Return to the Baseball Team (1)
“Haaaaawn·····”
Early morning. I yawned wide as I headed to school.
I'd suddenly become Hongo Yukihisa, a character from a manga — but I was still a student, so school was non-negotiable. Not that I was dragging myself there against my will. Seisho High School simply had something I wanted.
“·····”
Weaving through the stream of students filing into the building, I looked straight out at the baseball field. I'd played baseball myself through my second year of high school, and even from this distance I could tell — the facilities here were on a completely different level from the high school baseball program I'd known back in Korea.
Right.
What I needed was baseball. A body far more powerful than before. Japan — a country obsessed with the sport. Everything about the situation had improved. Reality had taken baseball from me once. In this world, I was going to take it back.
“·····”
“Did you catch the game stream yesterday?”
“Yeah, yeah — Denji's a total gaming genius.”
“VTS is doing a Japan tour this year after their discharge!”
“No way — they really do love this country.”
I sat blankly in the classroom of Class 2-1 at Seisho High. Between my own appearance and the chatter of classmates waiting for first period, it was the picture of an ordinary high school morning — nothing more.
And yet·····
This is so damn awkward.
Having Hongo Yukihisa's memories made adapting easy enough. They were a little hazy in places, sure, but nothing that would actually disrupt daily life. Still, with my previous life's memories coexisting alongside this body's, everything felt off-kilter.
More than anything, I wanted to play baseball now — and instead I was stuck sitting here. From what I knew, Japanese high school baseball programs often put their athletic scholarship kids in separate classes. Seisho was supposedly a powerhouse in the Tokyo district for Koshien, so was mixing everyone together really fine?
Across all three grades, the baseball team had nearly a hundred members. In this class, the only other players were the two sitting behind me — everyone else looked like they'd never touched a sport in their lives. And half the class was girls.
“·····”
Both of them were second-years on the baseball team, but neither had ever even appeared in a practice game. I could feel them glancing at me carefully. It wasn't that we had bad blood, exactly. I was just the guy who'd been the team's great hope, then half-quit, and had been nothing but a delinquent ever since.
If I'd been some background extra, nobody would care. But Hongo Yukihisa's talent had been so overwhelming that the moment he joined last year, every single member of the baseball team learned a name they would never forget.
Great.
If you're going to transmigrate me into someone, at least pick a hardworking guy — why dump me into the problem child? Thanks to that, I had a body overflowing with talent, but too much time off training meant its actual condition was worse than my old one. On top of that, in a Japanese organization where trust is everything, I was already marked.
I had a long road ahead. And I wasn't exactly the sociable type·····
“Um.”
“Hm?”
Someone spoke to me.
“Good morning, Hongo-kun.”
“·····Oh. Morning.”
A girl offered a greeting with an awkward, slightly hesitant smile. I nodded and answered.
“·····”
Worried things would get even more awkward, I turned my head the second I replied. The sound of her chair scraping forward as she sat down reached my ears.
Nagasawa Haruka.
I recalled the name of the girl who'd just spoken to me. Class 2-1, Seisho High — and a manager for the baseball team. She was pretty enough that the guys in class would turn for a second look: long straight hair, a dog-like innocent face that somehow managed to have almost no polarizing quality to it.
After second year started, Yukihisa had gone completely girl-crazy — you'd think he would have made a move on her. Strangely, there hadn't been a single sign of it. Some kind of baseball-team manners, maybe? That was probably why Nagasawa was one of the few people still willing to talk to a guy the team had written off.
Of course, looking at it with my own eyes now, it was probably just that this Nagasawa girl was genuinely kind and gentle.
“Hongo!”
“·····”
Here it comes.
“Morning, Hongo.”
“You're early today?”
Two girls came over to talk to me.
Momoi. Kato.
Momoi Madoka. Kato Amy. Same Class 2-1, the ones who'd just said hello.
“·····”
I turned to look at them. The smell of cosmetics hit me instantly. Their uniforms had the top buttons undone above the brooch. This world was a rom-com setting, so there was probably some exaggeration — but these were the type commonly called gyaru.
“Hm?”
When I said nothing, Momoi Madoka tilted her head. Still grinning the whole time. I looked between the two of them, then spoke.
“You two. Don't talk so loud in the classroom.”
“What?”
“Huh?”
I said it, then turned away — making it clear I didn't want them talking to me.
“Hongo, what the hell are you—”
“Teacher's coming.”
I cut them off again.
“Let's go.”
“Yeah.”
The two of them finally backed off.
“·····”
I feel a little bad, but.
Those girls probably had their own reasons for everything. But I was different now. I didn't have much time. I had no intention of hanging out with them going forward anyway — better to burn the bridge clean and get cut off. Gyaru or not, they were decently pretty girls; having a guy treat them like that had to sting. Ideally, a rumor would start circulating that Hongo Yukihisa was keeping his distance from girls.
Strike while the iron's hot. I was going to clear out every scrap of delinquency around me. His derailment had only really started last November, after they lost the fall Tokyo tournament that decided the spring Koshien berth. He'd stopped showing up to practice from then on, but the pointless stuff with girls was more recent. At least he hadn't done anything truly insane like knocking up some adult woman — so cleaning this up wasn't that hard.
I was cutting off everything that stole my time and attention. Rom-com genre or not, it had nothing to do with me. For me, there was only baseball.
“Satoru?”
“Junpei.”
Early morning. Two members of the Seisho High baseball team appeared in front of the school training grounds.
Third-year shortstop and team captain Shirakawa Satoru. Third-year third baseman Kazuma Junpei. Both were considered the best at their positions in all of Tokyo, and their diligence in practice had earned them deep respect from the rest of the team. Showing up for early morning training even on weekdays with classes — it almost seemed natural.
“You're a shortstop. You should be managing your stamina more carefully.”
“Hahaha — I know, but what am I supposed to do when my body won't listen?”
“Fair enough·····”
Junpei had nothing more to say to Satoru, the ironclad leadoff hitter whose shortstop position already put a heavy load on his body. Only two months remained until the summer Koshien preliminaries. If they failed to make Koshien this time, high school baseball was over for every third-year on the roster. Every single day, they had no choice but to bet everything.
“How's Maejima doing?”
“Hard to say·····”
Junpei asked. Maejima Genta was a fellow third-year at Seisho High — the pitcher carrying the ace number, #1. Proud, devoted to his personal routine, and not particularly sociable, Genta barely talked to anyone. The captain, Satoru, was almost the only one he spoke with regularly.
“I think that last practice game is still eating at him.”
“His stuff looks solid enough. What's the problem, then?”
Most of the third-years were worried about their ace. In the West Tokyo district of the Koshien preliminaries, Seisho's batting lineup was rated top-tier — but the ace, the single most important piece in high school baseball, was considered shaky. Genta had been pulled after five innings and five runs in the last practice game, and the people who supported Seisho High were steadily losing faith in him. The absence of a reliable ace had become the biggest problem facing a Seisho team chasing its first Koshien appearance in five years.
“Hm?”
“Huh?”
The two of them arrived at the field — and someone caught their eye.
“At this hour?”
“Who is that?”
A guy was running the track in the pre-dawn dark.
“Hongo?”
“Hongo?”
Junpei recognized him first. Second-year Hongo Yukihisa — once expected to be the baseball team's savior, now essentially a non-entity. The team's thin pitching depth meant his name still surfaced from time to time, but even thinking about him felt like turning away from reality, so people tried not to. That was what Hongo Yukihisa meant to the Seisho players who had staked everything on Koshien.
“Has he been running this whole time?”
Satoru watched Yukihisa, who seemed completely unaware anyone had arrived. Hair cut short — different from how he usually looked around school. Sweat visible even from a distance. Anyone could see it: a player who'd turned over a new leaf and was training hard.
“Let's go.”
“Huh?”
Junpei said one word and headed for the locker room. The guy was focused on what he was doing. Jumping to conclusions would be a mistake.
“Hongo.”
“·····”
At the sound of my name, I turned my head to the right.
“Fukada-senpai.”
“Looking good with the clean haircut.”
“Yeah, well·····”
I fiddled with my hair and nodded. The baseball team came in early for morning practice before classes started. Today was both my return to training and my first session. The other members had only been sneaking glances at me — until someone finally came over to speak.
Fukada Riko, third-year and a manager for the baseball team. Tall, long-haired, with a bright, open kind of beauty. I'd vaguely heard she'd been a gymnast through middle school. Among the managers she was essentially the leader, and she was close with the third-year players across the board — the classic social type. Like the other managers, though, she hadn't had any particular connection with the old me.
My high school baseball career had effectively stopped at the spring Koshien preliminaries in my first-year fall. Most of the guys I'd actually talked to had quit after tasting Seisho's brutal training and realizing they had no shot at a starting spot.
Of course.
Starting today, that was going to change.
“Everyone, focus!”
Captain Shirakawa called out. No matter how long I'd been away, I roughly knew what we were waiting for.
“Good morning, sir!”
“Good morning, sir!”
“·····”
I shouted as loud as I could, then bowed my head.
“Gentlemen. Good morning.”
I swallowed hard. A middle-aged man appeared before the assembled members. Even knowing his face, I tensed up on instinct. Along with Matsuda-senpai, he was the person I'd feared most.
Maeda Katsuyori — head coach of the Seisho High baseball team. A former pro who'd thrown hard fastballs in his playing days, he still had the build to match. And that distinctive low voice of his carried something that pressed down on every man in the room.
“I've said this any number of times — do not get impatient. Hard training without direction only ruins the body. Regulars, prepare for this weekend's practice game. Non-regulars, you have no practice games until the week after next, so devote yourselves to individual training. That's all!”
“Understood!”
The roar of dozens of sturdy high school boys. Seisho baseball training always began this way — raw energy fused with strict discipline.
Hm?
“·····”
I caught Coach Maeda glancing at me for a moment. Eyes like a tiger's. I looked straight ahead without flinching. A diamond-in-the-rough talent with a frivolous personality who'd gotten chewed out constantly — that had nothing to do with who I was now. If anything, I preferred being worked hard. The only thing left was the old memory of always being scared of him.
Of course.
Coming back after so long, I'd be eating cold stares for a while. Didn't matter. One way or another, I was going to take a pitcher's spot.
The team members started moving into their individual drills. The managers fell into coordinated motion as well — morning practice was short, which only sharpened everyone's focus. In that case, I should·····
“Um, Hongo-kun?”
“Hm?”
It was Nagasawa Haruka — second-year manager, same class as me.
“Oh. Nagasawa.”
“The coach wants to see you separately.”
“·····Does he?”
So he wanted a word after all?