Playing Ball

In which Miyauchi Keisuke surprises the coach

Kataoka Tesshin was a decisive man. He wasn't always sure that his decisions were right, but he was certain it was his responsibility as a coach and teacher to make the best possible call at any given time so his students, players and assistant managers could move forward instead of waiting on a dithering leader. It was rare for him to sit on any matter for long, and rarer still for him not to know whether he should do or say anything.

However, an issue had cropped up, and Kataoka honestly could not tell if it would be better or worse to say anything or nothing, to address both the parties involved, one of them, or neither.

The problem was that when he had told Miyauchi Keisuke – the day before the three-header practice match with Inashiro Industrial and Shuuhoku High – that he wanted him to lead Kawakami Norifumi with a firm hand, the last thing he had expected was to have the somewhat eccentric catcher take it to mean that he should literally grab the flagging pitcher by the balls (and not the kind they were throwing to each other). During the game. On the mound. In front of the baseball teams and supporters of three high schools.

(Thank the gods that Oota-san had been busy elsewhere on the grounds at that moment, attending to Tanba, Miyuki and the rest of the other half of the team that would be playing Shuuhoku later – because the man was unhealthily attached to Kawakami, and if he'd been in the dugout at the time, he would have ruptured an artery.)

What made Kataoka's decision-making tougher was that the radical act had worked: Kawakami got a second wind, overcame his exhaustion to find his focus, and saw out the game. His initial yelp of horror at having his privates trapped for what eventually became a long, agonisingly public minute in the heavily-built catcher's iron grasp also seemed to be followed by what looked like gratitude for Miyauchi's extreme tactic of shocking him out of his self-pitying caving-in to fatigue.

But Kawakami was a sensitive boy who had always struggled with his confidence, and Kataoka doubted that having his family jewels caught in what looked suspiciously like a classic four-seam grip in the middle of a game would have the best impact on the kid's self-esteem.

What could Kataoka say, though? If Kawakami had processed the event and moved on, he did not want to resurrect it, or worse, word the discussion poorly so that the kid might misinterpret it as a message that having his testicles grabbed by another boy without his consent could be a cause for shame on his own part. On the other hand, he did not want him to believe that his coach and sensei would turn a blind eye to what could, in another context, be construed as sexual assault. It was hard to approach the subject in a counselling-room manner too, as if it wouldn't sound peculiar in every way to ask solicitously: "So, Nori, would you like to talk about how you felt when Keisuke grabbed your crotch?"

As for Miyauchi, he was unlikely to have acted with malice – and the move had succeeded, so Kataoka was not inclined to take him to task for it. The third-year had probably gone with his instincts, knowing that his coach too could be radical in his methods, and had simply used the most direct means he could come up with to tell Kawakami to be a man about the situation.

Kataoka found himself wondering if he should make a note of it in his training journals as a pitcher-revitalisation tactic. Or if he should ask Chris to make a note of it… no, Chris had probably already scrupulously jotted it down. Kawakami Norifumi would go down in Chris Memo history as the pitcher who'd been revived after his catcher had molested him in front of about a hundred people.

The coach decided to put the matter on the back burner for a while, until he'd sorted out the team's worries and initial uncertainty over the jaw injury Tanba had sustained in that same three-header. Some days later, when he returned to the Miyauchi-Kawakami problem, Kataoka finally settled for what he thought would only be a brief comment in passing to Miyauchi that he had done a good job with Kawakami, but that he should tone down his methods of encouragement in future.

"Why would I want to do that, Kantoku?" Miyauchi asked, with genuine curiosity and such an unwavering gaze that Kataoka knew he wasn't trying to be facetious.

They were alone in the corridor outside the staff room and had a few moments of privacy for a short conversation, so the coach replied: "Extreme tactics can backfire. Kawakami could have imploded instead of rallying. And if you did something similar to another pitcher – like Tanba – the term 'battery' would take on a new dimension, because he could well be shocked enough to punch you right through your face guard."

"Which I would accept as my just deserts."

"It's not only about how you accept the consequences. It's also about the other player. It seemed to work on Kawakami. But if it had been a pitcher like Tanba – whom you know can be emotionally fragile – he would eventually blame himself for not only turning in a poor performance, but also by believing that he must have sent unconscious signals to a teammate that it would be perfectly acceptable to grope him."

Miyauchi took a quiet moment to process the coach's words, then punctuated the end of that moment with a bull-like huff through his nose before saying confidently: "No, I knew I could get through to Kawakami best that way. I handle every pitcher differently, Kantoku, even if you think my strategies aren't as sophisticated as Miyuki's. I wouldn't dream of grabbing Tanba's balls. Or the first-year pitchers'. I know very well that Tanba needs gentler handling despite his stony façade. Furuya, it would have no effect on – he probably wouldn't even react. Sawamura would go into hysterics, then sink into shock for a few hours before getting it out of his system by having bad dreams about me all night while Kuramochi kicks him to shut him up every time he screams. Kawakami, however, is extremely responsive in all the right ways – and I don't mean that in any filthy sense – plus, he only really cries when he thinks he's let the team down, not when he thinks he's being taken advantage of by his perverted senpai."

Kataoka had never heard so many words come out of Miyauchi Keisuke's mouth at one go. His first thought was to be impressed by the catcher's unexpected eloquence. His second was to acknowledge that the kid knew his pitchers better than others might give him credit for, so overshadowed was every other Seidou catcher by Miyuki Kazuya's genius. His third was to be surprised by the weightlifting-obsessed teenager's alertness to the potential double meaning of Kawakami's "responsiveness". And his next thought was to be disturbed by why Miyauchi might label himself perverted, or rather, why Miyauchi would imagine that Kawakami might consider him perverted – had he groped the second-year pitcher before? In private, perhaps? Or done something else to Kawakami?

Kataoka asked cautiously: "Does Kawakami think you were taking advantage of him?"

"No. It's taken care of, Kantoku. We've talked. He's fine. So don't worry – you won't have to deal with a mental breakdown from him any time soon – at least not one caused by my groping him."

"Good. And I hear you, Miyauchi – you think I don't appreciate your abilities, but I do. Every official match in high-school baseball is a must-win, and I admit that the strongest possible line-up I can put together means that you don't play as often as you may deserve to. But you are a brilliant catcher in your own right, and I am not blind to that. You may not have Chris' and Miyuki's inborn genius for reading a game as it develops, but neither do many other pro catchers in the top flight – instead, they've worked their butts off to learn how to read every batter, spot every tell, interpret every opposing team's mood, memorise the preferences of different umpires, analyse their own teammates' quirks, and build close relationships with their pitchers. You have confirmed in the course of this exchange we're having that you don't lack the ability to do all that and more, and your physical strengths have never been in question."

"So we should have talked a lot more before this, huh, Kantoku?" Miyauchi remarked, with a lift to the corners of his normally downturned mouth which reassured the coach that far from being bitter about playing second fiddle – first to Chris, then to Miyuki – the kid was positive about his future.

"It's fair to say that I should talk more to all my players. But I've always been better at leading by example than speech, and I imagine it is much the same for you – otherwise, you wouldn't have had to resort to seizing Kawakami's privates, would you, Miyauchi?"

The catcher let out another huff before quirking the corners of his lips again and remarking in a manner that was the closest Kataoka had heard him come to making a sly comment: "How do you know it was a last resort, Kantoku? Maybe it was something I'd been wanting to do for a while now."

Miyauchi then gave a quick bow and turned to go, sparing Kataoka the obligation of asking him if his expressed desire to fondle Kawakami was something his teachers ought to be sufficiently concerned about to counsel him for. (Once again, Kataoka thanked the gods that Oota was not present, or the club president would be grabbing the third-year by his blazer lapels by now, demanding to know what his intentions were towards Kawakami.)

Before Miyauchi got too far away, however, the catcher gave Kataoka something else to chew on. He stopped for a moment, turned around, and said off-handedly: "By the way, Kantoku, if it's groping you're concerned about, perhaps you should be more worried about how much other members of the team are pawing our lefty pitcher. They're not as overt about it as I was with Kawakami, but it's always the disguised acts you have to look out for, don't you think?"

Another polite bob of a bow, and the muscular catcher was round the corner and out of the coach's view.

Sawamura? Kataoka thought. Getting pawed? By other members of the team? Not the girls? Was he being violated? Was it damaging his pitching form? And Miyauchi… had he seriously just declared his sexual interest in Kawakami, or had that been a joke?

"Why the hell are the other players groping the pitchers?" the coach growled under his breath as he returned to the staff room.

Curse it, but these teenagers and their all-over-the-place hormones were damnably hard to deal with. Incidents from years past that he'd had to handle as a teacher flew into Kataoka's mind: Players getting crushes on girls. Players getting crushes on boys. Players getting crushes on the staff. Girls and boys stalking the players they had fallen in puppy-love with. Sometimes it actually inspired the kids to play and study better. But often, it was a distraction – a source of too much fun or a cause of distress – that only damaged their performance in the longer term.

Teenagers! It was time, Kataoka thought, to keep a sharper eye on the hormonal side of things.