Suzu: Now and then, I like writing for terribly obscure fandoms, and experimenting with different narrative voices. Writing Aniya's a fun challenge. This'll be a short story with short-ish chapters.
Rookies is amazing btw. It needs more love.
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Lamp
Aniya and Toko
keep their promises,
or try to
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His easy mask of savoir-faire cannot hide the anxious twitch of his fingers as they clutch at the winning ball, joints shaking and comprehending that this is it, this is Nikugaku, they've won their second round game, holyshitholyshit, and he needs to just sign his name on its battered surface and then he can go enjoy some of the afterglow of Koshien elite with his team like any proper high school baseball hero.
Fuck this, Aniya thinks. Fuck, because he's already thrown a 156 km/hr, there's no need for him to wax lyrical about it in front of the paparazzi, grin full on ridiculous and eyes drooping from exhaustion. There's fans screaming his name outside the locker room and women creaming their pants waiting to ambush him as he boards the bus home.
"Yooo! Nice job out there, Aniya!"
Aniya is relieved when the reporters attach to his coach like bees to honey. Kawato is a charismatic guy in the world of high school baseball, now that Oddball Yakuza Teacher sells as a positive and not a negative headline.
His stinging pitching arm elbows its way toward the little alcove in the back of the stands, weaving past the press swarming around his teammates. Mikoshiba is actually crying, hiccupping driblets of salty liquid down his still-boyish face as the captain of bona-fide Koshien game winners (holyshitholyshit) tries to give reporters a verbal quote to take home.
"Nice play," a familiar voice cuts into his thoughts smoothly.
Her eyes are puffy and her chin has small indent marks along the jawline. Aniya thinks not for the first time that Toko's a tease, and she should just come out and say how many torrents of emotion wracked through the benches as the team executed wave after wave of offense to clutch the game in the extra innings.
He puts on his best swagger, because its a comfortable, worn mask even though he knows she can see through it like rice paper.
"Seeing as I'm the hottest thing in Japan right now, don't you have something you should be giving me?"
"Wha—" Toko blinks, then averts her eyes in a way that forces Aniya's hand. "One of, maybe…" she mumbles. She won't look at him full in the eyes, like she's some shy coquettish girly thing that's so unlike the Toko he knows she knows he knows.
"But… Kei-chan, congratulations," she demures, though the emotion is honest.
He shakes his head. "Not that. I get that from everyone."
"Ah, well, I'll... think about it," she says finally. "I just need to realize this is all real."
Aniya's not sure what "this" Toko is referring to, and he's about to call her out as a chicken and a pussy (the latter being one of his sadder attempts at humor), but a heartbeat later, she's given him another one of her soft, fluttery pecks, and Aniya is positive, dead positive, that this moment after the winning pitch and probably lasting just as long is mysteriously just as sweet.
None of that registers from his brain to his mouth, though. All he gets out is:
"Fuckin' tongue, woman! Stop jipping me out on that action!"
"Uh, maybe next time," she says hurriedly, spinning around in a 360 looking for any sneaking reporters or groupies, like she's ashamed of him or something. "After our summer break, if you do well in the Invitational Camp's tournament."
Funny thing is, he knows its a carrot, and that he's a fucking race horse.
Doesn't matter.
He gives a half-hearted second attempt and strikes out, the sound of the palm of her hand so familiar to him it's like a ref's whistle calling foul.
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