Chapter Text
Sawamura Eijun.
Energetic loudmouth, baseball enthusiast, and resident southpaw pitcher.
He is also currently five years old.
Eijun had no idea what happened—on the night of his graduation at Seidou, where he had gone to sleep with a mixture of bittersweet and sad leaving a weird taste on his tongue, the sweetness of the memories of his recent Koshien wins overlapping with the bitterness of the reminder that he hadn’t been able to have the third years during his first year at Seidou experience those same joys.
Everything had been fine, swell, even, only for him to wake up to find he was in the body of his five year old self, staring down at hands much too small and a view of the world much, much lower than he was used to seeing.
The southpaw honestly had no idea how to take this current situation. He still had his memories of his life before, strikingly clear despite everything, and now he was sitting on a swing, watching his friends blankly as they ran about on the playground, screaming and laughing amongst themselves.
Wakana turned towards him, face and hands covered in dirt as she grinned at him, making her way to his side as she sat down on the seat next to him. “What'cha thinkin’ about, Ei-chan?”
Eijun glanced at her, blinking at her slowly as he processed her words. “Just… things.”
“What kind of things?”
The boy looked around, his friends coming over to his side as they listened in on their conversation, eyes wide and smiles on their faces.
He was still endlessly confused, having no idea why he was here or what happened in his previous timeline, but, if there was one thing that always helped him during tough situations, then he had, what he believed to be, the perfect solution for this.
“... what do you guys think about baseball?”
-
Let it be known that, once Eijun put his mind towards something, he would do his damndest to make sure to see it through to the end.
There wasn’t much a five year old could do, but luckily the Sawamura family was more than open to the idea of their son, and grandson, taking to baseball as a hobby, eagerly buying him a mitt, ball and bat, even offering to buy some for his friends before their parents turned them down, saying they could get it themselves.
So, now they had a few of the necessary items to begin getting a feel for the game, even if Eijun knew his friends only got them because he wanted them to and they were much too kind for their own good to turn him down, even if they weren’t overly enthusiastic about the whole ordeal.
“It’s fine,” Akio, one of the ones who was probably the least keen on playing baseball, said, giving the brown-haired boy a bright smile. “You’re not forcing us to play, Ei-chan. Besides, seeing you happy makes us happy!”
If anyone asked, no, Eijun decidedly did not cry at those words, thank you very much.
Eijun designated himself as the pitcher of the group, although he played as a fielder from time to time as well. Or, well, as much of a “fielder” as he could with his small group of friends in the local park.
Wakana and Nobu were the most helpful of his friend group, with Nobu offering to catch for Eijun more often than not, and Wakana following along with him to the library to brush up on their, limited, in Wakana’s case, knowledge of baseball and workouts, though, again, what workouts five year olds could do wasn’t all too much without potentially injuring himself in the process.
His mother and father, bless their hearts, tried to understand their son’s sudden newfound obsession with the sport, while his grandfather just let him do whatever he wanted, though with a stern lecture on not pushing himself, which Eijun will fully admit to having it go in one ear and out the other. Not that he’d ever say that to his grandfather’s face, of course. He had some self-preservation left within him, after all.
So, Eijun trained—he did jump rope, he ran, he did intense stretches, he even did hopscotch to work on his balance, plus it was fun.
Years passed and the brunette added more and more intense and grueling workouts to his regime, to the worry and concern of his family and friends, but he insisted it was more than necessary if he wanted to get better for playing high school baseball, making sure to eat three bowls of rice daily once he turned fourteen as well as working on the training menu he brought back up from the recesses of his mind that Chris had given him all those years ago.
Eijun was grateful that whatever witchcraft that led him to turning back in time also enhanced his memory to near perfection as, while he had a pretty good memory to begin with, there was no way in hell he’d ever remember something that was, essentially, over ten years ago at this point.
He also worked hard on his control, as not only did it help lessen the burden on Nobu, but also helped when he finally decided to start working on his numbers at the beginning of middle school, as he knew those would be absolutely impossible for any one of his friends to catch if he didn’t have absolute pitch perfect precision, which was a fun challenge in and of itself so he wasn’t all too bothered by it.
In fact, he made it both a game and his mission to see how well he could perfect his numbers before reentering Seidou and he snickered to himself once he thought about the surprised face Miyuki would no doubt have once he showed off what he could do.
Over the years, thinking about his old teammates stopped hurting as much as they did at the beginning of his strange new life, and now he could only feel endless excitement and restlessness as he impatiently waited to grow up and meet them all once again.
Harucchi, Furuya, Captain, Onii-san, Spitz-san, Mochi-senpai, Pudding-senpai, Shishou, Miyuki… He thought to himself fondly, a small smile on his lips as he stood on the mound, in the exact same match that he knew Rei-chan had first discovered him at, staring at the batter who was looking at him in a mixture of frustration and confusion and the southpaw absolutely refused to use anything other than his four seamer, as he wanted to keep everything else a surprise for later. I swear, this time, I’ll be better. And everyone will be able to experience Koshien—together!
With that thought in mind, his fiery golden eyes honed in on the mitt in front of him and, slamming his raised foot on the ground beneath him, threw the ball in his hand.
-
Takashima Rei watched the game with great interest, glancing at the scoreboard. It’s the bottom of the ninth, six to six, and, while she hadn’t been there to see the entire game, there was already one player on this no name team that made her trip to this out-of-the-way countryside every bit worth it.
Sawamura Eijun. The team’s captain, ace, and mood maker, if his boisterous personality and overwhelming positivity had any say in the matter.
Rei had come when the score was still three to three, and the Akagi Junior High were batting.
All three of the players who went to bat struck out easily, their forms shaky and uncontrolled, which Rei would have expected if the team were made of inexperienced players.
Frankly, she wasn’t impressed, though it wasn’t like anyone on the other team had any standout players either, so, after the last batter got out, she wondered if she should just go back, as it was getting late and she hadn’t had much luck finding anyone worth interest, until a loud voice caught her attention, almost by proxy as he had been the loudest voice in the entire place by a long shot.
“Wahaha! Don’t mind, don’t mind! You’ll get ‘em next time!” The brunette shouted, patting his teammate on the shoulder as he walked out from the circle where he’d been prepping as the next batter before the change, a bright, warm smile on his face as his teammates visibly cheered up after their lackluster performance. “We’ll just have to keep them from scoring any more runs, yeah?”
Interest piqued, Rei decided to stay for a while longer, and she was endlessly grateful that she did.
Her opinions on most of the Akagi Junior team didn’t change—they were still highly inexperienced and, in the politest way possible, unskilled, but what was pleasantly, and shockingly, if she were to be completely honest, surprising was their ace.
Sawamura Eijun.
In all honesty, this was mostly a one-man team, with Sawamura earning strikeout after strikeout with his excellent pitch control, even if he only threw fastballs, the catcher never having to move his mitt to catch the ball that landed perfectly in it each and every time.
Not only that, but the boy was a ferocious batter as well, hitting each ball thrown at him cleanly with such power and precision that Rei couldn’t help but feel a shiver run down her spine at each swing he made.
It was endlessly unfortunate that the other players could almost never capitalize on them, however, though Rei had begun to focus less on them and more on Sawamura—she needed to have him on the team.
A middle schooler with that much ball control, and a nasty swing to boot? Not only that, but each pitch was fast—not the fastest she’d ever seen, mind you, but fast enough that they certainly weren’t that of a normal middle schooler, or maybe even high schooler at this point.
She couldn’t even call him a diamond in the rough, as he looked so well polished amongst the faded stone around him that he was practically gleaming.
It didn’t even matter that he couldn’t throw breaking balls at this point, as that was something they could certainly work on once he entered high school. What he had was control and a decent speed, which was more than enough to earn him a spot on the team.
Now here they were, at the bottom of the ninth, two outs with the bases loaded, and Rei could still see the fire burning in those golden eyes and a wide smile on his lips, no sign of tension to be seen in the slightest, and a shiver ran down her spine as she saw the determined look on his face as he began his last windup, his expression not unlike a wild beast on the verge of starvation staring down its prey.
As if time itself stopped, all Rei could see was the ball as it flew from his fingers, and almost immediately she could see it going off course from where it was meant to be thrown, to the bottom left, instead floating up, and judging from Sawamura’s eyes widening, he could see it, too.
The batter noticed as well, and, with a heavy swing, connected his bat with the ball and hit the pitch out of the park, a mixture of desperation and determination earning the opposing team their victory as they cheered, a grand slam ending the Akagi Junior’s run, Sawamura ducking his head as he adjusted his cap while kicking at the dirt on the mound as the opposing batters made their way home.
Rei watched, curious as to how the boy would react.
Sawamura stayed silent for a few moments, the rest of his team hurrying to his side, tears in their eyes as they surrounded him, but, before they could open their mouths, Sawamura looked back up, and Rei was shocked to see the fire in his eyes still burning brightly, his lips pulled into a wide smile as he laughed.
“Wahaha! Well, we lost! We did our best, though, and that’s all that matters!” Sawamura said, nodding sagely and laughed as his friends cried, doing his best to placate them with words of comfort and encouragement, and Rei stared at the number one plastered on the boy’s back.
A true ace… Her mind supplied, a smile pulling at her lips unconsciously as she watched the scene unfold. She simply could not let him go at this point—she knew she would regret it for the rest of her life if she did.
As both teams lined up and gave the customary bow, Rei watched with ever growing hope that this boy could be the one to pull Seidou out of the slump it’d been in for the past few years, and be the final push they needed to finally reach Koshien.
As she was fantasizing about what was yet to come, Rei was quickly pulled from her thoughts as she heard a scuffle and looked over to see, to her surprise, Sawamura slapping the opposing team’s players, staring at for a moment dumbly before chuckling quietly, hearing bits and pieces of what had led up to the fight in the first place.
Well… perhaps he’s not quite as composed as I thought. She thought to herself, amused, but none the less determined to recruit him. Turning around, she left, eager for the future that was yet to come.