Making Waves (1)
It cleared the fence.
The ball first-year Hoshino Daisuke had crushed showed no intention of coming down as it sailed toward the left-field wall. Only after watching it clear the fence with room to spare did I finally step on second base.
“Hoshino!”
“Woooooooah!”
“You’re incredible!”
I touched third and headed for home.
Hoshino Daisuke, the first-year with the most eye-catching build among the underclassmen. Turns out he could deliver at the plate, too.
If this holds…
The score was now 8–5. A three-run lead put a save situation within reach for the pitcher.
I had no idea how long I’d stay on the mound. This was only a practice game; they might pull me to give other members a chance. Still, if I took the mound in the seventh, my only thought was that I wouldn’t give up another run this time either.
“Hou…”
Hm?
I’d just crossed the plate when the first-year who’d hit the home run let out a strange sound as he exhaled.
“Let’s head in.”
“Ah! Yes, sir!”
I brought him back to the bench with me. The real battle between pitcher and batter was about to start; the previous runner needed to clear out.
“Nice batting, Hoshino!”
“Great job!”
“You took Nakayama-senpai’s pitch over the wall!”
The White Team members were full of admiration. A first-year clearing a third-year’s pitch—of course they were impressed.
I dropped onto the bench with a heavy thud.
“Haa…”
Pitching and hitting in the same game really was exhausting. I sat for a moment. My shoulder couldn’t stay idle too long, though.
“Here.”
“Hm?”
First-year catcher Yamada Tetsuya approached. In his hand was a bottle of sports drink.
“Thanks.”
I gulped it down, conserving my shoulder while wetting my throat.
“That’s an incredible pitch. I want to catch it myself as soon as possible.”
“…”
This kid.
Yamada had stepped into the box once and hit a solid line drive, only for it to go straight at the left fielder. Still, it had been a good swing, and his potential as a catcher was high. This year there was too big a mountain in his way, but next year might be different.
I wasn’t sure I was in any position to worry about other people’s situations, but since so many of the members were strangers according to this body’s memories, I was deliberately trying to file them away in my head—so they stuck with me a little.
No.
I just play my own baseball. That’s all.
Crack!
“Out!”
After Hoshino’s home run, the next two batters both grounded out.
That should be enough for now.
Nakayama-senpai on the mound hadn’t crumbled after the home run; he’d steadied himself. From here on out might be the real game.
So what was my job?
If I got the chance, crush the hitters even more overwhelmingly than before.
“Game over!”
“Huh?”
The words came from Coach Maeda Katsuyori, who had been watching the umpire. I doubted my own ears.
“Coach!”
Third-year vice-captain Kazuma Junpei approached him.
“We want to keep playing. We still have plenty of stamina.”
He said it with a serious face. If the early end was meant to conserve energy, the message was clear: don’t worry about it.
“The White Team still has plenty of fight left, too.”
Third-year catcher Date Yoshinori spoke up as well.
“…”
I…
I wanted to throw more pitches myself. If not from the mound, I at least wanted another at-bat. More than anything, ending it here meant a loss.
“There’s no need to watch any more of this game. I’ve already seen everything I needed to see.”
“Coach.”
“…”
“Shirakawa! Line them up.”
Coach Maeda’s tone was final. He clearly had no intention of listening.
“Thank you for the game!”
“Thank you for the game!”
In a baseball field—especially Japanese high school baseball—the coach was a man with absolute authority. The seniors had pushed back a little, but in the end they followed the captain and ended the game.
I clenched my fist tight.
If it had gone to the ninth…
If the game had continued to the ninth and I’d stayed on the mound the whole way, I could picture a scenario where we somehow won. Even as I bowed my head in greeting, my hands were trembling.
It was childish, but a strange defiance made me lift my head the moment the greeting ended and look straight at the coach.
Hm?
My eyes met Coach Maeda’s. Had he been watching me this whole time?
He was a hard man to read. Even in this body’s memories, the only information about him was that he was scary. And most of the time, fear was just another word for ignorance.
“Hm? Sanada?”
“…Ah, Shirakawa-senpai. And Kazuma-senpai.”
“Yeah. Morning.”
The day after Seisho High School’s baseball team’s unexpectedly intense red-and-white game. Third-years Shirakawa Satoru and Kazuma Junpei had arrived early—well before morning practice was scheduled to start—only to find someone else already there.
“Why are you out so early? You usually stay late practicing more than anyone, Sanada, but you’re not exactly a morning person.”
“Just couldn’t sleep.”
“…That so?”
Junpei was in the same boat himself, so he didn’t press further.
Whoosh!
Satoru and Junpei moved to set their bags down. Atsushi gave the seniors a rough greeting and went right back to swinging his bat.
“He focuses right away, like nothing happened.”
“Yeah.”
Junpei answered Satoru. There were types who didn’t particularly get close with the other members and were mostly interested in themselves—Atsushi was one of them. When there was no game, the only time he talked with teammates, coaches, or the manager was to figure out what he needed to improve.
Most people who played baseball at a school like Seisho were like that, but he really was a guy who knew nothing but baseball.
“And today, as usual—”
Satoru looked toward the track.
“No… today’s a little different.”
Familiar faces, and unfamiliar ones. Satoru and Junpei always came to school early to get in a little practice first. And the one who arrived even earlier than them was Hongo Yukihisa.
After shocking everyone like that yesterday, he’s doing the exact same thing, and…
Hongo Yukihisa, who had left every member’s jaw on the floor the day before. And beyond him, other members were already out running as well.
Second-year pitcher Enatsu Akira, who had looked rough yesterday; first-year Hoshino Daisuke, who’d hit the home run; second-year second baseman Minamino Shintaro, who’d performed exactly to expectations. Top, middle, bottom—regardless of the results they’d produced, they were all running hard the same way.
This is…
After scanning the players once, Satoru thought it over. The coach’s early end to the game yesterday must have had an effect. The Blue Team—the absolute regulars—had won but felt frustrated. The White Team had lost but weren’t completely despairing. Individually it varied, but everyone was somewhere in between.
When both winners and losers were left with question marks, the only answer was to hone their own skills.
And among them…
That Hongo Yukihisa over there. The early-morning running group had grown, yet his expression hadn’t changed at all. Whether it was his long-awaited return or the fact that he’d finally shown his real ability, he just kept running in silence the same as always.
To Satoru, Yukihisa was the scariest one of all.
“And so, in the tenth year of Tenshō, Oda Nobunaga at Honnō-ji—”
“…”
The middle-aged male teacher was energetically conducting class. Morning baseball practice over, I was sitting in the classroom listening to a history lesson.
I’d adapted to daily life to a certain extent, and my stamina had improved from before, so the frequency of feeling tired had dropped.
Today a change had come to the baseball team—and to me.
Starting with afternoon practice today, I would train with the regular members.
What that meant was, first of all, that barring any major changes, I was scheduled to be included in the twenty-man roster for this summer’s Koshien. First-team practice wasn’t something just anyone received.
Right away, the pitcher in my same year who had been there before—Enatsu Akira—had been dropped to the second team. Probably because of his poor performance in practice games against other schools, plus failing to produce results in this red-and-white game.
From what I’d heard, outfielder Gojo Kaede, who had briefly been down in the second team, was moving back up to the first team, among a few other changes.
First team, huh.
Once a pitcher throws the ball, he becomes the ninth fielder. Matching defensive chemistry with the regular members was an essential step before taking the mound. And once I started appearing in games, I’d be throwing against other schools’ regulars.
“…”
I grinned.
I was pretty excited. I could play baseball in front of people again, and the stage was Japanese high school baseball—bigger than Korea’s.
I knew full well how coveted the Japanese high school baseball stage was. Even if this was a world inside a manga, this place was Tokyo, and Nishinomiya City in Hyogo Prefecture in the Kansai region—home of Koshien Stadium—existed here too.
This time I would definitely accomplish something with baseball.
When class ended and the bell rang telling everyone to go home or to club activities, my shoulders felt light. Light enough that yesterday’s pitching didn’t even come to mind.
“Um, Hongo-kun.”
“Hm?”
I’d been about to stand when someone called me. It was Nagasawa Haruka, my classmate and the team manager.
“Congratulations on making the first team. You’ve seemed lost in thought since this morning, so I couldn’t say it earlier.”
Nagasawa offered her congratulations with a slightly awkward smile. Though I didn’t think I’d been particularly lost in thought.
“Thanks.”
I gave a small nod in reply. Saying thank you when someone congratulates you was only natural.
“First! First!”
I caught the ball the first baseman had fielded and thrown, then stepped on first base.
“Nice!”
“Perfect!”
When the first baseman became the one throwing rather than catching, the pitcher usually handled the cover. And through the continuous defensive drills, I made no mistakes and matched the rhythm.
“Your defensive sense is amazing.”
“Yeah, your first-base cover was super fast.”
“You’re good at this too?”
Seisho’s starting seniors and classmates marveled as they spoke.
“Let’s go again.”
And I called for the next one myself. I didn’t particularly puff up with pride. Back in Korea I’d received plenty of praise for good defense while on the mound. Of course, it never seemed to add much to how I was evaluated overall.
So what was there to get happy about now? As long as it helped even a little in real games, that was good enough—and I just wanted to finish the drills quickly.
“Thank you for the hard work!”
I finished evening practice while receiving the seniors’ praise at a volume that was almost noisy. Now it was time to eat. After the meal I’d head into the bullpen for pitching practice, so I needed to focus even more.
“Haa…”
Today’s menu looks decent.
I piled a mountain of rice onto my tray, then loaded it with Japanese-style fried chicken as well. Fried food couldn’t be good for the body, but it could help me put on weight, it had protein, and above all it tasted good.
I sat down with a thud.
“Thanks for the food.”
I said it to myself and stabbed a piece of karaage with my chopsticks.
“Hey.”
“Hm?”
Someone scraped a chair and sat across from me. A guy who’d loaded his tray with food much like I had.
“Something you need?”
It was second-year Sanada Atsushi. Even though it was my first day joining the first team, we’d barely exchanged words—so why suddenly in the cafeteria?
Could it be…
Some kind of initiation?
“That curve you threw me in yesterday’s game. How’d you throw it?”
“…”
Huh?
Suddenly bringing up yesterday’s game?
“You interested in pitching?”
I demonstrated a curve grip in midair.
“That’s not it. Did you throw it knowing I wouldn’t be able to react?”
“…”
Sanada asked seriously. I had no idea how to answer. It sounded like he was frustrated and unconvinced about looking at a slow curve for a strikeout, but asking about it like this?
“That’s just because I hadn’t shown you the curve yet, so I figured you wouldn’t time it. You think I’d throw looking for a looking strikeout? It wasn’t even bases loaded with nobody out.”
“That’s…”
Sanada, after asking the question himself, clamped his mouth shut and stared straight at my face. I wanted to ask why he was sitting there with such a serious expression over something so obvious, but I had no intention of fighting him.
“I’m the type who doesn’t talk while eating.”
“…”
And I started eating.
“Impressive, isn’t it, Sekiya-senpai? For just a weekend practice game.”
“Even if they haven’t made Koshien in five years, it’s still Seisho.”
A Saturday in mid-May when the weather was just starting to warm. Two reporters from the sports paper Sports Kagawa were watching Seisho’s baseball team’s practice game.
Seisho High, known for having one of the strongest lineups in West Tokyo, was about to face summer preliminaries, and the reporters had come to check their condition. Today Seisho High would play a practice game against Taira High, which had won the East Tokyo summer preliminaries three years ago and advanced to Koshien.
“The pitcher is still third-year Maejima Genta. Nothing’s changed from the spring Tokyo tournament.”
“Whether Maejima lives up to expectations will be important for Seisho. Finding another pitcher was probably tough—last time there weren’t any particularly eye-catching ones either.”
In the spring Tokyo tournament, Seisho High’s pitching staff had underperformed. Outside of Maejima, the reporters hadn’t seen any competitive pitchers. And even Maejima’s actual game performance had been lackluster relative to his stuff.
“Maejima! Throw with confidence!”
“Our lineup is strong!”
“Go Seisho!”
People watching from behind the net where the game was clearly visible. Most of them were Seisho alumni. To them, this Seisho baseball team mattered more than the Tokyo Giants.
“It’s starting.”
Pop!
The game began with Maejima Genta planting a fastball. Thirty-seven-year-old sports reporter and baseball fanatic Sekiya Kenji quickly locked in his focus.
“Huh? Pitching change?”
“Who is it? Maejima was throwing well.”
It was now the top of the sixth. Taira High 1, Seisho High 4.
“He’s got a good build. Who was that again?”
“That one? Hongo Yukihisa?”
“Hongo… Ah, that Hongo?”
Sekiya recognized Hongo before his junior reporter did.
“Hongo Yukihisa, who was a first-year last year. He threw 150 km/h as a first-year and shocked everyone. Then he suddenly disappeared, which was strange.”
“Injury, maybe?”
“If it had been an injury, there’s no way I wouldn’t know.”
Sekiya spoke firmly.
Well now.
Maejima’s pitching today had been excellent. Seisho’s lineup looked even stronger than the score suggested. The revival of Maejima Genta, who carried the ace number 1? And the return of Hongo Yukihisa, the once-promising prospect who had vanished.
Sekiya swallowed. He was glad he’d come to watch today’s game.