Dog Days

Ichiro had long since given up.

Since the team's one and only loss, although it wasn't technically a loss, the dynamics on the field had shifted. At first, the changes were small, like his coach pulling him from pitching for batting practice early to allow Ishida to warm up, or other team members choosing not to pair up with him in drills.

The shift was subtle initially. Early on, everyone found partners quickly, leaving Ichiro with limited choices. Fortunately, Takuya had his back and allowed him to practice alongside him. However, as the days dragged on, others would jump in between them, cutting his friend off from him.

It seemed to be just a bit of misunderstandings at first, but they would begin adding to the problem by resisting. Saying they were told by the coach to specifically warm up with Takuya too, saying Ichiro was needed elsewhere, which turned out to not be true. The desire for others to work with Takuya was not an issue to Ichiro, it was the blatant disrespect of him and his role in the team that irked him to no end.

As this trend continued, Ichiro started leaving practices early. It became easy for him to do so, as the coaches seemingly ignored him in favor of working more with Ishida.

The amber tint of the setting sun covered the field as he watched his team run scrimmage games amongst themselves through the chain-link fence surrounding the field. With his sports bag slung over his shoulder, he turned and left the campus, the loud pop of a solid hit and the shouts of players communicating echoing behind him.

Ichiro found solace in having more time to study. His grades remained high, but his standing as one of the top students began slipping with each test. Despite keeping up with his work, his mind would easily drift during the long hours of the day.

In class, he felt restless, unable to face forwards when there was a brilliant view outside the large open window to his side. Takuya would often give him weird stares, wondering what he was looking at.

Something had changed in him, though he couldn't quite pinpoint what it was; he knew there was no going back now. His restlessness extended beyond the classroom. Late into the night, he would routinely check his phone, hoping for a message on Lime, possibly from Izumi. If he received notifications from others, he would dismiss them, irritated at how easily he got riled up.

Lately, they had been chatting late into the night. She told him she had been writing more, but she wasn't ready yet to tell him more about it yet. Though he was slightly upset he couldn’t find out how the story ended, he had shared his thoughts on it so far. He felt his words weren’t much help in the end, because they were very basic compared to her more flowing vocabulary in her writings and her prying questions for further explanation. Struggling immensely, he stumbled to get the words together to express his feelings to her, no matter how much he liked it. He refused to mention how he felt the characters were extremely close to people he knew, no matter how foolish it sounded as he thought about it.

Izumi was incredibly pleased that he enjoyed her story, but was far too nervous to talk about it herself. She did relent on one point, though. She knew how she wanted it to end, but she didn’t know if it was good enough. Her biggest concern was about the characters themselves.

“What about the knight?” she asked in one of her messages, “I don’t know him well enough. I don’t know his motives well enough.”

Ichiro thought this was a strange question. How could a writer not know their characters? Plus wasn’t she in control of the story, how could she not just make him do whatever she wanted? Perhaps this was just something he didn’t know, since he wasn’t a writer? In the end, he felt unable to help her further.

Since he couldn't read more of her work, he would change the topic, asking if she planned to come to his next game. Her response would always be soft and evasive, never a direct agreement, but she promised to try each time. Remembering what Mizuki had said about her attendance, he would just smile and thank her for trying. Even if she missed just one, they still had their days off together to explore and check off her list. In the end, it wasn’t like they were impossibly apart.

However, at school there seemed to be an invisible wall between them. Whenever he greeted her or tried to start a conversation, she treated him like an NPC in a game, essentially ignoring his existence. This behavior changed once they were both at home, where she would open up and talk more freely with him over the phone.

He wondered why she acted this way, but whenever he asked, she brushed it off, saying it wasn't something to worry about and that she needed to focus on her studies. Despite her reassurances, Ichiro could tell something was amiss.

He wasn't oblivious to the surrounding gossip—the whispered and hushed voices talking behind his back whenever Izumi wasn't in the classroom. The clique-y girls in the room would laugh and make mean, vile comments about her, and Ichiro felt furious hearing them.

He knew he should do something, stand up and say something. But deep inside an uncomfortable feeling continuously crept over him, it told him that if he tried to say something it would only make matters worse. So, in silence, he kept his head down low and let things take their course. He hated that he was acting like this, but he still couldn’t force himself to respond otherwise.

That’s how his life went as he watched days pass by. Things were not better for him on the ball field. Sitting on the bench, watching game after game continue without being given a chance to play, Ichiro felt a growing sense of frustration. The team won one victory after another in the tournament, and he cared less and less about celebrating with a team he no longer played for.

He watched as Ishida had grown from the underclassman playing backup pitcher for him when he was starting to wear out from long games to being the glue that held the team together. Though his no nonsense face never changed from moment to moment, he could tell he was enjoying his winnings in his own way.

Even if he couldn’t play through the whole game, they still wouldn’t pull Ichiro into the game. Instead, opting for playing Takeda while Ishida rested. Once things started getting dicey again, the junior pitcher would rejoin the game, leading the team to decisive victory.

And though Ichiro was completely frustrated with the little corner he had been pushed into, no matter what, he couldn’t bring himself to place the blame on Ishida. He wanted to say it was just because of some sort of backstabbing, it would make things easier on him. But that would not be fair to the young player giving his all and quite honestly being as good as he was as a pitcher. Frighteningly enough, he could even be better.

What frustrated Ichiro the most was the lack of opportunities to showcase his own abilities. In practice between games, he was no longer chosen as the warm-up pitcher for the batters. That role had been given to Ishida again, and Ichiro found himself pushed into a corner, unable to demonstrate his skills like before.

Feeling like he had no place on the team, Ichiro began skipping practices regularly, even avoiding warm-ups. He only showed up for games, but the estranged stares he received from his teammates made him feel even more out of place. Those stares stung.

But now that he had been sitting on the bench in the dugout watching this game on a brutally hot day, he was focused on the game as best he could. He watched out into the crowd from time to time, trying to get a glimpse of someone out there. But no matter what, he couldn’t see them.

Even when he was up to bat, he couldn’t get a good view, and his distracted swings didn’t bring him closer to having a better view of the fence line where she would normally sit and watch. So after striking out and causing the inning to end for them, he took his seat back on the bench and watched as the rest of the team took their places back on the field to defend this time around.

As the innings slowly ticked by, Ichiro’s ability to stay focused on the game started to sway as well. It actually came as a huge surprise to him when his coach came up to him and told him to take over for Ishida.

While Ichiro wasn’t paying attention, a strong curveball whacked Ishida hard on the wrist, and he wasn’t able to throw with how swollen it had become. The freshman player was already at his limit, and there was no way for him to struggle through without making things worse himself.

And so, they were left with no other option than to let Ichiro play. It was the only way to win the game now.

It had been so long, but now Ichiro was standing out on the mound facing down a batter ready to knock his next pitch out of the park. With eyes wide, he quickly swiveled his head around the stadium, taking in every person watching him. And each and every single one of them was not whom he was looking for.

So with a long breath, he took his stance and prepared to take his first pitch in what felt like forever.

***

It wasn’t long. Soon after, they were cheering with joy over their victory. They had made it to the next round of the tournament. Their excitement was radiating throughout the whole stadium.

Ichiro only stood there, staring up at the blinding blue sky.

“I guess I have only free time now.”