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Picture this: you’re twelve years old and you meet a boy, except he’s not a boy. He’s too bright, his smile arrogant and golden, his face shaped like a sunbeam and his whole body radiating off light. He vibrates, expands, looks at you with narrowed eyes when you challenge him and then takes you up on it.
On the mound he stands like a star. Pitches like one, too, the curve of his elbow high and proud, the slope of his spine a river, his hands like birds taking flight.
When the game ends he comes over, grin wide, dripping with pearls. “Kazuya,” he says, and you smile.
“Mei,” you answer.
He asks for your number, and you give it to him. That night, your dad locks himself in his office after dinner, and the phone rings, and it’s for you.
And this: you’re fifteen and he wants you to be on his team. He wants you to be his catcher, and in your head it sounds like, “You’re Apollo, with your fiery-horse carriage; drive me across the sky.”
It’s a tempting offer; you could reach the sky with him, be as tall as mountains that touch clouds. But Seidou is Rei-chan, and she’s home. Seidou is Chris-senpai, and he is too, almost, so you say no.
He smiles at you, doesn’t insist. Doesn’t say you will regret it, either; he laughs, eyes shining, and walks you home.
Also this: you’re eighteen, standing on the mound with him. It’s cold, but you feel warm where his body touches yours, from your shoulder to your hip. You both breathe in the night air.
“We’re finally going all the way,” he says, voice echoing in the huge empty stadium. Both of your signed contracts shake on his left hand.
“Mei,” you say, and it sits on your tongue, worn and familiar and right.
He grins at you, squeezes your hand, says “Kazuya.”
You’re nineteen, twenty, thirty-one. The sun shines for you every day.