible wrong, or pitch so awfully even he would cringe. Many had ended up at the nurse from either one of them.) So, after finally deciding that unintentionally hurting his teammates was causing them to spend more time at the infirmary and not at the field, he concluded that he might as well ask the boy out since he could not take him out of his mind at all.
It had not been easy. Of course it wasn't; no matter how easygoing he was, how confident he was in the field, he had never asked anybody out—he had been asked out, mind you, but had never been that interested in anybody to actually accept such confessions.
He still had no idea how he had managed to notice the boy standing on the roof while he was talking to his friends during a recess. Not that he was complaining. As soon as he saw him he started running towards the nearest route to the roof, leaving his poor friends to wonder what on earth was wrong with him this time.
He had run as fast as his legs could; he had been so tired when he finally reached his destination, he had to actually pause for about five minutes until he gained his breath. Once he had finally calmed down (not really, I mean, he was about to confess for heaven's sake!), he opened the door and started walking towards where he had seen Toono. He still remembered that day was clear as if it was yesterday, it was then when he realized just how expressive the boy actually was! He had taken a deep breath, and called him out.
"… I like you, and I want you to go out with me…"
Well, that might have gone a little bit better. But it was his first time asking someone out, not to mention it was someone from the same gender!
However, Toono had looked at him with such deadpan expression he began to lose his coolness (yeah, he was trying to be casual), and began stuttering about how it might be troublesome for a guy to say that to another guy, and to forget about the confession as if it had never happened (no, he was not going to cry, for heaven's sake he was not!)
He had not even taken two steps, when Toono had suddenly grabbed his vest from behind, and proceeded to say it was okay to go out.
Tamiya could not believe it; he was in pure bliss for days! Toono had said yes!
Even now he still didn't have the faintest idea how come he had been so lucky. Yes, he concluded, those wise, old people are right: true love is hard to find nowadays. It's even harder when the couples did not meet society's description of a perfect relationship.
To most, the relationship he had with Satoru would be considered wrong; but to him, to Tamiya Keigo, it was absolutely perfect.
He adored Satoru. He completely, utterly loved the smaller boy.
And with that last thought, he finally felt his eyelids growing heavier, and his thoughts getting fuzzy; his only wish was for Morpheus to fill his dreams of Satoru, while his rational part of his brain that was still somewhat working thought about how little sleep he was going to get since, hey, he still had a practice to go to.
Xanyxhi: I am nowhere near knowledgeable in baseball, so please correct me if the words I used are horrible wrong. I hope you liked it, if not, tell me why and how I might improve it!
If you liked the poem (as if) and want to use it for something or the other, just give me credit okay? I mean, I know it's not the best there is, but it's still of my authority.
If I feel like it, I might make more chapters (not that there are many that read this, I mean, have you seen how many fanfics are for this manga?), but I don't see that happening any time soon. I might be wrong though; I just love this manga (and pretty much anything Takanaga writes, actually.)
Cheers~