[Mizawa] Umbrella Drop Sky

This is definitely the most embarrassing rain that Miyuki Kazuya has experienced in his 28 years of life.

It rarely rains in Los Angeles, the sun shines from one summer to the next, and a sweater and a light coat can last you through the winter.And in the second June when Miyuki came to this city, the wind and waves on the Pacific Ocean tilted a little to the east, and without any warning, it rained heavily at eleven o'clock at night.

Dodger Stadium is still buzzing after the game.

There were fans in twos and threes who hadn’t left the auditorium. Maybe they were disappointed because the game was too boring. They went to buy a few large glasses of beer halfway, and they drank too much. They supported each other and cursed in vague language The team I support today is not strong-the lights of the stadium are dim in the heavy rain, and Miyuki looks at the cursing crowd through the goggles that are full of water mist, and vaguely sees them wearing blue hoodies , "L" and "A" overlap each other on the baseball cap on the head.

The black mud under his feet became muddy and sticky after being eroded by the heavy rain, which firmly fixed his feet in place and could not move.His team had already walked a long way towards the exit, and no one looked back, so they found him standing motionless in the heavy rain, looking up at the black night sky covered by layers of dark clouds.

The rain drenched him all over, and the coldness of the night intensified in the heavy rain, piercing through the clothes and entering the blood vessels in his body, but Miyuki felt that his mind could not be clearer - he even lost the game after replaying it in his mind the match of.

In the fifth inning, he could have hit a hit, but in the sixth inning, he didn't notice that the pitcher was in poor condition and stopped the game to communicate. In the last inning...he moved his neck, which was stiff from maintaining one action for too long, and clenched his fist ——He didn't even take that sweet inside corner kick!

There were too many points that could have been scored, and too many places that could have not lost points-finally leading to a big loss to the opponent.

Sure enough, his own strength is not enough?This season has only been played for two months...

He calmly analyzed in his mind, the rainwater flowed down his jaw to his neck, and finally into his clothes - the first time the cold liquid touched his skin, he gritted his teeth and took a deep breath, but he didn't want to move himself shivering His trembling body let the rain cool him from the outside to the inside.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a person in the distant team gradually slowing down, as if he had left the team.

He squinted his eyes, and there were drops of water flowing from his temples—such a heavy rain can always hinder the vision and make the mirage beyond the illusion appear—otherwise, how could he see the number "18" on the back slowly fall? After the team that left the field neatly, and then turned around and ran towards him?

"That guy was definitely shaking his fists and yelling at him, 'Don't be depressed here alone, let me share it too?'—just like he used to do."

He smiled and thought, his eyes unconsciously bent into crescent-like arcs.

As the audience gradually left the stadium, there were only two or three solitary yellow lights that never left him, who was like a drowned chicken.Standing under the light, he seemed to be exuding a soft light—frozen in a certain nostalgic time.

"Miyuki player?"

A slightly unfamiliar voice brought him back to reality, and Miyuki stared at the second baseman who entered the team almost at the same time as him through the draft last June.At this time, the other party waved one hand in front of his eyes, and handed over an umbrella with the other hand.

"The coach asked me to bring you an umbrella."

Anxiety without caring, no outraged anger—the second baseman is not some idiot pitcher who leaks emotions, and there is no emotion in his eyes at this time, and the intonation of English is very monotonous compared with Japanese, "It's already quite It's late, we still have training tomorrow."

"The coach asked me to tell you," the other party said flatly and without emotion, "The Miyuki Kazuya he knows is a person who turns all setbacks and failures into motivation."

After the second baseman forcefully stuffed the umbrella into Miyuki's hand, he didn't say anything more to persuade him, and ran towards the team after turning his back on him.The back number with "18" printed on it was dirty. Sweat and rain muddyed the hard soil clods stuck in the game, dissolving the solid matter, and the stain quickly spread on the black letters on the white background.

——Turned into motivation?

Miyuki opened the automatic umbrella in his hand, and the curved umbrella shielded the rain and memories.

"It's really rare... It's been a year since the last time I thought of that guy."

He silently lowered his head and thought, standing there silently watching the falling rainwater fall on the puddles and ripples.

"Yesterday it rained for no reason, and today is the bright sun again." The blond pitcher under the sun turned his head to look at Miyuki, with a gloating smile on his face, "If you don't let me board the board yesterday, you will lose—" Ah, to lose to that nasty Giants!"

"Ah Choo—Ah Choo—"

Under the high temperature of more than 30 degrees, Miyuki still sneezed uncontrollably-which also made his complaints about Nariya Naruto aborted.But the person he wanted to complain about wrinkled his nose slightly in disgust, and after he sneezed three times in a row, he finally laughed out loud covering his stomach.

"Hahahaha! Kazuya, you're so stupid! I've heard of it! I lost the game and got caught in the rain, and then in this kind of weather, this kind of weather! I caught a cold!"

"I'm sick of you!"

Miyuki also spoke with a thick nasal voice, and when he spoke, his throat felt as if it was being torn.He moved his throat uncomfortably, and decided it would be better not to argue with the annoying person and talk less.

Cheng Gong didn't continue to tease him, but threw the white baseball up to the sky one after another.Miyuki, who was already fully armed and didn't want to talk, tapped his glove to indicate that he could start practicing-how could this guy who is usually very active look unmotivated today, as if deliberately avoiding his sight , the opponent's eyes are only fixed on the front, moving up and down with the trajectory of the ball in the air.

The practice field where they are located is at the foot of the mountain—there are a few other pairs of shooters squatting not far away from them, and their teammates farther away are shouting and hitting the ball—the maroon mountains stretch in the sky, and the white sun shines on them. Painted in black and white shadows, it becomes a dispensable background for such a daily picture.

What is dispensable is the stubbornness of not admitting defeat, and the hard work of not giving up—that belongs to the youthful Jiashiyuan, not to them now.

"I've been here for a year..."

"Last year when you first came here, you stole the limelight!" The pitcher's face has not changed much after years of sculpting, and the youth's edges and corners are stubborn and refuse to be rounded when they fall and get up. Aoyi, always be a young man who goes forward bravely, "Isn't it just a home run—it's as if the team wins because of you."

Miyuki was stunned for a moment before realizing that what Nariya Ming was talking about was his first game in MLB—as a person who always only looks ahead, he seldom goes back to the established facts that have already been concluded, and he doesn't even think about the fact that he has already played. Don't fixate on the person on the photo album.He has never felt that this is indifference - everyone has their own way of life, not looking back is his way of life, and also Cheng Gongming's way of life.

"...saying this kind of thing... doesn't look like something an egomaniac who keeps saying 'I'll win the next game' every day. I think you're the one who's sick, aren't I?!"

"I recorded someone's complacent appearance in the waiting room after winning the last time in the black history pamphlet of 'Miyuki Kazuya'—to be so complacent because of winning against such a weak team!"

After counterattacking back without pain, Cheng Gongming lowered his head to his hand holding the ball, his five fingers were spread out and pressed against the ball, and his palm was already slightly sweaty, "The coach will ask Jon to bring you an umbrella yesterday. , There is also a little mischief of mine in it-but don't think that I will apologize to you now."

—Jon is the name of the second baseman with the back number "18".

"What's going on..." Miyuki rubbed his twitching temples and thought wildly, "Didn't Narimiya Naruto really lose his mind because of the fever?"

He sighed secretly, lamenting that he, who didn't like to look back, actually recalled a certain game a year ago, actively or passively, twice in two days—it wasn't exactly the game, to be precise, it happened after the game ended. things.

At that time a year ago, Miyuki also experienced the unbridled sunshine of California for the first time.

During the game, he didn't feel it because he was wholehearted. When the dust settled and returned to the rest area, Miyuki realized that the sun was really poisonous. A series of red seals.He kept his head down in a daze, but someone suddenly came out from behind him and patted him on the shoulder as if in shock.

And the only person who would do this—he didn't even have to look back—was Cheng Gongming, who had just become a teammate.

"We were hostile in high school, but we didn't meet each other in professional baseball for a few years—they became teammates in a different country." Yuyuki felt the opponent's hand on his shoulder gradually tighten, pinching his shoulder painfully, he But he said without changing his face, "After watching such a wonderful game, do you feel that you are very lucky to be on the same team as me?"

What the mighty Cheng Gongming can't stand the most is when someone is complacent in front of him, "Tch! There's nothing to be proud of just hitting a home run!"

However, he didn't wait for the other party's retort, and when he looked closely, he found that the other party was simply using him as a background board. The greeting just now was regarded as a greeting, but now he was busy with his own affairs again.

"I'll line up soon. What are you looking for here?"

Miyuki was too lazy to talk to him, and finally found his mobile phone under a pile of dirty clothes that smelled of sweat. There was a girl at the table holding up a parasol.The wooden chair on which his buttocks were sitting was scalding hot, full of the temperature after roasting, and he could even smell the strange smell of burnt wood mixed with the salty acid after sweat evaporated.He was a bit of a clean freak, but he was not in a hurry to take a shower and change his sweatshirt. Instead, he sat motionless and quickly flipped through the phone address book, wanting to immediately get rid of the excitement of "I won the game" and "I hit a home run". To vent out, whether it is on SNS or with friends, subconsciously, after he has worked hard to get results, he must have a high-pitched voice that is more excited than him to congratulate him, so that he has a heart that jumps high because of excitement. landing.

Yomiuri Giants'... colleagues?No, they don't want to know about a lucky guy who makes it to MLB, do they?

Seidou's classmate... Kuramochi?That guy called yesterday to complain about losing the game. It seems that he had a fight with senior Ryosuke before... Sending such a message in the past, no matter how you look at it, it looks like a show of power. When he wakes up and sees it, he will definitely call and scold himself. Bar?

……

In the end, his eyes stayed on a name for a long time.

—even if the number behind that name is a meaningless space number.

"Okay, let's start today's practice quickly."

Miyuki patted the shoulder of the pitcher who was in a daze for some reason, put down the face protector and nodded to the opponent to indicate that he was ready, then walked to his position, but he didn't want the pitcher behind him to ask as if talking to himself, "Really?" Does anyone know where your leftist kid went?"

He hesitated for half a minute, but he continued to walk towards the catcher as if he hadn't heard the question—but Cheng Gongming, who was used to casually, seemed determined to ask the bottom line this time, "Think about it." You know it's impossible!"

"I took your mobile phone and called that number...it's an empty number."

"So what?" Miyuki's voice was so light that it seemed to come from a very far away place, "Are you still going to throw the ball today? We will have another game soon... As a person... the last few games have not How can a pitcher without a board still have time to worry about others?"

The last time he and Eijun Sawamura contacted was three years ago - when Sawamura graduated from university, he was not immediately nominated for a professional baseball, and it took two years before he was selected by the Chunichi Dragons in the draft. Their last time The contact was on the eve of a game related to whether Sawamura could be promoted to the first army.

Afterwards, his team was facing several important games at that time, and he could not be distracted by other things. It was half a year later when he noticed that the two had not been in touch—the phone number suddenly became empty. The various outdated gossip magazines that come here will not pay attention to a player who is not even a first-class player, and his former teammates wave their hands to express that they don't know the opponent's whereabouts...

There is no time for anxiety and confusion - the pride and stubbornness in him, and the spurs of the complex situation around him all make him unable to stop moving forward.

Day after day of practice, dinner alone, and no phone ringing at a fixed time every day, gradually replaced the past, changed his memory, and became a new habit.

"Kazuya," Cheng Gongming, who was throwing talc powder, asked suddenly when he squatted down, "Do you know what kind of weather you need to use an umbrella?"

Narimiya made a throwing gesture, but turned his eyes to the side of the court - an Asian girl was walking slowly by the net with a parasol, "Yesterday's rainy day needs... probably, today's sunny day also needs it." .”

When is it easiest to think of the most important person?

The saddest time.And, the happiest time.

"I really think, Kazuya, you are actually a bad guy who is much more arrogant than me."