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Reina’s not a sports journalist.
Hell, she’s barely a full-fledged journalist. Okay, no, not like that—she’s not the type to sell herself short! Rather, she feels that way because she’s only a few months into the job at NHK when she gets called up for the opportunity of a lifetime.
Despite pretty much being unqualified for the role, Reina swallows down her anxiety and says yes—and that decision ends up kickstarting her entire career.
During her stint covering baseball in the 2032 Brisbane Summer Olympics, Reina interviewed a lot of different people, from the players to the coaches to the umpires. Those interviews always went smoothly, quickly getting her the quotes she needed to write up her articles. Textbook.
In comparison, her interviews with NHK’s baseball commentators are pretty much the opposite of textbook: always overtime, off-topic, and overly personal. But it sure was an experience, getting to chat with retired pros and former battery for the Japanese National Team: Miyuki Kazuya and Narumiya Mei.
Here’s how it starts.
Her boss summons her into his office a week before her probation is officially over, so she’s glued together by a bundle of raw nerves when he gives her the Olympics as her first international assignment. The Olympics.
“I hear you have a knack of drawing people out of their comfort zone in interviews, especially in tough situations” he tells her casually. “We’re going to need that, especially for the all-important baseball segment.”
It’s hearing the word ‘baseball’ which shakes Reina out of her reverie, smashing through the haze of ‘Olympics, Olympics, Olympics’ echoing in her mind space. Baseball’s a sport; Olympics are a sporting event. It makes sense that they would need a sports journalist to cover it—but what doesn’t make sense is that they would choose her.
Reina studied journalism, but her area of expertise was more on local news, entertainment, people profiles and cultural connections, that kind of thing. Yes, she also loves sports, and going to the Olympics on the company’s dime is a dream come true. But, she thought she’d do stuff like athlete spotlights!
Like sure, she likes baseball a fair bit, and have successfully carried on conversations at work when it came to certain series and big upsets (oh god, is that why he thinks she’d be any good at this?) But talking baseball for work itself? That’s a whole other arena!
“I think every journalist should be fairly good at coaxing people around difficult subject matters, right?” Reina starts to say, careful to not offend while internally scratching her head over how baseball fits under that umbrella. “Not that I’m not thankful for the opportunity! But I’m sure we have other baseball aficionados with more experience who’d love to cover it instead.”
That’s a good balance, right? Between alluding her lack of technical baseball know-how and her father’s advice for her to never turn down an opportunity. Fake it until you make it, he’d say, that’s what everyone does! The Olympics was a rather big stage to fake it…but it was also the freaking Olympics.
Her boss just chuckles at her, not seeming fussed at all. “You’ll be well-prepared on the technical side, if that’s your worry, Kousou-san. We’ll make sure of it. You in?”
And that’s how she gets a spot in NHK’s Brisbane 2032 team.
Baseball and the Olympics have endured a strained on-again-off-again relationship, consisting of only the occasional demonstration game until 1992, where it enjoyed a good run until 2008. It then took a break again until the Tokyo 2020 games, slotted in at the host nation’s request. That’s the year Reina remembers as a child, cheering on the Japanese national team all the way to their gold medal, her eyes glued to her computer screen. Paris had predictably skipped it in 2024, but Los Angeles had ushered it back in 2028.
And now, Brisbane was breaking that pattern, allowing baseball to return for a consecutive occasion in 2032.
The decision made Japanese fans ecstatic, especially after missing their chance for ‘back-to-back’ golds in LA. They had a good team this year. Reina was optimistic too.
But that’s about the extent she knew about Olympic baseball. In preparation for her assignment, she devoured old articles, binged a slew of old commentaries, and while it all made sense to her, she didn’t have full confidence she could mimic it to the same effect in her writing.
Shortly after arriving in Brisbane, Reina follows up on her boss’s promise. He had said she’d receive help on the technical side of things, so Reina emails him on the matter, rewording it several times to strip out her panic. In response, she gets sent one of the communications aides, Momo, who spends all of five minutes talking to her.
“Oh, it’s fine that you haven’t done this before. Just sprinkle in some quotes and mention some key plays. Most people nowadays just go straight for the score unless something dramatic happens, so it’s fine that our articles go up with a bit of a delay,” she tells Reina flippantly.
“A delay?” Reina cocks her head.
Momo grins mischievously. “You know, Narumiya-san! He likes to go over your work before it goes live, so he’ll point out anything you’re missing…and add in comments of his own. But point is, no need to stress yourself over the technicalities!”
Reina blinks to herself a few times, absorbing Momo’s words. Her boss did say she’d get plenty of technical preparation; she just never expected Narumiya Mei to be it.
Oh, she’s screwed, isn’t she?
Reina books in her first meeting with NHK’s baseball commentators two hours after the first group stage game, which had ended in a thrilling 9th inning walk-off for Japan. She had sent her draft over to them ten minutes ago, with three printed copies in her clammy hands, waiting with slight trepidation in her seat in the corner of the hotel’s business lobby.
“New girl, you needed to talk to us?”
Flustered, Reina bobs her head a few times too many when she stands to face the source of the voice: Narumiya Mei, the former ace for Japan and regular NHK baseball commentator. She remembers watching him as a young girl, the way his presence loomed over the mound even through a screen. Now, retired and over a decade later, Narumiya somehow still has that same air to him, albeit behaving more youthfully than she’d imagine for a man in his forties.
“Oi, don’t be so rude, Mei. Don’t mind him,” Miyuki cuts in with a sigh. “I’m Miyuki. Are you the new baseball journalist? I didn’t realize NHK hired a new one.”
And that would be Miyuki Kazuya, Narumiya’s former battery-mate, at least on the National team.
Unlike Narumiya, Miyuki doesn’t have a contract with NHK, or any broadcasting agency actually. So, Reina was surprised and rather starstruck when she realized they would head NHK’s baseball segment together in Brisbane. After they had both retired in their early 30s, Narumiya carried on a few big sponsorship deals and signed a contract with NHK as a commentator, becoming quite popular for his frank messaging and on-air personality. In contrast, Miyuki had all but disappeared from the public eye after his retirement, minus occasionally resurfacing as Narumiya’s co-anchor.
“I’m Kousou Reina. I’ll be helping to cover baseball for NHK during these Games. I hope you two will guide me with your expertise.” She bends down in a bow, her cheeks a faint red still when she peers back up.
“Helping?” Narumiya wrinkles his nose and laughs. “I think you’re the one who needs help from what I heard! But don’t worry, you’ve come to the right people! You just have to write down exactly what I tell you to—”
“Mei,” Miyuki sighs, taking a seat and waving at him to do the same. Narumiya grumbles a little under his breath but obeys nonetheless. “Why do you keep insisting on getting involved in vetting the online writeups? Your commentary works great on air, sure, but on paper it’s utter trash.”
Reina freezes when she hears the casual insult slip out of Miyuki’s mouth, despite being well aware that the two men are close friends. Not that she personally relates to that kind of friendship, but she gets that it works for some people! Sure, the two of them were renown and revered for their athletic ability in baseball, but what had enraptured the whole nation’s attention was their personal connection. How they shared a close friendship-rivalry, having grown up together but never played as a battery, not until they were both called up to represent Japan.
She remembers that first interview they did together, rather blasé and flying under the radar until they made a name for themselves in the second baseball match at Tokyo 2020. That old video predictably went viral soon after, with searches of Narumiya and Miyuki skyrocketing overnight.
“Yeah, I’d say I’m kind of excited to finally team up together, or rather, put Mei in his place,” Miyuki said with a smirk. “I’ve kept him waiting to be my pitcher for over a decade after all, I think it’s about time.”
“I would’ve waited forever,” Narumiya tackled on. “But my expectations go up every year, so you better not have gotten rusty, Kazuya!”
And then they laughed in unison, sharing a look before bumping their gloves together.
“Like yours is any better, Kazuya! It’s wayyyy too technical for the readers. It’s not like they need to know what pitching sequence led to a strikeout. They just want to know someone struck out, cheers, woohoo,” Narumiya nags, clapping his hands a few times mockingly.
Miyuki doesn’t look fazed.
“Hey, I didn’t say I was an expert at it either. You’re the one with actual experience here. I’m just the guy who didn’t even want to come in the first place.”
“But it’s Australia, and you had fun in LA last time, didn’t you?”
“It’s Australia, in July, which is their winter, Mei.”
“It’s so mild here, what are you even complaining about?”
“It’s dry. But okay, fine, you got lucky with LA, I’ll admit it.”
“You know, I told NHK they’ll have to hold a spot for you for as long as they wanted me to cover the Olympics,” Narumiya declares smugly, propping an elbow on the table, leaning into Miyuki’s personal space with a huge grin. “So, now I have to hold out hope that 2036 is held somewhere you approve of, hm?”
Miyuki responds by adjusting his glasses and flipping Narumiya off with a wave of his hand. Narumiya sinks back into his seat, rolling his eyes but smiling all the same.
“You’re hopeless, Mei. This is supposed to be work.”
A palpable silence passes between them, and Reina counts the thumps of her erratic heartbeat—one, four, eight—before Miyuki glances her way, scrunching his face in apology.
“Sorry. We got a little off track,” he says, sending a sharp look towards Narumiya, who throws his hands up in a stretch, over-exaggerating the motion. “Where were we?”
“That’s—that’s okay,” Reina stumbles, opting against pointing out that they were nowhere, since the only thing she’s done thus far was to tell them her name. “It’s the first game, so it doesn’t need that much coverage. I think I pieced together enough from talking to the players and listening to your review on air.”
“Yeah, this isn’t half-bad,” Miyuki whistles, scrolling on his phone. “But you should defer to the king here for his expert opinion.”
Reina flushes. Did Miyuki Kazuya just say her first ever baseball article wasn’t half-bad? Maybe she could pull this off after all!
“Oh, you’re giving her your approval? Must be quite something, here, pass—”
“Urgh, you have your own phone, Mei.”
“I know, but yours already has it open!”
With that, Narumiya practically leaps out of his seat to make a play for Miyuki’s phone. Miyuki dodges it for a little while, chuckling at Narumiya’s frantic grabs before finally tossing it his way.
“Shit, you should be more careful with your phone! What if that shattered?” Narumiya huffs, stomping a little.
“Eh, you would’ve caught it. Besides, you bought me that case for a reason. C’mon, isn’t that third paragraph pretty good? Much better put than when you said it in the 4th.”
Miyuki raises one hand to rest it casually atop Narumiya’s shoulder, easily coaxing him back into his seat.
It’s like she’s not even there after that, which frankly does well for calming her nerves. On top of that, she still manages to get a ton of good notes, making edits on her laptop as the two converses back and forth over the game and her article’s depiction of it.
However, thirty-five minutes in, Reina realizes that they weren’t going to stop talking. Forty-five minutes in, they had moved onto hypothetical scenarios, and Reina takes that as a sign to just hit publish before she misses the informal deadline she set for herself. At an hour-ten, Reina hopes they don’t hear her stomach growling while they bicker over where to go for dinner themselves.
Nearly an hour and a half later, the conversation finally wraps up. Despite not having asked them a single question herself, Reina internally dubs it the most exhausting yet down-to-earth interview she’s ever had.
Out of curiosity or stubbornness, Reina sets her mind on making their future interactions more interview-like, for personal development and practice. It wasn’t every day that she gets the chance to speak to baseball experts like this, and she’d be squandering the opportunity if she didn’t at least try to behave like an actual trained reporter. It helps that they were more distracting than intimidating, so she shakes off the nerves with determination and goes to work.
It takes her remarkably little time to realize that some questions do better on the front of ‘actually relevant to their jobs’ than others, and that Narumiya’s whole gimmick on vetting her (and everyone who had preceded her only to quit) was more about his own desire to chat with the reporter and be heard rather than picking apart whatever they’ve written.
Which isn’t a bad thing! Honestly! She was grateful that most of her articles had escaped Narumiya’s eye relatively unscathed. It was a little upsetting that their regularly interviews always ran an hour plus, eating into her own free time to explore Brisbane and god forbid, get some extra sleep, but Reina wasn’t going to tell that to their faces. They already bickered so much with each other (jokingly, yes, but she could never really be sure), and they were friends. She didn’t dare imagine how they’d treat her if she told them to just shut it.
Three interviews in, Reina slowly finds herself resisting that urge to altogether. Maybe she’s been brainwashed from listening to their voices too often—from the NHK booth and then right afterwards—but they are charming, and real at that, so it’s a decently pleasant experience.
Listening to them hash out their predictions for who makes it out of the group stages, Reina figures out exactly why NHK allows Narumiya to bring Miyuki along to something as big as the Olympics. Sure, Miyuki may keep repeating how he doesn’t want to be here, which makes sense given how he spends most of the year secluded away from the public eye—except that he gets more worked up than Narumiya half the time, playing off the other anchor’s brazen energy on and off the air.
Reina thinks they’re popular because they don’t seem like celebrities when they discuss baseball together. They’re neither guarded nor formal, and that was probably the crux of Narumiya’s appeal when NHK hired him, but when paired with Miyuki, that distinction shines even brighter. It’s downright blinding whenever they trend off-topic from baseball, which thankfully rarely happens on air.
However, with Reina, it’s more often the norm than the exception. It’s why their talks always drag, but through it, she can say with certainty that they weren’t putting on a persona for show, the way other celebrities inevitably came across when people poked at them for too long and too deeply. She hasn’t poked at these two much at all (they do that all on their own), but what’s fallen out has been genuine, that much she can swear by her journalistic senses.
At some point, Reina starts taking notes on their personal jabs in addition to the baseball facts too. She was there listening anyway, so she might as well make the best of it.
“That’s a hindsight decision, Mei. You talk as if coaching’s easy or something,” Miyuki shakes his head. “Your job is to criticize. That’s a totally different headspace.”
“I can criticize as a coach, too! I didn’t go that route, but I easily could’ve!” Mei declares loudly.
Miyuki’s face stiffens for a moment before breaking out into a stupendous grin, snickering loudly as he tosses his head back.
“Imagining you as a coach is just,” Miyuki wipes a tear away from his eye, an actual tear, Reina notes. “Well, you know.”
“That’s what you said when I told you about this gig.” Narumiya folds his arms in protest, not looking offended at all. “That was almost six years ago! Now look at me!”
“You know I’m not the only one surprised that you went down this career path, Mei. Well, minus the fact that you can listen to yourself talk all day—”
“That’s ‘cause I have lots of things to say!”
Miyuki throws him a knowing look, tilting his chin and raising one eyebrow as if silently challenging him with a secret. Narumiya simply beams back, spurred on by that somehow.
“Kazuya, c’mon, I wouldn’t have been that bad of a coach. I’d be better than you at least.”
There’s no pause this time. Miyuki doubles over in laughter, so contagious that Reina has to press a palm to her mouth to suppress hers from bubbling out too. Luckily (and expectantly), Narumiya doesn’t notice her at all, wholly focused on Miyuki when his chuckles peter out and he finally looks to meet Narumiya’s impatient gaze.
“What in the world makes you think that? At least I’ve captained a team before.”
“That’s so not the same thing! Besides, didn’t you swear you’d never do it again?”
“I’ll make an exception just for you.”
Miyuki winks at him and Narumiya huffs, cheeks dusting light pink.
“Actually,” he hums as if in thought, pausing surely for the dramatic effect. “I heard Ichidai’s coach might be retiring next year. Maybe I’ll go express my interest.” Miyuki’s smile curls bigger, Cheshire-like.
“You wouldn’t. And what would that prove unless I coach a competing team? Hmm…maybe I’ll go and take a sabbatical from NHK for a bit…” Narumiya trails off, looking contemplative then and, dare she say, his age.
Reina honestly can’t tell if they were joking or seriously considering it. How in the world did they get onto this topic in the first place? Oh—right, the American coach’s controversial decision to keep the struggling starter in the 6th and what they would’ve done instead.
Reina does still lack experience in the world of baseball, but she has a feeling that neither of them would be very good coaches.
“Oi, Kazuya, you say that as if you haven’t screwed up in that exact same situation,” Narumiya grumbles, openly pouting (no, it’s not cute, stop staring).
“Still holding that 2017 World Classic opening match against me? Geez Mei,” Miyuki lets out a long sigh. “You got your perfect game four days later. It’s not like I forgot your birthday or something.”
Narumiya raises one finger almost immediately. “Well, there was that one time—”
“We celebrated it together with New Year’s, that doesn’t count,” Miyuki cuts him off. “I warned you in advance that we were doing that.”
“I knowwwww,” Narumiya practically whines, fidgeting at a spot just beneath the collar of his dress shirt. “You wouldn’t forget, not after what happened at the Seidou reunion.”
“It’s the only time I’ve ever contemplated actually using my phone for evil,” Miyuki teases.
Reina was following the conversation until just then. Evil?
“Awh, you’ve been checking my account for that ever since?” Narumiya grins in return, suggesting an inside joke that Reina can’t help but be terribly curious over. “So, could I entice you to—”
“No, Mei.” Miyuki shuts him down with a flick of his forehead.
“But you already have the account! You’re just disappointing your followers at this point!”
“They’ve been disappointed for years. They can survive. You on the other hand, are insatiable.”
“That’s the way you like me though, Kazuya,” Mei laughs.
Later that night, Reina looks up Narumiya’s social media account, and then Miyuki’s, and that’s when she gets the joke—at least part of it. This is the stuff she has more journalistic experience with. It’s not stalking if it’s tangentially related to her job, right?
Hence, she takes a few minutes to track down two known instances of a Seidou reunion after Miyuki’s graduation—the most recently one nearly five years ago—and spends twenty minutes digging through Narumiya’s feed before she calls it quits.
Narumiya was right in implying that Miyuki doesn’t post on his socials much. When he does, it’s almost never anything personal, the stuff people actually want to see. In contrast, Narumiya posts way too much, and Reina doesn’t quite have the energy tonight (or maybe ever) to delve through the mountain of news and photos and strings of emojis for anything substantial. Narumiya’s already posted four pages’ worth of content since they’ve arrived in Brisbane; that’s probably why he has millions of followers.
Yawning in the chair of her hotel room, Reina hits the follow button on his page, and then on Miyuki’s too, just for the hell of it. Narumiya follows back twenty minutes later, which is a pleasant surprise. Miyuki doesn’t, which given the number of people he follows (probably did one quick sweep when he signed up and then never again), doesn’t surprise her at all.
“That last double play… it sounded like you thought the Korean pitcher was aiming for that?” Reina questions.
This part was more just for her. She doesn’t need much coverage on the Korea-Dominican Republic game given their current standings, but listening to them blab on about baseball may have rekindled her love for the sport.
Narumiya glances over at Miyuki the same time he does, and as if on cue, they simultaneously nod towards Reina.
“Yeah, Yoo was definitely baiting that poor Dominican shortstop. Like you did back in ’23, against…against…” Narumiya squints in thought.
“Mexico,” Miyuki pipes up. “You didn’t like that call when I made it though, if memory serves me well.”
“I didn’t shake it off though,” Narumiya objects. “Trusted you to be ballsy when it counted. We only played together a handful of times a year back then, y’know? I didn’t want to waste it,” he says, his voice landing a sliver more delicately.
And instead of making fun of Narumiya, the way they’ve been jabbing at each other on-and-off the whole time they’ve been in Brisbane, Miyuki simply leans back in his seat. He presses one hand against his neck, toying with what Reina later discerns as a necklace chain between two fingers.
“Yeah, I know, Mei,” he replies softly.
Reina peeks down at her screen, the original question still left unanswered and the cursor blinking back taunting her. She quickly jots down ‘baiting pitch’ and ‘2023 Japan vs Mexico’ before turning her attention back to Narumiya and Miyuki. The question trapped in her throat really has nothing to do with her job now, but to be fair, neither has most of their ‘interviews’, and she was perfectly fine with that. All this time, she was chasing down some weird instinct to get more of a story out of them—and that instinct was blaring at her now.
“If you don’t mind…Miyuki-san, Narumiya-san, you two have known each other for a long time through baseball, right? Being so close personally, did it ever upset you that you’ve really never played together except on the National Team?”
Narumiya is the one who cracks first, one thumb gesturing right at Miyuki’s nose, accompanied by an eye roll.
“I’ve known Kazuya forever.” Miyuki opens his mouth, causing Narumiya to make a tsk sound in annoyance. “Fine, almost thirty years, geez, you make me feel so old when I say that out loud. Thirty years! And I think I spent half that time asking myself why the hell he didn’t want to catch for me except when forced to in the face of national duty!” he exclaims playfully with only the lightest touch of indignation.
“Only half? You haven’t been retired that long, Mei,” Miyuki jokes, a crinkle in his brow.
“He likes to play hard to get, you see—”
“Just because I didn’t want to move to Hokkaido with you? That was literally the only time the transfer timeline would’ve worked out for both of us! You would’ve complained about missing Tokyo the whole time if you went anyway, don’t even pretend you wouldn’t.”
Narumiya frowns, accepting Miyuki’s argument. It’s obvious they’ve had this fight more times than they could count. “Still. It would’ve been nice.”
“Hey, at least I didn’t turn you down because it was you that time.”
“Geez, I feel so loved, thanks, Kazuya.”
“So…it was circumstantial? The timing just didn’t work out? If not for that…?” Reina cuts in.
“NPB-wise, yeah, but he could’ve been with me as early as high school!”
“But now I’m stuck with you anyway, so does three years really change things, Mei?”
“Of course it does! Those three years felt like forever—”
“—you always use that word so loosely—”
“But I mean it, Kazuya!”
They get lost reminiscing this time around too, the longest talk they’ve had yet. Still, Reina finds herself smiling fondly watching them, stirring the nostalgia alive in her heart. She sets a reminder in her phone to give her best friend a call when she’s back in Japan. It’s been a while.
It takes Reina until Japan’s last group match to realize why she had been so interested in talking (listening, mostly listening) with Narumiya and Miyuki.
That night, the NHK team goes to grab dinner together at the hotel restaurant. Narumiya’s the one who pulls her to sit near his circle, and her chest spreads with warmth when he introduces her as Reina to everyone like they’ve been friends all their lives.
She watches as Narumiya pulls Miyuki into one conversation after another with ease, despite Miyuki insisting he didn’t need to meet the entirety of the NHK broadcasting team. He eases up a little, okay, a lot, after probably a drink too many, and the night ends with Miyuki snoozing off on Narumiya’s shoulder. When Reina asks if he’s alright, Narumiya dismisses her concerns with an affectionate smile at his former partner. Then, he pulls Miyuki to his feet, supporting his weight like he’s done this dozens of times before.
That’s when it strikes her.
It’s because they remind her of her parents—that kind of easygoing, bickering, loving relationship that only came with decades of marriage.
And once she sees it, she can’t stop seeing it. The way they not only cut off each other’s sentences, but sometimes finishes them too. How Narumiya adjusts Miyuki’s tie before they go live, muttering how he should know better by now. How Miyuki unwittingly smiles at Narumiya’s side profile on air when Narumiya talks on for too long, before calling him out on it, smiling even bigger.
They willingly share a hotel room for god’s sakes, even though NHK was more than happy to pay for separate ones. She even confirms that they wear matching necklace chains tucked beneath their shirts after some sneaky maneuvering on her part, and she’s willing to bet exactly what kind of necklace it is that they’re hiding away. Reina never thought she’d say this, but there might’ve been some truth to why #narumiyu trended back then after all.
As interview candidates go, as a pair, Narumiya and Miyuki are downright awful at keeping on topic. It must’ve driven the previous journalists mad to handle Narumiya alone, much less them combined together. She honestly wouldn’t be surprised if her boss threw her in as a test or something, to see if she could handle basically babysitting an old married couple.
Well, the joke’s on him! This is more her wheelhouse anyway, getting to know people rather than baseball plays, even if she’s gotten stupidly good at the latter lately from osmosis.
With that thought buzzing about in her head and a long-ass document full of personal notes at the ready, Reina opens a new document on her laptop and begins to type.
“It’s a shame Japan lost in the semi-finals. We don’t even know if 2036 will have baseball featured again,” Reina sighs.
“Yeah, no one knows if they’ll get to redeem themselves four years later, but I’m sure they’ll hope for the chance to anyway,” Miyuki agrees. “They had a good run, though.”
“They did. I had a great time covering them with you two,” Reina beams. “If 2036 does come to pass, maybe we’ll work together again.”
When she says the words, she’s semi-surprised that she actually means it. Even if that means she has to commit every type of pitch to memory again at Narumiya’s insistence.
“Oh, definitely! It sucks that baseball isn’t more of an international mainstay, but I’d say it’s pretty promising that it made it into 2028 and 2032! If it’s a-go for 2036, Kazuya and I’ll be there, for sure.” Narumiya bumps an elbow into Miyuki’s rib playfully, who rubs at it and shakes his head with a brief yet soft wince.
“Yeah, yeah, you know, we never got to defend our title in 2024. Instead, I got dragged all the way to Los Angeles to watch Japan almost make it with this one 4 years later,” Miyuki chuckles, before lowering his voice and covering his mouth, leaning closer towards Reina when he speaks. “Kousou-san, Mei’s basically made it a tradition without consulting me. Can you get your boss at NHK to help me get out of this?”
“Urgh, Kazuya, you’re trying to get Reina on your side? That’s cheating!” Narumiya protests with a groan. “You complain and complain but you like doing this with me, admit it!”
“Yeah, yeah, only because you ask so nicely,” Miyuki replies cheekily.
If it wasn’t already obvious from his tone, just by virtue of knowing Narumiya Mei for the past few weeks, Reina would put good money down that it wasn’t so much a request as it was a demand.
“Althouuuugh, it’s not like you don’t already talk over everyone. To be honest, I don’t even know why I’m needed here,” Miyuki continues to say, sounding amused.
Narumiya punches him again and lets out an exasperated sigh.
“Kazuya, c’mon, just because you dislike being on camera doesn’t mean you suck at this!”
“I didn’t say I sucked at it,” Miyuki clicks his tongue, grinning from ear to ear. “But now that that’s out in the open, why would you have the sense to invite me on these things anyway?”
“You know why, Kazuya!” Mei proclaims, folding his arms across his chest.
And before Miyuki could answer him—in jest or poignantly—Miyuki clears his throat and looks towards Reina. He was always the one to realize they were off track between the two of them.
“Thanks for putting up with us all this time, Kousou-san, well, mostly Mei.” A yelp of indignation squeaks out from next to him and Reina giggles at the reaction. “But what’s next for you? You mentioned that baseball wasn’t your expertise a while back, right?”
“Oh, yes!” she nods furiously. “I usually prefer more life-type features, but this was a great assignment! I never thought that I’d get the opportunity to know you two so closely.”
“That’s quite the diplomatic way of putting it versus other recounts I’ve heard,” Miyuki whistles, his lips curling upwards into a smirk. “Apparently I make him more tolerable. Can you imagine?”
She could, but she isn’t going to say why exactly she thinks that. “My knowledge of baseball is still lacking for this job, I think, but thank you both again for helping me through it.”
“Oh, anytime! You were a lot more fun than your predecessors, urgh, especially Samson, man that guy really didn’t like us!”
“He didn’t like you, Mei,” Miyuki singsongs.
“Yeah, yeah, and hey, Reina, if you ever want to talk baseball, I’m around! Well, you got my socials!” Narumiya tells her cheerily.
Reina nods with a smile. “Actually, I wanted to ask you two a favour…there’s a little side story I’ve been writing on my own while I’ve been here. I was wondering if I could get your blessing on it before I run it by my boss.”
“Our blessing?” Miyuki raises an eyebrow.
“It’s about you two,” Reina blurts out in a rush, too excited to hold back. “Truthfully, for a reporter like me, getting to hear your stories was way more fun than any of the baseball parts. NHK got a big boost from having the two of you headline parts of the Olympics for them, and I think that’s because our audience likes your story together. So…I thought they’d love to read a feature on your careers and lives. I didn’t really mean for it to get so detailed, but I’ve uh, eavesdropped a lot, or, okay it’s not eavesdropping if—”
Narumiya holds out his hand to interrupt her and Reina’s mouth claps shut. “Reina, you wrote some big thing on us just from our bickering? That’s pretty damn impressive.”
“Is it? You blabbed so much, Mei.”
Before Narumiya could counter him, Reina cuts in before she could change her mind. “You did, Narumiya-san.” Miyuki breaks out into a victorious smirk, but Reina cuts that short too. “Respectfully, so did you, Miyuki-san. Point is, it’s one of my finest works, but it’s quite personal, uhm, definitely more personal than anything that’s been covered on the two of you before. I wasn’t sure if you two would be okay with me publishing it, so I wanted to—”
“It’s fine,” Narumiya handwaves her off.
Miyuki, on the other hand, looks a little more concerned, his face falling muted. He flickers his gaze towards her for the length of a heartbeat, as if trying to dissect her intentions.
“Mei,” he starts to say, his tone a shade lower. “As kind as she is, Kousou-san is still a journalist. In terms of publicizing things…”
“Yeah, your whole gripe with it, I get it. But it’s bound to come out sooner or later, aren’t we doing the official thing as soon as, you know?”
Reina thinks she does, and Miyuki nods in agreement, looking somewhat uncomfortable.
“—so what’s the harm?” Narumiya raises an eyebrow.
She knew Narumiya would be easy to get on board; it was always Miyuki that would take some convincing. Without revealing her hand completely, she deliberately thumbs at her own necklace and slowly shakes her head. Miyuki’s gaze meets hers, and then softens in a sign of relief.
“I’ll be as vague as you want me to be if this isn’t okay. Just…give it a read. I think you’ll like it,” she says gently.
They share a look between them, one of the many that Reina’s witnessed and felt like an intruder during the course of the past three weeks.
Miyuki nods again, less hesitantly this time.
Three days later, after Japan wins the bronze medal match, she receives an email back.
I’m okay with this. Just let us know when and where it’ll be published. Mei wants to be the first to share it. It’s good.
And thank you, for being discreet.
– Miyuki
Reina smiles, pulls up the already drafted email with the attached article to her boss, and hits send.