Proving My Skill (1)
"I can't feel my hands."
"Same here."
"Even eating has become torture at this point."
"·····"
School was over, and the real training had begun. I was eating dinner in the baseball team's cafeteria.
The first-years' endless stream of complaints still filled the air without pause. Same story whether you're in Korea or Japan, I guess.
Then again, Japanese high school baseball — Seisho's training load in particular — was no joke. Your average first-year wasn't going to last.
Probably.
More than half of those first-years would be gone by the end of the year. Brutal training volume, cutthroat competition, crumbling confidence. Put it all together and you call it reality. Fail to shoulder that weight, and baseball eventually leaves you behind.
Just like the old me.
I forced another mouthful of rice down. I had no intention of repeating that experience. My body still needed finishing.
"Mind if I sit?"
"Sure."
Scrape.
A chair scraped back beside me. Yamada Tetsuya, the first-year catcher, settled in. We'd gotten a little friendlier since last weekend.
"I'm so nervous. A game against the regular seniors…"
"You don't even know if you'll play yet."
"Still — they said they'd give everyone a fair shot."
At morning practice, before classes, Coach Maeda had gathered the players and laid out tomorrow's blue-white scrimmage.
Blue Team: Seisho's current core. White Team: everyone else.
So basically…
Instill a sense of crisis in the established regulars, and hand the rest a real opportunity. Last weekend's game had been hard to call good even as empty praise — the pitching, especially, had been a mess.
This scrimmage was probably less about the hitters and more about sorting out which pitchers could throw against Seisho's regular lineup and actually produce something. Same for the batters: even if the current lineup was strong, you still needed time to take stock of everyone else's ability.
Not bad.
Refreshingly straightforward, actually. I couldn't be a hundred percent sure I'd get the chance — but if I did, I wanted at least two or three innings.
Whoosh—! Whoosh—!
"Hoo·····"
A little late into the evening, I was still swinging a bat on the practice field.
The feel is still there.
Surprisingly, batting — a more delicate skill than pitching — had survived intact. The original Hongo Yukihisa hadn't been much of a hitter, but the original me had been a decent one.
I'd never been special as a pitcher. Of course I'd thought about converting to hitting. I'd trained at the plate harder than anyone.
Of course…
Whoosh—!
A pretty solid hitter. Good enough to bat fifth or sixth at a school that wasn't quite a powerhouse. No real power, but a solid contact ability. My average had been respectable; I'd hit exactly one home run in my life.
In the end, I never produced results that said I could go pro as a hitter either. And outside of pitching, I didn't have a defensive position I was particularly good at.
"·····"
Whoosh—! Whoosh—!
"Hoo."
"Nice! Nice!"
I'd paused for a breather when shouts started rising from every direction.
Incredible.
Most high school kids would be drifting off to sleep around now. Dozens of them were still out here swinging bats. So this was what a top-tier Japanese high school baseball program looked like. Plenty of third-years still out, too — tomorrow's scrimmage had them fired up, no doubt, but still.
"Hm?"
"Oh—?"
I headed for the vending machine for a drink and ran into Date Yoshinori, the third-year catcher, standing right in front of it.
"Hongo. You haven't gone home yet?"
"I was working on my swing a bit."
"You might be on the mound tomorrow, you know."
"I'm not training with tomorrow specifically in mind."
"I see."
"·····"
Date-senpai grinned, though I couldn't quite read the intent behind it. Sweat beaded on his forehead — he'd clearly been training hard himself until just now.
"The third-years are still grinding too, huh."
"Well, yeah."
He tipped back his drink and nodded.
"Plenty of third-years still haven't played a single game."
"Ah·····"
Figures.
Seisho had a massive roster. Even after the usual attrition among third-years, there still looked to be thirty or forty of them. This wasn't pro ball with its hundred-plus-game grind. High school baseball was short, and the important games were all tournaments. You had no choice but to play the ones who could win.
"I'm a little bitter myself."
Date-senpai kept going.
"Through middle school, I was the starting catcher and cleanup hitter. Schools came calling, and I picked Seisho. And the result is this — backup. Not even a dual starter. Just a guy who exists so Matsuda can rest his legs. I've stepped into the box a few times, but I've never gotten a hit. In the Tokyo spring tournament last time, I didn't even get an at-bat."
"·····"
I listened quietly. He seemed a little lost in the feeling of it.
"When Matsuda came to Seisho from Sendai, I never thought the gap would open this wide."
Clink—!
He drained the rest of his drink in one go and tossed the can dead-center into the trash.
"I'm on White Team tomorrow too."
"Oh — really?"
Unexpected.
As the only backup to the starting catcher, I'd figured he'd be Blue.
"We might form a battery tomorrow. Even if we can't win, let's put on a real show once."
"Yes, sir."
At my answer, Date-senpai grinned.
"But if we're going to do it, we might as well plan on winning."
"Huh?"
I looked him straight in the eye.
What was this "even if we can't win" talk? If you take the field, you go in planning to win — even if the other side is a Major League All-Star team.
"Haaawn."
A yawn slipped out before I could stop it. The dead hours of sitting through class. First period must have just ended.
"Um, Hongo-kun."
"Hm?"
During the break, Nagasawa Haruka — the manager sitting next to me — spoke up.
"Do you think you'll get to play today?"
"·····Huh?"
"You're looking forward to it, right? Pitching today."
"Well, I mean."
How am I supposed to answer this.
The words themselves weren't hard. What felt off was Nagasawa's delivery — like a little kid putting on a clumsy performance.
"If you get the chance?"
"Hmph!"
"·····"
Suddenly she clenched both fists and put on a face of pure fighting spirit. I even saw a little snort of air come out of her nose.
"You'll definitely get to play, Hongo-kun. You've been working so hard since you came back. The other managers all know it too."
"Oh. Yeah. Thanks."
She nodded with a solemn expression.
I think I get what she's trying to say.
Probably encouragement for the guy who'd returned after a long absence and was grinding. If this were a normal story — a drifting prospect coming back, not some random transmigration into a manga character — you'd expect some anxiety. The occasional internal monologue about wasted time, that kind of thing.
But I didn't particularly care about the "return after wandering" narrative. I'd been a little disappointed by the regulars' level of play, sure — but I didn't get the sense opportunity was going to pass me by.
"Anything else?"
"Huh? Oh — no, sorry."
"·····"
She'd been staring at me the whole time, so I'd said something, and now she was apologizing again. This kid really needed to cut down on the habit of saying sorry for everything.
Hmm.
I sat back down and waited for the teacher. Thinking about it, Nagasawa had meant well — a simple "thanks, that helped" would have been the ideal response. Why hadn't I managed that?
Figures.
I probably just wasn't that good with people.
"Nnngh."
Classes finally ended. Students headed home, to cram school, to club activities. My destination, of course, was the baseball practice field.
I'd been tired until a moment ago, but the thought of practice put strength back into me. I couldn't prove anything with studying. Baseball was a different story.
Huh?
I was muttering let's work hard again today under my breath when someone caught my eye a short distance away.
Tall for a girl. Long hair black as pitch.
Higuchi Shiori.
The original heroine of the manga, Higuchi Shiori. She was talking with what looked like friends beside her.
I froze for a second, a little flustered.
Right.
The girl who kept reminding me I hadn't just woken up in some ordinary Japanese high school — I'd been dropped into a manga. I could still picture the way the original Hongo Yukihisa had treated her.
I wasn't so soft that I'd feel guilt over things I hadn't actually done. And my rock-bottom reputation didn't seem to matter much inside the baseball team, which was what actually counted. The other members were too busy with their own problems to care.
Still, it sat strangely. The author had manufactured the whole thing for cheap drama, and somehow I'd become the one living it.
"Hoo."
I decided I looked pathetic standing there and just kept walking. So what if Higuchi saw me?
On the way to the baseball club, she never looked my way. Or rather — she simply never noticed me.
"·····"
Still, though.
She is pretty.
Heroine looks, no question. Her friends too — even a glance told you they were all strikingly beautiful. This was a rom-com, after all. Had they just dumped every pretty girl in the prefecture into Seisho High? Nagasawa included.
Wait.
The blonde next to Higuchi. Dye job, clothes clearly tailored and styled — a girl who put real effort into her look. That wasn't the point, though. Where had I seen her before?
"·····"
I couldn't exactly stare down a group of girls to satisfy my curiosity. I went my own way.
"Line up!"
Seisho High's internal blue-white scrimmage. Coach Maeda's voice cut across the field.
"Based on what you've shown in recent practice, opportunities will be given."
"Yes, sir!"
After various explanations, Coach Maeda delivered that final line. Every player had been grinding on their own, while the coaching staff — along with the managers and a few selected players — had been hard at work analyzing the team's strength.
Blue Team: the best thirteen drawn from the twenty who'd made the Tokyo spring tournament roster. White Team: everyone else. Overwhelming player quality and depth, head to head.
Blue Team batting first. White Team in the field.
Blue's starter: third-year Maejima Genta. White's starter: second-year Enatsu Akira. Both had pitched in last weekend's game. Both had been terrible.
"Hmm·····"
White Team's bench — too many bodies to sit, so everyone stood to watch. Hongo Yukihisa, not starting, watched Enatsu Akira loosening up hard on the mound.
"Play!"
Date Katsuyori, Seisho's coach serving as the day's home-plate umpire, called the start of the game.
"Hoo."
Facing leadoff hitter Shirakawa Satoru in the top of the first, Enatsu Akira took a deep breath before his first pitch.
I can do this.
The lineup across from him was Seisho's. But he was a member of Seisho's best twenty himself — the man who would inherit the ace number next year. Today he would show the coach exactly what he could do.
The leadoff hitter, third-year Shirakawa-senpai: contact ability among the best in the prefecture, and speed to match. A shortstop you absolutely could not put on base.
Akira fired a four-seamer with everything he had.
Crack—!
"First!"
A grounder hit a little deep into the infield. The shortstop fielded it clean and threw.
"Safe!"
"Ah·····"
Not even close. Akira had failed to retire the leadoff man.
"Enatsu! You've got this!"
"Akira! Don't worry about it!"
The infielders — third-years and second-years chosen by the coach — called out encouragement. Akira was a pitcher who'd been seeing game action since his second year. He didn't fold. He kept working hitters.
Pop—!
"Ball!"
"Haa."
The result: walks for the two- and three-hole hitters.
"·····"
Not good.
Watching from the side, Hongo Yukihisa bit his lip. He didn't want to get impatient — so why were his teammates making him hungrier than ever for the mound today?