A/n: Never ever gonna say something like 'oh I won't have the time to write TyHil because blahblhablha' turns out I will always have the time to write TyHil.
A little bit about this edition, Takao Aoki posted his art for Kai's birthday which has him holding onto a surfboard at a beach which sparked a huge discussion in the fandom. One of the comments about Kai just holding onto it for someone else, and my attempts at getting back into my Diamond No Ace binge inspired this little piece.
Can't believe that after I wrote such a fluffy piece in the previous chapter, this one has TyHil butting heads until the end. Also did I just copy paste Eijun Sawamura's origin story onto Tyson? Maybe so, maybe so.
And final note, 25th chapter! Silver Jubilee you guys, only 75 more to go xD
Tale 25
- x -
The sun was too strong for Kai's liking, it was summer so this was expected, but he usually spent days like these inside in his room just reading or watching a movie, not out on a beach crowded with as many as people as could fit in the limited area. It's not that he didn't enjoy beaches, he loved to take long walks across it during the rainy season or during winters, when it was almost empty and provided him the correct escape from the crowds that gathered inside at the time. He wasn't here on his own accord of course, he was doing a favour, and that favour was getting too heavy to carry in his arms so after wiping a few beads of sweat that were threatening to trickle down his forehead, Kai decided to put down the surfboard he had been holding onto and stretched his arms above him.
Under normal circumstances he would never have agreed to accompany any of his teammates to the beach during summer vacation. However, today he made a special exception, for their only teammate, one year his junior, who didn't live in or around Tokyo and couldn't afford to go all the way back home to Kyushu when they still had practice and training camps all through the holidays with very few days off in between.
Kai was used to this as he had always been a part of powerhouse schools since he began his baseball career in J-league, but for Tyson, who had been scouted by their team's manager when she had been vacationing in Itoshima last year, everything about their team and the intensive training atmosphere was still fairly new. His junior spent a lot of time grumbling about missing home during their training and had managed to annoy even their most patient members with his whining. So when they were finally given a day off, Kai who was not so keen about spending time at home with his dysfunctional family, offered to drive Tyson to a surfing spot near Tokyo which might keep him from eating everyone's head about his hometown for the rest of their summer schedule, killing two birds with one stone.
He scanned his surroundings, hoping to find his teammate, who had asked him to hold onto the board in the first place as he purchased some coolers for them, returning but among all the heads bobbed around in his line of sight, none of them belonged to his teammate.
"Finally! Found you!"
Kai turned at the frustrated shout, positive that it wasn't meant for him, but he found a girl who looked to be around the same age as him, if not younger, standing behind him and glaring daggers at him. He tried to recognise her, and to understand what he had done wrong to receive such a greeting. Her brown hair were tied up in a messy bun with loose strands falling out in every direction, she was just a head shorter than him and was wearing a bright red bikini, which made it even more difficult for him to place her. Whenever he saw his teammates or classmates outside of training and school, in normal clothes, it always took him some time to get used to their appearance. Besides he went to an all boys school, so this girl definitely was not his schoolmate. A fan perhaps, the thought popped up in his head but given the way her wine coloured eyes were wishing death upon him, he quickly let that slide.
"Uh…" He decided that it was best to speak to her and figure out what was wrong but didn't really know where to start. Thankfully for him, she'd already decided to take the lead, probably even before she approached him.
"You almost cracked my skull open with that board, swinging it around like a mad man in the water." She said, with her hands firmly resting on her hips as if she meant business, "If my friend wouldn't have pulled me out of the way at the right time, I would be on my way to the ER right now."
Oh, that made sense, if there was anyone capable of causing injury to anyone but himself while he was having fun, it was Tyson.
"The board isn't mine, I'm holding onto it for someone." Kai clarified, he wanted to add that if she waited with him, she'd be able to give the culprit a piece of her mind but she scoffed at his statement and didn't really give him a chance to say anything else.
"Unbelievable. Don't think I can be fooled just because you have a fairly decent looking face, that may work on others but not me."
Kai had to fight hard to keep the amusement off his face because he knew it would only upset the girl in front of him further, but the idea that he had ever used his face to get out of problematic situations was very funny to him, maybe he ought to try it sometimes. Not that right now was the current time to ponder on such things as the brunette in front of him continued to fidget impatiently, as if waiting for him to justify himself further or apologise for something he clearly didn't do. His luck had decided to take pity on him today, as it was in that moment he noticed a mass of spiky, midnight blue hair bounding towards him, with a bottle of ramune in each hand.
Kai held onto his sigh of relief because knowing Tyson, and looking at the short tempered girl in front of him, he knew things could only get worse from this point on, but he still gestured for the girl to turn her attention towards Tyson, hoping that she'd get what he was trying to convey without having to put it into words.
Even if she hadn't caught onto Kai, the minute Tyson reached them, he handed over a bottle of ramune to Kai and went onto to pick up his surfboard jovially and that was all the hint the brunette needed. Shooting a sincere apologetic look in Kai's direction, she turned her undivided, glaring attention towards Tyson who seemed completely oblivious to her presence, clearing her throat loudly to catch his eye.
Kai had been training with Tyson for a few months now and in the time that had passed he had taught his junior a lot of things, but the thought that he needed to cover 'reading the room' in their baseball training regimen hadn't crossed his mind until now.
The minute Tyson noticed the girl, he ran his eyes up and down her bikini clad figure and let out a low whistle, he leaned in closer towards Kai and muttered under his breath, "I thought we weren't allowed to pick up girls today."
"Ugh, as if! In your dreams!" The girl shouted, having heard Tyson's statement through whatever enhanced hearing skills she possessed. Her face was now red with rage as she scrunched up her nose in disgust at the thought of having to date either of them.
Kai was just a tad bit offended by her reaction but Tyson took it to heart.
"What do you want then?" He shot back, his tone completely devoid of the humour it had held earlier and ears tinged red with embarrassment over being turned down in such a direct manner.
"You almost gave me a severe head injury with the way you were handling your surfboard." She folded her arms across her chest, while the anger hadn't left her face or her eyes yet, her voice was relatively calmer.
"Almost being the keyword. You look absolutely fine." Tyson shrugged off her words and passed Kai a look that said, 'is she being serious right now'.
All Kai wanted to do was tell him that indeed the girl was being serious and he should just offer an apology so they could get out of here, but Tyson couldn't seem to keep his eyes off the girl, as annoyed as he was with her, thus not allowing Kai a chance to communicate with him silently.
"But I could've been seriously hurt. You shouldn't handle equipment like that if you're going to put others in the way of harm with your negligence."
"But you're not hurt, so stop being such a nagging h-"
Kai nudged his teammate hard in the chest, knocking the air out of him, to keep him from finishing the sentence and making things worse than they already were, but of course the girl had understood what he was getting at.
"How dare you, honestly I ought to-"
"Hils, come on we're gonna leave you behind!"
Someone called from a distance and the girl turned around to wave at a group of girls making their way out of the beach area, gesturing for them to wait for her, however the group just went on walking ahead. She whipped her head back towards Tyson, opening her mouth to give him an earful but he beat her to the mark.
"Yeah, Hils." Tyson said, stressing on her name with a gleeful smirk, "Go on now, shoo shoo."
He waved his hands signalling for her to leave and it was a surprise to Kai that despite of how angry the girl looked, his teammate didn't get slapped, even though he definitely deserved it.
Confused between choosing to berate Tyson or following after her retreating group of friends, the brunette let out a frustrated groan and turned away from them, letting Tyson off the hook. Unfortunately, he didn't waste a second in making the most of this respite.
"If that's how she behaves before a severe head injury, then I wouldn't wanna be around to see what happens after."
Kai finally let out the tired sigh he had been holding in, there really was no saving Tyson from himself. The girl had only moved a few steps away from them and at Tyson's words, she came to a halt. For a brief moment, she turned around and looked at him, all the anger and rage now replaced by shock and what Kai could only describe as hurt, the shine in her dark eyes a telltale sign of tears threatening to fall any minute. Kai made to grab Tyson by the neck and force him to apologise, but before either of the two boys could react, the brunette darted away from them at a tremendous speed.
An awkward silence settled between the two of them after the little incident, slowly sipping on the now lukewarm ramune the two made their way back to Kai's car as neither were in the mood to stay on at the beach after what happened. Kai didn't know if it was wrong of him to appreciate the whole fiasco because Tyson was keeping unusually quiet on their ride back and it was impossible for him to not be grateful for that. They'd managed to leave at a good time too, avoiding all the traffic which was bound to fill up the roads once the sun set and the crowds decided to head back home to Tokyo. With the sky stretching ahead in front of him being just the right shade of orange and the absolute silence that enveloped the car, Kai could safely say that this is the kind of mood he needed to set for every single day off from now on.
But good things rarely lasted long, just like Tyson's vow of silence.
"I didn't do anything wrong, you know."
Kai looked at Tyson from the corner of his eye and saw that he was resting his head against the window, pouting at the scenery that passed them by. From the tone of his voice, Kai could tell that his teammate didn't need him to affirm anything, but rather just needed to voice out his thoughts, which Kai allowed him to do without interruption.
"I didn't do anything wrong...but I swear I still feel like I messed up." Tyson let out a defeated sigh, which was quite a rare sight and Kai continued to keep his eyes on the road, hoping that now that his junior had verbalised his feelings, they could go back to the peaceful atmosphere from earlier.
"What name do you think Hils is short for?"
Tyson had other plans obviously and Kai rolled his eyes upwards, there goes his chance at another moment of absolute tranquillity.
He noticed that Tyson had pulled out his phone and was typing something into it, probably searching for the answer that he knew Kai would never give. He did find it remarkable, how easily his teammate would always move on from setbacks. Kai was never able to rest without coming up with a counter strategy and a back-up plan for that strategy, every time they lost a match whereas Tyson would vent out his frustration by apologising to everyone for all the mistakes he made on the day or just simply crying it out, and the next minute he'd be as happy as he could get, already talking about all the new things he would try in their next match. So it was not much of a surprise to see him apply the same logic in his personal life.
"Hilary. That's what the internet says at least." Tyson said, grinning to himself for being able to solve the mystery so quickly.
"So what's next?" Kai finally spoke up, a small smirk settled on his lips, "After gawking at her like a registered sex offender, do you plan on stalking her too?"
"Hey, I wasn't that bad!" Tyson defended himself, but even without looking in his direction, Kai could tell that his ears were red from embarrassment, "And don't be ridiculous, Kai. I would never stalk someone. That's Max's job, everyone knows that."
Kai shook his head, chuckling lightly, the whole point of this trip had been so that Tyson could finally get out of the field, the dorms and the school, and have some time to just be himself outside of the world of baseball. If the day had ended on a bad note for him then surely Kai would've been left with a sour taste in his mouth too, so he was glad that despite the unexpected mishap, the time that he had to spend shielding himself from the sun and all the incessant chatter that Tyson unleashed on him during the car rides to and fro, he could still head back home with his heart and mind somewhat at peace.
x
Their intensive summer training camp had reached it's final day, after a few consecutive friendly and practice matches, the last day was comprised of reflecting on the plays and discussing improvements, in other words Kai's favourite part. After today, they would get the weekend off before classes resumed on Monday. Their school was one of the biggest names in baseball all over Japan and they had over 50 members in their club including the ones who were on the bench, and the ones who made up the two teams that participated in matches. Kai was the Captain of the first string, that is the representative team, which is why he was allowed to sit in for the strategic discussions between the head and assistant coaches about member placements in both the first and second string teams.
It wasn't always a fruitful discussion with the opinions of the coaches always clashing, so he'd take that time to keep a close watch on what his teammates were doing. Today he was concerned because some members hadn't performed well yesterday, even if they had somehow managed to win the match, and things like these always led to the players overexerting themselves instead of taking the time to sit back and think about the areas they needed to work on. Most of his teammates were practicing in pairs or sitting around the field and talking with their friends. Reassured by not seeing anything out of the ordinary, Kai was about to tune back into the discussion when he noticed Tyson walking away from the field towards the mesh boundary surrounding the field and Max following suit happily.
His eyes quickly followed the path they were taking and he had to squint to make out just who it was they were heading towards. Behind the mesh, their manager, Judy Mizuhara seemed to be chatting with a man, who from his attire and the notepad open in his hand, looked like a reporter. Standing just a little bit farther away from them was a girl, with a mass of curly brown hair that seemed oddly familiar.
Kai stood up abruptly, apologising to all the coaches, he excused himself from the discussion and then ran across the field to catch up with Tyson and Max. By the time he reached them, it was too late and Tyson had already taken the next step.
"Hey Hils! Didn't expect to see you here."
Until Tyson had called out to her, the brunette had been patiently watching Judy and the man converse, but now she turned her attention towards the field, eyeing Tyson with a look of utter annoyance, clearly unhappy with the tone of familiarity he had taken with her.
Max was taken aback by how upset the girl looked that he lingered a few steps behind Tyson and when Kai appeared next to him, the blond just shrugged as if to say, 'I tried to stop him but oh well' and Kai couldn't help but feel uneasy as he watched the interaction unfold in front of him.
"My name is Hilary Tachibana. And that would be Tachibana for you."
"Now, now, no need to be so uptight with me. We're friends right?"
Someone had once told Kai that not giving up should be Tyson's middle name and right now he could see exactly what they had meant.
"Friends? We've met once!" Hilary looked aghast at his suggestion, "And your behaviour was anything but friendly at the time, Kinomiya."
"Woah, you know my name?"
At his surprise, Hilary pulled out a notebook from her uniform blazer's breast pocket and started to read from it, "Tyson Kinomiya, left-handed pitcher, promoted to first string during last year's Spring Koshien, specialises in 2-seam and Split Finger fastballs, average batting skills, very weak defensive skills." She paused to catch her breath, and saw that Tyson's jaw was hanging open, which made a satisfied smirk appear on her face. Her eyes fell on Kai and Max, so she turned a few pages of her notebook and began to read again, "Max Mizuhara, third baseman, also promoted to first string during-"
"You're a sports writer?" Kai decided to interrupt her, having already figured out the reason why she was here.
"Not yet. Currently, I'm interning with my father." She nodded her head towards the man who was speaking to Judy, after which she faced Tyson with a sharp look and asked without hesitation, "And from what I saw yesterday, can you afford to stand here and waste time like this? Or are they not planning to let you play on the first string for the Fall Tournament?"
It was like she had dropped a brick on Tyson's head, Kai gritted his teeth and he heard Max gasp in shock over how easily she had managed to talk about the pitcher's performance from yesterday.
Tyson had attempted to incorporate a new form of pitching, which was different from his usual style on their coach's request, but because he had only learned this style a week ago, it was still very foreign to him and he hadn't managed to get a single strike. The whole team was fully aware that this was an unavoidable outcome of the risk their coach had taken so nobody had held this against Tyson, but Kai could easily tell that his junior had taken this failure to heart and had been consistently worried about him.
Tyson's whole face had turned to stone at the brunette's question and Kai fearing that his hot temper would spill out any second, decided to take matters in his own hands. He stepped forward and grabbed Tyson's arm tightly, the latter reacted slower than he usually would, but eventually he met Kai's eyes.
Kai didn't need to speak out loud for Tyson to understand him.
They'd been playing as a battery for months now and he always just needed to exchange a simple look to make Tyson understand what kind of a play there were supposed to aim for. Kai didn't need to explain to him how much bad publicity their team would encounter by a single bad-mouthing article from this girl, he didn't need to explain that their team's image in the community was just as important for their success as their skills. Kai didn't need to tell Tyson that today, in this moment, he needed to back down.
Just a slight nod of his head in the direction of their field was enough.
Tyson turned his back to the brunette without a word and Kai loosened his grip on his junior's arm.
Hilary folded her arms across her chest proudly, pleased with herself for hurting Tyson's feelings just like he had hurt hers a week or two ago. The two were now even and Kai knew the right thing to do here was to let things slide this way, but somehow his protective pride towards his teammates easily won over his need to be sensible.
"Thank you for your support." He said, locking eyes with the brunette fiercely he added, "However, people who have little understanding of what it's like to stand in the dead centre of that field, should refrain from making unnecessary remarks about the ones who do."
He didn't wait around to see what the girl had to say to that and made his way towards the field, dragging both Tyson and Max along with him.
For the rest of the day, Kai found his eyes wandering towards Tyson to make sure that he hadn't been affected by Tachibana's words, and most of the time his junior did look like himself, goofing around with his roommates, gulping down extras over dinner, challenging his seniors to video game marathons after bathing. It wasn't until the next morning, when Kai woke up earlier than his usual schedule and decided to take a stroll around the campus instead of heading back to sleep, that he saw Tyson had indeed been very much affected by her words.
When he passed by the gym, he noticed that the light was on, assuming that the guy on duty the previous night had just forgotten to turn them off, he peeked inside and was surprised to find Tyson practicing his new pitch by himself in one of the batting cages.
Kai wondered if he should call out to him, ask him if he wanted Kai to catch for him, but when he saw the look of sheer determination on Tyson's face, his dark eyes burning with a fire that he had never seen in them before, Kai decided to quietly walk out of the gym. A small smile graced his lips as he continued his early morning stroll, if that was the effect Hilary Tachibana's words had on Tyson, then he thought it wouldn't be too bad to have her give his junior a wake up call every now and then.
- x -
A/n: And thus begins the long tradition of Hilary watching all of Tyson's matches and learning all bout him as an athlete, which she later on uses to write a novel series and they live happily ever after from the royalties lol.
Even in my personal opinion, this is quite an interesting AU, if you think it can do with another chapter lemme know! Thank you for reading, until next time.
