Spoiler alert: Includes some brief details about the matches with Nanamori, Ugumori and Ouya, which may or may not be too much information for those who haven't read manga chapters 261 to 327.
Driving Force
In which the Seidou team-bus driver steers things in certain directions
Anyone would assume he'd know the Seidou baseballers best from within the team bus. Surely he could enumerate the players' quirks as he drove them from school to stadium and back, for match after match over the course of each school year? Well, he did indeed know which kids tended to talk on the bus while heading out but were quiet coming back, who preferred to sit where and with whom, and which names were regularly yelled out in frustration by their teammates because they were always getting lost in search of a stadium toilet and late in returning to the bus, keeping everybody waiting.
But it was outside the bus that he saw the players and coaches in moments truer than the faces they presented when crammed together into a 30-seater vehicle, all bright, clean white-and-blue kit travelling out of Seidou, and earth-stained, bruised and scraped, smelling of sweat and sun and raw emotion, on the return journey.
When they alighted at the end of each weekend's round of games, grabbed their bags from the luggage compartment, thanked him and dispersed, you'd think he wouldn't see them again for the rest of the week. After all, he didn't work at the school. The school owned the bus – always had it parked on the grounds behind the baseballers' dormitory – and he was contracted to drive the team to and from matches.
However, Seidou's arrangement with his employer, a private-bus company, was that he should also come in on alternate weekdays to check the fuel, tyre pressure, brakes, lights, air-conditioning and battery, and clean the vehicle's exterior. The school didn't want to leave the bus sitting there untouched for days at a time only to find that it wouldn't start on a match day because the battery was dead.
Of course, after every game and return journey, he would clean the vehicle thoroughly inside and out. The kids were respectful of the shared space – he never had to deal with deliberately dirtied or damaged seats, or carelessly tossed food wrappers. But ferrying sporty teens who might just have been sliding about all over a field clogged with rain and mud meant stains were inevitable.
So he spent a good number of days and hours working at Seidou, going through the checks, calling for professional mechanical help if a problem arose, and having enough time between these regular appointments and his evening driving schedule to enjoy looking out over the sprawling school grounds, chatting with the security and maintenance staff, and – more often than they knew – just quietly listening to the students who would meet behind the dorm for a private word with each other.
It was also at this parking spot outside the chain-link fence running behind the dormitory and indoor training facility that he'd encountered Ochiai Hiromitsu about a month ago. He'd been wiping mud splatter from the previous night's rain off the paintwork one afternoon when Ochiai – whom he recognised as the specialist coach newly employed by the school – came skulking round the back of the dormitory. At first, he didn't notice the driver on the other side of the bus outside the fence. But the driver saw the other's feet from below the undercarriage, and watched as the man looked into corners and behind garbage bins, apparently searching for something.
He finally noticed the driver peering at him from around the front of the bus, and stared for a second, then nodded at him in greeting, and left the area.
On another occasion about a week later, Ochiai was there again. This time, the assistant coach stepped out through the gate in the chain-link fence to talk to him. They exchanged a few pleasantries (for want of a better word) – about baseball, kids and the weather. A few more rounds of this, and the driver soon pegged Ochiai's character – the man reminded him exactly of his own brother.
He could tell, within those few brief conversations on desultory topics, that the fellow was political, ambitious, calculating – the kind who took a cloak-and-dagger approach to a lot of things that didn't require such treatment. But he couldn't bring himself to condemn Ochiai as a control-hungry bastard and nothing else, because his elder brother was the same type of human being.
His brother could be brutal when in "purge, destroy and overthrow" mode at his corporate workplace, but all he needed was a quiet reminder about the fact of his own and others' humanity, and the unkindness of his actions, to stop, think, feel his way back, and reconsider his words and deeds.
In short, he could be cold and unkind, but he wasn't a monster. Unfortunately, it wasn't easy to know that about him without knowing him well.
Ochiai, he guessed, was very much like that. Therefore, he wasn't surprised when he heard rumblings of discontent a little over a month after the new assistant coach's arrival. It was one of his security-staff friends who passed on the bit of gossip one day: the assistant cook had heard from the canteen manager, who had seen it for herself, that Ochiai had maliciously tried to damage the form of the team's left-handed first-year pitcher.
"You know, the noisy one with the big, bright eyes," the security man elaborated. "Sawamura."
"Ah – the one who's always getting lost while looking for the toilet," the driver nodded, recognising the boy's name and description.
"I wouldn't know about his track record with locating toilets, but he's quite a favourite with some of the staff here, and no one's very happy with Ochiai-san right now. If Kataoka-sensei weren't the kind of man who believes in giving people chances over and over again, Ochiai'd surely be out the door on his arse by now."
"Maybe Kataoka-kantoku sees value in him where others may not," the driver observed. "Or perhaps he wasn't the one who brought him in, so he may not have a say about whether he stays or goes."
"Maybe. But all I know is, I don't like the look of him – always skulking about as if he thinks he's in some spoof spy movie or something," grumbled the security man.
The driver pondered this piece of news. He was fond of Sawamura, despite his often keeping the bus waiting on his impatient bladder and dodgy sense of direction. The kid was a whole day of summer packed into a healthy teenage body, and he livened things up except when he was disappointed in his own performance on the field – then he would grow silent and it would feel as if all the rain clouds had come out. What a pity for any adult to carelessly damage such a radiant kid.
Thus, on the next match day, when he drove the team to Edogawa Stadium to play against Nanamori Academy, he kept an eye on Ochiai and Sawamura. Nothing much to note on the way there – the team was quietly mentally gearing up for the game. But after the match, from which Seidou emerged triumphant after a mere five innings, the driver didn't wait inside the bus as he normally did. Instead, he stood near where he could see the Seidou players starting to gather outside the stadium. Sawamura – for once among the earliest to be present and accounted for (perhaps a five-inning called game wasn't long enough to make him desperate for the loo?) – was chatting happily to a few teammates; Ochiai was standing alone near them, watching and listening.
Then Sawamura noticed Ochiai observing him, and the driver wondered what the boy would do. Be sarcastic to the assistant coach who had treated him badly? Ignore the man? Look afraid of him and shuffle away?
He did none of those things. Instead, he cheerfully said to Ochiai with a genuine smile that if he wanted to join their conversation, he would have to come closer.
It warmed the driver's heart, and he heard Ochiai remark to Sawamura that he was a strange pitcher. Wasn't he afraid of pitching to the inside before? he asked. How come he wasn't afraid now?
Sawamura had looked a little bashful as he replied honestly that he was still afraid, but even more so of never being able to pitch from the mound again.
At this point, Oota-buchou nodded to the driver that all the students were here, so he returned to the bus to open the door for them.
He drove them back to school and dropped them behind the dorm as usual, taking the private paved road which separated the two training fields on one side from the dorm and indoor training facility on the other. The students and coaches thanked him as they alighted, and filed through the gate in the chain-link fence to get to the baths and their rooms. Ochiai, however, loitered. He waited while the driver parked the bus, swept the floor of the vehicle and wiped the seats, then approached him when he emerged to clean the windscreen.
"You normally go the bus once you see the team gathering, and you wait there for us, don't you? But you decided to wait with the students today," Ochiai remarked, looking up at him where he was perched on his stepladder, applying a chamois to the glass.
They'd interacted enough, it seemed, for Ochiai to be comfortable about speaking so openly to him. Perhaps Ochiai could sense that he was one person who never judged him, and treated him like someone he knew well – which, in a sense, he did, because he always kept his elder brother in mind when he was talking to him.
"You're as observant as ever," the driver smiled, buffing a smudge off.
"So what was it that you wanted to keep an eye and ear on? You were listening when I was talking to the first-year pitcher, weren't you?"
The driver finished buffing the spot, lowered the chamois, and stepped down from the ladder to stand eye to eye with Ochiai, then said evenly: "I only want to say this: He's a good kid – good to the core – kind and with no deceit in him. Kids like that should be treasured."
"Ahhh… so that's it, is it?" Ochiai moved his hand from his chin to his hair and looked thoughtful. "Well, I'll not deny that he's surprised me more than once with his openness, but that has nothing to do with whether he belongs on the team, and I'm not convinced that he does. Although after today's performance, maybe he isn't a lost cause."
The assistant coach then looked off to the side, as if his eyes were tracking a train of thought.
The driver stated: "Who belongs on the team is for you to determine, not the likes of me. But remember that he's just a child, a good one at that."
"Mmm… maybe so, but I'm also not sure about his effect on the other players. The way some of the other boys look at him… I don't think it's healthy."
The driver had driven Seidou players around for years enough, and tinkered with the bus long enough beside that chain-link fence, to hear and see all sorts of things that sometimes went on between some boys.
"Ah," he said. "If you mean what I think you mean – at this age, lots of boys develop the oddest interest in other boys. Some grow out of it, some don't, but either way, I don't believe it matters, ultimately."
Ochiai kept silent for a while, then he nodded once and murmured an acknowledgement: "Mmm. I hear you."
Having said that, the assistant coach turned, walked back through the gate, and disappeared round the corner of the indoor facility.
The very next day, the driver had to get the team to Edogawa Stadium again, this time for their game against Ugumori High. The senior players – the second-years – were unusually silent during the ride. But Sawamura and most of the other first-years were the same as usual, so whatever had taken place probably had nothing to do with the kid, or the driver's talk with Ochiai. Perhaps the senior players had disagreed last night about team tactics, or had had some other dispute among themselves.
When the game began, he entered the stadium and stood at the back to watch Seidou battle it out through a surprisingly tough, close match, considering that Ugumori wasn't a big name in high-school baseball. When Seidou won, Oota-buchou quickly confirmed the driver's booking for next Sunday, to transport them to Meiji Jingu Secondary Stadium for their quarter-final match. The driver heard nothing further about the Sawamura matter that day, or during his weekday visits.
But when he dropped in on Saturday to make sure the bus was in good working order for the next day's crucial trip, two students came out to the back of the dorm, talking to each other – and that was how he got an update about the issue. He could hear the boys quite well from within the bus, as he had lowered the window by his driver's seat, which was on the side closest to the fence. The students probably had no idea he was there – he'd been cleaning the blinds earlier, so they were still down; even if they knew, they might not think he'd be able to hear them so clearly.
He recognised them both, as he'd driven them around for two and a half years. Third-year students, retired from the baseball team, but prominent faces in it when they'd been active: Tanba Kouichirou, the former ace, and Takigawa Chris Yuu, brilliant-catcher-turned-genius-manager. He'd seen Tanba play many a time. In more recent months, he'd also had Chris on the bus in a managerial-cum-coaching role, and seen him in stadium dugouts.
"You should have told me," Chris was saying to Tanba. They both stopped at a spot they found comfortable and leaned back against the rear wall of the building, standing side by side. Tanba slipped his hands into his pockets, and Chris propped up one foot against the base of the wall at their backs.
"You were struggling with those physics chapters that you said were giving you so much trouble. I didn't want you to be distracted," Tanba replied.
"So you sacrificed your own study hours to spare mine," Chris smiled ruefully.
Tanba, reddening a little, spoke with a curious mixture of shyness and confidence: "I was too tired to read any more. And I was walking around trying to rest my eyes when I spotted Coach Ochiai ambushing Miyuki and Nabe from behind that vending machine, then tagging along with them to the indoor grounds, where I already knew Sawamura was – I'd heard him a mile away, complaining about his own idiocy to Kanemaru, Toujou and Kariba."
"I can picture the scene," Chris gave an amused huff.
"I was afraid that Coach Ochiai would do something to hurt Sawamura again, but I needn't have worried. You should have seen how wary and protective Miyuki was. He was questioning everything Ochiai was suggesting and watching him like a hawk. He agreed to cooperate only when he saw that Sawamura was up for it. Sawamura couldn't have had a better protector, so you have nothing to worry about."
"I have no doubt about that," Chris said softly and contemplatively, a comment to which Tanba seemed not to know how to respond. After a few seconds of silence, Chris asked: "None of them saw you near the doorway?"
"I wasn't standing in the doorway," Tanba explained. "I was moving around, walking up and down, walking past occasionally, but I could hear everything even when I didn't have my eyes on them. Anyway, there was quite a crowd in there – they probably wouldn't have noticed me for a while even if I had stood in the doorway."
"Thank you, Tanba," Chris said with a gentle smile. "You still aren't telling me exactly what it was Ochiai was trying to teach Sawamura, by the way."
"I have a feeling Miyuki or Sawamura will want to show you that themselves, so I'll keep it a secret for them," Tanba's smile mirrored Chris'.
"You're the most thoughtful guy I know," Chris told him sincerely. "Thank you for making sure that Sawamura was okay, even though I'm the one who worries about him."
"He's a great kid. I don't have the connection you do with him, but I like him – I'd just talked to him yesterday morning, in fact, outside the classrooms with Miyauchi and Ryou. I wouldn't want to see him harmed, especially not by Ochiai – remember how Tetsu was telling us that Ochiai had given him a really bad impression at their first meeting, after he'd heard from the principal about Kantoku leaving?"
"Hmm, yes. I remember that," Chris frowned. "But more interesting to me is the detail that Sawamura's grown even on you."
"What's with the 'even'?" Tanba asked, blushing a little more, and starting to mumble awkwardly. "As I said, he's a good kid. And if he's important to you, he's important to me."
"It means a lot to me to hear you say that. You don't mind that he's important to me?"
"Of course there's a part of me that minds, but he's special to you, and I respect that. I've told you, I'll wait – I'll wait for you," Tanba said softly, before adding, with a wry smile: "Besides, with our final exams about ten weeks away, this is hardly the right time, is it, to convince you to be head over heels for me?"
"Tanba…" Chris began, with surprise in his voice and eyes.
"Come on, let's get back to our books. We've taken a long enough break."
Tanba took a step towards the passageway between the dorm and the indoor training facility, but Chris reached out and grabbed his hand, causing Tanba to turn around, startled.
"Tanba," Chris said again, with a hint of a smile this time, as he leaned in, still holding his hand, and kissed him on the cheek. "Thank you once again."
"Chris…" Tanba's eyes were wide, his hand still clasped in Chris'. "I thought I… I don't…"
"For the record, yes, I agree that it's absolutely the wrong time with exams and all for me to be head over heels for anyone, really. And yes, I still have things to work out with… others. But I don't think there's a wrong time for me to say that I appreciate you, and while I can't be head over heels for you… yet… I can say from the bottom of my heart that I am more than a little… would 'charmed' be the right word?"
"Chris, you…" Tanba spoke, his cheeks flushed, unsure how to go on. Then he seemed to collect himself, and he continued with a serious expression in his eyes but a smile on his lips: "You do know that if I fail my exams, I'm blaming your teasing me like this."
"I'll take the blame like a man."
"You'd better. Now let go of my hand – Oota-sensei is coming this way from the practice fields."
"Oh, he won't mind us…"
"Chris, seriously – he'll have a heart attack – he's crossing the road already. Let go."
"No."
"Now."
"Chicken."
"Flirt."
They released each other, greeted Oota-buchou politely as the club president strode through the gate in the chain-link fence, and they walked with him between the dorm and indoor facility until they were lost to the driver's line of sight.
So it seemed that Ochiai was teaching Sawamura things that team captain Miyuki Kazuya had allowed – which meant they wouldn't do the boy harm. That was good, thought the driver. It was time Ochiai-san learnt to get along with people he might have initially dismissed as useless, and also time for the team to learn that maybe the man wasn't as much of an evil demon as they might like to believe he was.
As for the other matter that Tanba and Chris had been discussing, the driver was able to hear more the next day, when he took the team to Meiji Jingu Secondary Stadium for their quarter-final against Ouya Metropolitan. It turned out to be a tough, exciting fight full of strategic moves and counter-moves that both teams had to have put a lot of brain-power into coming up with. At the end, Seidou were the victors, and Oota-buchou booked him again for Saturday's trip to the semi-finals at the same stadium.
The driver had been informed in advance that the players would be watching the match after their own, between Seiko High and Sensen Academy. So he was walking out of the stadium to find a place to sit down and have a cup of tea when he saw Sawamura and Chris together outside the stadium entrance, standing near a pillar and having a conversation. Chris wasn't the only retired third-year who'd made his own way here – former captain Yuuki Tetsuya was present too, with Kadota Masaashi and Sakai Ichirou. Yuuki was talking to his successor, Miyuki, and Kadota and Sakai were chatting with a few of the second-years.
The driver moved as inconspicuously as he could to the other side of the thick concrete pillar beside which Sawamura and Chris were talking, in time to hear Chris say: "… as I said earlier, you've done very well to add another weapon to your growing arsenal. You really have grown stronger, in so many ways."
"It's all thanks to your guidance, Shishou!" Sawamura declared earnestly.
"Not all thanks to me. I understand that Coach Ochiai had a lot to do with this latest development."
"Yes! Bushy Brows Ochiai-kochi was very patient in teaching me! And… and Miyuki Kazuya too…" Sawamura's voice was softer when he spoke Miyuki's name. The driver wondered why he didn't call the captain "Miyuki-senpai" like the other first-years did.
"Sawamura, your Miyuki-senpai has done a lot more than you know to help you through this tough time," Chris said.
"Miyuki K…senpai… has been great," Sawamura sounded unaccountably shy. The driver couldn't see him, but he could imagine him turning pink around the cheekbones. "He's been so, um, so… different towards me of late."
The driver would have expected Chris' next question to be something like "Different how"? But Chris didn't ask that. Instead, he asked carefully: "Do you like the way he's been different towards you? Tell me honestly."
"It's… it's – I guess – nice? No, I mean, yes – I do like the way he's been with me recently."
"Would you be happy if he were to continue this way, even to a greater degree than this?" Chris asked.
"Uhm… Chris-senpai, why do I feel that everyone's talking in riddles these days? You're starting to get me all lost the way Miyuki Kaz – Miyuki-senpai – does, saying all kinds of odd things I'm not sure I fully get. But from what little I am starting to get, I think I can say that, yeah, I guess I would like him to carry on this way."
"That's what I wanted to know. I wanted to confirm that you were happy with this."
"Whatever 'this' is…?" Sawamura asked.
"Whatever 'this' is."
Their tete-a-tete ended when someone else came up to them, and Sawamura went back into the stadium. The driver moved out from behind the pillar to see that Yuuki Tetsuya was now talking to another group of players, and Chris was with Miyuki.
He moved close enough to them to hear Chris say to Miyuki: "Thank you for giving me time to say, well, a sort of goodbye to him in this way."
"Nothing that you wouldn't have done for me, Chris-senpai, had our places been reversed," Miyuki said, gazing at the older student.
"Are you sure about that?" Chris asked.
"Ha – Chris-senpai – I'm not sure that I'm too sure about a lot of things these days."
"You're even beginning to sound like Sawamura," Chris joked. "It's starting to worry me."
The driver had seen before how Miyuki looked whenever Chris would offer to sit next to him on the team bus – indeed, how he had always generally looked at Chris with wistful respect. He still looked at his senior catcher with that same respect, but with a good deal less of the wistfulness these days – that particular expression was now apparently reserved for Sawamura, in combination with a mischievous smile.
Miyuki now grinned at Chris, and answered: "The two of us will be your kouhai responsibility from now until the end of time."
"Ah. Really, now? But since we're talking about the future, let me say here and now that if Sawamura ever says he's no longer happy with whatever his situation may be with you, I may move back into the picture and knock you right out of the frame."
"Oh?" Miyuki grinned even more widely. "I'm not sure Tanba-san will be happy to hear you say that."
"I don't know about that," Chris smiled. "Sawamura's growing on Tanba too – he just told me in all seriousness that he likes Sawamura. I think he won't mind too much if I bring Sawamura home to him, so to speak."
Miyuki's eyes widened, and he opened his mouth to blurt out: "What? As if there aren't already enough people going after Sa…" Then he stopped short, shut his mouth, looked keenly at Chris, realised he was being teased, and said in a flat tone: "You're totally having me on, aren't you, Chris-senpai?"
"Of course I am."
"Of course. There's no way in this lifetime you'd propose a threesome between you, Tanba-san and Sawamura."
"That's a bit judgemental, coming from someone who not that long ago proposed a foursome to me right outside Sawamura's dorm room."
"I was drunk with sleep."
"Excuses."
Yuuki called to Chris just then to ask if he was heading back to the school with them, and Chris took his leave.
The driver went off to have his cup of tea and to think about all he'd heard. When, after the end of the Seiko-Sensen match, he drove the Seidou team back, he wasn't entirely surprised to find Ochiai loitering again, waiting to talk to him.
"You were hanging around outside the stadium again this afternoon," the assistant coach remarked, when everyone else had left the bus.
"I was indeed," he admitted freely.
"Learn anything of interest?"
"I did," he said.
"Care to share it with me?" Ochiai asked seriously, stroking his chin.
"And contribute to your plans for world-domination? I don't think so, Ochiai-san," he replied with a chuckle.
"Hmph. You're a funny one."
"And you, Ochiai-san, are more reasonable than most people would give you credit for. Thank you for all the good you have done Sawamura and the other kids. I hope you continue to help them."
Ochiai scratched his head, looked curiously at the driver, then gave up trying to figure him out and bade him a good day before strolling through the gate in the chain-link fence and disappearing round the corner of the indoor facility.