Chapter Text
The walls of the hospital are cold, sterile. Anxious bodies scurry around him, faces pallid from the harsh fluorescent lighting. Moving down the hallway, Furuya feels his chest constrict. His breaths come out faster, and the walls around him seem to be getting closer and closer. The nurse pushing him along is oblivious to his panic—Furuya would rather keep it that way. He closes his eyes, tightens his grip on his armrest, and starts counting sheep. He gets to twelve sheep—actually, they morphed into polar bears at some point—when a cold gust of wind hits him in the face. In the time it takes Furuya to orient himself, the nurse has already moved away from him. He hears her shuffling around with something. Finally, he opens his eyes, squinting at the bright sunlight.
“Here you go, Furuya-san,” she says after a few moments. He turns his head and sees her holding a pair of crutches in one hand, the other stretched out towards him.
Furuya blinks. He looks down at his leg, at the white cast starting at his right ankle and crawling up to his knee. He looks up at the car parked by the exit he was just wheeled out of. The car is a large, bright red SUV with none other than Miyuki Kazuya in the front seat. Miyuki grins when Furuya spots him, flicking him a two-finger salute, before stepping out of the car.
“Furuya-san,” the nurse repeats gently, breaking him out of his stupor.
“Sorry,” Furuya mumbles. He rests his hand on the nurse’s outstretched arm and tries to get up, but he’s obviously too heavy for the lone woman.
“I’ve got it,” he hears Miyuki say, emerging from around the car and quickly grabbing Furuya’s arm, stopping him from toppling over. He smiles suavely at the nurse, brushing off her frantic apologies. She’s blushing now, Furuya notes.
Miyuki leans down, letting Furuya drape his arm across his shoulder, and hauls him up. He helps Furuya into the passenger seat, grabbing the crutches from the nurse and moving them securely into the trunk of the car. From the passenger seat window, Furuya watches the nurse give both of them a quick nod, fold up the wheelchair and push it back into the hospital, face flaming red the entire time.
The drive starts off quiet. There’s music playing through the tinny speakers. It doesn’t sound like anything Miyuki would ever willingly listen to. It’s probably Kuramochi’s CD. The weather outside is wonderful—bright, sunny, warm. They drive past fields of corn and grass. Furuya finds himself counting the cows he drives past. He gets to thirty-nine before Miyuki finally turns the music off.
“This isn’t your car,” Furuya says, after a lengthy silence.
“It’s a rental,” Miyuki hums, tapping his fingers on the wheel.
“Did something happen to your car?” Forty, forty-one, forty-two, forty-three.
“Nope. My car’s too small. You wouldn’t be able to stretch your—” he pauses, vaguely gesturing towards Furuya’s leg.
“My broken leg.” Forty-four, forty-five, forty-six.
“Your broken leg,” Miyuki hums in agreement. “Which will heal, if you rest.”
“It might not,” Furuya points out.
“But it might.” Miyuki says immediately. “You won’t know until you actually rest. Which you are historically bad at.”
“You’ve played through injuries before too.” Furuya feels defensive now, under scrutiny in a way he hasn’t felt since middle school. It’s unpleasant.
“Yes, in high school. Not as an adult, with—” Miyuki doesn’t yell or raise his voice—he never does. But Furuya can sense the frustration in his voice. He feels tired, suddenly.
“Where are you taking me, anyway?” Furuya asks, partly to change the subject, and partly because he is genuinely curious.
“A farm,” Miyuki says, without elaborating any further. “With cows. And sheep.”
Furuya blinks. “What about chickens?”
“Yes, those too.” Miyuki chuckles. “A friend—his family owns a farm in the outskirts of Nagano. It’ll be a good place to recover. They can be discreet, and it’s pretty remote, so you won’t have press bothering you.”
“Sounds nice.” Furuya closes his eyes, resting his forehead against the window. “Nice and quiet.”
Miyuki snorts. “It, uh, probably won’t be that quiet. The entire family is a little crazy honestly.”
That sounds a little alarming to Furuya. “So, you’re leaving me at a remote farm managed by a crazy family?”
“Yes. But they have chickens.”
Furuya can’t help but huff at that, breath puffing up the window he’s still pressed against. “Senpai, how did you become friends with someone like this?”
Miyuki stops tapping his finger against the wheel, glancing at Furuya from the corner of his eye. “He visited Seidou once. Got a scholarship to attend. Ended up deciding against it.” A moment of silence. “He’s a pitcher too, you know. A southpaw.”
Furuya looks back at Miyuki. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why did he decide against it?”
Miyuki shrugs casually. But there’s a furrow in his eyebrow that gives away some level of annoyance—or maybe regret? “Something about how he didn’t want to leave his friends or whatever.”
"Was he good?”
“He had potential.” Miyuki tilts his head in thought. “In another world, you might have been rivals.”
Furuya considers this. Rivals, he thinks. “Rivals,” he says out loud, feeling the weight of the word against his mouth. It sounds foreign, but pleasant. Seidou had been a fantastic team for him, allowing him to flourish and blossom in every way. But he hadn’t really had a proper rival—someone to keep him on his toes, to keep him competing for the ace number, year after year. “Rivals,” he mumbles again.
“The drive is another few hours,” Miyuki says. “You should get some sleep while you can.”
Furuya nods and closes his eyes. It doesn’t take long for sleep to overcome him.
***
Furuya dreams. He’s on the Koshien mound. It’s the seventh inning. The opposing team is at two outs. Hongou Masamune stands in front of him, a bat clutched in his hands, an angry scowl adorning his face. He’s at two strikes, two balls, and one foul. The air is tense around Furuya—shouts and screams from the audience humming in the background. He sees movement from the dugout, sees Kataoka raise his hand to signal a pitcher change. Furuya feels cold, clammy.
From behind Kataoka, emerges his replacement—a giant chicken in an ace jersey. It waddles over to the mound, holding out its baseball mitt adorned wing. The chicken clucks at him. “It’s time for the real ace to take over, Furuya.” It clucks again, menacingly.
Furuya feels sweat pooling against his collarbone, feels the thrum of the crowd urging him to get off the mound, feels them cheering on the chicken. Black spots take over his vision. His legs give way.
He blacks out.
***
Furuya wakes up abruptly. When he comes to, he notices Miyuki’s hand on his shoulder, a mildly concerned look plastered across his face. Furuya shrugs him off, shifting to fix his absurdly slouched posture.
“Why are we stopped?” he asks, feeling disoriented.
“Because we’re here.” Miyuki hesitates before retracting his hand. “You okay? You were mumbling some weird stuff just now.”
The remnants of Furuya’s dream—nightmare?—trickle back to him. “What was I saying?” he asks, mildly alarmed.
“Something about fried chicken,” Miyuki says, eyebrows raised. “You sounded pretty distressed though.”
A rush of relief passes through him. At least he hadn’t given away anything too incriminating. “Miyuki-senpai,” he mumbles. “I think I make a better pitcher than a chicken.”
“Furuya,” Miyuki leans forward, tone suddenly serious. “I think your dose of pain meds might be too high. Should I call your doctor?”
Furuya rolls his eyes, leaning back against the headrest and letting out an enormous sigh.
Miyuki stares at him for a second before shrugging.
Getting out of the car is a slightly awkward process for Furuya. He hobbles out, resting his weight on his good leg until Miyuki grabs his crutches from the trunk. Even with the crutches, the albeit-brief walk up to the home is tricky. The dirt below his feet is damp from the recent rain. It makes his crutches sink just a little further than he’d expect. It’s an unsteady walk to the front door, but Miyuki keeps a firm grip on his elbow to steady him when needed.
Miyuki rings the doorbell when they arrive and steps back quickly. There’s an unintelligible shout from within the house and some ten odd seconds later, the door bursts open to reveal a woman dressed in overalls, wielding an aggressively green duster in her hand.
“Oh!” She looks genuinely shocked to see them. “You’re early.”
“Traffic was pretty light on the way over. I hope we aren’t intruding, Nana-san.” Miyuki laughs, easy, casual.
“Oh, of course not,” the woman is quick to step aside and usher them in. “You will have to wait a little, since I haven’t finished cleaning, but I am almost done! I just have the kitchen to finish up.” She turns to Furuya then. “And you must be Furuya Satoru, yes? I’m Sawamura Nana!”
“Yes ma’am.” Furuya bows his head. “Thank you so much for having me.”
“Oh, what a polite young man. Maybe you can teach my son some manners while you’re here,” she laughs thumping Furuya on the back with a surprising amount of strength for someone her size.
He stumbles, kept stable only by Miyuki’s hand, which hasn’t left his elbow since they got out of the car. A brief wave of dizziness hits him. “Ngh,” he says, closing his eyes, resting his forehead on Miyuki’s shoulder.
Behind him, he hears Nana start apologizing.
“He’s just tired,” Miyuki explains, in between consoling the now-distressed woman. “All those post-surgery pain meds are rushing through his system, you know.”
Nana coos understandingly. “Oh sweetheart, of course. Listen,” she says, resting her hand on Furuya’s back, this time gentle as a feather. “How about you go sleep? Miyuki and I can help you settle in. My son Eijun will be staying with you for a while. He should be back in a few hours and he can show you around then.”
Furuya nods. Sleep sounds pretty good to him right now. He can’t really focus on much else. The last thing he remembers is Miyuki lugging him over to a bed. Once again, he drifts off to sleep.
***
Furuya wakes up from his second nap that day to a loud, echoing crash. He sits up in alarm. There’s more clattering coming from outside his door—it sounds like it might be from the kitchen. It takes Furuya a moment to locate his crutches, and another to get himself up and walking. The door to his room opens right into the common areas, so it doesn’t take him too long to spot the lone figure standing in the kitchen. A mop of soft, fluffy brown hair sits atop his head. He’s tilted away from Furuya, but the side of his face is just visible enough for him to make out the downward turn of his mouth. He’s dressed simply—a white shirt (drenched with sweat around his neck, Furuya notes) and a pair of dark blue jeans. No shoes, but he still has a pair of mismatched socks on. One sock is a plain black, and the other one is neon pink with red hearts scattered all over.
I should say something, Furuya thinks. He goes to take a step forward, but his left crutch smacks against a vase sitting on the floor, causing it to come down in a crash. He grimaces. Nothing looks broken though, which is a point of relief.
The man in the kitchen, however, whips his head around. Furuya looks up, locks eyes with him, and for a moment, all he sees is gold—
Furuya has known that he prefers men for… a while now, actually. It’s just historically speaking he tended to have a type. At least, that’s what Haruichi always said. If you asked Furuya, he would say there was no type, just people who he connected with based on mutual interests. If you asked Haruichi, or even his history of crushes slash conquests, they would tell you that Furuya’s type was a little mean-looking, a little stupid, and a lot grumpy. It started with Nakata, a middle-school classmate Furuya hadn’t realized he’d ever had feelings for until relatively recently. Then, there was his long-standing crush on Miyuki, who wasn’t exactly mean-looking, but he could be a little unpleasant occasionally, which was still a similar concept. There was also his brief crush on Kuramochi-senpai during his second year at Seidou, which would be a secret Furuya would be taking to his grave, especially now that Miyuki and Kuramochi were together.
Lastly, of course, there was Hongou Masamune, who had cornered him after their last game against each other during their third years. In the aftermath of their eleven-inning match, Hongou had dragged Furuya off to an isolated bathroom, pressed him against the cold tile, and kissed him so hard it left him sore.
So, yes, maybe Furuya could admit that he had a type. But this man in front of him—he is not his type by any means. Nonetheless, he’s transfixed with the brightness of his eyes, by his smooth tan skin and freckle covered face. The man’s expression morphs from confusion to surprise, before he bursts into a grin so big, it crinkles the corner of his eyes.
“Oh,” he says. “You must be Furuya!”
This must be Nana-san’s son, Furuya realizes. Sawamura Eijun, his mind supplies usefully.
“Yes,” Furuya says, when he realizes that the silence has stretched on for a sufficiently awkward amount of time. “That’s me. You’re Nana-san’s son right? Eijun?” Briefly, he feels embarrassed at using his first name. It feels intimate, yet comfortable in his mouth.
“Yes, that is me!” His grin widens even further. “I got you something, by the way!”
“You did?” Furuya’s startled. After all, they had literally just met. “Thank you.”
Furuya walks over to the kitchen counter Sawamura’s standing by. Sawamura is holding a small glass in his hand, filled half-way with what looks like chocolate milk.
“It’s a special drink, made with farm-fresh ingredients!” Sawamura beams at him, holding the glass in his direction.
“That sounds wonderful,” he says, accepting the glass from Sawamura’s hand. He lifts it to his mouth and takes a small sip. The world slows down around him, narrowing down to just the taste spreading throughout his mouth.
“What.” Furuya’s fighting to keep the confusion from showing on his face. “Is this.”
“It’s pilk!” Sawamura has his hands on his hips. He’s still grinning, looking bright and confident.
“What.” Furuya puts the glass back on the counter. “Is pilk.”
“Huh?” Sawamura tilts his head now, a pout forming at his lips. “It’s Pepsi and milk, of course.”
What.
“You know,” Sawamura’s waving his hands around enthusiastically now. “Miyuki Kazuya told me this was your favorite drink! You drink this before every game!”
“Uh,” Furuya says slowly. “I think Miyuki-senpai might have been messing with you.”
“What! No way,” Sawamura scoffs. “If he was messing with me, wouldn’t he tell me to make something gross? I tried some earlier and it was delicious! Especially when it’s made with farm-fresh milk!” He seems really hung up on the farm-fresh part.
Oh god, Furuya thinks. He’s stupid.
“Okay.” Furuya slowly pushes the glass away from him.
Sawamura stares at him. Then he stares at the glass. Then he looks back at Furuya. “You didn’t like the pilk.”
“Sorry.”
A look passes through Sawamura’s eyes. For a brief second, it looks like he’s about to cry, which sends a rush of panic running through Furuya.
But then he slams his hand down on the counter. “That damn tanuki! Why would he do something like this?” Sawamura hunches over, burying his face into his hands.
“I appreciate the sentiment,” Furuya says, trying to be comforting. He’s not exactly lying either.
“Okay,” Sawamura says. Pauses. “OKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!”
Furuya blinks.
Sawamura turns to him. “MY NAME IS SAWAMURA EIJUN.”
“Yes? I know?”
“I LIVE HERE.”
“Yes. I know.”
Sawamura winks at him. Twice.
“I’m sorry,” Furuya says. “I think I missed something.”
“I am,” Sawamura talks without moving his mouth. Well, he tries to, but he doesn’t do a very good job. “Restarting. We’re going back. This is our first meeting, sans pilk.”
Furuya nods, hesitant. “Ok. Nice to meet you. I’m Furuya Satoru.”
“Great. Fantastic.” Sawamura looks pleased. “That went much better. Okay!” Sawamura claps his hand together and relaxes. “Okay. So! I’ll be living with you for the next couple of months. Long story, but normally I have a room in the main house, y’know? But there’s a leak in the roof that’s like right above my bed and also there’s a draft because of it? I think. It might take a bit to get fixed, so I’ll be here in the meantime, which works out since I’ll also be taking care of you!”
That surprises Furuya. “Taking care of me?”
“Yeah!” Sawamura nods enthusiastically. “Miyuki Kazuya sent me all of your doctor’s orders so. We’ll be working through your recovery together!”
“Thank you. This is a lot of work for someone you barely know, isn’t it?” Furuya says cautiously, trying to avoid any offense.
“Huh? I mean I guess, but I am getting paid for this.” Sawamura tilts his head. “Miyuki Kazuya didn’t tell you?”
The confusion on Furuya’s face must be apparent, since Sawamura continues without needing further prompting. “Uh, well he paid rent for this place in advance. And I work part-time with the physical therapist in town so.” He shrugs. “I might not be as great as a personal nurse, but Miyuki Kazuya said something about needing to be discreet. Why is that anyway? Are you a criminal?”
I’m getting whiplash talking to him, Furuya thinks.
Sawamura peers at him and squints. “Are you on the run?”
Where do I start with this? “Miyuki-senpai told me you play baseball?”
“Huh? Yes, I love baseball. Are you changing the topic? Wait, are you dangerous?”
“I… no? I’m not a criminal? I play for the Giants? I’m the ace?”
Sawamura’s face flashes through a multitude of emotions, before settling on… something Furuya has no idea how to interpret. “Wait, did you say ace?”
“Yes. How do love baseball, but not know…” Furuya falters, unsure how to finish the sentence without sounding like he’s bragging.
Sawamura shrugs. “I love playing baseball. Watching it is boring. Also, I prefer the Fighters. Anyway, if you’re a pitcher, you have to show me your stuff. Oh,” he frowns. “You can’t do anything too strenuous during recovery though. Hm… maybe in a couple months. We’ll see!”
“Miyuki-senpai mentioned you were a pitcher too, right? A southpaw?” He asks, instinctively.
“Yeah!” Eijun brightens. “I was the ace of my middle school team, but my high school didn’t have a team so.” He shrugs. “My friends—we still play from time-to-time. There’s some kids who play in one of the corn fields out there too. We help them out sometimes. Maybe we’ll host a game while you’re here…” Eijun mumbles to himself.
“Maybe,” Furuya says, ignoring the gnawing anxiety in the back of his mind. “Um, it was good to meet you. I think I’m going to head back to—” he gestures towards his room.
“Oh, sure, ok! I have some chores I have to finish up too so. I’ll see you tomorrow!”
Back in his room, Furuya opens his bags and digs out an outfit more comfortable than the one he was currently in. He splashes his face with cold water before getting back into bed, ignoring the strange aching sensation he felt when Sawamura was talking about baseball. He pushes the feeling away, leaving it for another time, and lets sleep overcome him again.