Hanakotoba is the Japanese form of the language of flowers (also known as floriography) which was used to convey emotions without actually saying them.
This is my first fic for the Daiya no Ace fandom so I hope you like it.
Eijun allowed himself to slump against the fence while watching the sky become a mix of red and orange. Closing his eyes and tilting his head back, he took in a deep breath and allowed himself to relax and had set his glove and a ball next to him. Eijun watched the clouds slowly passed by and how their shadows lingered over the now empty baseball field used for practice games.
It was a long and tiring day after practice, just like any other day except the person who had been missing from it all finally came back after several weeks from being put into the hospital after being injured during the fall tournament. Although said person wouldn't be able to play for a while, something inside Eijun stirred and it made him feel slightly uneasy.
It made it all the more uncomfortable when he couldn't find it in himself to speak to the person. He had been around Miyuki Kazuya for several months and thought he knew a little more about what was going in his mind. That of course was nowhere near true. If anything, he felt like Miyuki was all the more out of reach and an enigma. As a result, Eijun found himself avoiding the catcher at all costs that day
"Arrgh!" Eijun groaned. He ruffled his own hair out of frustration then noticed how it felt grimy. Seeing that he was also still in his uniform – definitely covered in dirt and his own sweat – Eijun decided to take a bath to clear his head out. Picking up his glove and the ball, he stood up and began to walk towards the dorm for Seidou's baseball team.
Before he had even reached the gate, however, he felt an arm slung over his shoulders causing him to jump. He quickly turned his head around to see who it was only to hit his forehead against a hard surface causing him and another voice to yelp in pain. The pain had immediately faded when he realized it was the voice of Seidou's main catcher.
Eijun opened his eyes only to widen from shock that he bumped foreheads with. Rubbing his forehead, Miyuki winced at the pain but suddenly gave that annoying, shit-eating grin he usually had plastered on his face. "Honestly, the first thing you do after properly seeing me for the first time today is hit my head. What kind of kohai does that to his senpai?"
Miyuki was dressed in a blue long sleeve shirt and grey sweatpants after having changed from the school uniform Eijun saw Miyuki was wearing earlier during practice.
The southpaw pitcher's mouth which was gaped open was now clenching together out of irritation. "That was a complete accident, Miyuki Kazuya!" Eijun exclaimed. Honestly speaking though, this wasn't the kind of conversation he wanted to have with Seidou's captain and top catcher.
"That's Miyuki-senpai to you, Sawamura," Miyuki corrected and slightly irritated himself.
Ignoring the comment, Eijun frowned and looked away with a scowl. He couldn't meet Miyuki's eyes, the eyes that were always watching, always calculating, always reading other people's actions. Eijun couldn't let himself show how frustrated he was at how he wasn't able to notice Miyuki's injuries.
Noticing the silence Miyuki's teasing grin faded into a straight line, his golden eyes contemplating something as he stared at Eijun, he felt himself sweat.
Finally Miyuki opened his mouth and asks, "What's wrong?"
"A lot of things you jerk," was what Eijun wanted to say but didn't. Rather, what was the problem? Of course there was Eijun who was angry at himself for not noticing but there was something else biting at his brain. Not able to form an answer, Eijun slowly looks up, hesitant to meet Miyuki's eyes.
Instead, Eijun asks, "How's the injury?" Miyuki blinks at him once, twice, a third time, and then laughs slightly.
"Hahaha! Is that what's been on your mind this whole time? If I wasn't alright, I'd still be at the hospital Bakamura," Miyuki responds.
Eijun definitely wanted to hit him at that moment. Was that how an injured person showed their gratitude (lack thereof) to someone who was expressing their concern? The last time he checked, laughing and pointing out the obvious certainly wasn't the way to do so. Yet the reaction had somehow put Eijun at eased because this kind of reaction seemed natural and normal between.
"That nasty personality of yours didn't go away at all! And here I thought you might stop being jerk after being hospitalized for so long," Eijun yelled.
"Thanks!" Miyuki replies with a smile. He didn't know why but Eijun saw a glimpse of relief in Miyuki's eyes. Was he imagining it?
Completely aggravated by how he was being treated though, Eijun stormed off to take a bath. He could go without dinner for a night.
"Heh, he seems to be back to normal," Miyuki also breathed out once Eijun was out of sight before walking to his own dorm.
Eijun flopped onto his bed, his hair damp from his bath. He let out a sigh and closed his eyes. Kuramochi was nowhere to be seen so he had assumed that he was in Miyuki's room for the first time in weeks to play video games in there. His roommate had mentioned sometime a few days ago that he was totally going to occupy Miyuki's room and play video games as a punishment for skipping out on them because of the stupid injury.
The Seidou baseball team was told not to be too overbearing towards Miyuki as he was just discharged by Takashima but from what Eijun noticed, the situation with many of the first string members hanging out in Miyuki's room wasn't all that overbearing. Just… what would it be? A lot more loud? He wasn't sure. It never really seemed to bring any stress of any kind whenever they were in there. There was just that intense pressure Eijun felt whenever he went against their ex-captain when they played shogi but always won in the end. It was also loud and obnoxious but familiar and like a home.
What Eijun couldn't understand was why Miyuki hid that kind of secret from people he was always around with? He knew that it could be that Miyuki hid the injury so that he could still do his best and not hinder the team but… what if he got seriously more injured than what he had already went through? Was he afraid of being a hindrance? To slow the team down? Or did he have that much confidence to think that he could still go on?
It was too many questions for Eijun. Too many thoughts for his brain to process and understand. Irritated, Eijun sat up and stared long and hard at the door to his room, wondering if taking a walk around campus would be okay. Feeling annoyed at himself, he finally decided to put on a hoodie and walked out of his room.
The field was practically pitch black save the flickering lights of the lamps on the wall. He headed towards the vending machine against the indoor gym and placed a coin in the slot. He pressed the icon with the picture of a Pocari Sweat on it and stood patiently for the drink to come out. This particular vending machine had a reputation of being slow to send the drinks.
Eventually his eyes landed at the base of the vending machine where he saw flowers blooming right next to it. When the Pocari Sweat hit the receptacle, he bent down to get his drink and picked out the small flower with the thin, white petals.
It wasn't often that he saw daisies on the school campus. He remembered that the flower would always bloom in the cracks of the sidewalk, on the side of the road, or in wild places back in his hometown of Nagano.
Eijun smiled to himself and realized something. He then stood up and turned around only to scream at a face that was creepily close to him.
"What are you doing Miyuki?!" Eijun's shock soon transformed into anger when Miyuki began to laugh hard enough that he was clutching his stomach.
"I came to escape my own room and I see you being so caught up staring at a flower that you didn't even notice me Sawamura. And you should have seen your face! It was priceless."
"Well I'm sorry for staring at a flower," Eijun grunted and shoved the petit flower into his pocket. He was about to storm off and leave Miyuki again but was prevented in doing so by the catcher whose hand was holding to the hood of his hoodie. "What do you want now Miyuki?!"
Sighing, Miyuki responds by correcting how he addressed him. "It's Miyuki-senpai to you. And to answer your question, I've been meaning to talk to you today but you stormed off on me earlier."
Eijun glanced at Miyuki and grimaced. "What do you mean?" he mumbled although he probably had an idea of what it was.
"You've been avoiding me all day today, right? Why is that? You never really answered my question earlier either." The smile on the catcher's face was now gone. It wasn't a strong gaze but Eijun could tell that Miyuki was looking at him with wonder and that was enough to apply pressure on him to answer Miyuki at that moment.
Eijun then looked at the daisy in his hand and let out the breath he didn't know he was holding in.
"I've been wondering…" Eijun started but he didn't know where to really start.
"Hmm?" Miyuki finally let go of Eijun, seemingly trusting the pitcher wouldn't run off.
Taking a look at the daisy again, Eijun began to talk although not the direction Miyuki had intended. "Did you know that in Hanakotoba, the daisy means faith? When I was little, my mom would tell me the meanings of flowers and stuff. It never really meant much to me but I somehow still remembered it anyways." Miyuki made a face of exasperation at the question.
"What does that have anything to do with – Ah!" Miyuki was cut off when Eijun threw the Pocari Sweat at Miyuki. Being a catcher and with the bottle not being thrown to hard, Miyuki was able to catch it with ease yet his facial expression was shocked.
"Just listen will you, you jerk?! Honestly, I don't understand why you had to hide your injury? Do you not have faith in your team to have your back? Do you think we wouldn't be capable without you? Okay maybe a little but still, that doesn't mean you can't trust us to help you out.
"What I'm trying to say is that you can trust us, Captain like how we trust you. Weren't you the one who told me when I first came to trust the teammates behind me? You have to do the same because we're a team and we can trust each other. That's why I was looking at the daisy okay. It's cheesy but it means to have faith. Besides, aren't we partners? When I saw the daisy, I realized that no matter what, I'll always have faith in you as a catcher so have faith in us as a team. Have faith in me as a pitcher."
By the time Eijun was done with his outburst, his face was red with embarrassment and anger. He had more to say but he figured he would have a chance to scold Miyuki on it another time because now, he was looking at Miyuki who was, for the most part, surprised.
Eijun had said something like this already during their final match against Yakushi and although it may have hit Miyuki then and there, Eijun had a new reason to bring it up again ever since he learned of Miyuki's injury.
Suddenly, Miyuki's eyes softened but then scoffed and a smirk formed on his face. "There's not much to say there. Plus I don't think I can be given that trust with how I am right now." Eijun noticed his captain's eyes narrowed and he though Miyuki looked as if he was alone and hurt.
"That's not true…" Eijun murmured.
"What?" Miyuki asked, apparently not catching what the southpaw pitcher said.
"I said it's not true. It's not true that people lost trust in you." Again, Miyuki found himself at a loss of words. He opened his mouth again but was cut off by Sawamura once more. "The team completely trusts not just as our captain but as our catcher too. So just you wait! Once you recover, you'll be back and playing and I'll show you how much I've improved by then," Sawamura claimed.
Miyuki then laughs, finding himself amused once more by Sawamura's ridiculous claims. But he never once doubted Sawamura's ability as a pitcher. He never once doubted the team. It was just him being the stubborn idiot he was, not that he'd admit that to anyone but he's long since noticed what kind of person he was, including his so-called "nasty personality".
"You're an idiot to have worried about this kind of thing," he then commented as he felt his face forming a wide smile.
"You really are ungrateful!" Sawamura exclaimed, his emotions quickly switching. "And give me back my Pocari Sweat!"
"But you threw it to me, didn't you?" Miyuki asks, teasing the younger boy.
"As if.! You were being annoying! That's why I threw it at you," Sawamura spat back, jumping to get the Pocari Sweat. Miyuki noticed how Sawamura held himself back, probably making sure he didn't further injure or overexert himself, making his smile a fonder one although it didn't seem like it to many.
Then pressing the bottle into Sawamura's chest – it was all so sudden that Sawamura almost tripped backwards – Miyuki allowed his face to be more serious and said, "There's no way I couldn't trust the team so just wait until I can play again and we'll win Koshien."
"You better keep your promise, Captain."
Little did Sawamura know, Miyuki had the next day picked up a daisy in the morning and stared at it for a while. He then went back to his room and taped it in the back of his notebook with baseball strategies and notes and at the top wrote "Faith".
A/N: Fwah, I'm done. What did I even write? lol. I'm pretty sure I'm missing some things I want to add but that'll be later and this is a trial run to test my writing ability after not seriously in a while. Any other oneshots I did are entirely done for fun. But I'm tired so I'm not sure about the quality of this at all… Plus I didn't edit it so we'll see. I think they're a bit OOC but oh well.
Well, thank you for reading! If you'd like, tell me what you think. I'd be grateful~
Animefan106 over and out~
EDIT: Just wanted to add and take out stuff to make more sense and things. And I made it more cheesy at the end too :P