Quietly Changing Everyday Life

Quietly Changing Everyday Life

Exactly four months after Kōshū arrived in the family, Mr. Sasaki could not wait to transfer him into Magnolia Middle School. At the same time, Shen Qing planned a family trip. Both adults hoped these actions would make the family more stable.

August was still scorching, but the adults' hearts were even hotter. Transferring in at the end of the term, when everyone was busy reviewing, Kōshū was told he had to take the exams too. Cursing under his breath, he quickly picked up his study pace. Only after returning to a normal school did he feel some youthful spirit within him slowly coming back to life.

For example, when Lang Zhi said he had only just started learning all this and would definitely do badly on the exams, Kōshū's first reaction was not to beat him up, but to consider how he could make a stunning impression.

"Hey, what's with that face? You look like you're plotting something. It's terrifying."

"I'm thinking about how to crush a bunch of Japanese people in Japan."

Although Kōshū was a year older than Lang Zhi, for various reasons, they were currently in the same grade.

In the end, Kōshū only partially achieved his goal. He ranked among the top five in the class, but that was enough to leave Lang Zhi speechless.

Since Kōshū was the only one in the new family who had never seen the ocean, Shen Qing made a sweeping decision: they were going to the beach.

In the end, the people who had seen the ocean were even more excited than the one who had not.

"Ah, finally, a vacation. I don't want to work anymore." Wasn't Mr. Sasaki supposed to enjoy solving everyone's troubles?

"I've been dieting for a month. I finally made it in time to wear a swimsuit." Ha. Coming to see the ocean for my sake was just an excuse, wasn't it?

"There seems to be beach volleyball over there..." Excuse me, were you watching the volleyball or the people playing it? And weren't you a shut-in? Why were you interested in real-life girls?

By the end, Kōshū was the only one still holding his ground. "No. I just want to enjoy the shade."

When the sun was no longer quite so vicious, Kōshū felt like taking a walk across the trampled beach. Then the other three called out to him, "Takano, come play bottle-cap baseball."

Shen Qing and Kōshū only knew a little about baseball, but Mr. Sasaki had once been in the Baseball Club, while Lang Zhi was currently in it. So the two Sasakis discussed the rules and decided to split into teams: Lang Zhi and Shen Qing on one side, Mr. Sasaki and Kōshū on the other.

In the first inning, Lang Zhi pitched, throwing bottle caps. A sheet of plastic served as home plate, and Shen Qing was the catcher. Mr. Sasaki and Kōshū took turns batting. As long as they hit the cap past a line two meters behind Lang Zhi, it counted as one point. Naturally, their bats were plastic bottles with the caps removed.

Mr. Sasaki demonstrated first. As expected of someone who had been in the Baseball Club, he sent it well past the two-meter line and scored a point. Then it was Kōshū's turn. He swung and missed several times, and Lang Zhi smugly laughed at him from the side.

Mr. Sasaki pulled Kōshū aside and gave him some pointers on his stance. Then, under the smug grin of the short guy across from him, Kōshū hit the cap high and far, straight into the ocean and out of sight.

Mr. Sasaki laughed loudly and high-fived Kōshū. Shen Qing also laughed as she scolded him, "You hit it so far we can't even find it. We'll have to open a new one."

Only Lang Zhi jumped around, declaring that he would make Kōshū miss. Then Mr. Sasaki failed to hit properly three times that round and was out, but Kōshū hit it just once and sent another cap flying into the sea.

By the time Mr. Sasaki and Kōshū had each batted three innings, they had accumulated five points. Then Kōshū pitched, Mr. Sasaki caught, and Lang Zhi and Shen Qing batted.

Lang Zhi firmly refused to teach him how to throw bottle caps, so Kōshū tossed them the way one skipped stones. The results were surprisingly good. Lang Zhi said his bottle-cap throws were disgusting, but because of the height difference, after two rounds Kōshū switched to simply raising his arm and throwing directly. Both sides played and bickered, constantly breaking rules, and in the end, no one cared about the score anymore.

They played until dark before packing up and going back to rest. On the way home, crickets chirped deep in the grass beyond the moonlight's reach, and somewhere in the distance, there seemed to be the sound of fireworks. Mr. Sasaki's heart had completely switched into vacation mode, and he started suggesting wild ideas. "Should we run all the way back?"

"Ugh, no. We have plans tomorrow too."

"Say, should our family get a dog? It'd make things livelier." Mr. Sasaki had thought of something else.

"What if a patient gets dog hair on them and has an allergic reaction?"

"It's fine. I'll clean up properly."

"Then Dad, you'll be responsible for the dog. We're not helping." Lang Zhi said maliciously from the side.

"So heartless..."

"Hahahahaha!" Everyone burst out laughing.

"By the way, Takano, do you want to play baseball? With your height." Mr. Sasaki brought it up again.

"Hey, why isn't anyone saying anything?" Seeing that no one spoke, Mr. Sasaki asked for help.

"Sure, I think it could work. At that height, you'd put a lot of pressure on people standing on the Pitcher's Mound. And those bottle caps you pitched today were pretty disgusting too, dropping straight down from so high up." Lang Zhi began with a proper analysis, then suddenly pulled a face.

"I don't really mind, but aren't the seniority rules in the Baseball Club pretty strict? I can't stand that sort of thing." Kōshū sounded indifferent.

"Ah, that's true, but you'd be the one bullying them anyway. Hahaha. Still, now that you've enrolled, you have to think about what club to join." Thinking practically, Shen Qing still felt it would be better for Takano and Lang Zhi to be together. Lang Zhi had only been able to travel with the family because they had taken two days off. Once they returned, he would have to go back to Baseball Club training. Though his team always got knocked out in the first round, it still had the training it was supposed to have.

"How about finding a youth baseball team so the two of them can join together?" Mr. Sasaki suddenly said. When everyone looked at him questioningly, he explained, "How should I put it? I've always wanted that. There was a big age gap between my older brother and me, so we could never play on the same team. Besides, I think Lang Zhi shouldn't stay in his original Baseball Club."

Lang Zhi kicked a stone by his feet and snorted with laughter. "That doesn't sound like something Dad would say." Mr. Sasaki always responded to unfairness with silence, so after the bullying incident, he had not even stepped forward to speak to the coach. For him to mention it so indirectly now was a little unusual.

"Ah, how does that not sound like me? I'm seriously thinking about the two of you."

"If you're going to join a baseball team, you need to get in touch with one quickly. I remember there being a youth baseball team nearby, right?" Shen Qing tried to recall. "That big club next to the cake shop."

And just like that, it was decided that the two of them would join a youth baseball team together. That year, they were twelve and thirteen, both in their second year of middle school.

Kōshū noticed that the sound of Lang Zhi kicking stones behind him paused briefly, then his footsteps changed from light and brisk to dull and heavy. The short guy seemed faintly uneasy about joining the youth baseball team, but he did not say anything.

Why did I have to understand the inner world of some smelly twelve-year-old brat? Kōshū felt the gaze behind him growing more and more intense. Once they returned to their room, Kōshū packed his things while sensing the short guy's distraction beside him. He had originally intended to wash up and lie in bed playing on his phone.

But every five seconds, a heavy thump came from the opposite bed as someone lifted his body and dropped back down.

"What the hell are you doing? You have one minute to explain yourself." Kōshū finally lost his patience.

The other boy immediately climbed up. The words he had prepared for half an hour had already circled around his mouth several times.

"Actually, I already quit the Baseball Club."

"Huh?" Expecting to hear some adolescent heart-to-heart, Kōshū simply went along with it. "So? You're not playing baseball anymore?"

Silence filled the space behind him, followed by the rustle of bedding. A muffled voice came from beneath the blanket. "What about you? Why did you agree to play baseball? Do you like it?"

"Like it, my ass. School ends too early, so I need something to do."

After a long while, as though the words he had prepared for half an hour had all been digested on the spot, a voice came from under the blanket again. "Youth baseball uses hardballs. I've always played softball. And do I really even like baseball? I originally joined the Baseball Club because, in elementary school, the practice field was close to Dad's clinic, and he always came to watch me..."

"Oh. Then don't play. I'll tell those two."

The other side immediately flung back the blanket and sat up straight. "No!"

Kōshū sat up too. "Then what the hell are you thinking?"

"Anyway, no. I haven't figured it out yet."

"So what exactly are you hesitating about?" Kōshū already wanted to switch rooms. Why did he have to listen to this? Ever since the bullying incident, Lang Zhi would sometimes inexplicably come to Kōshū's room. He would not do anything, just sit on the bed or spin around in the chair, as if trying to leave his scent in someone else's room, or perhaps testing Kōshū's patience. Five minutes later, he would leave on his own. Kōshū could not even be bothered to look at him.

"It's about what I actually like and stuff..."

"Liking something isn't reliable in the first place, is it? As long as you can do something well, you'll naturally come to like it. Being better than other people feels great, right?"

Thinking of how he had gone to the next classroom to look for Lang Zhi, only for the students there to take a moment to remember who Lang Zhi was, Kōshū said, "So you're someone with poor adaptability and no courage. You blend into the class, you don't dare say anything even when you're bullied, and you finally gave up baseball and breathed a sigh of relief. But then you didn't dare tell Dad, so you silently went along with playing baseball again. And after that, the sport you knew became unfamiliar, so you got scared."

"I'm not scared!" Lang Zhi shouted, trying to interrupt Kōshū, but the other boy was not afraid of him. Kōshū had thoroughly exposed his thoughts, so Lang Zhi stood up in embarrassment and anger. "Fine, enough. I don't want to talk to you anymore. I don't want to sleep in the same room as you!"

"Oh, is that so?" Kōshū lay back down and calmly continued playing on his phone.

The sound of a door closing and knocking on the next room's door rang out almost at the same time, along with Lang Zhi's deliberately raised voice. "Dad, let's switch rooms."

"Pfft—" Even Kōshū was amused. Then Mr. Sasaki ignored Lang Zhi's unreasonable fussing, came over to knock on this door again, and sent the short guy back. After reminding them to wake up early tomorrow, he left the short guy to angrily throw himself back onto the bed.

Kōshū had no intention of coaxing him, and the short guy happened to have no desire to speak to Kōshū either. At last, the two maintained a quiet atmosphere until they fell asleep.

They quickly entered a life of baseball, training, and games. Come to think of it, I've never written this kind of thing before. I wonder if I can do it well.