三話 // 痛みと苦悩の蜜の隙間
[in the space in the nectar of pain and distress]

His fingers below the table move animatedly as he recites all the signals in his head. It's easy to remember, he realizes, once he goes over it again for the third time. It's a series of joints folding against one another, pointing at the sky or making a shape. He breathes in the words that float between him and his homeroom teacher, the phrases suspended from their speech bubbles as if it were necks on the gallows. He breathes in what is left of his logic, rationality, and patience—whatever he is wholly made of—yet his lungs are crushed at the possibility of questions he has no answers to. He starts picking on the nonexistent dirt underneath his nails and absently focuses on the shoelaces of his shoes, he imagines the world crashing down around him as he sits still on the chair; he makes it a point to think of himself sitting at the edge of a cliff, instead.

"Any plans for high school?" Kimura Ayumu, the Japanese teacher and assistant coach of Chidoriyama's baseball team, asks as he thumbs through a thick, dark green folder that is ten pages thicker than the one beneath it—Nakajima, Nakamura, Nishimura—as he leisurely looked for the athlete's file. Seven pamphlets secured by two paperclips stick out of his file and it's about as obvious as the young man's wince, his jaw growing weaker as the pamphlets are laid out in front of him like tarot cards.

"I dunno," He forces himself to speak, trying not to give away the impression that it was only a desperate façade. "I haven't given it any thought, actually," The athlete continues with a scoff, earning himself a disbelieving look from his teacher. "I was supposed to talk about it with my old man during Golden Week, but I was out for that training camp thing, so... Didn't really get to bring it up. And then there was that Sports Fest committee thing I had to do on top of cram school, and then baseball then... Yeah, I just don't really have much time to think about it, y'know?"

(An overdue reminder to this cautionary tale is that Hajime Shun, superstar-slash-genius baseball athlete of Chidoriyama Junior High, is a liar.)

"You're in the baseball team, right? What about baseball then?" Kimura-sensei asked, listlessly looking at his student file that had been marked with otter sticky-notes. It was in Shun's favor that the man hadn't been looking when he was torn whether to roll his eyes, or both. 'I'm the captain of the baseball team, you're the assistant coach of the baseball team. Just what kind of twisted tactic is this?!' He snarls in his head, gripping the edge of his heat in burning annoyance.

The question was akin to the gilded arrow of Paris that had pierced through Achilles in the Trojan War, the syllables fall onto his lap and it squirms like a grotesque beast, "I don't know." Hajime Shun nearly whispers, eyes barely making contact with his executor. He no longer hears the distant echo of the Brass Band from the fourth floor, nor the ragtag screams of athletes from the field. Nothing else matters in his head when the question is like a lethal plague in his head and a relentless drill to his psyche all at once.

"Have you considered Inarizaki's offer?" The man asks, drawing out a photocopied pamphlet of the school, black and white with bits of grainy indecipherable texts here and there. Shun stares at it for a moment, trying to remember the scholarship the scout offered him last summer during the semi-finals. (It wasn't a surprise that the athlete didn't remember shit.)

"That's in Hyogo, that's like, 650 kilometers from here." He made a face, not exactly adamant with that sort of distance. He wasn't adamant for anything, in fact.

"Afraid you'll get homesick?" The dark-haired teacher patiently played along as he set the pamphlet aside only to bring out a new one. This time, it wasn't photocopied and had that just-got-printed sheen to it that it almost smelled a certain way. A handsome brunet was smiling at the very front of the minimalist typography, he wore an immaculate white blazer and a cream-colored vest in a way that it didn't look like a uniform but instead a god's holy garment.

Shit, he's pretty, he blinks to himself and at the student's charming exterior, the only thing that came to Shun's mind was the (probably) terrifying amount of female students during their school orientations. "They're more renowned for their Volleyball team but Aobajohsai isn't far from here, and their baseball team is known for being able to produce professionals, too. In my opinion, I think it would be a great place to look into. It isn't too far from here either."

"Uhm, no thanks? Too preppy for me, I think," Shun spat, cringing at the prospect of getting homesick. What's there to get homesick about, he thought to himself with his tongue sitting uncomfortably in his own mouth. "And Aobajohsai's a private school, it would cost way too fu... way too much."

"It's a sports scholarship, Shun, you won't have to worry about the tuition... Is there something you're not telling me?" Kimura-sensei asked, looking quite doubtful at his non-stop rejection. Smartly, Shun kept his mouth shut at the subtle accusation, looking at his sneakers once more with feigned indifference. "Do you have any plans for high school, Shun?"

"No, not really." Shun answered in a clipped tone, a false vengeance in his voice.

"What about your parents? Did they say anything about it?"

Gritting his teeth, he replied, "My dad swore up and down that it would be better for me to enter a school with a sports course. My mom isn't home often, so I don't know what she has to say about it." There's a half-hearted shrug halfway through his words, but he is only akin Icarus flying towards the saffron glow of freedom when he subtly speaks of his clear defiance.

"And what about you?"

"I don't... I don't think I want to continue baseball in high school," He vaguely whispered before tearing his eyes away from his false fascination on his shoes, meeting the perplexed expression on his teacher's face, "Just doesn't seem really fun anymore, y'know." The athlete dryly laughed, the mirth never reaching his eyes.

(The ending to this prologue is simple and clean, made of the caricature of hopeless and powerless youth—and so, the world continues to fall apart.)

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AUTHOR'S NOTE: career counseling sucks man,, but next chapter wont suck bc our trio is going to be in senior high school soon!! :D