Miyuki had always thought Sawamura looked good on warm bright days, when the Sun was high in the sky, its rays drawing endless hypnotic patterns on his golden eyes and his mop of brown hair casting shadows over his freckled face. Miyuki could practically picture him back in Nagano, long summer days of running through the fields and swimming in the river, never once in his life having gotten a sunburn. From time to time, Miyuki would feel a pang of jealousy, because he really would have liked to be there, too, to watch the goosebumps on Sawamura's skin when he dove himself in the river, or the look of triumph in his face when he got to the top of some random tree. Because he was certainly the type to spend whole afternoons just climbing trees.
Miyuki loved when they got to play on sunny days. He could watch his teammate from 60 feet away without it being weird because that's what they were supposed to do on the field: look at each other. Even from that distance, he could see his sparkling eyes, the way a frown formed in his forehead when the first base runner was getting too much of a lead, and how a smirk overtook his lips when Miyuki asked for a reckless pitch down the middle.
Today wasn't a sunny day though, and Miyuki felt stupidly disappointed because he'd been wanting to see the reflection of the Sun on Sawamura's eyes. Now again, he had been wanting that a lot lately.
However, once again, his loudmouth pitcher surprised him. Miyuki found that, under the cloudy sky, Sawamura seemed to shine brighter than he usually did. It looked like he was screaming: "If the Sun won't come out today, I'll take its place." Miyuki grinned. That was very Sawamura-like.
The catcher felt a raindrop hit his nose, the another, and another, and when he looked up he saw a mass of gray clouds twisting over their heads. He glanced over at the referee, but it didn't look like he was planning on stopping the game anytime soon, so Miyuki readjusted his mitt and signaled Sawamura for the next pitch. It was a ball. The rain got heavier. Another ball. Miyuki looked at the count —two strikes, three balls— and sighed, rising his hand to ask for a timeout. He got up from his crouching position and approached for Sawamura. The boy looked at him with wary eyes, the pout on his lips telling Miyuki that he thought a timeout wasn't necessary.
Something inside Miyuki twisted at the sight now that he was nearer. Tiny water droplets hanged from Sawamura's wet hair, some of them falling rhythmically over the boy's sun kissed skin, like millions of endless crystals made of liquid diamonds. Miyuki knew he was staring, but it was becoming difficult not to do it when the water pooled in Sawamura's eyelashes was playing strange light tricks that made his eyes look so much lighter than they usually did.
"What do you want?"
Miyuki forced his eyes to look somewhere else, which ended up being the sky. He wasn't sure why, but something had certainly changed in the way he looked at his teammate. Somewhere along the line, his eyes had started to linger on Sawamura longer than he felt comfortable with. He started to notice small things, like the way his eyes were covered by a thin mist first thing in the morning, or how impossibly high his leg rose when pitching —was he always this flexible? —or how the muscles on his back flexed when he stretched his arm after practice. He started to be aware of the way he chewed on his lower lip whenever he was reading an emotional scene on one of his shoujo manga, trying to hold back the tears for as long as possible, and how his skin looked really soft after showering.
"For you to calm down. I know it's shit to play when it's raining, but the referee doesn't look like he wants to stop the game."
Sawamura nodded, a hand coming to dry the wet coat of sweat and rain that had formed over his face, and Miyuki couldn't help to notice the way his hair stuck to his forehead. Before he even realized it, his own hand was raising and brushing over Sawamura's wet bangs, combing them backwards to pull them away from his eyes. The pitcher looked at him, wide eyes and parted lips and a dark blush starting to creep up his freckled nose. Miyuki suppressed a groan and thanked his parents internally for his genes, because his body had never been prone to blushing, if it had been otherwise, he was sure he would be almost as red as Sawamura right now.
He turned, ignoring the strange look he could see Kuramochi was giving him from the corner of his eyes, and started walking back to home plate, leaving a gaping stuttering Sawamura behind. After a few steps he could feel his heart going back to normal and he stopped, giving Sawamura a cheeky smirk over his shoulder.
"Put your cap on. The rain will get in your eyes otherwise."