Coming Clean

In which Kataoka bares all

Honestly, Kataoka wished he could say: "Chris, sit them down and make them work it out." Because this wasn't his thing at all. He was a direct man. The only nuances he'd ever been comfortable with were those he could read on the baseball field. On that battleground, it was exciting to interpret people, predict what was going through their minds, work out how they were feeling, and figure out how to use it against them.

But this wasn't baseball.

This was about other kinds of emotions, motivations and desires. Not his territory. He truly wanted to have Chris solve the problem – keep it among the students – kids had ways of working these things out themselves. However, he'd been observing the players since Miyauchi's heads-up about Sawamura getting pawed, and he wasn't sure that the look in Chris' eyes was entirely… objective when it came to Sawamura.

He shouldn't involve Yuuki. The captain's uncomplicated personality made him the wrong kid for handling this delicate issue.

He couldn't hand it over to Takashima either, because that bloody woman was having a laugh in secret over the whole accursed hormonal mess. She thought no one could tell she was chuckling to herself about it, but Kataoka knew her darn well, and he could see the hilarity all over her suppressed smirk.

Oota? Forget it. The man was having kittens over his "vulnerable Kawakami", and wouldn't manage this in a detached way.

Unfortunately, that left Kataoka.

The principal had had a word with him in his office this morning, saying: "…the things I heard and saw last night initially left me shaken. However, in the clearer light of day, I'll admit I may have got too worked up over very little – the boys were probably just horsing around. I've spoken to Oota-san about Miyauchi and Kawakami, and he has assured me that no malice was involved, and Kawakami is fine. Still, I want to be cautious about what could happen to the team's and school's reputation if things were to blow up. Please ensure that Kawakami and Sawamura aren't feeling victimised by their seniors – I don't want it to develop so that the younger boys' parents end up marching into my office to demand explanations I'll hardly know how to give…"

Kataoka had apologised to the principal on behalf of the culprits, and promised to talk to the boys concerned. Privately, he thought the head of the school would be sweating a good deal more if he knew what Kataoka knew. There was Kuramochi to worry about, and Chris, not to mention the other rivalries and jealousies that would normally have just carried on in a holding pattern for the rest of the year if only Miyuki and Miyauchi had simply not acted on their feelings. Tanba, for one, was close to Miyauchi and had an entirely different kind of special relationship with Chris; it would all get messier – fast – if the ace figured out what those two had on their minds with respect to their younger teammates.

The game with Akikawa had taken place a few days ago, and their next opponents would be Yakushi, whom they knew very little about. He couldn't have the players refusing to function as a team at this time.

But this really wasn't his forte.

So he let it percolate – literally – by steeping himself in the hot bath late at night on the day the principal had spoken to him. He'd gone for a long, hard run all over the school grounds, and surprisingly had not spotted Sawamura doing the same – he must have been in the indoor facility, or back at the dorms fending off Miyuki's overtures, probably with Kuramochi valiantly defending his virtue. Fox guarding the hen house.

Kataoka would have liked to run into Sawamura tonight to have a casual word with him, without subjecting the kid to the discomfort of a structured meeting. If he would only walk into the baths right now as he had that night during his early days in the school, when he was barred from training with the team, he might be able to get something out of…

Ah. Maybe the universe was humouring him at this difficult time, because it was déjà vu – there Sawamura was now, striding from the changing area into the bathing zone as he had that night three months ago. And all over again, the kid startled and froze like a deer in the headlights at the sight of the coach sitting in the bath, making it just the two of them naked in a confined space.

Perfect, thought Kataoka. Nothing like baring it all in a bath to expose what was really on someone's mind.

Sawamura mumbled an awkward greeting which the coach returned with a nod before the kid seated himself at one of the shower stations to shampoo and scrub off all the sweat and grime from his late-night training. Then he rose, holding the minuscule towel before him, mumbling something about "…think I'll skip the bath tonight…", probably thinking that two times soaking in 40-degree-Celsius heat with his coach was two times too many.

"Sawamura," Kataoka called firmly. "Get in."

The boy looked as if he was about to have a stroke. But after working his facial features into a comical twist for a few seconds, he produced another mumble of acquiescence and shuffled towards the bath.

In a regular public onsen, Kataoka would have kept his eyes to himself – or, if he had to talk to someone, would have strictly maintained eye contact – but he was this team's coach, and he habitually ran his eyes over his boys in training to see how they were coming along. He didn't hesitate to run his eyes over Sawamura now – wearing tinted glasses at all times meant people usually couldn't see where he was looking.

The kid's body was developing nicely. Compared with how he'd been in spring, he was better toned, muscles firming up in the right places, thighs and shoulders building up well, without appearing to hamper any of his trademark limberness. He'd turned 16 two months ago, and probably wouldn't be adding any more – or at least not much more – height to his frame, but those muscles and ligaments would continue strengthening in the proper ways for the sport he loved if he kept training well.

Sawamura stepped gingerly into the bath and ducked into the furthest corner from Kataoka. They were definitely on much better terms now than when the pitcher was in the doghouse in spring, but these were still awkward conditions for the boy. So much for hoping to spare the kid the pressure of a structured meeting. Well, no help for it now. He would simply have to get to the point.

"Sawamura," Kataoka rumbled, making him jump.

"H-hai, Kantoku?"

"What happened with Miyuki at the dorm last night?"

Mumble, mumble, went the kid.

"Speak up."

"…that bloody Miyuki mumble mumble…"

"I can't hear you."

"…violATED THE INNOCENCE OF MY PILLOW!"

Too loud, too emotional, too much. But that was Sawamura for you. Loud, emotional, and too much of everything – which made him a great kid to train and guide and watch as he bloomed. But he was also too dense and too… what was the word for it? Unsullied – almost pure, if Kataoka had to force a label on him. And that made it doubly challenging to talk about this – the coach was handicapped both by his own ineptitude with personal counselling, and by the boy's naivete. He made a swift decision: He would venture one exploratory question about the matter, and if Sawamura had no idea what he was hinting at, he would take it that he was untraumatised, and then they could go back to baseball.

"Is it really about the pillow?" Kataoka asked.

"Of course it's about the pillow," Sawamura said without a trace of prevarication, as he threw the coach an utterly open, thoroughly puzzled look – the first time he had looked directly at him since entering the bathing area. "How do you even know about the pillow anyway, Boss?"

That was it. The kid didn't have a clue. For a second, Kataoka actually felt slightly sorry for Miyuki for picking such an obtuse target. But he wasn't here to play matchmaker on the catcher's behalf – quite the opposite – so he returned at once to baseball matters, saying: "Never mind how I know. You refused to pitch to Miyuki while training in the bullpen today. That's a first. Putting the pillow aside, is this going to be a problem for the team?"

Sawamura's head snapped up, and the usual blazing look in his eyes returned as he declared: "No, Boss! It won't be a problem! I'm not going to not pitch to him forever. I'm still annoyed with him for weirding me out last night, but it won't be a problem for the team!"

"Good. No personal disagreements between players should affect the team's workings, especially during games. To ease the tension in the battery for now, I'll have you train more with Miyauchi until the Yakushi game, so you and Miyuki don't get under each other's skin too much in practice."

"Miyauchi-senpai is cool!" Sawamura exclaimed, lighting up. "And Chris-senpai – that means I can train more with Chris-senpai too!"

Kataoka hesitated even as he suppressed another twinge of sympathy, this time for Chris. Obviously, the boy hadn't observed the way the third-year looked at him either. But if Kataoka tried to reduce his training time with his favourite mentor, it might draw Sawamura's attention to what had been going clean over his head, which would bring its own problems. As for Chris, he hadn't acted on his feelings, as far as Kataoka knew.

"You can train more with Miyauchi and Chris. Chris will supervise any training you do with Miyuki."

"Yes, Boss!" Sawamura yelled, throwing his arms up and kicking his legs out in glee – only to bang his right foot against the wall of the bath at an awkward angle, triggering a muscle spasm.

How absurd was that? Cramping in a hot bath? Hot baths were supposed to ease cramps. It couldn't happen to anyone except this clumsy boy.

"Give me your foot," Kataoka ordered.

But Sawamura, speechless from the pain, couldn't move, and Kataoka had to wade over, grab his leg, and lean in to flex his ankle and knee against the spasm, trusting that the heat of the bath would keep the cramp from worsening.

Right then, he heard the sounds of another person entering and stripping off in the changing area, which was out of the direct view of the bath.

"Sawamura, is that you in there?" called the person. "Miyuki asked me to make sure you and Furuya actually bathe properly for once after training – Furuya's fallen asleep on the floor of his room and I can't shift him, but I need a bath myself and…"

It was Kawakami. Kataoka didn't know whether to laugh or weep when the second-year entered the bathing area and fell silent in Sawamura-style deer-in-the-headlights shock at the sight of the coach, naked in the bath, gripping the equally naked first-year's leg and leaning over the boy.

It's not what it looks like, was the first thing Kataoka instinctively wanted to snap out at the second-year pitcher. But years of practice concealing everything on the baseball field from opponents – from nervousness to plain fear, glee to smugness, disappointment to devastation – gave him the composure to growl: "Kawakami, come here and hold Sawamura up. He has a leg cramp."

"H-h-hai, Kantoku!"

It was already an absurd tableau – a naked man flexing the leg of a naked boy while another naked boy held on to the kid by his underarms to keep his head from tipping under the water. But Sawamura had to make it even sillier by finally recovering from the pain enough to gasp out at Kawakami as if with his dying breath: "Nori-senpai! Tell that rude Miyuki Kazuya that the way Furuya and I bathe is none of his business!"

"Better now?" Kataoka grumbled.

"Yes, Boss! Arigatou gozaimashita! No damage done – just hit the wall at a funny angle!"

Kataoka released his leg, and Kawakami fled to the shower area for a hasty scrub-down, no doubt clean forgetting his assignment from Miyuki to – what was it? Make sure Sawamura washed properly? Kataoka almost felt a spasm coming on himself – although it would be confined strictly to his face and his brain – as he processed the information that Miyuki Kazuya had been paying attention to the way the first-year pitchers were washing themselves in the bathing facility.

Bloody hell. He needed to have a word with Miyuki.

But first, Kawakami.

The second-year boy, having cleaned his hair and body with a haste that would probably not meet Miyuki's fastidious personal hygiene standards, looked as ready as Sawamura had been to escape with a mumble of how he thought he should skip the bath tonight. So Kataoka had to tackle him just as he'd tackled Sawamura.

"Kawakami," he called.

"Kantoku?" the kid squeaked.

"Get in."

"Y-yes, sir."

"Sawamura, you've soaked long enough. Go back to your room now and get some rest."

"Yes, Boss!"

As Kawakami climbed in, Sawamura scampered out of the bathing area. Kataoka calculated how long he himself had been in here – probably 20 minutes. His personal limit for soaking in 40-degree water was 30 minutes before the heat made him light-headed. So he would have to deal with Kawakami fast. He hoped there would be no further accidents requiring his intervention. If the players who'd been training with the pitchers tonight were to walk in just as he was giving Kawakami, say, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation or something like that, the misunderstanding that could lead to would probably result in both Oota-san's and the principal's deaths by immediate cardiac arrest.

"Do you need some space from Miyauchi?" he asked the second-year directly, without preamble, once they were alone.

"Err – I – I…" Kawakami stammered, turning a shade of red that had nothing to do the heat of the water.

"Has he apologised for everything he did, and everything he said to you, that might have made you uncomfortable?"

"Yes, sir."

Kataoka noticed that Kawakami had not needed to ask him for clarification on the topic; the boy knew what he was talking about. "Do you feel threatened by Miyauchi?" the coach asked.

"No, sir!" Kawakami looked up, startled. "No! Miyauchi-senpai has been really… really kind to me. He'd never, you know, make me feel threatened."

"I need to know if you are personally all right – I don't mean as a pitcher, but as a person."

"I'm fine, sir."

"Then I need to know if what Miyauchi did and said is going to affect the way you operate as a battery, or even just as members of the same team."

"No, sir. I'm still trying to… um… figure out how I really feel about what happened, but it won't affect how we work as a team."

Kawakami's voice, however, held volumes less naivete than Sawamura's, and uncertainty clouded his eyes, not at all like Sawamura's clear amber-brown gaze. It confirmed for Kataoka that Kawakami was a great deal more intelligent and sensitive than his fellow pitcher. But it also confirmed that he was troubled by what had happened with Miyauchi, whereas Sawamura was treating Miyuki's behaviour as little more than yet another annoyance in a months-long history of teasing that went all the way back to the boy's first visit to the school, as Takashima had recounted.

Kataoka made another quick decision and said to Kawakami: "You'll need time to process whatever has gone on between the two of you. And you'll need distance from him to do that. For the next few days until the Yakushi match, I will see to it that you do not train with Miyauchi at all. You will practise with Miyuki and Ono."

"Kantoku, it's not that I need…"

"Give yourself that space and time, Kawakami."

"Yes, sir."

Kataoka rose to leave, and saw that Kawakami was sensible enough to avert his gaze, unlike Sawamura three months ago, carelessly getting an eyeful of his coach's privates and completely lacking the social polish that would at least have allowed him to pretend not to be ludicrously intimidated.

But Sawamura's lack of artificial veneers was precisely what made him so appealing as a player to his coach, and so attractive to teenagers like Miyuki, Kuramochi and Chris, who could very well still be working out which way they swung (and not with a bat).

That left Miyuki and Miyauchi to talk to, and Kataoka knew what he had to say to the two catchers, separately: "Whatever you feel for your teammates, if it will trouble them and affect their form, rein it in. Be close to them as players, but keep your personal distance until things stop feeling awkward. Save your passion for games. Grow up first and discover who you really are, then see if you still feel the same way. Chances are, you won't."

It was what he had to say as their coach and teacher. If anything in the heart of Kataoka the man told him that this might be a harsh message for two boys of 16 and 17, he shut that voice down and told himself it was best for them as players and students. And if anything in his conscience whispered that he was going against his long-standing policy of treating his players like individuals old enough to be accountable for their own actions, another part of him hushed it with the reminder that he was an adult in charge of this bunch of kids who nearly had the bodies of grown-ups, but deep inside were still very much the children they had been not all that long ago.