Entry tags:

arc: brand new endings, char: abe shun, char: abe takaya, char: tajima yuuichirou, fandom: ookiku furikabutte, type: fic

[fic] Ookiku Furikabutte: The Road Ahead (Second Step)
See header in the first part.



The look on his mother's face when she sees him at the door would bring tears of shame to the eyes of any good son.

On a reasonable scale, Abe is probably hovering at the edge of 'decent, when it comes down to it'. He lets her throw herself at him, hugs her back cautiously, and reasons that it's okay for him to only ever come with a pile of dirty laundry the size of the Tokyo Tower, since she's always so happy to see him anyway.

This time though, his motive for visiting is not quite transparent, although the sports bag he's carrying is full of dirty clothes.

"Will you stay for dinner?" There's so much hope in her voice that it feels like it'll break her heart if he refuses. "Dad can drive you home afterwards."

That's not the encouragement she seems to think it is. Alone in a car with Abe's father is not somewhere anyone who refuses to hear or talk about baseball wants to be. The last time it happened they almost got into a fist fight over it, and the last of the trip was spent in silence that fizzled with tension.

He moved out five weeks later.

"Sure," he says, and, once she's released him: "Where's Shun?" Putting half a brain cell into the question would have told him that his brother is still at practice, but his mother is a nice woman and her answer only carries the tiniest hint of patronization.

A few minutes later he takes a glance at his watch, before straddling the slightly rusty bike that carried him to Nishiura for three years. Pedaling as hard as he can, taking every shortcut on the way, it takes him nearly half an hour to get in view of the Tajima household.

This pathetic ride robs him off his breath and makes his legs shake, confirming that the past three years have been worse to his overall shape than he thought. Catching his breath before making his presence known would have been more dignified, but it looks like the baseball team is on break at the moment. A few boys (first-years by the look of them, but it's hard to tell: they all look so young) are walking back from the club room, heavy bags dangling from their hands. Others are chasing one another on the field to squeals of laughter, and in the shade of the dugout three girls are chattering away, polishing balls with the efficiency of habit.

By the entrance of the field, the captain watches over his flock, standing tall and serious and admirable. He's not watching his back, though; Abe drops the bike and sneaks behind him easily, to breathe a gruff "yo" in his ear.

One thing is sure: even if this team never makes Koshien, the height of Shun's vertical jump will doubtlessly become part of school legend.

"What are you doing here?" his baby brother – who at some point grew almost as tall as him - protests once he's done hyperventilating.

From all corners of the field, the team starts gathering, whispering among themselves. "I need to borrow your magazines," Abe says simply, pretending to be oblivious to the whispers of 'is that captain's brother? Abe Takaya-san, right? From the team that...'

Shun is not impressed. In fact, he's downright suspicious. "What, do you have a fire to keep going?"

Abe glares at him.

Unimpressed, Shun glares right back.

On the side, the girls are getting up, trying to come closer without being too obvious. Shun gives a brief glance that way, and stands just a little straighter, the slightest blush spreading on his cheeks.

Tell her, Abe thinks, and wraps an arm around his brother's shoulders. "Tell you what," he whispers conspiratorially. "Lend me your magazines and tapes, and I'll come to your next game."

"Like I care!" Shun retorts, a little too loudly, as he wriggles out of his brother's grip. He's grown stronger, these past years, and Abe feels at twinge of regret that he wasn't there to see it happen, talk him through the hard days and mock his first serious crush.

Shun is still glaring at him, but the girls are coming closer and he's losing his composure fast.

"GATHER ROUND, EVERYONE," he yells suddenly, spinning around to watch his team. They jump in the air as one man and look away guiltily, but then assemble with remarkable speed. Within thirty seconds they're standing in five perfect rows, staring straight at their captain.

He lets them simmer for a dozen seconds, as the girls settle at the side in a practiced triangle.

"You've all heard the stories," Shun says. "The first years who paved their own way to the national tournament. That guy was one of them." Abe can read the urge to gossip on their faces, but all of them keep quiet. "A team of first and second years went to Koshien five years ago, and they were wearing this uniform. This is what we have to live up to!"

They're all drinking his words, including all three girls; Abe wonders how many members of this team realize how much bullshit a captain has to make up on the spot.

"This guy will be coming to the game on Sunday, so everyone better shape up!"

The collective cry of fierce determination would have made Momokan proud.

"And for those of you" there's a weird intonation there, that makes him think Shun is referring to very specific people, "who feel like you don't need the extra training... Notice that he rode here five minutes ago and he still hasn't caught his breath. No matter how good you are, if you don't stay in shape you'll lose it all, so be careful about that."

As one man, the whole team blanches at their captain's crime of lese-majesty. Or maybe it's the sour expression Abe couldn't keep off his face if he tried. None of them say a word; the bravest dare barely breathe.

"Now back to practice!"

Abe's threat of eternal doom is covered by the resounding "HAI" that follows Shun's dismissal.

"So, you're staying for dinner?" Shun asks, barely fazed.

For the sake of the information he needs, Abe resists the urge to throttle him. "Mom will lock me in the basement if I don't."

Shun snickers, but he's already looking back at the field, surveying his team's behavior again. Abe gets the message easily. The break is over: time to get back to work.

---

Living them day by day, three years don't seem like too much.

Watching the contents of five boxes of magazines spilled over the floor of his old bedroom, the gap feels a lot larger.

There's a game playing on the portable TV set that he had to carry back from Shun's room. It's a practice game from a few months ago, good for nothing but providing the appropriate background noise. They're at the bottom of the third inning, and all Abe has learned so far is that the commentator, whose voice he doesn't remember ever hearing, is barely literate and can't tell a forkball from a sac bunt.

For now it's the literature that's of interest: the titles and smiles and baseball caps staring at him from their covers. Unsurprisingly, one specific player is featured a lot. Talented, assiduous in his training, gifted with a friendly personality and unable to keep his mouth shut: risen high and fast in the world of pro baseball, Tajima Yuuichirou is the darling of the press.

Abe starts reading the most recent interview with a certain amount of wariness. But it appears that either Tajima has learned to stop talking about his dick in public, or the press corps as a whole has decided that it doesn't fit his refreshing image and is censoring the lewder quotes.

He skims through the rest of the magazine and takes the previous one, having decided that the first readthrough should only serve to get a feel for the general atmosphere of a world he hasn't looked at in years.

Tournament schedules and ads for new equipment follow one another in a whirlwind of technical terms that feel sweeter, more familiar than the menu of Satou-san's restaurant. Onscreen, the innings unroll slowly, and he tunes out the commentator's grating voice to hear only the smack of the ball in the catcher's mitt and the roar of the crowd.

Then, on an issue from three months ago, his eyes catch another familiar name in a brief piece stacked under the gossip column. In a press release earlier this week, the Hanshin Tigers annouced that Haruna Motoki, the team's former middle reliever, would be retiring from professional baseball. The revelation comes as no surprise, after...

The article seems to have been written by an intern in dearth of copies to make or coffee to brew, but it's right on one point: this wasn't a surprise. Even Abe, from the depth of his reclusion from everything baseball, couldn't avoid the news of the accident, or the regular updates on his health – which as far as he knows mostly consisted of the information is still restricted, but an unnamed source suggested that- until even the most devoted baseball fans lost interest. Haruna's name was on the airwaves for five months before fading out.

Abe's resentment had already burned out by then. He didn't feel gleeful or vindicated, merely annoyed at the constant mention of something he was trying to forget wherever he went. Now, as the paper slides from his fingers, it all feels like such a waste: all this for that? And he wonders, distantly, if Haruna would say it was worth it, sacrificing years of his life to a few months of glory.

Does he know where the line is now, between following a dream and abandoning everything for the one chance in a million that everything will turn out perfect?

The phone buzzing in his back pocket jerks him out of his contemplation. Just like earlier, the screen throws him an unhelpful 'Unknown number', but this time he has a better idea who it might be. Mihashi apologized profusely as he explained that his new number was blocked from identification for safety reasons.

It's pathetic how easily Abe's heartbeat picks up and his cheeks heat at the sight of this display. Thankfully, his voice doesn't shake when he answers.

"So, how did it go?"

The bubbling feeling of anticipation falls flat. Of course, Tajima is held to a similar level of privacy.

"Shouldn't you be asking Mihashi that?"

"I want to hear it from you." It would sound casual to a distant observer. But Tajima is the definition of casual, and this isn't quite up to his standards. There's an underlying threat that Abe really can't blame him for.

In fact, he's a little grateful that Tajima is still taking good care of Mihashi, even if he wouldn't see it that way.

"I'm meeting his coach on Monday." No need to bring in the details of his minor breakdown, or how he clung to Mihashi's hand like a lifeline for ten minutes. Tajima may have earned the right to know what happened, but there are limits to how far Abe is willing to humiliate himself.

Tajima makes a contented noise that would probably have half the baseball heads in the country moaning in fanatic glee, but doesn't ask for more precision.

"So I'll be seeing you around?"

Wherever he goes, Abe thinks as he says "I guess."

There are other things he wants to say. Mostly questions; few of them new. These will wait, or be buried perhaps. He also wants to say thank you, for taking care of Mihashi all this time, and I'll be taking it from here; but he has no right to either. So really, the only safe things to say is "are you doing anything on Sunday?"

"I'm going to my parents' for lunch, why?"

That should be close enough. Shun would get a kick out of it, as well. "Nishiura is playing in the morning. You feel like going?"

Tajima doesn't miss a beat. "Sure! It'll be fun." A moment's pause. "I think Ren has morning practice though."

Abe sighs silently, and tells himself it's only because he doesn't know since when or how these two are on first name basis, and the uncertainty bothers him a little. He'll be seeing Mihashi on Monday, after all. One day shouldn't matter.

"That's fine." Then it's quickly over, after a brief moment made making plans, and Abe realizes he still knows all the landmarks perfectly.

"Are you taking a girl to the game?" Shun asks from the doorway, making him jump. "Because unless she's a baseball fan, even I know that..."

"It's not a girl." At some point in the past years Shun obviously unlearned the art of knocking, and Abe finds himself wishing his little brother had a Tajima on his team. That would teach him to be careful when walking into someone's bedroom.

"You're taking a guy to the game," Shun says, smirking. He thinks he's being witty, too.

"Haha," Abe says dryly, glaring. "Actually, I was wondering about that manager of yours. You know, the pretty one. She's in your year, right? Do you know if she's seeing anyone?"

Shun's reaction is out of a textbook. Narrowed eyes, stiff posture, everything a psychology textbook would reference under 'defensive'. "No," he snarls, closing the door to lean back on it.

"You don't know? As captain, you should be paying attention to these things. Helps see trouble coming." This is way too much fun. Shun hasn't even noticed that his brother has no idea which of the girls they're talking about, but his hackles are rising fast.

"I do know!" he protests, his voice shaking with offence.

It's fun, but it makes Abe wonder if he was that obvious, back in high school. Izumi probably has an answer all prepared; Abe is pretty sure he doesn't want to hear it.

"So... she isn't seeing anyone, then?"

"Leave her alone."

Ah, the sweet feeling of winding his brother up. Another of those little pleasure in life Abe had let himself forget about. He picks a magazine and flips it open at random, giving all the appearances of being bored with the conversation. "Hm? Why should I?"

From the corner of his eye he see Shun's face set even harder. "I like her, alright? I like her. You can't just come and mess around with-"

"Okay."

Shun is still glaring when he looks up from an ad for sports shoes, but it's a little different. His brother is awfully young (always so much younger than Abe was at his age), but he's not stupid. He knows he's just been played. "Bastard."

"Hmmm. So, what are you planning to do about it?"

"I can't do anything. There's the competition, and the team, and..."

"You should tell her." There's an underlying trust me on this that he wishes wasn't so obvious, and Shun, sneaky little bastard that he is, picks up on it easily.

"Is that why you left? Because of a girl?"

"No," Abe says, a little too fast a little too tense – and then his mother, for perhaps the first time ever, saves him.

"Dinner time!" He used to believe that her voice carried through walls; now he knows it for a fact.

Shun pushes himself off the door and even extends a hand to help Abe get up. "I was thinking, maybe, when summer's over, I could ask her friend," Shun babbles as they walk down the stairs. "To know if she'd..." He trails off, but the rest is obvious.

Abe never knew his brother was this old-fashioned. Or this much of a coward. "That's a lame way to go about it, cap-" He stops dead in the middle of the stairway and the teasing pet name. Shun bumps against him and groans.

It is lame. Their mother regularly tells the story of the five separate people who were directly involved in getting her and their father on their first date, but what was true for their parents isn't necessarily applicable to them. Only...

Only didn't he just ask Tajima to a game?




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