Dear diary

"AAARRGHH!"

Wait, why the hell is the whole Hamada-residence shaking from terrified screaming? Why is there a teenager trying to jump out of the window? No, wait, he's not trying to jump – someone is trying to throw him out – okay, we should probably start from the beginning.

Nishiura's baseball team had had their usual practise in the evening. Everything had gone quite well until a big, damn angry dog passing by the court had scared the shit out of Mihashi, who had been just about to pitch, and caused him to accidentally throw the ball straight to poor Mizutani's chest.

Not needed to say, Mihashi was crying and shaking as Mizutani held his head and cursed out loud. He needed to be taken to doctor, since there was this slight possibility of him getting a concussion. Just in case, you know.

So, Izumi promised to take care of that, though Mizutani insisted there was nothing wrong with him and he wanted to keep playing. But since it was almost half an hour bicycling to the health centre and they were supposed to do some studying with Hamada, he asked the blond if he could wait for him there after taking Mizutani to the centre. After all, Hamada's place was on the way, and there was only one and a half hour till they'd have to stop and go home. Momoe promised to call the brunette's parents (after she'd have beaten the hell out of poor Mihashi who was already hiding behind Tajima, who actually found this whole incident was super funny).

After he had taken Mizutani to the health centre and waited there 'till the doctors said everything was all right and taken care of and the boy's parents picked him up, he took his bike and headed for Hamada's place. He had spent quite a lot of time there recently, which was pretty odd. They were supposed to study every time he visited, but instead they always ended up watching a movie, playing cards, or something like that. He had even once fell asleep on the bed while Hamada had been in shower, and woke up in the middle of the night under a warm blanket, a glass of juice standing on the desk beside him. His blond friend had been sleeping on a futon, snoring and drooling. That damn ape...

Sometimes they also ended up talking about girls, which Izumi found very awkward. To tell you the truth, he was gay. He hadn't told any of his friends yet, though it was quite clear there was something between Abe and Mihashi (Tajima had blabbered some of their secrets to him), and Tajima wasn't even trying to hide his liking of boys. It wasn't official (yet), but it appeared he and Hanai had some kind of an affair going on. Of course Hanai The Captain was too cool to admit he liked screwing around with the black-haired monkey, but...

Well, anyway. It wasn't supposed to be that big of a deal to tell Abe, for example. He definitely wouldn't tell Mihashi or Tajima – Mihashi, as cute as he was, would accidentally spit it out somewhere, and Tajima was that kind of a person to be so overjoyed about it he would probably sneak into the teachers' room and announce it in the school radio that Izumi Kousuke was gay. ... for real. That would've been so like him.

Izumi sighed and turned to the parking lot of a small apartment block, where Hamada's family lived. He got off the bike and locked it, stuffing the keys to his pocket. It was damn complicated. Hamada was talking about girls all the time, so he definitely was straight as an arrow. But he didn't want to admit that he kind of, um, well, liked him. Yes, true, the blond was kind of stupid, loud and carefree, but he was also energetic, fun to be with, and damn good looking. (Yep, he was into blonds. So?)

Izumi pressed the buzzer with the text "Hamada" written next to it, and heard a kind female voice answering. "Hello, Mrs. Hamada, it's me, Izumi" he greeted. "Oh, Kousuke!" Mrs. Hamada answered, sounding delighted. "Come in, please – Yoshiro phoned and told me you were coming ahead!"

Hearing the buzzing sound, Izumi opened the door. He headed to the lift, pressed the button numbered three, and bit his lip as the little cage he was in started moving upwards. He hated lifts. Actually, had a little phobia of them. But he had promised Mizutani to try to get over it – they had had a looong conversation about phobias and fears one day – so he would go into a lift any time he could.

And it was working, actually. First they had only gone inside one with Mizutani every once in a while, and staid there for some time. Once they actually held a picnic with Sakaeguchi in his place's lift. It had been so much fun – they had travelled up and down one floor at a time, drank some ramune, ate some onigiris and talked about stuff.

Izumi smiled at the memory, and stepped out from the elevator as it stopped, walking to Hamada's place's door and rang the doorbell. Mrs. Hamada opened the door immediately and let him in, smiling widely. He bowed and greeted: "Good day, ma'am."

Mrs. Hamada let out a small laugh. "It's so nice to see you, Kousuke! How are you? Are things going well with the baseball team? Yoshiro talks so much about you nowadays, he says you are very good in baseball - I am so very happy you two have become good friends!

Izumi looked at his friend's mother and smiled, a bit embarrassed. "Um, thank you very much for asking, I'm doing very good. Things are going very well with the team – and also Hamada's cheering group is doing very well, if you wanted to know – and um, it's nice to see you too, ma'am! How are you doing?" Mrs. Hamada was quite a babbler, but very kind and friendly, and treated his son's friends very well.

"Excellent, excellent! I am so glad that Yoshiro decided to help you boys, you all are such sweethearts!" the woman laughed and patted his shoulder. "The dinner will be ready when Yoshiro comes home, if that's okay? Or are you very hungry? I could prepare something for you if you want to," she offered.

"No thank you, I'm absolutely fine," Izumi turned down the offer kindly. "Would you mind if I head for Hamada's room? We're supposed to do some studying today, and I would like to find some proper problems for us to solve."

"Which subject are you studying?"
"Maths."

"So you mean you're helping Yoshiro with the upcoming exam" Mrs. Hamada said, and grinned as poor Izumi blushed. "Well... Sort of" he admitted, a little embarrassed. He didn't want to sound selfish, but... Well – he was tutoring his friend. Hamada would be so screwed if he failed the exam.

"Go on, then" Mrs. Hamada laughed. "I'm happy that someone teaches that blockhead son of mine... He's very sweet, but not that bright when it comes to mathematical subjects."

Izumi bowed and thanked, heading for his friend's room. It would be less than an hour before the blond would arrive, so he had just the perfect amount of time to find some calculations for them.

He stepped into the room and closed the door behind him, then walked to sit on the bed in the corner of the room, and dropped his bag on the floor – all this he did without really thinking. It was a kind of a reflex, what he did automatically when entering Hamada's room.

As he sat he noticed something that hadn't been there before. A small booklet with black covers. Curious, he opened it, and stared at the black letters written with Hamada's somewhat messy handwriting:

"Hamada Yoshiro's diary. Look, and I'll beat you with a baseball bat."

Diary. Hamada's diary. This was absolutely too tempting! ... but he shouldn't. After all, the blond was his friend. But he also had a crush on him, and... In love and baseball, there were no rules!

So, he opened the book and started reading. The first notes were from a couple of years back. Sheesh, Hamada had to be one damn lazy ass diary writer... He browsed the booklet lazily, smiling at some of the entries. There were little texts, like "Challenge!" and "Nishiura go!" written in the margins, little baseball drawings, and so on.

Then, when entering September's notes, things started to get quite interesting. Hamada had started to write about a mysterious person in his entries. Apparently he had a huge crush on this Person X. Also, there started to be more entries – less text about baseball, less whining about school, less Nishiura-subjected drawings and little texts. They were replaced with little hearts, whining about how the Person X seemed to hate him, and stupid little pieces of text that sounded like they were written by a 13-year-old girl about her first love.

Also, there were some lyrics. Not whole songs, but pieces of them. They were quite pretty... Izumi had had no idea Hamada could be this emotional and sweet. He gritted his teeth. Damn. Damn this shit. Why couldn't the blond like him? Reading the texts where he promised to get his beloved the moon from the sky, bring him roses and chocolate every day, and -

Wait a second. Him.

Him.

Hamada had a crush on a boy.

Izumi hadn't noticed it until now, since for him, being attracted to boys was something just normal. But Hamada should've been straight. What was this!

Getting more and more curious by the second, Izumi started paying attention to the little hints his friend gave out in the notes. Apparently, this BOY X of his had a black hair, big eyes, he was in Nishiura baseball tea- WAIT A SECOND.

Izumi's brain started working like crazy. There weren't that many of black-haired guys in the team. Him, Nishihiro, Oki, Tajima and Abe. ...okay, that was five already, but Tajima and Abe were taken, and Hamada didn't mention anything about his baby boy being with anyone already, so it left three. And in one note, he described how damn hot this crush of his had looked, sweating under the burning sun, bangs hanging over his eyes, huffing while concentrating on the pitcher...

Wait, wait, wait! Hanging over his eyes? Oki and Nishihiro both had short hair. So it left only one perso-

'Damn Izumi, seriously, he has, like, the most beautiful eyes there are in the whole damn world! For real!' said the note from 25th of March.

Izumi stared at the words, mouth hanging wide open, as the door was opened and closed again on the worst possible moment in the whole wide world. "Yo, Izumi, I'm ho- " Hamada greeted, dropping his bag next to the door, and stopping as he noticed what the black-haired batter held in his hands.

"AAARRGHH!" was Hamada's first reaction, and he threw himself towards Izumi, who jumped up and just from a reaction slammed the booklet to the attacker's face, realizing a nanosecond later he had just hit his best friend.

"OH NO! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so damn sorry!" he yelled, and dropped the diary on the floor. The cheergroup leader quickly grabbed it, his face flushing deep red. He didn't answer – just walked to his desk, pulled the drawer open and placed his treasured diary there. After shutting and locking the drawer, he turned to face the batter.

... this was when Izumi noticed he was in deep shit.

Before he had the time to run, Hamada had grabbed him from the waist and was dragging him towards the window. "I'll fucking throw you out of the fucking window, you twerp!" he roared, "That was ultra super mega personal stuff, you know!"

Izumi got a hold of the desk, trying to prevent the other from throwing him three floors down to some rose bush. "ACK! Let go of me you damn gorilla!" he screamed. "You shouldn't leave that kind of stuff for everyone to read!" Kicking and screaming to free himself, his heel hit the poor blond boy's knee, and who squealing in pain let go of him.

The batter actually hurt his butt when falling to the ground, but didn't care. Now, it was much more important to get away from that crazy closet gay, so he stumbled to the bed, aiming for the door.

... for his super bad luck, a taller body landed on his own while he was still trying to get out from the bed.

"Get off of me! Get off of me you walrus!" he yelled, crawling towards the wall. He flipped around, to lay on his back, as Hamada sat on his waist, and gave the blond an ugly glare. "You're heavy!" he complained, but was shut up as the other took a good hold of his cheeks and pulled.

"You little ape, I'll stretch that cute rubber face of yours so that your own team mates won't recognize you!" Hamada growled, but his words lost their effect as Izumi turned the attack back at him, pulling his cheeks.

A loud "ow ow ow ow owwwww" choir could even be heard in the kitchen, where Mrs. Hamada laughed and continued preparing the curry. Boys, boys, boys. They always seemed to have so much fun together.

When both of their faces were hurting and red, they let go, still glaring at each other. "What did you read?" Hamada growled, fearing the worst. Damn, if Izumi had gotten to the part where he started using his name... Shit, he would be so screwed!

Well, of course he hadn't been lying either. He was really, really attracted to the boy. The batter was cute, adorable, kind, humble, smart, hot... There wasn't anything wrong with him! Even his face was so much fun to pull!

Izumi mumbled something and blushed. 'Shit. He got there.' "Say it aloud, man" the cheerleader grunt and gritted his teeth. Damn... He was in deep, deep shit.

"To the part where you said my eyes are beautiful" Izumi blurt out and his face turned even redder. Damn... It felt so selfish, saying it aloud. His eyes weren't beautiful. They were just... Normal.

He glanced at his friend's face, and was shocked. The other looked so... Depressed. Hamada was biting his lip, trembling slightly, flushed deep red. "Do you hate me now?" he asked quietly. Even his voice wasn't steady. It was... kind of frightening.

"No" Izumi answered and looked away. "I should probably inform you about the fact that I'm gay." The older boy's eyes widened and his lips part, like he was about to say something. But before he even had the chance, the batter slammed his hand in front of his mouth, continuing: "And I like you."

Hamada's eyes' side was close to a plate's. They were open wide, and his jaw almost to the floor. "I- I- you- you're joking, right, man? Haha, I knew it!" he exclaimed, looking extremely disturbed, clearly not believing what his friend was saying.

Izumi got really mad. It had taken a lot from him to say it aloud, and now Hamada was laughing at him. That fucking guinea pig!

"I'm not fucking joking!" he yelled, grabbed Hamada's collar and pulled him into a kiss. It was quite clumsy one and rough since he was angry that the other had laughed. When he didn't get an answer, he let go and leaned on his arms, looking away, hurt and mad. Stupid Hamada. Idiot. Izumi hated him, he fucking hated him! First the blond wrote those stupid, beautiful things into his diary, and then laughed at him, and didn't even answer his kiss. Fuck this shit. Probably the whole school would know about him being gay tomorrow.

"If you tell anyone, I'll kill you," he threatened, glaring at the wall. Hamada grabbed his jaw, forcing him to watch into the brown eyes. "I will" he bluntly said, making the batter grit his teeth in anger "because I'll definitely make it clear to everyone that you're mine, and I sure as hell won't leave you and that sweet ass of yours alone for one single minute so that some other guys can come and kidnap you."

Izumi's eyes widened, and the angry look changed into a surprised one. Hamada took the opportunity, and softly laid his lips on the other one's. The kiss was softer, sweeter, and the younger boy answered it with pleasure.

And suddenly, the door was wide open. "BOOOOYS~! The dinner is ready, I'm sorry it took so long!" Mrs. Hamada announced, scaring the shit out of both of the boys – and Izumi reacted by pushing the other boy away from him. A little bit too forcefully, since with a loud "ARGH" he flew from the bed to the floor.

Mrs. Hamada laughed. "Oh my, I so enjoy looking at you boys having so much fun! I wish I was still as young as you are!" she said, and headed back to the kitchen, leaving the boys alone again.

Izumi took a look over the bed's edge, receiving a resentful look from Hamada. "You fail, as always" he point out, and grinned. "But I guess that's what I like in you."

"...twerp."

"Idiot."

"Hottie."

"Shut up."