Summary: Strategic and coolheaded on the field, a trickster and full of smirks off of it. Seen as logical and unfeeling by some, cutting his emotions off is the only way Miyuki knows to protect himself. Emotions are messy, irrational, too hot, too cold - too much. Especially when they're not his own.
Glass Shield (The Boy Who Feels Too Much)
Kazuya covertly watches from behind his sports glasses the loudmouthed boy who has just entered the practice field. He's not the only one. Many of the practicing baseball team members have stopped to watch Azuma being challenged by the brash newcomer. No one dares to go up against the monstrous third year and for good reason.
Kazuya can feel Azuma's yellow surprise and mounting red anger from across the field. It's like rancid lemon juice, bitter, acidic, sharp, a bit sickening. Normally, surprise is fresh and one of his favourites but together with burning, sour anger it's not nearly as enjoyable.
"What a moron." Kuramochi says from beside him. His eyebrows are dipped downward, slightly concerned, but there's the beginnings of a grin on his face. Kazuya makes a small noise of agreement as he takes a cleansing sip from his water bottle. What more is there to add?
"Azuma's going to explode."
They watch as exactly that happens. Kazuya surprises them both by standing when Azuma finally falls for the loudmouth's baiting. Kuramochi stares up at him in disbelief.
"Really?"
Kazuya shrugs and stretches his arms overhead. He grins. He can feel a strange, somewhat unfamiliar but not unwelcome yellow buzz of anticipation, warm and a little ticklish, at the base of his throat. It barely takes more than the blink of an eye to brush it away, leaving his skin bare.
"Why not? Either way, someone will get knocked down a peg."
Kuramochi only shakes his head as he watches him go.
As Kazuya plans how to take down Azuma with the newcomer, he doesn't expect to find a particular shade of surprise and even less one he's quickly taken with.
It's vanilla happiness and excited, spiky sunshine blending harmoniously with fresh lemon.
Triumph singes between them, bright red-orange fading to white-gold, when the loudmouth's pitch lands in Kazuya's mitt with a thunderous crack and past a faded-yellow stunned Azuma.
xXx
Synaesthesia, doctors told Kazuya's father when he started primary school and excitedly spoke of his daily adventures.
Nothing serious, nothing wrong with his son who spoke of strawberry praise for a classmate and vanilla-glowing grins, of sour, red anger directed at a friend.
Kazuya kept more silent than he said, like the black-streaked-with-red pain caused by ultraviolet fury and maroon punches. He never talked about standing up for a classmate, paralysed by scraped-raw, orange-red aches or how he passed out from it only to be found by a teacher later, completely unscathed.
As his father tried to explain his condition to him, Kazuya frowned and shook his head.
"I don't get it when I feel stuff." he told his father earnestly, thumping his chest with a tiny fist for emphasis. His eyes were huge behind even bigger glasses as he put his other hand above his father's heart. He could feel the heartbeat underneath, small fingers too short to encompass it all.
The spot felt cold.
Kazuya swallowed, blinking away sudden, grey-ish blue tears and tasting bitter-sad, a lump in his throat and coal-grey worry constricting his lungs. It was almost all he felt at home lately and he wanted it to stop. Sometimes it did, when he tried hard enough, but most times, it didn't.
"I get it when others do."
Home was like a dark, brooding storm, not yet thundering, barely drizzling and entirely too calm.
xXx
Kazuya flexes his hand, glancing down at the palm. It still stings from the impact of catching the pitch, heavy and stable in his mitt. He looks up, shooting Furuya a satisfied grin. The pitcher is still in post-throwing stance, balancing on one leg and face the epitome of stoic concentration.
No one except him and Kazuya know the child-like excitement he feels, running like buzzing electricity beneath his skin and through his bloodstream. He flicks it away from where it tickles his skin when it starts to tinge light blue.
"Nice pitching! We're done for today." he calls over to the mound, standing from his crouch. The pitcher's expression doesn't change but his stubborn refusal spreads across the field tangy green and starts to flood Kazuya's mouth.
"I can pitch more."
The words sound calm but they're tinted with pistachio-brown eagerness. Kazuya flattens his lips into a thin line, mentally reaching for his barrier, cool and impenetrable.
"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." he replies calmly, keeping his tongue well away from the roof of his mouth. Even after years of this it's still the hardest to control when playing baseball.
He breathes in to centre himself and immediately regrets it. Irritated-translucent red wafts over from Furuya still standing his ground. It smells like smoke and almost covers the thick, sticky feeling of powdery blue fatigue underneath.
"Learn to pace yourself, Furuya." Kazuya tells him sternly, taking off his helmet. He holds Furuya's gaze coolly for a moment, silently relieved to feel the traces of red and green, that irritating itch in the back of his head, fade into nothing. By the time the pitcher looks away, all that's left is steely-blue, cool and hard, solid and quiet.
"Miyuki Kazuya! Catch for me!" Sawamura shouts from the side, dragging his tire behind him. Kazuya rolls his eyes and turns sideways to glance at him. He's immeasurably glad to have retrieved his shield in time for the loudmouth's appearance.
Sawamura is always too loud, too bright, too warm, too full of sunshine yellow. It always suckerpunches Kazuya right in the stomach even when he is prepared because the other first year pitcher takes up as much space as Furuya doesn't.
It leads to on the field synchronicity, a beam of energy connecting them and filling Kazuya. Sawamura tempers his enthusiasm and turns it into a deadly force which enables their battery to obliterate any rival team.
Off the field, he isn't quite as enjoyable to be around or as useful. Off the field, he is draining.
Unless Kazuya has his shields up, which he usually does – but around him, he needs to be extra careful. That damn moron is about as subtle and has as much tact as a sledgehammer which, unfortunately, is much too effective in breaking his carefully constructed walls.
"Go run some more if you're not tired enough." Kazuya dismisses him, checking his sport glasses are still where they should be.
He isn't even surprised when Sawamura completely ignores his words in favour of running toward him, tire producing loud, scrunching noises on the ground in tandem with his steps.
"Will you catch for me if I do?" he asks once he stands in front of Kazuya. He isn't even out of breath that much, the brat. Sawamura turns hopeful eyes on him. "I'll never be too tired to pitch!"
Kazuya can feel his honesty and burning enthusiasm knock on his walls, honey-gold and burnished red. He easily ignores them, the wisp-like, tiny clouds of fog barely even fazing metal.
"Well, I'm too tired to put up with you." he deadpans, walking straight past Sawamura. "Go sleep early or something."
"Hey! Miyuki Kazuya!" Sawamura bellows from somewhere behind him. "Don't ignore me! Catch my pitches! Furuya, go away, he already caught yours. H-hey, no! No touchie! My tire! That's – hey, give it back!"
Kazuya can barely suppress a laugh at the first years' antics though he does allow himself a smile, toothy white and pure.
xXx
When Kazuya kept insisting on his not-synaesthesia, teachers started to recommend getting him to see a child psychologist. Emotions couldn't really look like monsters after all and it certainly was no excuse to attack a bully in order to 'rescue him from being eaten!'
"He spends more time talking about it and getting in trouble than in class." the school principal said sternly, watching Kazuya's father from above thin-framed glasses. "Just this morning he started crying and threw a fit when a classmate was reprimanded for forgetting her homework."
"I…I didn't know. I'm sorry. I'll talk to him."
The principal's eyes softened a little when Kazuya's father rubbed his face tiredly; he supposed having a child like Kazuya in addition to his momentarily turbulent home life could be difficult.
"How is your wife, Miyuki-san?"
An exhausted sigh was the only answer, aborted words cut off by an opening and closing mouth, a quiet choking sound and glistening, furiously blinking eyes.
"I'm sorry."
If Kazuya had been there, he would have felt the storm start as the skies began to open up and drench the earth in tears.
xXx
Thunder and lightning struck as Miyuki's mother passed after a year of quiet suffering.
The sky was blue and cloudless that day but the solemn silence among black-clad people surrounding a tombstone may as well have been filled with the steady drum of rain on pavement.
Kazuya could barely stand among the onslaught of rage, sadness and grief, a slowly swirling, sickening shade of violet vortex. He held on to his father's hand, tightening his grip as much as his smaller one would allow as he waited for the answering squeeze. It was an anchor he needed so he wasn't sucked in and lost forever.
The solidness of that adult hand was all he had left but the silent reply never came.
It became harder and harder to stand quietly, the emotions pushing and pulling at him until he shook with the effort of resisting. Kazuya focused on the unstable presence of his father as wind roared in his ears and his heart and breathing sped up, making him dizzy.
Later, after Kazuya had stopped shaking uncontrollably, he resolved to end this, whatever it was. He didn't know how but he had to.
It caused him enough trouble at school and at home. Distancing him from schoolmates who deemed him strange, it earned him frustration from teachers and exasperation from his father when he became too vocal about it to be endearing anymore. All Kazuya had tried to do was lift the heavy exhaustion he carried around with him more and more often.
And now he had lost his mother, the one person who had always listened to him with an indulgent smile and a tinkling laugh. The heaviness drenching his home was already getting worse and starting to drain him; he had his own grief and disbelief to deal with, he couldn't take on his father's as well.
Kazuya was too young to lose his sanity too.
xXx
He learned to draw up invisible barriers, impenetrable walls, around his head and heart. It took time and concentration to learn but eventually it became as easy and instinctual as breathing.
That took care of the first part, treating the symptoms. Next, he had to go right down to the root of his problem.
They didn't prove to be much of a problem and Kazuya almost didn't care, leaving him with nothing but calm. Most of the people he interacted with were his classmates who avoided him because of his 'crazy talk'.
The only other person he was close to was his father who walked away on his own accord.
It was one of the rare moments in his as of yet short life he felt his own pain and not that of others.
It was a deep, infinite black hole, sucking in everything else he felt too until there was just one single thing left, one reminder which throbbed painfully no matter how long it had been.
Why did you leave?
I love you, Kazuya.
'Love.'
Remember that, alright?
'What a beautiful lie.'
I'll always love you.
'How can you love when you're not here?'
I'll always love you.
'I can't feel it.'
I'll always….
'Nothing.'
Kazuya wakes up suddenly, his eyes snapping wide open.
He doesn't remember what love feels like anymore.
There's a hollow ache in his chest, a longing as if there might be an echo of it left somewhere.
He has an inkling it feels warm, like laying in the sun and enjoying the way its rays buzz on his skin. Safe and content.
But he doesn't remember, doesn't know for sure. He doesn't recall peals of laughter, sunny smiles and a large, warm hand holding his. No colour, no taste, no scent.
Kazuya doesn't remember a damn thing.
xXx
"We're partners. You said so yourself, didn't you?"
Kazuya sighs in annoyance and finally turns to face Sawamura. The first year has a determined look on his face, nothing unusual. His eyes are directed at him, burning.
Kazuya smirks slightly.
"My, my. If you're trying to seduce me you're not doing a very good job." he teases, hoping to distract that orange-amber beam of energy crashing against his walls.
With each and every call and shout of 'Miyuki Kazuya!' or 'Catch for me!', his shield has been struck and shaken. What was nothing more than a slight tremor in the beginning has started to become echoing vibrations and causing spidery, fine cracks. It's nothing which can't be fixed easily but it's worrisome.
It scares Kazuya more than anything has in a long time.
He isn't ready to give up his steady, calm centre just yet.
Sawamura's mouth sets in a thin line and he looks away. Kazuya can feel how his energy becomes more subdued, like glowing embers instead of the fireballs he launches.
"Just once. If you catch for me, just this once, I'll leave you alone."
Hearing that promise, one he's sure the first year would keep because he seems like the honest sort, doesn't fill him with relief like he thinks it should.
Kazuya can't feel what Sawamura feels when he says it but he isn't sure he needs to.
He isn't sure of anything, all of the sudden.
I'll leave you alone.
Does Kazuya want that?
Something black, infinite and empty throbs in his chest.
He becomes aware of how cold he feels but he isn't surprised. He's used to it by now, or at least, he should be.
Sawamura looks up again and a warm breeze, a whisper of hot air brushes Kazuya's skin. He can hear something that might or might not be a long-forgotten but still familiar laugh.
He is surprised, shocked, but he manages to hide it by turning his head the other way.
It's not an answer…but it certainly points him in a direction. He is still afraid, but he thinks if this is the reward…
Kazuya turns a back bit, just enough to look at Sawamura who is still waiting for a reply. He smirks.
"If you want to be partners, you'd better keep practising, bakamura."
Sawamura's expression lights up, his mouth starting to turn upward in a grin –
"Come back when you're good enough and I might consider your offer."
Kazuya is already with his back toward the pitcher by the time his indignant spluttering starts.
"You asshole-catcher! Just you wait! I'll become so good at pitching you'll be begging me to be allowed to catch for me! Hah!"
The smile on Kazuya's face is small but real as the shouting becomes more distant until it's cut off by a howl of pain and a 'Shut the hell up, Noisymura!'
It's a promise.