Home Run Ch. 01

"I'm looking for an English tutor."

She pauses. She looks over her shoulder with a hint of confusion. Ultimately, she brushes this off, returning to Jun with a lack of hostility yet still absent of warmth. The woman picks her words carefully. "He doesn't live here anymore."

"Oh- I'm terribly sorry to disturb you. Any idea where I could find him?"

"Check the baseball field."

The door closes before he can thank her. He tugs at the bag by his side and starts walking. Passing through the quiet outskirts of town and into the dense forest of concrete buildings and window displays. The sun sets, yet the streets don't get any darker, lit by the endless barrage of neon and plastic signs. People smoke outside, but the streets are clean.

The field is outdoors with a chain-link fence around it. A high net over some sections to keep stray balls from breaking nearby windows. There's a rhythmic pattern of sound coming from the field. A mechanical whirring followed by a thwip and a crack. Jun can't see through the banners on the fence. It could be someone else. Only one way to find out.

Standing alone at home plate is a man with dyed blonde hair. It's more of an orange color, clearly the product of going from black to blonde without toner. Like he's trying so hard to be an American or a popstar. Neither would be surprising coming from Yuma. Jun has hope that this is him.

He swings the bat in his hand with a solid crack. Sweat soaks his otherwise voluminous bangs and drips down to the neck of his shirt. Jun stares. He can't catch a glimpse of the man's face through his intense focus on the task at hand. Not wanting to get hit with a stray ball or interfere, Shiro takes a seat on the bleachers and waits for the man to finish.

He's not sure how long he waits and watches, reminiscing on simpler times. Sitting next to him in those stupid yellow hats while Yuma talks his dorky little head off about America. Yuma Katsu is a kabure, a Japanese person obsessed with a foreign culture. He always has been. Everyone thought he would grow out of it, but he never did. It was pretty subtle at first as it's considered cool to sprinkle English words into casual conversation, so Yuma learning English isn't especially odd. He lucked out with baseball too. It's a widely popular sport in Japan.

The final crack of the bat snaps Jun to attention. Gentle whirring turns to something close to silence with a click. The only sound now is the wind blowing straight through him, cold nipping at his toes and fingers. The man turns around in front of him, bending over to collect the few baseballs he missed. It's Yuma, but not the bright cheery Yuma, Jun remembers. This slight difference in mannerisms is enough to bring doubt to his identity.

Meanwhile, believing himself to be alone, Yuma acts without ego. With no audience, there's no point in performing. His effort and exhaustion are tangible in the frozen breath coming out of his mouth. He turns back around to collect more balls, lifting the bottom of his shirt up to use like a basket. Stupid, but somehow still carries more than hands alone.

A voice that's so familiar yet so different breaks this illusion of solitude from behind. "Katsu-Kun?"

It's definitely odd hearing 'Kun' from a mystery person if they're as young as they sound. The man in the stands sounds as unsure of that honorific as Yuma is. The melancholy sound of an old friend with a new face. San would have been the safe honorific. Yuma bends down at the hips, looking between his legs as he collects yet another ball. Failing to account for gravity, the baseballs in his shirt all tumble out comically in front of him. At least one hits him on the nose. Yuma spats, squinting at the upside-down image of the raven haired shortie leaning over the half wall separating the strands from the field.

The guy smiles at his antics, holding back a chuckle. His hair is long and his teeth are crooked as ever. Yuma's eyes light up. He'd know that fucked up row of teeth anywhere. "Shiro?"

Jun is slapped in the face by the lack of honorific. Yeah, this is definitely Yuma Katsu. Yuma always leans heavy on the side of friendly informality and he did have permission to go without honorifics at one point. It's been so long though that anyone else would rightfully assume they've lost that privilege. It's presumptuous, yet coming from a man who currently has his ass in the air, it manages to ring as an attempt to establish they're still friendly.

"Jun Shiro."

"Whoa, the Jun Shiro?" Katsu stands upright so his ass isn't facing his friend so prominently. Yuma turns around and bows too far forward, exaggerating the action. He closes his eyes and raises both eyebrows. "Excuse me, I didn't recognize you, Mr. Shiro-Dono."

Shiro can't help but roll his eyes. The English and Japanese honorifics combined were not necessary. Neither was the use of Dono, an antique suffix roughly translating to 'my lord'. Yuma plays with honorifics to fuck with people. It's a hobby.

Yuma looks up, opening one eye with the biggest smile. "How's life being the son of the president?"

Jun made the mistake once as a child, claiming his father was the president when asked what his parents did for a living. He wasn't wrong, he just didn't know there was a difference between being president of Japan and being president of a company. "I'm never going to live that down, am I?"

"It will stop being funny, eventually." He stands up straight and watches as Jun walks out onto the field, helping him collect the balls. Yuma gets back to collecting them and putting them back in the machine. "It's been ages. How have you been?"

"I've been busy"

"Can't be too busy if you've found the time to hang out with me." It's less of a jab at Shiro's time management and more a hint that Yuma shouldn't be worth his time. "Not to say I'm not thrilled to see you, just- I'm surprised."

"Why would it be surprising?"

"I'm a delinquent weirdo."

"Uhm. Well- I don't..." Jun looks Yuma up and down. The hair makes it hard to refute the rebellious streak he has going on. Sure, dying hair is acceptable, but there's a tiny range of color options that won't break dress codes and social conventions. The only people in Japan who can get away with dying their hair anything more adventurous than a different shade of brown are celebrities. "You're not hurting anyone. Can't be that bad. I was actually hoping you could help me with English."

"Way to get my hopes up." Yuma frowns, putting the last of the balls in their place. He grabs his bat off the ground and heads to the exit. He can hear Shiro jogging after him.

"Hey! Wait a minute, Katsu-Kun!" Jun catches up to his friend. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh nothing. I'm disappointed you're here for my English and not my good looks and cool personality." The fake pouting does nothing to earn sympathy from Jun.

"I'm here in spite of your good looks and cool personality." It's terribly obvious he only acts offended to mess with Shiro. He knows it's not convincing, but Shiro keeps playing the game. It's fun.

"Oh? Would I be too distracting, Shiro-Chan?" Yuma purposely uses Chan instead of Kun as a subtle jab. Chan is usually reserved for cute girls. The only time an adult man is called Chan is as a cutesy romantic pet name or, alternatively, as an insult. Yuma straddles both sides of this line, testing the waters in a way.

"You already are."

"Sweet!" Yuma grins. Oh, this is fun.

"Seriously though, I do need help with English."

"I'll do my best, but I can't promise you'll get anything done-"

"Because of your good looks and cool personality, I gathered that much."

"Don't say I didn't warn you." Yuma motions for Jun to follow him out on the streets.

The roads grow narrower and more winding until it's nothing more than an alley for foot traffic. The fancy neon lights and decorative windows are far behind them now. There's an occasional clothesline stretched across, though there's no clothing drying on them this time of year. The windows on these buildings provide light but not a view as looking out of one would only offer the side of a building. Yuma can hear Jun turning around to gawk at the place. Katsu figures Jun doesn't have a reason to find himself in a place like this in his everyday life.

Yuma pushes his key in the front door to a very narrow looking building. The door pushes open to a tiny genkan. Only wide and long enough to open the door all the way. The edge of the step up shows signs of the door brushing against it. Yuma steps in and Jun finds himself pressed against him just to get the door closed behind them. Yumas face heats up a little just watching Jun be so awkward about it. Yuma reaches around him with another key to open a metal shoe locker built into the wall. Each door on the locker has a number and a letter on it. Yuma can't help but feel embarrassed as Jun looks over all the numbers, confused.

Yuma can't blame him for expecting the genkan to be inside his apartment. That is the standard in most apartments. Once their shoes are off, Yuma tugs the other down a tight hallway, lined with yet another metal wall with what appears to be lockers. The wall is two lockers high with a shorter locker drawer-looking bit beneath each one separately. The drawers look longer than the locker door above them. Each vertical locker door is offset from the one below it, allowing for a short ladder to be placed in front of each of the upper locker doors. At the end of the hall, Yuma sticks his key into the upper locker and opens the door.

It's at this point that Jun realizes these aren't lockers. This is a coffin apartment. High density low-cost places to sleep typically reserved for cities like Tokyo where housing demand far outpaced supply. Demand isn't that high in an entertainment district like this one. Peeking around, Katsu, Jun sees the inside. An extra long full size mattress takes up all the floor-space and a makeshift clothes rod is suspended along one side. Jun takes his eyes away from the man's bed and faces the man himself, deeply confused.

"Why?- You..." Jun stumbles over his words, visibly struggling to find the polite non-judgmental way to ask, "Uh- why did you move out of your parent's house for- Why here?"

"Not classy enough for you, Shiro-Dono?" Yuma climbs inside, his expression once again lacking the playful optimism Shiro expects of him. He's pissed, honestly. Yuma didn't have any sense of shame about living in a coffin home until Jun came in and stood around with his mouth hung open.

"I'm not- I just don't see why you'd leave home for this." Jun climbs in after him. The ceiling is at least high enough to sit upright. That's a plus.

"I didn't leave. Mom and Dad kicked me out."

Shiro furrows his brows, looking over his shoulder as he closes the door behind them. "I don't get it. What did you do?"

"It's not about what I did, it's about what I didn't do."

Jun looks at Yuma, confused. He doesn't understand how failing to do something would be bad enough to warrant kicking Yuma out of the house.

"I didn't make it into the school they wanted. I don't look the way they wanted, don't act the way they wanted, they didn't like my friends and they especially didn't like my lovers." Yuma sits against the back wall and pulls open a laptop. He could be hitting the nail on the head too directly, but at the moment he's not in the mood to care. Yuma is gay and long past the point of feeling bad about it. He's not the kind to feel guilty about things he can't change.

"I'm sorry, Katsu-Kun."

"I don't need your pity." Yuma continues, not making eye contact as he navigates the computer screen. "I don't fit into their little box and I don't want to either."

"No, it's not pity. I..." Shiro backpedals, "I get it."

"You do?" Yuma looks up from the laptop screen, raising a skeptical eyebrow. As much as he'd love to hear that Jun Shiro of all people is secretly gay, somehow he doubts that's where Shiro is going with this.

"My parents are pretty strict, too." Shiro offers a sympathetic smile, though seems unsure of where to rest his eyes. "I have to dress a certain way and succeed in certain things to prepare to take my father's place." He rubs his arm awkwardly. "If I don't meet their standards- I don't know what happens."

Yuma's eyebrow raises, joining the other in surprise. Jun's responsibility to take over his father's company is common knowledge. No shock there. What gets Yuma is the thought that Shiro probably doesn't get a say in the matter. He's caught up considering what it would be like to have a whole future laid out in front of him before he could even speak to protest. To be placed under this constant pressure to go through the motions perfectly. Every waking breath is scheduled and monitored.

It's not the same feeling exactly. Yuma wouldn't say Jun gets it. But Yuma can't say he gets Jun's struggles either. He exists in a whole different world. The feeling of being trapped in a box, however is universal. "Have you ever tried?"

"Tried what?"

"Making a choice for yourself, straying from your parent's plans a little. Get a tattoo, dye your hair, something stupid- anything at all, really."

"Depends on who's asking."

"I'm asking."

Shiro tucks his hair behind his ears. A ring, a stud, and a dangly on each ear. One earring would be odd on a man but not entirely unheard of, but multiple piercings? That might as well be some yakuza shit. Shiro definitely isn't in a gang, but damn it sure does take Katsu for a loop to see he has a total of six piercings.

Yuma grins, proud of Jun for doing basically nothing. It's more the possibility. If Jun is weird in one aspect of life, he might not have a strong aversion to being weird in another. "Do they know?"

"Not at all- Well, mom knows about the one."

"Look at you, such a delinquent."

"You think so?" Jun puts his hair back over his ears.

Yuma can't help but watch with fascination. He smiles dumbly. "I'm joking. I had no idea."

"Maybe I'm just better at getting away with it." He smirks playfully.

"Does it really count as rebellion against the system if the system never sees it? It's not exactly a protest." Yuma speculates, putting one finger to his chin. "What's the point of wearing jewelry and hiding it all the time?"

"I like the way that it feels. The weight of them." Jun pinches at Yumas bedsheets, feeling the fabric between his fingers. It's soft, but it's definitely not smooth. Yuma can hear it in the slight ruffling. A lower thread count than his friend is probably used to. "So. English?"

"Oh, right..." Yuma almost forgot the point of Jun being there at all. He turns his head back to his open laptop. Yuma takes a moment to remember what he had pulled it out for in the first place. He pulls up some obscure streaming service. It's nothing but American sitcoms. Everything from 'King of the Hill' to 'Modern Family' is available in the service dubbed or subtitled for Japanese audiences. "I'm not a very good teacher. This is how I learned."

Jun crawls over to sit next to Yuma. He keeps a polite distance at first. He can't see the screen until he's brushing his hip and shoulder against his friend's. "You learned by watching television?"

"Yes. I paid attention and picked up on it." Yuma starts with Seinfeld. It's one of his favorites. He lifts an arm up and rests it across Jun's shoulders, mostly to keep Jun's bony figure from fighting for real estate.

Jun is glued to the screen. The episode plays and he doesn't know what's going on. Yuma looks down to see the adorably confused expression on his friend. He pauses to fill him in on the plot, giving him a few vocabulary words to look out for and hopefully understand what's going on. As the episodes play out, Yuma notices that even when Jun comprehends the plot and the language, he misses out on the jokes. Perhaps the nineties sitcom was a bad choice.

The gay episode comes on. Yuma knows Seinfeld has one. He's seen it before, he just forgets which one it is. The plot is rather confusing at times. Jerry's friends realize a woman sitting behind them is eavesdropping on them and decide to mess with her by heavily implying Jerry and George are dating. This spirals out into a rumor that Jerry and George struggle to disprove to a journalist threatening to publish the rumor as fact. Jun looks even more confused. It's not surprising as a major part of the plot is people saying things they don't mean for the comedic benefit of an eavesdropper. Yuma explains the English word 'gay' among other vocabulary, and Jun stops him.

"Why do they keep saying 'not that there's anything wrong with that'?"

Yuma bites his lip momentarily. Something in his stomach feels heavy. "They're trying to sound accepting."

"But it's making them look more suspicious." Yuma is slightly relieved to hear that is the part he's confused about. A part of him fears Shiro has stronger opinions on gay issues than his current naivete would make obvious.

"Yeah, that's the joke. They're more concerned about sounding tolerant than disproving the rumor."

"Oh." Jun pauses. "I heard in America same sex marriage is legal."

"Is that supposed to be a bad thing?" Call it morbid curiosity. Yuma has to know. It comes out more accusatory than he expects. He wants to take it back as soon as it leaves his lips.

Jun answers. "No. They're overpopulated."

"What about us?" Yuma keeps pushing. One of these days, his big mouth is going to get him shot.

"It's rude to talk about politics"

It's interesting to Yuma that it only counts as politics when it applies to him. Talking politics is more than just some debate of philosophy. This in Yuma's eyes is not without consequences. He has to be careful about who he trusts. "It's just you and me. Talk."

"I don't think the state should encourage homosexuality amidst the population decline."

"So it's all about numbers to you?"

"It's the government's job to encourage good choices. "

"Choices?" Yuma frowns. So Jun is one of those. How charming.

"Is it not?"

"Love isn't a choice Shiro-Kun" by comparison to the purposely too high honorifics Yuma used on him earlier, 'Kun' should feel like a jab to the stomach.

"Really?" Jun's surprise sounds genuine, throwing a wrench in Yuma's conclusions. This would be so much easier if Jun would just firmly take a stance one way or the other instead of looking up at Yuma like he's witnessing the secrets of the universe unfold before him.

"Well, who was your first crush?"

"Mika-San."

"Wait, really? How did you two not wind up together?"

"Huh?"

"She had a crush on you too, idiot." It's strange being the middleman to that particular detail. Then again, it's also strange knowing Mika has a crush on him too.

"Oh, I just- I figured having a crush because I wanted to have one was a dumb reason to pursue a relationship."

So Jun got himself a crush because he wanted to. And then decided that wanting to was an inadequate reason to have a crush. The sound that leaves Yuma's mouth barely qualifies as human. "Nyeh?"

Jun somehow understands it perfectly. "Like peer pressure."

Yuma still doesn't get it. If it was possible to get peer pressured into sexual attraction, Yuma would've been straight a long time ago. Suffice to say, he's still very gay and very certain that's not how any of this works. Shiro has to be an alien or something. There's no fucking way he's this clueless. "That's not how that's supposed to work. You have to feel something."

"Feel what?"

"Arousal?" If Yuma has to explain what a boner is to a grown man, he's going to walk backwards into the fucking ocean. "Like butterflies in your stomach."

"I- I've never felt that."

"Ever?" Yuma's words bounce off the metal walls surrounding them. He can feel the vibration of his own voice pressed against his back. Shiro probably can too.