Starting Again
Warnings: extreme ooc. fem!Eijun. overprotective Seido boys.
Disclaimer: I dont own DnA.
'Italic' - thoughts
"italic"- flashbacks
""-Speech
It's been such a long time! Last chapter was really rushed and I didn't really say anything but this time I will! Thanks to all of the readers who followed and favorited this story and of course, to the readers who have been following this story! they really do make my day and give me the motivation to finish studying for exams and start writing!
Since I will still be busy, I cannot guarantee when I can update the next chapter .
BUT I HOPE YOU ENJOY THIS CHAPTER
P.S: All medical stuff and info provided are fake. I'm making it up to suit the plot.
CHAPTER 8
"I'll be in your care Miyuki-senpai." Furuya bowed respectfully in front of the catcher who was now in charge of his training.
Miyuki froze for a moment before breaking into laughter. "Hahaha! You sure are obedient compared to yesterday."
"Yesterday was different. Besides…." Furuya said, reminiscing back to yesterday night. The sound of hit full-power pitch being caught by the catcher's mitt still resounded in his ears, his blood boiling just thinking about it. If he's at Seido, if this man, Miyuki Kazuya, were his catcher, he can find his place. "I will listen to whatever Miyuki-senpai says."
"I guess someone riled you up." Miyuki replied.
"I won't lose to her. Not her, not anyone."
"I like that spirit! Keep it up so it will force that twerp out of her shell."
Furuya said nothing.
"Well, she's not the only one hiding in a shell."
Just silently, Sawamura and Chris looked at each other, as if facing off.
"You sure are an unfriendly guy." Sawamura said frankly.
Chris looked at the girl without change. "We're doing some stretches."
It was a cold dismissal.
Sawamura lightly did some quick stretches on her own, rolling her ankles and wrists, before she sat on the ground with both her legs spread. Chris gently pushed her back and with practically no resistance, her chest was pressed against the ground.
Chris helped her stretch out her upper body, stretching to the right and to the left many times. After a good 30 minutes of stretching, Chris released his grasp and backed off a few steps. Sawamura just closed her legs and raised a hand towards him and looked.
Initially, Chris wasn't certain what the female pitcher wanted, but once he noticed her watching him intently, he quickly got the message. While he was unbelievably disinclined to do what she wanted, it didn't seem like she would throw in the towel so he came round to her front and grasped her outstretched hand.
With a soft tug, Sawamura rolled handily to her feet. "A gentleman shouldn't leave a woman hanging."
"Stop playing around. I'm not doing it next time." Chris said, with an extra-large topping of coldness.
Sawamura remained unfazed. She recognized this coldness, she knew the 'source' but she couldn't put her finger on it. "You know, a super annoying person once told me that the best pitching are works of art produced by the catcher and pitcher working as one. But this doesn't even come close to 'working as one', are you that against working with me?"
"Yeah."
"Thanks for your honesty." Sawamura sneered. "I think we'll get along. But hey, you have surprisingly warm hands for someone with such cold eyes."
Chris ignored Sawamura's comments and proceeded to jot something down in his notebook. In a quiet voice, he said, "Shoulder, elbow, wrist joints are all very flexible. Fingers are long. Has the traits of a pitcher."
"You have a really unique way of complimenting someone."
"However….you will never be able be the Ace here."
Chris had ended that day's work and was walking back towards the dorms. On top of what was already on his plate, he now had a free-speaking, troublesome, first year pitcher under his tutelage.
As he approached the dorms, he noticed Miyuki Kazuya doing some practice swings alone. When they made eye-contact, Miyuki spoke up first. "Good evening Chris-senpai!"
Both of them had a few things they wanted to talk about so they made their way to the bench, got some drinks and sat down for a little catcher to catcher chat.
"How do you see Sawamura, Chris-senpai?" Miyuki asked. "Although she can only throw moving fastballs now, due to her yips or something, I don't think there is a more difficult but attractive pitcher as her."
"True, I acknowledge her talent. She has the skills necessary and seems to be aware of the responsibilities of a pitcher. However, I can't help her grow."
"Why…?"
"She makes no sense to me. Even though I had said the worst thing a catcher could say to a pitcher, she smiled without change, neither provoked nor alarmed. From what I saw of her pitching yesterday, it should have been something that she would angrily challenge. But do you know what she said?"
Miyuki clenched his fist. "No…"
Chris tilted his face slightly. "'Of course, you can't be an ace without being a pitcher. I'm no pitcher. I can't be a pitcher. If anyone tried to entrust their three years they've spent here to me, they're the stupid ones.'"
As soon as Chris described it, it felt awfully real as it replayed in the depths of Miyuki's head. The tone of her voice, her expression, and her look were all piercing cold, a stark contrast to the girl he once knew. And he thought yesterday's game had finally formed a crack in her thick façade.
'Repairing is totally against the rules,' Miyuki thought. 'This isn't enough. Unless I delve deeper and break her shell from the inside, I will never see what I want.'
"I see, she said that." Miyuki finally replied. "What did you do afterwards?"
"I just handed her some workouts for some core and inner muscles. She may be flexible, but her upper body is weak."
"You two a similar."
"Huh?" Chris showed an astounded expression.
Miyuki stood up from the bench and started to walk back to his dorm without explaining. "Take care of her for me will you Chris-senpai?"
THE NEXT DAY
"…I've…finished," Sawamura said, trying her hardest to hide her heavy breathes. Not only has it been a few months since she has done moderate to vigorous exercise, the menu she was given just happened to be thrice of what she used to do in her 'golden days'. "…this…"
She handed back the scroll back to Chris, who just simply nodded. It was as if he were saying, "You're stronger than you look but not at our level yet."
Of course, this may just be Sawamura over thinking.
"Come back again when you've finished part 2." Chris finally said, handing over another dreaded scroll.
"…..right." Sawamura took the scroll and tried to put on her happiest smile. For some reason or another, Chris seemed to show more obvious signs of annoyance compared to yesterday.
"Yo. Did you learn anything watching us practice?"
As Sawamura walked away from the field once the first string fielding practice was over, Miyuki, leaning against a pole, waved a hand and called out to her. She kept walking past him without stopping.
"Yeah, it's interesting." Sawamura said.
"Wouldn't it be more interesting if you were able to participate Ei-chan?" he said, catching up to Sawamura and matching his pace to hers. "Whoa! What the hell happened to your right hand? There's a finger that looks like a fat, purple sausage."
"I jarred it on a medicine ball earlier."
"….why didn't you get it checked out right away? Are you a masochist? Doesn't it hurt? How did you jar it on a medicine ball anyway? Man, your stupidity knows no bounds."
"Of course it hurts. But now it's been so long I can't hardly feel the pain anymore. I didn't think it was that bad cause it only hurt a bit at the start and this was my first time using a medicine ball anyway! Don't underestimate how shit our baseball equipment were! How was I supposed to know how it works?" Sawamura said in once long breath, increasing her pace. She then stopped and looked back at Miyuki, poking out her pink tongue. "I don't want you calling me stupid! Stupid Kazuya."
"Hahahahaha! Rei-chan's office has some first aid tools."
"I know! That's where I'm going. Quit following me."
"I have business there too, so let's go together."
"You guys don't change do you?" As Sawamura and Miyuki walked through the door, Takashima Rei said crossing her legs.
Miyuki was as usual, grinning broadly while Sawamura had an increasingly displeased expression the longer the catcher retained his grin.
"So, what's the matter?"
"Oh! Rei-chan can I see the scorebook from the other day?"
"Sure it's in the draw. Go fetch it yourself." Takashima gestured before turning to the female. "So, what about you?"
"This." Sawamura lifted her right hand.
"How did you do that?!" Takashima shouted so vigorously she jumped to her feet.
"She jarred it on a medicine ball." Miyuki added with a chuckle.
"A-a medicine ball? How do you do…" Takashima decided not to ask as she noticed Sawamura embarrassingly toying with her hair. She let out a loud sigh and signaled for Sawamura to take a seat. "Quick, take a seat here and I'll tape that up for you."
Sawamura obediently sat down, watching the Assistant Coach fetch the first aid box.
Takashima then knelt down in front of her and started to stabilize her jarred finger by taping it to the next finger. "This should do it for now, but if you still feel some discomfort later on, go to the hospital."
Looking at her right hand, Sawamura was impressed. "Thank you very much." She said and stood up from her chair and headed for the door.
"Wait a moment." Takashima said suddenly and Sawamura stopped, turned around and stood before the door.
"Yes?"
"How is it going with Chris-kun? Are you learning a lot?"
"Mmmm…." Sawamura pondered for a second. "Just the boring repetition practice."
Sensing the indifferent tone in Sawamura's voice, Takashima shook her head gently. "I guess you're not getting along with him as well as I thought."
"There aren't many people who can get along with him now." Miyuki cut in.
"What do you mean by that?"
"I guess I should tell you." Takashima said and had a slightly dejected look on her face. "You see, Chris has a serious shoulder injury."
"Oh…." Sawamura replied, but her soul felt as if it had wondered elsewhere. She felt like prodded. Deep, down inside her at the weakest spot- an old, nostalgic memory she wanted to forget.
"ArghhhARughhhh!"
"Hang in there Eijun!"
"You can do it Ei-chan!"
"Injuries are really troublesome…." Sawamura hung her head. "When you just want to concentrate on getting better, the expectations and hopes actually becomes quite heavy to carry."
Miyuki saw her trembling lips, the lonely smile on her face and her cast-down eyes.
Naturally, he became anxious about it. "Oi, Ei-chan…are you alright?"
"But there's always something standing in your way…."
"That girl, did you see her arm?"
"I saw I saw! She's a pitcher for her baseball team apparently."
"There's no way she'll be able to throw like before, what a pitiful child."
"….you want to play but you can't. You want to reassure others but the smile doesn't form. You want to tell someone everything and let it all out, but you keep it bottled up."
"Come on Ei-chan! Let's play baseball together again!"
"Let's go to Koshien together guys!"
"Ei-chan, you won't play baseball again will you?"
"….all these things give you a massive headache…."
'Why am I still hanging on? It should be easy to just walk away. Why do I have to suffer so much? Why is it so painful to continue with the things I love? Why can't I play baseball?'
"…..really, it would be better to just leave the tea-"
Before Sawamura could finish, she was stopped. Instead, her neck had sounded out.
"Ei-chan, shut up for a bit." Miyuki gripped Sawamura's collar with his right hand and forced her against the wall.
Her breath left her mouth the moment she had received the impact from slamming in the wall.
"…Miyuki-kun…."
Miyuki's fist that strongly gripped onto Sawamura's collar trembled. He took a shallow breath in and then deeply breathed out as if trying to pacify his feelings.
"I don't know what your circumstances are or what you've been through. But I can't forgive what you've just said. You're being annoying. Enough already."
"…."
Sawamura suddenly opened her eyes wide, it had to be the first time in quite a while that Miyuki had spoken that harshly right to her face. However, she was only shocked for a split second and her shoulders started to shake.
She narrowed her eyes and glared at the catcher. "Let go Kazuya."
Her voice came out so despairingly cold that Miyuki had loosened his grip. The small girl took her chance and slapped his hands away from her.
After that, the two just hung their heads and stared at the floor.
The atmosphere was distinctly awkward but at least the fiasco seemed to be over. Takashima Rei finally, spoke up, "Miyuki-kun, why don't go first?"
"Okay." He gave her a short answer and walked briskly to the door, slamming the door closed as he leaved.
Takashima Rei took Sawamura out of the building and helped Sawamura, who still had the same sullen look from before, into the rear seat of a taxi. She entered from the other side.
"Have you settled down a bit?" she said.
Sawamura nodded slightly in silence.
"I see." She eyed the girl next to her. "I thought you were the kind of person who just carried along with the flow."
"Yeah, but everyone has something that sets them off-including Kazuya and me."
"Hmmm…but to mouth off like that at Chris-kun, I still think that still wasn't very you, so to speak."
"Really?" Sawamura posed the question but she knew where the Assistant Coach was going with this.
"Not one person up until now has said something that would infuriate Miyuki-kun to that extent after hearing about Chris-kun's injury. You wanted to say those words-no, all along those words were directed at someone else right?"
"….you're right. Absolutely right." Sawamura let out a big sigh before answering. "I thought Chris-senpai reminded me of someone, except that I couldn't really figure it out. But once I did, everything suddenly became clear. His half-heartedness. Her connection. Anyway, I just wanted to release some pent up frustrations about it. It wasn't really directed at Chris-senpai at all."
"….Chris-kun may not be as similar to you-ahem, I mean 'her' as you say." Takashima smiled in a satisfied way. There was really no need for her to correct herself so obviously though.
"…."
"Don't worry. You'll understand when we get there."
In another ten minutes, they had arrived at the National Training Centre. Takashima took the female inside the building. They walked along a dark corridor and stopped in front of the sole room flooded with light.
Sawamura didn't know what she was expecting, but when Takashima motioned for her to peek in, her inscrutable expression, not revealing the feelings she kept buried inside her, grew unusually stern.
"We're not similar in the least." She finally said and stepped out of the shadows of the hallway and into the training room, showing herself. Then-
"-Why?"
She asked her assigned catcher who was doing shoulder strengthening exercises on the rehabilitation bench. Body and face drenched in sweat. Shoulder wrapped in layers of bandages. Strenuous yet well planned out exercises. Those brown eyes were giving a glow of strength Sawamura had never seen till now.
Chris's father, also acting as his helper for rehabilitation, would have usually yelled at the rude female for suddenly intruding; however, recently, he had learnt to stay silent.
Anyone in the room could see that neither in her eyes nor on her lips, a smile. She was entirely serious.
She continued to walk forward, "Why Chris-senpai? Your eyes can burn with such a fiery determination now so why? Why is the look in your eyes so dead and lifeless-so cold during the day? Why must you act like you've given up?!"
"What do you know about how I feel?" Chris said, void of any particular emotion. "Do you know what it's like to have people expect you to retire, those who expect you to make a come-back? Do you know the immense pressure I carry because of this injury?!"
Chris could see his figure reflected in the transparent, brown eyes of Sawamura, looking back at him with a light glare.
"I know." Sawamura simply stated. "An injury that's capable of ruining all the hard work up until to now-I know that feeling painfully well."
"What…"
A moment after Sawamura saw the confused expressed she expected, she sighed deeply and apologized. "Excuse me."
"Huh?" Takashima Rei uttered out before a she suddenly got secondhand embarrassment at Sawamura's bold action. "W-wait Sawamura-san? Ww-hy are you taking off your shirt! Quickly put it back on!" insisted the fellow female.
But Sawamura ignored the Assistant Coach and completely took off the white jersey, throwing it to the side. Completely unaffected by the presence of men in the room, she started rolling up her sleeve. As the girl finally stopped rolling her sleeves, the mood visibly changed.
"Sawamura-san, that is…." Takashima couldn't hide the tension in her voice. Not just Takashima just but Chris and his father, Animal, all readily realized just what Takashima had been so nervously surprised about.
Hidden underneath her blue shirt, was a deep white surgical scar near the antecubital space. "Just an injury from a match early last year. Apparently it's a miracle that I made a recovery." Sawamura laughed cynically. "Although there is now a limit to how much I can pitch before it becomes a burden on my arm, I can still pitch roughly 100 pitches or so no problem."
"…how long…." Chris said in that small voice of his.
"huh?"
"How long did it take to recover?"
"Five months of little or no excessive movements and close to a year of light exercise. I only started strengthening exercises a few weeks before I entered Seido. Of course, to not worry my parents and friends I may or may not have bribed the doctor to understate the injury."
This kid mentioned so many things that would equate to a day's worth of lecturing but Takashima decided to leave it for now.
"But that's not the problem." Sawamura continued. "I thought you had completely given up on a player because you had the same gaze I did when I gave up. Those terribly cold eyes-I remember now. It was when I decided to completely give up on baseball. And yet, I completely forgot about it when I was deceived into coming here, dragged up in Kazuya's pace and lead around by the Coach and nostalgic feeling of the team. Your injury brought everything back to me-why I quit in the first place. That made me aware of my own actions, how half-hearted I've been, and in doing that, I felt so sick I could puke."
"…."
No one could speak up.
"I thought you were the same as me. I thought we shared that 'half-heartedness'. You, who had given up on recovery yet still unable to make a clean break from the team. And me, who had the resolution to break away but was under the delusion that I can go back." Sawamura said, then sighed. A short sighed that lasted forever. "But I was wrong. You haven't given up. You haven't given up at all. You're completely different from me. However, those eyes. Those eyes I've seen numerous times staring back at me, why?"
Sawamura shook as she bit down hard on her bottom lip. It was rage-at Chris-senpai. "You want me to tell you why? You've decided to cling onto the small chance that's why you're going through all this tough shit but during the day you're just gonna run off and leave the decisions to the crappy speculations of others-are you serious!?"
She shouted.
She was angry. Intensely anger. But tears started flowing down her cheeks as she took a step forward and gripped on Chris's shirt.
"Stick out your check, straighten your back, be proud of yourself, and howl at the enemy! Don't give up don't let go and don't let yourself or others end it for you! Do you want to be sympathized over? No one will know how your injury feels nor can they take over! But stop rejecting your injury whilst working hard to heal it! Stop carelessly accepting what others tell you and decide your own stuff! Don't let it devour the flame in your eyes!"
Sawamura was crying. Without hiding her tears, she yelled at Chris. With a voice so loud Chris wondered if her voice would break. Yet still, Sawamura's fury didn't end.
"Don't try talk yourself away from it! Settle it yourself! You have that choice!"
Her suppressed emotions seemed to resurface. Sawamura clung on to Chris's shirt and pressed her face against his body, as if to hide her tears. "I don't…..there's someone who won't let me! I have a gigantic enemy that will threaten to hurt my friends if I do….but what can I do? I want to play baseball so badly I can't decide! I hate this half-heartedness…..I hate this side of me…."
"…."
"U-uwahhh!"
Sawamura's emotions that she threw at him, resonated with him strongly. His tears seemed to flow on their accord as he watched the small girl who was so cheeky the day before, cry against his chest.
YES I ENDED IT HERE!
ooh ooh ooh finally getting a glimpse into Sawamura's past?
Thanks for reading :) tbc...