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Eijun
“Who’s in charge of the cake!” Kuramochi yelled over the chaos that was their team meeting.
“We don’t know!” Maezono shouted.
Kuramochi banged his head three times on the table before looking up. “Please tell me, someone remembered to get decorations!”
Silence.
Eijun wanted to shout something positive but he couldn’t. He wasn’t put in charge of anything. One of the reasons being that he just came out of the yips and he was still struggling when Kuramochi had dragged everyone a month ago to assign them roles. The other reason being that no one trusted him to not forget.
Yet it seems he’s the only one that remembered the catcher's upcoming birthday.
For the birthday of their starting catcher, Eijun had to put a lot of effort into his gift. He knew Miyuki didn’t like sweets so baking, like he usually would for his friends back home, was out of the question. Any baseball equipment was mostly out because Seido could provide it for him. But there wasn’t much Miyuki liked outside of baseball.
Kuramochi glanced at Eijun, who had a wrapped gift in his lap. “Please tell me that someone besides Bakamura remembered to get him a gift.”
Silence.
The shortstop banged his head down on the table again.
“Didn’t you get him something, Mochi-senpai?” Eijun asked loudly, it wasn’t hard to hear with the newfound silence of the room.
“Yeah!” Kuramochi shouted, like it was obvious. “But we’re missing everything else for the surprise party! And! Everyone was meant to get some sort of gift for him but it was just you and me!”
Eijun went to reply when the doors to the cafeteria suddenly opened.
“We heard our kohais could use some help!”
“Spitz-senpai!” Eijun shouted when he heard the male.
“Don’t call me spitz!” The loudmouth shouted, despite it being something Eijun calls him all the time.
“What are you guys doing here?” Kuramochi asked, forehead still red from the aggravated banging on the table he did.
“We heard that our kohais seemed to be struggling with party planning for our resident jerk catcher,” Ryousuke said as he strolled to the front confidently. “We’re here to set everything in order.”
“Wha-”
“Now then,” Ryousuke said, ignoring the words that were coming out of his partner’s mouth. Tetsu and Chris stood close behind him, with obvious support of the plan coming out of his mouth. Jun was in the front with a scowl on his face while Masuko and Tanba stayed further back. “We are going to be assigning everyone jobs. His birthday is in two days so we expect everyone to buy what they were put in charge of and a birthday gift today or tomorrow. Go in groups if necessary.
"Youichi, you’re on balloon duty. Nori, streamers. Haruichi, party hats. Maezono, candles. Furuya, table cloth. Sawamura, cake. Understood?” Everyone nodded as they felt shivers go down their backs from Ryousuke’s smile. “Good.”
“What will you all be doing?” Maezono asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Jun questioned. “Our job was setting everything straight since you all devolved into chaos.”
“We already got him gifts,” Tetsu said with a nod.
“It’s probably obvious but the theme will be baseball,” Chris said. “It is the one thing that brought everyone here, right?”
No one could deny that.
“We’ll be leaving now,” Ryousuke said as he waved goodbye to them all.
“Uga!”
Once the soon to be graduated group left the cafeteria, everyone was silent.
“Shopping tomorrow?” Kuramochi asked.
Everyone nodded.
———
Kazuya
The team had been acting strange for the past couple of days.
The fact that the campus had been quiet with none of the first string out playing on the field and no one bothering him was strange. Kuramochi wasn’t nearby with his loud cackling. Furuya and Sawamura weren’t bothering Kazuya and asking him to catch for them.
Not even Nori or Maezono were nearby. Kazuya couldn’t even see any bright pink Kominato hair either.
Overall, the whole night was strange. Especially when he saw Kuramochi three hours later with Sawamura being as loud as usual in the batting cages. But Kazuya had been there half an hour ago and hadn’t seen them.
The next morning was odd too.
Kuramochi, as usual, stuck by Kazuya throughout the day - mostly due to them having baseball together, being in the same class, and eating lunch at the same table. But it seemed like the others stayed nearby a lot more.
Most days, the first years ate meals at their own table next to the second years. Today, however, Sawamura sat beside Kazuya, leaving him between the two loudest roommates in existence. Furuya and little Kominato sat across from the loud pitcher with Nori and Maezono in front of Kuramochi and Kazuya.
Sawamura didn’t bicker as much with Kazuya like he normally would. The catcher couldn’t think of anything he did that could have possibly angered the brunette - especially when the pitcher was sitting next to him and didn’t mind the arm around his shoulder.
For the first time in the history of this year, neither Furuya nor Sawamura had asked Kazuya to catch for them. He doesn’t mind it but, at the same time, it became a normal occurrence. Something Kazuya could rely on being a constant in his life.
Routine, something he valued. Kazuya would wake up. Go to practice. Get asked to catch. Laugh it off. Go to class. Eat lunch. Get asked to catch. Go to class. Go to practice. Get asked to catch. Go to dinner. Get asked to catch. Do extra practice. Get asked to catch. Take a bath. Review games. Go to bed.
Maybe he’s over thinking it. Everyone has days they want to rest.
No. Not everyone. His pitchers never want to rest. They have that insatiable drive and hunger to improve and pitch on the mound to his mitt. They never wanted to rest.
During night practice, Kazuya was hitting off the tee with Kuramochi when he finally broke.
“What’s with everyone?” He asked.
Kuramochi’s eyes widened as he paused his swing to look at Kazuya. “What do you mean?”
“Everyone’s acting strange today,” Kazuya said, looking off to the side to double check that no one was around them. “Sawamura and Furuya haven’t asked me to catch for them. The first year trio sat with us for all the meals today. And you haven’t dragged me into any chokeholds today.”
Kuramochi cracked his knuckles with a grin, “I can do that right now.”
Kazuya smiled nervously, his eyes closing slightly, “Wow, wow, wow. I wasn’t complaining. Just pointing it out.”
Kuramochi sighed, “You’ll see later.”
Kazuya went to ask what Kuramochi meant when Nori came in to tell them that Katoaka-kantoku was ending practice and they needed to meet up for the after practice talk, which usually lasted ten minutes on this team. Thankfully. Kazuya still remembered the half hour long post-practice speeches his old coach used to give. It was never ending.
The team ended up in the cafeteria for dinner after bathing, which was as chaotic as one could expect from a team of teenage boys.
“Miyuki Kazuya!” Sawamura yelled.
Kazuya paused to look at the loud pitcher. “What?”
The boy looked at Kuramochi, who nodded, before turning back to Kazuya. The catcher could only watch the behavior in confusion before the pitcher continued speaking. “I have a question!”
Kazuya sighed before walking to the first year, who was in the back, while the others went inside the cafeteria. “What is it?”
“Uh, well, I was wondering if-”
“I’m not going to catch for you this late at night.”
“What!” The first year shouted. “I wasn’t even asking you that, stupid tanuki!”
Kazuya waved him off with a roll of his eyes. “Sorry, sorry. What did you want to ask?”
“Hmph. I was going to ask if we could go over game-calling again tonight,” Sawamura said, pouting slightly.
“Hm, sure,” Kazuya said as he shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
“Really!” If Sawamura had a tail, Kazuya was sure it would be wagging.
“Yeah. Now come on, I’m hungry.”
“Yeah!” The pitcher shouted with a bright smile. “Let’s go!”
Kazuya opened the door, Sawamura not far behind him, before freezing at the yelled, “SURPRISE!” from the first string players inside. He didn’t see any second string or no-string players in there. Instead, it was only the current and recently retired first string players occupying the room.
There were baseball streamers around the cafeteria with balloons that were covered in baseball floating around. The tables had baseball themed table cloth while the wall directly in front of the door had a huge sign, hand painted if Kazuya had to guess, that read, “Happy Birthday, Miyuki Kazuya! From Seido!”
“Kyahaha! Look at his face!” Kuramochi laughed loudly.
“Hahaha! I know right!” Jun laughed along, both loud mouths leaning on each other.
“You- what- why- huh,” Kazuya sputtered out as he looked around the room.
“What!” Sawamura shouted from behind him. “Don’t tell me you forgot!”
“It’s your birthday, dumbass!” The shortstop, Kazuya calls his best friend, yelled from in front of him.
“Huh?” He took out his phone to check the date before nodding in shock, “That is it…”
“Hahaha!” Sawamura yelled. “We shocked him good! Now, come on! Cake time!”
Ryousuke nodded, “Presents after.”
The group went to the biggest table with a cake in the middle. It had a baseball in the top right corner with a catchers mitt in the bottom left. In the center, there were two candles. One read ‘1’ and the other ‘7’.
Sawamura, who had somehow been trusted with the match, lit the candles before the group started their loud, chaotic version of a happy birthday song. On video. It was awful, Kazuya swore he was going deaf.
Kuramochi, who had protested about Sawamura being trusted with deadly objects, was the one to cut the cake for everyone to have a slice.
“Holy shit!” Jun yelled after taking a bite. “Where’d you get this, Sawamura?”
“Huh?” The first year questioned with a furrow of his brows. “It isn’t bad, is it?” He took a bite out of his slice. “It tastes fine to me, Beard-senpai!”
“Sawamura,” Chris interrupts, “I think he means that the cake tastes really good.
Kazuya raised an eyebrow before taking a bite out of the dessert. He wasn’t a big sweets fan but he could admit that the vanilla cake was really good. It’s a good thing it wasn’t chocolate, neither his father nor Kazuya himself were ever big chocolate cake fans. “He’s right,” Kazuya added with a slight nod. Everyone’s eyes widened, having learned of his usual disliking towards sweets, before taking bites themselves and nodding in agreement (or in Jun’s and Kuramochi’s cases, shouting them).
“Where’d you get it, Eijun-kun?” Little Kominato asked.
“Oh, uh,” Sawamura said, his cheeks slightly red, with a slightly nervous smile, “I baked it.”
What?
“What!” Kuramochi shouted. “Since when could you bake!”
“Uh, I started when I was eight years old, I think?” Sawamura questioned with a slight tilt of his head, not unlike a dog.
“You-!” Kuramochi pulled the younger one into one of his wrestling moves, easily displaying Sawamura’s unusual flexibility.
“Mercy, Mochi-senpai! Mercy!”
So dessert also continued chaotic, as usual.
Once everyone had finished eating, Masuko was the one to speak again, “Presents?”
This earned rounds of cheers as the group migrated to the table with all the gifts on it.
Most were simple things - baseball cards, a new eye mask, new bat, a blanket, money, and a few more random things.
The last present that he grabbed was a small bag - which was from Sawamura since he opened everyone else's already.
“Oh? Let’s see what the resident loud mouth got,” Kuramochi said with a snicker.
“Don’t be hypocritical, Youichi,” Ryousuke said with a smile.
“Ryou-san!"
Kazuya chuckled slightly before unwrapping the gift. The card was the first thing he grabbed, like what most people do when receiving a gift.
Happy birthday, Miyuki Kazuya!!!
You’re getting old now!
I really can’t believe I’m at Seido pitching to you. I’m not sure if you know this, but you are the reason I came to Seido in the first place. Pitching to your mitt during my tour here opened my eyes to what I could achieve, what I wanted to accomplish.
We don’t say it a lot, mostly due to your awful personality and smirking face, but you’re a good guy. Deny it all you want but we all see how observant you can be. At least, I can see how much you care. You watch over everyone, making sure no one gets hurt. Kind of like a mother. You struggle with emotions but we can see you trying to understand or changing how you act and what you say to encourage your pitchers.
You’re a good guy, Miyuki-senpai. Happy birthday.
(P.S. we should play catch later!!)
Kazuya’s eyes widened in shock before looking up at the smiling Sawamura. He could feel the blush of embarrassment rising up his face quickly.
“Oh?” Kuramochi asked with a smirk, his eyes focused on Kazuya’s red face. “Share with the class.”
“Yeah! What is it?” Jun asked loudly.
The catcher shook his head before cooling his face down to a teasing smirk, “Wouldn’t you like to know?” He set the card down before unwrapping the rest of the gift and pulling out a baseball.
It was one of those customized baseballs with photos on the sides and words on another. One photo was the whole team posed together, formally. The other was one taken by Rei with everyone smiling and laughing together after the training camp of hell was over, the first years being carried on the second year’s backs.
The third photo was one of Kazuya, Sawamura, and Kuramochi as the other two ate ice cream while watching a baseball game. Sawamura had been the one to take it. It was a selfie with Kazuya having game notes and a pen in his lap and holding a cup of yogurt in one hand while holding a spoonful, which was in his mouth, with his other hand. Kuramochi was on Kazuya’s right with a bowl of ice cream. His feet were spread in front of him while he leaned back on the couch. Although the picture didn’t show it, Kazuya remembered the shortstop complaining about not understanding his math class just before the game. Sawamura had his own ice cream in his lap as he sat on Kazuya’s left. The phone was held in his left hand as he smiled with his right hand in a peace sign. Kuramochi and Kazuya hadn’t even noticed he took the picture.
The words on the ball were cursive and written in English.
Happy Birthday, Miyuki Kazuya!
November 17, ****
Kuramochi, who was nosey and currently looking over the catcher’s shoulder, gave a small chuckle. “Damn, Sawamura beat us all.”