Visiting Seido

The day they visited Seido was one of the rare sunny days they had had lately. When Kōshū left for school that morning, there was much less in his backpack. It sat so lightly on his back that it felt as though it might fly away at any moment, but he still decided to carry it. Otherwise, it would feel even stranger.

That morning, when Lang Zhi saw Kōshū packing his schoolbag, he casually put his own lunchbox into Kōshū's bag and carried nothing himself.

"Aren't you afraid I might do something to your lunch?" Kōshū shook the bag, making the two lunchboxes clatter together inside.

Lang Zhi stared at the bag uneasily, but his mouth remained stubborn. "There are ten chicken nuggets, ten cherry tomatoes, twenty-five slices of beef, five rice balls, four pickles, fifteen slices of radish, and a bunch of other stuff. I counted everything clearly, so don't even think about stealing my lunch."

...So he kept track of all the food he liked.

"Oh, is that so?" Kōshū's tone seemed meaningful, immediately making Lang Zhi uneasy about his lunch. Once they finally reached the school building, he hurriedly took it back.

Kōshū found that worried look amusing and told Kusakabe about it. Kusakabe sat in front of him, and whenever Kōshū complained about Lang Zhi, he would tell him, "Haha, you should've seen him. He looked like he wanted to say something the entire way, but he was too proud to do it. He really thought I'd do something to his lunch while he wasn't looking."

"Hahaha, you really left a deep shadow on your little brother. Who would take that seriously?"

"Man, I never had this feeling when I was an only child. Having a little brother now is seriously so much fun." Kōshū grinned wickedly.

"So, did his lunch really have ten chicken nuggets and all that? Are your lunches the same? Let me see."

"Our lunches are different. I don't like cold fried chicken, so mine doesn't have any."

"Want to eat together at lunch today?" Kusakabe grinned wickedly too.

Word spread from one person to ten, and from ten to a hundred. Boys were full of energy, especially athletic boys.

So at lunch, Lang Zhi's classmates saw him being called away by a group of tall, burly boys.

"Hey, aren't those the athletes from Class 3? They're all so tall. Did Sasaki-kun offend them?" The classmates eagerly discussed the gossip over lunch.

"No idea, but the guy in the middle looks like Sasaki's older brother. It should be fine."

"Scary. Why does Sasaki-kun's brother look like he belongs to the Yakuza?"

Lang Zhi, the subject of everyone's discussion, was blushing furiously. He held the lid of his lunchbox, unsure whether he should open it.

"Two thousand yen. Hurry up and say whether you're betting or not." Kusakabe was more familiar with the athletes, and he was currently setting up a playful bet over whether "Kōshū's little brother's lunchbox had ten chicken nuggets, ten cherry tomatoes, twenty-five slices of beef, five rice balls, four pickles, and fifteen slices of radish."

The others sat at a table nearby, eating while watching the commotion.

The athletic boy leading the group did not answer Kusakabe. Instead, he asked Lang Zhi, "Hey, little brother, this is a week's worth of my allowance. So did you really count it right?"

"Uh... probably?" Lang Zhi blushed under everyone's gaze. Kōshū was watching the fun from the side and did not respond to Lang Zhi's pleading look.

He had bet two thousand yen on "Lang Zhi remembered wrong." Lang Zhi had spoken too quickly at the time, so there had to be some made-up parts.

"Then I'll bet that little brother remembered correctly."

The bet was set. Everyone who had not placed a wager began clamoring for him to open the lunchbox. Holding the lid like a wooden cup used to cover dice at a gambling table, Lang Zhi lifted it. Honestly, he had only glanced at it that morning and had not remembered the actual numbers.

A crowd immediately began counting. "One, two... ten chicken nuggets. That one's right."

"Twenty-five slices of beef is right too."

"The radish count is right too!" A perfectly good meal was being inspected by the crowd.

"Yo, you won, little brother. You're impressive." The athlete who had been hesitating earlier now began collecting money from Kōshū and Kusakabe.

"Much obliged. A bet is a bet."

Kōshū reluctantly took out two thousand yen, then turned to Lang Zhi and said, "How could you team up with outsiders to trick your brother?"

Lang Zhi said angrily, "You used your little brother's food as a betting game, and you still have the nerve to talk about other people?"

"So what?" Everyone sat down to eat now, and Kōshū sat across from Lang Zhi, using his chopsticks to take half of Lang Zhi's beef.

"Hey—"

"What?"

"...Nothing."

After that meal, Lang Zhi gained a nickname at school: "Little Brother." This child, who had been complete strangers with Kōshū just a year ago, slowly yet swiftly became "Kōshū-kun's little brother."

In less than a month, he would be used to turning around whenever he heard "Little Brother" to see who was calling him. A year later, when he and Kōshū entered the same high school, Miyuki would quickly spread the nickname to everyone else. It seemed he would not be escaping it anytime soon.

Returning to that sunny afternoon, at three thirty, the family should already have arrived at Seido, yet they were still stuck at home.

"Mom, aren't you ready yet?"

Shen Qing had taken out several outfits she had tried on repeatedly the night before.

"Didn't you already decide what you were wearing last night?" Kōshū asked in confusion.

"But I got it dirty this morning, so I still need to see which of the remaining outfits looks best."

"...Is that really necessary? We're visiting, not walking a runway." Shen Qing had gone to Seido to look around the day before. After coming back, she had seemed a little strange and started dressing herself up.

"Hehe, what would little boys like you know? A woman's desire to look beautiful is strongest when she meets another woman." Apparently, she had met some beauty. But wasn't the Baseball Club all boys? That became one of Kōshū's lingering questions for the next half year.

By the time the family finally arrived at Seido, it was already four thirty in the afternoon. They registered and entered directly.

"Seido has two fields, Field A and Field B. Other than not having spectator stands, they're basically the same size as a regular stadium." Though the school had already been renovated, Mr. Sasaki was still very familiar with the place. Since they had arrived late, Shida, who had originally planned to show them around, could no longer do so, and they could only wander on their own.

"Wow—there are two outdoor training fields for Kinoshita Little League," Lang Zhi said cooperatively.

Kōshū did not chime in. He merely stood on the high lawn and looked down at the upperclassmen still practicing below. A few were familiar faces. There are so many people.

Looking at them, he could suddenly picture what an ordinary day of high school life would be like if he kept playing baseball: classes during the day, practice in the afternoon, definitely extra practice at night, then washing up and sleeping before repeating the same life the next day. As a game drew near, that rhythm would only grow faster and faster.

"Phew—" He had originally only wanted to find a club to kill time because school ended too early, yet baseball had gradually taken up more and more of his life. He had no dissatisfaction with that state, but if he had to stop playing baseball every day and go study instead, he would not have minded that either. Life had chosen baseball for him. He simply had no motivation to change it.

Or perhaps he liked predictable lives. Moving from one club to another would eventually settle down, but that period of change in between was what Kōshū hated most. He had to pull up his roots from his existing social circle, drift somewhere else, and wait until he could take root again.

"What's wrong? You've gone quiet again." Lang Zhi leaned closer. He had actually been searching for his brother's weakness all along, and now he seemed to have found some inspiration. It was not exactly a weakness, though. Whenever Kōshū entered a new environment or met new people, he became very quiet at first. It had been the same when he first joined Kinoshita Little League. At the beginning, Kōshū would only follow behind him and serve as background decoration during everyone else's conversations.

What does that mean? Does he care about the first impression he gives people? Some kind of calm, steady swordsman or something? With Lang Zhi's way of thinking, it would probably take him a long time to find the weakness he dreamed of using to keep Kōshū in check.

The family wandered to Seido's cafeteria. Through the glass, they could see many baseball-related items displayed inside.

"Eat at least three huge bowls of rice every meal? That has to be a lie. That's way too many carbs. How terrifying is the training?" Lang Zhi was the more serious of the two children when it came to investigating. Places Kōshū only glanced over would be carefully examined by Lang Zhi.

"Protein is the important thing, though—" Lang Zhi's head was right in front of Kōshū as he bent over to inspect something closely, and Kōshū could not help placing a hand on his head again.

"Hey—don't just put your hand on my head. I won't grow taller." Lang Zhi had heard somewhere recently that being patted on the head too often could stunt growth, so he protested like this every time someone touched his head.

"Why are you so short when we live in the same household? Shouldn't you reflect on yourself? You have to look inward for the cause of everything." Kōshū turned the blame around.

"...Do I need to remind you that we don't even have the same genes?"

Bickering, the two children walked faster and faster. When they finally turned around, they had already become separated from the two adults.

"Why didn't they call out to stop us...?"

"They probably did. We just didn't hear them."

They looked around and heard the sound of a pitcher throwing.

"Is this the Bullpen?"

The catcher inside was the starting catcher from the previous semifinals. The pitcher facing him was trying out a pitch similar to a Curveball. They stood close to the entrance, where the wind poured into the Bullpen. The pitcher was tall and thin, unable to fill out his uniform. Excess fabric everywhere was blown into wrinkles by the gusts.

But the Curveball was still sharp. As visitors, Kōshū and Lang Zhi had no adults with them and did not know whether they had entered somewhere they were not supposed to visit. Not wanting to cause trouble, they watched for a while before quietly leaving.

After rejoining the adults, the family chatted in the car about Seido's comprehensive facilities. Kōshū listened quietly, but "Seido" had already changed from a written word into a string of images flashing through his mind: two outdoor fields, an indoor field, dormitories, a dedicated cafeteria, and a Bullpen.

High school baseball really does make a much bigger production out of things than middle school baseball. The facilities and fields are more extravagant, and there are so many more people. Maybe twice as many.

"So, what do you think of my alma mater?" Mr. Sasaki asked as he drove, turning his head with a hint of smugness. He had been too embarrassed to say it on campus, but now that it was only family, he did not care.

"It's pretty good," Kōshū said dryly, unsure what else to say. Just based on the facilities, playing baseball here would be completely fine.

"It's great. I didn't expect Dad used to play baseball in a place like this." Lang Zhi gave his father plenty of face.

Under Mr. Sasaki's enthusiastic promotion, the family gradually reached a consensus: they would try to let both children play baseball at Seido in the future.

As for the other rational voice in the family—Shen Qing—she had visited several schools alone, yet Seido was the only one she had brought the two children to see in person. That seemed to express her opinion as well.

Originally, I wanted the two kids to cause some sort of commotion during the visit, but thinking about it, if I were a visitor, I probably would not disrupt someone else's training. So what I had planned for this chapter disappeared.

Sigh, this will do for now.