THE PLAYER AND HIS BUNNY
.:Part 1:.
~1~
How unlucky! Her money must have fallen out of her pocket!
Fukuichi Usagi peered warily into her boyfriend's nylon gym bag, contemplating with a furrowed brow. Then, her hands reached in and she ruffled desperately through the many pockets. The baseball player had entrusted the worn navy blue bag to her before the game. Oh, Yamamoto had to have coins hidden somewhere with his sweaty T-shirts and towels! She was so thirsty, her tongue dry, and the Coke-Cola vending machine only took loose change!
She hurriedly rolled up her sleeves. Why did she have to wear this stupid long sleeve shirt today? Why? Why? The cool morning had turned into a hot night, the air humid to boot! She crouched in front of the vending machine in the empty lobby of her high school's baseball stadium, rummaging, searching.
Suddenly, cheers erupted from the vaulting ceiling, from the spectators sitting above, and she momentarily wondered if the applause was for—
And Yamamoto Takeshi snags another base right under the pitcher's nose! Ladies and gentlemen…
But the growing wetness under her armpits had to be dealt with. Thank goodness she had worn deodorant, but sweat stains—EWW! If she could only drink some water from the refrigerated dispenser, her body would cool off.
Usagi unzipped another compartment and dug her hand inside, praying for loose change to kiss her fingers. Instead, a square of sharp plastic nicked her skin, making her tongue push the roof of her mouth in annoyance. She pulled out the object to see the bottom of the side-pocket.
WAIT! WHAT? A CONDOM?
~2~
Fukuichi Usagi padded sourly down the street in her childish, and already too small, butterfly-decorated sneakers. The sun hit her skin like a pressing iron and the humid air prevented her sweat from evaporating. Heat rose from the black pavement and the twisting cracks plugged with brown grass. Usagi noticed pointedly that none of the other neighborhood children were out playing.
At home, her dolls sat in heavenly air-conditioning.
"You go pick up some extra water bottles at Tamaki's!" her mother said quickly.
"But Kaaaaaaaaaasan," Usagi had whined. However the housewife only rubbed her hands on her apron before pushing some money in her darling eight-year-old's hand. "You can visit grandma on the way back, Usagi-chan. Be a good girl."
Finally, the child arrived at the corner market. A line of costumers burst out the doors and continued a bit down the block. A sign on the window said 'Out of Ice,' and she could hear bickering and complaining coming from within the crowd itself.
As she approached, the crowd dispersed. Usagi smiled as she walked up to the market's doorway, thinking the world revolved around her. Her lucky day, right?
"Usagi-chan, what are you doing here, cutie-pie?" Old Tamaki closed the door and locked the deadbolt with a ring of keys. He was a bald middle-aged man. His smile was missing a few teeth, but, nonetheless, shined with kindness.
"Tamaki-sama, Kasan wants me to buy some bottles," she informed the shopkeeper. "Are they cheaper today?" She had recently learned how to add and subtract in school. How much money could she keep from the wad entrusted to her? Enough to play Bop'em at the arcade? Her mind whirred like a penny calculator.
"Haha. I'm sorry little one, but I'm closing." Tamaki bent down to her level. "With this drought and all, my supplies are being bought up before I can order more." Usagi's mind now raced for an excuse to tell her mother, instead of practicing elementary arithmetic. She had set out two hours ago, after all, went off and did her own thing. There was a park nearby with a little brook. . She hadn't exactly gone straight to the corner store. How would she explain coming back empty-handed?
Across the street, a young boy helped an older man hoist a sign the shape of a fish. Old Tamaki waved and walked over to them to talk.
"Opening shop so soon? You just moved in!"
Usagi had more important things to worry about than the young boy poking his head around his father's back and eying her curiously.
~3~
Sure, he was cute. Sure, he was athletic, her mind repeated grudgingly.
"Yamamoto! GOOOO YAMAMOTO!" the girls shouted from the bleachers, even the tomboys getting into it, leading the crowd. In the distance, a baseball rolled into left field, followed by a tipping boy, glove first, slipping on the grass. P.E. wasn't co-ed, and now with their teacher absent, her class was stuck watching the boys play baseball. Baseball—it was so boring.
Then why was she watching it?
"Haha! Sorry, sorry!" He said as he rounded the bases, smiling politely, his eyes squinting with his broad smile. Did he know he was grabbing the world's attention?
"Hey, Usagi, isn't Yamamoto cool?" Sei asked, plopping down next to her, joining her on the higher deck of bleachers. Usagi lifted her eyes from a notebook, catching Yamamoto high-fiving his teammates down below.
"Wait! Are you studying? Flashcards? Math flashcards?" Sei laughed. "It figures," she teased, pushing her lightly on the shoulder.
"Well how else am I gonna get an A next period?" Usagi said, rather exasperated, while Sei shuffled through some of the flashcards herself, flipping them over to check the neat writing on the back. Sei didn't say anything for a while, her eyes more concentrated on the sines and cosines.
So, they sat for a bit, studying. High up on those metal bleachers
"It's so frustrating," Sei finally said. The middle school girl looked a little vexed as her eyes drifted back up to the boys on the field. Usagi's gaze followed Sei's, only targeting a certain laughing player.
"I mean, why isn't it happening?"
"…Mochida-senpai?" Usagi put out.
"Yeah… He looked at me in the hallway this morning… Our eyes met and he smiled, but that was it. Now if I could just talk to him…."
"You shouldn't come late to class for that, though." Sei had gotten in trouble with the teacher.
"GO YAMAMOTO!" hands clapped in rhythm below.
"Hey, but I really like him. He's just so my type." Sei giggled a bit. "He is worth it, you know." Then, they sat for a bit longer in silence, Usagi studying, Sei sort of.
"What is your type, anyway?
"I don't know. Someone with nice eyes, I guess."
"Heh, heh. What about Yamamoto?"
"What about him?"
Sei put her head smartly in her hands and grinned at her. Usagi snickered behind her chunky book.
"Mmmn… I think he's overrated…," she explained playfully, then gearing back her focus on her math notebook again. "He's good at sports, though. I'll give him that." Her mind drifted back into geometry-land again.
"I thought you used to like him?"
"No. Well, not anymore."
"Really?"
"It got boring."
"Sure… Sure…" Sei replied quietly, looked at Usagi quizzically, who was determined to keep her nose in her arithmetic. "Well, I'm going to find you a beautiful guy, Usagi, and when you see him you'll fall head over heels. And then you'll be with me, in love!"
Sei leaned her back against the bleachers behind her and folded her hands over her stomach.
Meanwhile, Usagi still remained bent over her equations.
She had liked him, but she had to study now. She really had to study now.
...
...
...
Why couldn't she?
Because in her mind's eye, Yamamoto sat behind her on a painted carousel horse, his arm around her stomach, his happiness over her shoulder, as they shared a pink puff of cotton candy.
Look up at the field?
No. No. She mustn't.
She turned to the last page of her notebook, where she kept old math tests folded meticulously.
100
112
93
98
100
97
98
90
105
100
107
Numbers always made her feel better.
And Yamamoto disappeared into the dugout.
~4~
He went with her to the prenatal classes, sitting behind her, feeling her breath in and out on the yoga mat.
He went with her to the ultrasound appointments, looking curiously at the screen.
Heck, he even strapped on that thirty pound lead empathy belly. He wore it during their entire vacation. She had begged him to ask his boss for it. He rarely had time off from work.
He lazed around the house in the morning, helped her with chores during the day. He washed dishes and folded laundry with her, next to her. They set up the crib and fit child-proof plugs over the electric sockets. At night, he laughed and cuddled with her, pulling up the goose-feather blanket. His hands roamed over her abdomen, feeling for the kicks. Before he left for work again, he made her giggle on the doorstep, whispering sweet words and promises to her belly.
Baseball.
They would play baseball.
He welcomed everyone at the baby shower. He praised the guests heartily for their gifts and his pride radiated through every 'thank you.' After his boss gave him a heartwarming speech, a dedication to the importance of family, Yamamoto held up a glass of wine to her health. He was careful to pour her only juice.
At the hospital, in the best private room, his eyebrows scrunched when she screamed for the epidural injection. She lay on her side, knees pulled up to her watermelon stomach and chin tucked. The spaces between the bones of her lower back widened, allowing the doctor to inject the anesthesia.
He distracted her, talking about Namimori, about their hometown, what he'd seen, what had changed. Last week, he left reluctantly on business for the Family. What had become of that old ice cream parlor, run by Tamaki's nephew? He had renovated it, but business was slow. Odd considering how good the sherbet was.
He was here. He was with her.
They were both experienced with pain.
They could handle this.
She could handle this.
And breaking through the moist air, the cry of life erupted. While she lay sweating from the labor of it, exhausted beyond belief, he made sure the doctor was gentle in cutting the umbilical cord. He had made sure to read books on how it was done. He promised himself he wouldn't go into this naïve.
He promised himself he would be prepared for anything.
Anything.
Because so much could go wrong.
Yamamoto thought he understood everything. He thought he had the biology down pat. He could do anything if he set his mind to it, like his sure hands gripped the baseball bat. So why couldn't he understand the immensity that pounded in his heart when he saw them together, his child nursing and her beckoning for him to come?
~5~
Usagi swept the floor of Tamaki's convenience store, mentally counting how many hours she had worked that week since last Monday and multiplying that by her rate of pay. But then, there was always taxes, and she had yet to figure out how to take those into account. Past the beverage aisle, the snack aisle, the girl finally came to the magazine racks. The glossy covers of smiling Asian women made her slow her pace as she read over the headliners.
How to be beautiful.
How to get attention.
How to win a man.
She needed some advice for the painful pimple she could just feel growing underneath her forehead. She knew it would pop up overnight, and she could feel in rumbling like a volcano. Cover up was the most wonderful thing she had discovered in her fourteen years of existence, but these bumps were just so painful. There had to be some way to nip them in the butt.
"You have wide-set eyes, Usagi," Sei said, holding a ruler. "The distance between your eyes is longer than the length of your eye, so that means… 'Apply dark shadow to the inner corners of the eyes and line both upper and lower lids.'"
"You have wide-set eyes, too, then." Usagi said, smirking.
"No, they're deep-set, see!"
"I'll do you first! Kasan taught me a neat trick!" Usagi reached into the pink makeup bag like a bag of popcorn, withdrawing a thick stick of mascara.
"If you wiggle the wand, it comes out better," she said triumphantly. Make-up was magic. Color was magic. Bronzer and blush gave color to her pale face.
"You need to get more sun. You look washed out," Sei said like she was prescribing medication. "Thank goodness someone out their invented blush, eh? And I brought my concealer, too!" Red pimples always stood out more on sallow skin.
Playfully, they bumped each other's hips in front of the mirror. She bit her tongue when she messed up on the eyeliner, the black stickiness smudging.
She quickly put the magazine back on the shelf when she heard the door tinkle, and made herself look busy again. She only took a peek around the shelves of her aisle. Yamamoto was at the register, buying gum and a water bottle, all sweaty from a run.
~6~
She had finally done it.
She had finally done it.
And she felt like Marco Polo discovering the entire other half of the continent. What a wonderful place to be touched! She had no regrets. She snuggled next to him in her small dormitory bed, happy her roommate was visiting her parents. He had been determined to show her the pleasure over the pain, like falling out of an airplane tied together, with, of course, a parachute. Her boyfriend was a nice guy. He was a dependable engineering major.
Funny, though, how she always pictured this moment would be with him.
~7~
What was the point of this game? The players just stood around watching the batter tap his cleats to dislodge the orange clay, watching that uniformed boy's bat wave in the air as he stood over the plate. So much time was spent waiting for the pitch. For a hit.
How dull. The crack of wood against leather made her jolt back to attention, made her lift her brown eyes from the dry textbook.
Usagi had never bothered to go to a real baseball game before.
So why was she bedecked in 'Namimori Superfan' paraphernalia? Why was her face painted with her school's colors. The banner underneath her seat announced it was the first day of the district's tournament. Sun-tan lotion and hot dogs? Were they the smell of importance? Last night, she caught it—importance—etched on his hardened face. His eyes were so intense. They were glittering. Fukuichi Usagi couldn't get him out of her mind.
'Cheer me on tomorrow, eh?'
~8~
"Fukuichi-chan, you're doing well in my class," her half bald turtle of a teacher said as she collected her books, preparing to leave for her next class. Yamamoto stood next to him, a piece of paper with many red marks in his hand. "Do you think students deserve a second chance on the math exam?" Yamamoto Takeshi's smile didn't look too happy. Behind him, Irashi-sensei craned his neck, his stern frown similar to that of a bulldog's. He had given her a 94.
"No." she said brusquely. "I don't think so."
Her parents would be pleased if she ranked higher this year. She liked to see her father smile quietly behind his newspaper and feel her mother kiss her cheek. Then, hear them brag to grandma. 'Bright future.'
And Irashi-sensei was her ticket.
"I wouldn't have let you anyway, Yamamoto-kun. It's not my policy," she heard as she walked out of the classroom. "You should try studying next time."
~9~
It was his entire fault she tasted the teacher's bitter scowl. Now, they were stuck in detention, two desks pushed together, forced to fold paper and stuff envelopes for Nami-Middle's monthly newsletter.
Fold. Stuff. Lick. Seal.
"Why did you throw it like you pitch?" she asked bitter-sweetly. Her hair fell down, in front of her face, but she didn't dare push it behind her ears. Her ears were better under hair like a pimple is better under concealer. "Seriously?"
In math class, she had beckoned him to toss her the fallen eraser, which had bounced in his direction. She just barely jumped out of the way of a sixty mph missile. However, Irashi-sensei stood right behind her, sketching a cylinder on the blackboard.
"Haha! I guess I got carried away," he chuckled. Yamamoto looked at her as he spoke, resembling a large and friendly dog. She barely registered the moment, before his eyes went back to fold another letter.
She ought not to like the idea that getting in trouble was what brought them together. Kasan made her a cake two weeks ago to celebrate the end of mid-terms. This morning her father, before kissing Kasan and leaving for work, gave her an unforced smile on a normally bitter face.
'You're my one and only daughter, Usi-chan,' he said, laughter ringing in his voice.
Usagi also looked back down at her penal work. Everything was separated into neat piles and she worked mechanically. Usagi picked up another envelope and licked it, then stuffed it with whatever papers Yamamoto was folding and passing to her. The room was warmly lit by the late afternoon sun and distant wind-chimes sung from a house across the street. She had wanted to go to Sei's house that afternoon.
But wasn't this better? Every now and then, her eyes flitted up. The work wasn't hard, but Yamamoto was making all her nerves stand on end. How could he be so relaxed?
…Oh yeah. he probably didn't have a crush on her.
Soon, her tongue had licked so many glue-strips that it hurt. Still, she kept up the work. What's a tongue, eh? You didn't need one for math. She reached for another envelope, but her hand dropped it in shocking pain. A little trickle of blood formed from the perfectly straight cut.
"Being stuck here isn't right." She finally complained, letting her hand fall to the desk loudly, her tolerance reaching its limit.
She hadn't looked up in a while, she realized.
Yamamoto had already slacked off. She came out of her robotic daze to find him the picture of leisure. He had stretched his legs out under the table and folded his arms behind his head. He was looking out the classroom window. "I want to get out of here." At her remark, he took a deep breath.
The baseball team was practicing on the field.
"We agree then," he said, breaking into a wide, sympathetic smile. He turned to her, his eyes warmly meeting hers like a firm handshake. But it wasn't his smile that made Usagi swallow a pill of happy nervousness. Underneath the two desks, Yamamoto had stretched out even more and his shoes touched hers.
"Don't force yourself to finish," he said after a bit, sitting back up and folding a stack of letters as one.
~10~
She felt dizzy, light headed, feverish... The sun beat down on her already burning face, making it feel oddly cold. She breathed heavily, slowly, not being able to persevere the unnaturally hot day. A dull ache harassed the back of her mind. But she couldn't give up now. Each step mattered. Each step brought her closer to home. She knew she was sick but there was no point in telling her companion. He should focus on that upcoming baseball competition. It was only a week away. He had passion. Real passion. She had to give him that. But for now, she just wanted to get home without being a burden. Without making him worry.
They were friends. It was the least she could do.
She didn't notice Yamamoto's worried eyes. She was just trying to endure the walk home, endure it like a building shaking in an earthquake. Every time he tried to start a conversation, she ended it in grumpy quick replies. Every time he tried to slow her pace down, she walked faster.
She couldn't believe she actually fainted. But what else could have happened? Memories alluded her as she awakened in a house that was not her own, in a bed that was not her own, next to a head of unmistakably black hair—
black hair that could only belong to Yamamoto Takeshi.