A/N: Thanks for the review! We shall find out what happened to Sawamura :O
Chapter 6 Recap: Mei explodes and chastises Sawamura, from the built up annoyance and difficulties he was facing ever since getting injured. Sawamura quickly leaves Inashiro and heads back to Seidou in pouring rain, where he decides to practice pitching under the heavy downfall. The Seidou first strings catch him and force him back into the dorms, but as he makes way, he faints.
Chapter 7 - Embarrassing and Caring
"Sawamura!" everyone shouted as the pitcher collapsed onto the muddy ground.
Miyuki ran up to the pitcher, turned him over and started carrying him back into the dorm soon as Miyuki, with Sawamura in his arms, entered the pitcher's room, Miyuki headed for the bed to lay Sawamura down.
"Wait up Miyuki, he's soaking wet, we should dry him off before putting him on the bed." Chris said in concern.
Masuko quickly grabbed his blanket from his bed and laid it on the floor. "Put him there so we can get him a change of clothes."
All the while, Ryosuke went to grab a clean dry pair of clothing and towel for Sawamura.
Once Miyuki laid Sawamura on the soft blanket, he stared at everyone. "Ok, who's going to change his clothing?"
Everyone else stared back at him without reply.
Tetsuya bent over and felt the pitcher's forehead. "He has a high fever, we better hurry..." the concerned captain noted while staring at the others.
"Miyuki, you do it!" Jun quickly said.
"Me, why me?" Miyuki questioned.
"Cause you're a battery with him..." Jun threw out the excuse, while everyone nodded in agreement.
"Well someone's going to have to help me." Miyuki said as he put Sawamura in a sitting position so that he can unclad the pitcher out of the wet clothing.
After stripping Sawamura of his shirt, pants and socks, Miyuki took the towel and started to dry the pitcher's cold body.
"Hey, hurry up a bit!" Jun shouted.
"I'm going as fast as I can!" Miyuki retorted, but he knew that he had to work fast as the pitcher's body temperature was well below norm.
Miyuki finished wiping the pitcher down and was about to put dry clothing on when Jun lightly slapped Miyuki's head.
"What was that for?!" Miyuki shouted.
"His boxers are still wet, don't you have to change him out of those too?"
"WHAAAAAT?!" a shocked Miyuki replied, baffled.
"Yeah, you should, and you should wipe him down there as well." Ryosuke noted as he pointed at the object he was referring to.
Miyuki stared at the pitcher as a slight blush grew on his face. Hesitantly, with his eyes closed, he reached towards the pitcher's boxers.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING" Jun quickly interjected before Miyuki could do anything.
"WHAT? You told me to take them off!" Miyuki yelled at his upperclassman.
"Idiot!" Jun noted before he took a clean towel and placed it over Miyuki's hands, which were holding onto the boxers, so that it covered Sawamura's bottom half. "There!"
'Ooops' Miyuki blushed as he realised he was about to reveal everything to everyone. Miyuki proceeded to take off the boxers, making sure the towel Jun laid was still covering the lower half of Sawamura's body.
"Here." Ryosuke handed Miyuki a towel.
"Can't you do it?!" Miyuki said while blushing.
"Nope, you're the battery." Ryosuke said bluntly.
"But...Chris-senpai is also a batt..." Miyuki stopped mid sentence as Chris gave him a glare.
"Fine..." Miyuki started to quickly run the towel over Sawamura's body to dry off any lingering water.
Finally, they started to clothe the pitcher in dry clothing. Miyuki then carried Sawamura onto his bed, putting a blanket over him.
Chris felt Sawamura's forehead. "Hey guys, we need to cool his head down a bit."
"His fever's pretty high, we should tell the coach or bring him to the doctors." Kuramoch stated.
"The coach's gone out of town, the rest of the staff's off too, and it's Sunday, the clinic's not opened." Tetsuya replied in a worried tone, with his usual serious face.
"We should look after Sawamura-chan. Can't let his fever get too high." Masuko said.
"How about we take turns. We should take one to two hour shifts, by then it'll be early in the morning and whoever wakes up first takes over." Chris suggested.
Everyone nodded their head in acknowledgement.
"How do we decide the order?"
"We'll do a random draw."
With that, the seven first string players drew numbers out of a hat.
"I guess I'm first." Tetsuya held up a paper with the number one for all to see.
From there, their shifts started.
-About 5am in the morning-
"Miyuki, wake up!" Jun gave the catcher a push.
"Whaaa..." Miyuki jumped into a sitting position on his bed. "Is it time already?" the still half dazed catcher asked.
"Yeah, it's your turn!" Jun said before leaving back to his room to grab a few hours of sleep.
Miyuki made his way to Sawamura's room and sat down on the floor next to the bed. He placed his hand on Sawamura's forehead. 'Hmmm, the temperature seems ok so far...' There he leaned his back against the bed frame and dropped his head on top the mattress, where he stared into the semi-dark ceiling of the room.
Unknowingly, the catcher's eyelids started getting heavier as he slowly drifted off back to sleep.
The next thing the catcher knew was an obnoxious voice calling at him.
"MIYUKI! WAKE UP..." Kuramochi shouted as he tried to wake the pitcher up.
Miyuki stirred in his slumber, opened his eyes to find a fuming Kuramochi.
"What's...wrong..." Miyuki asked in a half awake voice while yawning.
"You fell asleep...where's Sawamura?"
"He's right here." Miyuki reached his hand upwards to point at the sleeping pitcher.
"WAKE UP! He's not here!"
Miyuki turned his head around to look at the bed and realised Sawamura was missing. He quickly jumped onto his feet in shock.
"Where's Sawamura?" the ever growing concerned catcher asked.
"That's what I'm asking you...you were supposed to watch him..." Kuramochi said in a chastising tone.
"Crap..." Miyuki and Kuramochi quickly ran off in search of the sick pitcher.
-Back 15 minutes-
Sawamura stirred in his bed before he abruptly woke up.
He looked around the room and noticed someone sleeping in a weird position next to him.
'Miyuki...' Sawamura thought as he saw the person's face. 'What's happening...' the pitcher sat up, but immediately his head started to pound. His hand clasped over his throbbing forehead in attempt to quell the pain of an exploding sensation.
He sat there for a while, recollecting his composure. His breathing was hard and laboured. Once the pain subsided, Sawamura got off the bed. 'I need water...' he noted as he went to get a cup.
'Great...the pitcher's empty...' the now disgruntled southpaw turned around and headed towards the door, but before exiting, he realised that Miyuki didn't have any blankets covering him. The rain was still pouring and the weather was a bit cold, so Sawamura walked back over to Miyuki, grabbed the blanket atop his bed and fanned it on top of the catcher.
Sawamura then exited his dorm room and made his way to the cafe to grab more water. As he walked past the baseball diamond, a flashback of Mei chastising him rushed into his head. He clasped his hand on this head in attempt to subside the pain. 'Mei...do you hate me?' the saddened and hurting pitcher questioned.
After filling the pitcher with water, Sawamura made his way back. Reaching the foot of the stairs to the dorm building, he could hear yelling coming from his room. He looked upwards towards the room door and saw Kuramochi and Miyuki walking out, yelling at each other.
"You idiot, the guy's sick and you fall asleep on your watch?! Do you want him to die?" Kuramochi yelled at the defenceless catcher.
"Sawamura! Where did you go?!" Miyuki shouted at the southpaw standing at the bottom of the stairs, completely ignoring Kuramochi's question.
The younger pitcher jumped in shock from Miyuki's angered voice. He looked down at the pitcher of water to avoid eye contact
"I'm sorry." came a weak and feeble voice. Fear was evident in the pitcher's voice and it perked Kuramochi and Miyuki's concern.
"Sawamura, I didn't mean to yell. You're sick, I'm just worried, you should stay in bed." Miyuki tried to calm the jumpy pitcher. 'What happened while you were at Inashiro...' the concerned catcher thought.
"Come on back up here and get in bed." Kuramochi said as he waved his arm upwards.
The meek pitcher nodded and started to walk up the steps. He started to suddenly breathe harder and a sudden cold sweat ran throughout his body. As he went beyond the halfway mark, his suddenly got light headed, his vision was getting blurry, but he continued moving forward. Without warning, his grip on the railing got weak and there, he tipped backwards.
"SAWAMURA!" both Miyuki and Kuramochi yelled as they started rushing forward towards the falling pitcher, but they were too late.
*BANG*BAM*SPLASH* A loud noise echoed through the morning skies as the southpaw fell down the stairs and landed hard on the concrete floor below. The pitcher of water splashed across the ground, soaking the southpaw.
"SAWAMURA!" the two ran their way down the stairs and knelt next to the unconscious pitcher.
Miyuki grabbed the pitcher's hand and placed a hand on the pitcher's head.
"Miyuki..." Kuramochi said in shock. His eyes were stone cold and his usual smirk was replaced by a dire frown.
Miyuki looked towards the direction that Kuramochi's eyes pointed. A small trail of blood, originating from Sawamura's head, crept its way across the pavement. Miyuki's heart sank as his body went cold.
"GO CALL THE AMBULANCE!" Miyuki yelled at the top of his lungs. Miyuki quickly checked that Sawamura's pulse present and that the pitcher was still breathing.
"Get me a clean cloth too!" Miyuki yelled towards Kuramochi, who ran back upstairs into Sawamura's room to grab a phone.
Kuramochi came back out with a clean cloth almost immediately all the while on the phone.
'Please be ok Eijun...' a worried Miyuki preyed as he carefully applied pressure on the wound with the clean cloth. 'Please...please be ok...'
A/N: First a fever, now a bleeding head...guess Eijun can't catch a break :/