Chapter 7

The next day, when school let out, Eijun had so many thoughts to sort out. Baseball, for one. The more he let it well up inside him, the more he knew for sure. He wanted to play baseball, and not just for the reasons every one might suspect. To him, it meant something else. He knew that if he could play baseball, he'd be free. Free to be the boy he really was. Free to throw that ball as hard and as far as he could.

On the way back home, Eijun spotted the rotten apples on the ground. He plucked an apple with his left hand, walked off and fired it at the hole in the tree. Dead center. The cursed arm at work. Eijun had to admit, in his heart, there was something else besides freedom driving his thinking. Money for their family.

Eijun threw with his right arm and missed the tree completely. He spent a good while tossing and thinking, but every toss was the same. He'd miss with the right. He'd hit with the left.

"So was that a sign?" Eijun wondered.

He then continue heading home when he saw a rabbit hung snared near the park. Probably a doe, Eijun figured, full of milk and babies. As he stepped, Eijun saw something he'd never seen before. The rabbit hung by its neck in the noose all right, but its back leg thumped. She was still alive.

Eijun saw her big brown eyes begging for help so he grabbed her by the nape of the neck and brought her close.

"There, there, old girl," Eijun said, stroking her furry backbone.

She scratched at him to get away—rabbits can scratch deep as a cat but Eijun huddled her in his armpit until she calmed down.

"How long have you been hanging there, huh, girl?" Eijun talked like he was holding a baby. "You're a tough bunny, you know that?" he squeezed a bit, then he slipped off the noose.

"There, it's all right now."

For Eijun, it felt good just to hold her, to feel her quivering go down and a warm calm rise up. He held that furry bundle and rocked her, and a feeling hit him. Right in the heart. Big tears come rolling off his nose tip, dripping down to her mottled brown coat. And then he remembered something.

Grandpa Eitoku had told him that using his left arm could bring curse and miserable life in their family. But Eijun had seen with his own eyes how much good a left-handed man could do. He saw clear as day. He was in the fix he was in all on account of what his grandfather believed. And his grandpa, Eijun realized, could be wrong.

"Dang it all to hell," Eijun said.

He crouched down and set the rabbit on the trail. She just stood there and looked at him.

"Go," Eijun whispered. He tried to blink the bleary out of his eyes. "Just go." He clapped his hands and the furry darted off, zigzagging along the path. Eijun cried even more watching her run.

Free, he thought. Dang, it must feel good to be free. Eijun's blood was raging. He felt lied to, tricked, and used like a fool. The first thing Eijun thought of doing was running away. To leave everything behind and start all over new. And in a way, he did just that.

He walked back straight towards their school, the Seidou baseball field. But this time he kept on a walking like Moses through the Red Sea, he tromped clean through that third year and second-first year practice game. All the running stopped. Shouting quit.

Seidou's players stepped to one side or the other. Seidou's head coach, Kataoka Tesshin come out and met Eijun near his team's bench. He wore a small, hound dog's grin.

"Show me how you do this, boss!" Eijun said, bowed, and sent the coach the meanest dang look he could muster, "I want to pitch baseball."

"Get him a glove and spikes!" Coach Kataoka yelled. Some boy scampered off.

Then Coach Kataoka guided him to the pitching spot. Eijun heard Furuya and Haruichi call out from the bench. A bunch of fellows rushed in around them.

"Kyaha~ We want him on our team!" Kuramochi smirked.

"No, he's playing for us." Furuya said.

"Hush up," said Miyuki.

For once Eijun read the respect everyone had for their captain, including all the seniors.

"He'll pitch right now," Miyuki said. "Against us, Kuramochi."

"That jerk!" Kuramochi smirked.

Miyuki's eyes held a starry glint as he added, "I want to bat."

Then coach Kataoka turned and talked direct to Eijun after taking off his school blazer.

"Okay, Sawamura, now listen. It's easy as pie. You put your left foot on this. Then rock back with your right foot." coach Kataoka demonstrated as he talked. Awkward, Eijun could tell, since the coach was right-handed, but Eijun got the general idea.

"Then hitch off to one side some and pause a tick. Then you just come forwards and throw the ball—" coach Kataoka pointed. "—right to that boy with mask on."

Okumura pounded his fist into a big round leather glove and squatted down.

"That's your target," Coach Kataoka said, pointing at the glove.

Eijun felt like someone must have told him how good he was at hitting a target. He wasn't about to let that someone down.

Coach Kataoka handed him the ball and a glove. "We're between innings," he said, "so go ahead, practice a bunch. But mostly, you just step up, turn, and throw. Easy as pie."

Eijun did, and coach Kataoka was right. Hardest part was having all those eyeballs on him. Best part was the hoots and stomps he heard first time he tossed the ball. What a sound it made snapping against that leather.

"Nice pitch, Sawamura-senpai." Okumura said.

After the pitch, Eijun felt a bit prideful, hearing everyone cuss and buzz among themselves, until the return throw hit his glove then skipped into his gut and fell to the dirt.

"Go easy there, Okumura," Coach Kataoka said, "He ain't never caught a ball before."

More hoots after that and Eijun humbled up. He was definitely on display, but he just buckled down all the more, focusing on that leather target and keeping the mean in his eyes. He had to work fast, though. Mindless. If he'd stopped to think about what he's actually doing, he knew he couldn't of done it at all.

"He look goofy as a scarecrow in a gust," Kuramochi said, "But dang, he get it done."

Coach Kataoka turned again to Eijun, "Our team's final cut is about a week off. And I do believe we got a uniform just your size."

Eijun ignored that and kept on working. After a dozen pitches or so, Miyuki turned to all seniors and hollered, "Okay, here we go. Our side's up. Top of the order."

Everybody had a place to run to but Eijun. Suddenly he felt lonely as a lost lamb.

The boy with the mask come out to talk to him, "All you gotta do is throw that fastball wherever I put my mitt. You hit the mitt, and they won't hit you. You follow, Sawamura-senpai?" Okumura said.

"Yeah, sure." Eijun didn't really, but he was too wound up, mean-eyed, and full of go to say anything else. Eijun pounded his glove the way he saw Okumura do.

So Eijun kicked his spike into the dirt and shook his shoulders like a professional baseball player.

The first fellow to come and hit was Maezono. Eijun threw three straight pitches. All strikes. Maezono didn't take a swing at a single one. Didn't seem fair, since he looked so confused to do something, but that was the rules. He had to go back yonder and sit down.

"Damn, he's so great!" Maezono smirked.

The next boy, Kuramochi did almost the same thing, although after the first couple pitches he did swat at the ball once. He sat down, too.

"I'm gonna kick that brat ass, that bastard!" Kuramochi growled.

". . . ." Furuya thought.

Then, Miyuki himself stepping up. He stood a ways off, swinging two bats at once.

"Hey, better swing three bats," Kuramochi called from the bench. "if you expect to catch up to that fireball!"

Eijun didn't know if player could use more than one bat as a time or not, but when Miyuki stood ready to hit, he only held one. Miyuki swung at Eijun's first throw soon as Miyuki saw it. His whole body spun around like a long-shafted well auger drilling into the ground for water. But he come up dry. A mighty swing, though. Eijun supposed since Miyuki was entitled to three fair strikes, he wasn't about to get cheated.

Then, all of a sudden, something good in Eijun started to creep up. His senpai had always been good and friendly towards him. So Eijun reckoned, why not serve the ball a little softer, where Miyuki would be sure not to miss? Truth told, Eijun would a loved to have see his senpai launch one of Miyuki's treetop fire rockets.

Next toss, Eijun eased off a bit. He was not disappointed. Miyuki whacked the ball, long and sideways, way off in the distance. It flew over the heads of players and over the crowd watching. Not near the baseball field at all, but what a wonderful sight.

"Foul ball!" Coach Kataoka shouted.

"Just a long strike," someone else called.

While Toujo and Seto went chasing after the baseball, Okumura come up to Eijun again.

"Senpai, don't do that no more, you hear?" Okumura put a scolding in his voice. "You don't need no change a pace with that fastball you're rifling in. You just keep a-coming with that. Hit my mitt. You follow?"

Eijun nodded. Okumura's tone of voice made him put the mean back in his eyes and Eijun stomped around bashing his glove until someone fetched him the ball.

"Okay, Miyuki Kazuya," Eijun thought. "This one's coming hard as I can make it. So just put it over the moon, will you?"

Miyuki smirked as if he'd be read Eijun's mind and gripped the bat.

Eijun rocked backed, hefted sideways, fell frontwards, and flung the ball. Miyuki swung with all his might. Eijun heard a loud crack. That little ball ended up smack in the middle of Okumura's mitt. No rocket at all. Eijun had struck Miyuki out.

Before Eijun could go and give Miyuki one more chance, the whole baseball field was a-swamp with fellows running every which way and across. Half of them come stumbling right at him. Hooting, hopping, and hollering.

"That ball of his come harder than Furuya!" one player yelled.

Someone grabbed Eijun about the shoulders, someone tussed up his hair.

"We got us another monster!"

"This boy's a lefty. We got us another ace!"

Eijun got jangled around good and hard, backslapped till he near choked. He didn't precisely know why. All was he did was what a baseball pitcher's supposed to do. But for whatever reason it was, Eijun ha never felt so good, so accepted, so normal in his whole life. What Eijun wanted to do with his life, he wanted to pitch again. Again and again and again.

And all he had to do now was square it with his grandfather.