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Taoyuan International Airport is not quite as large as Narita in Tokyo, but Miyuki won’t say it isn’t more intimidating. Everywhere, signage in Chinese is only alleviated slightly by the sight of less-unfamiliar English. But he’s never been all that great at English, either, and it takes twenty minutes, along with a combination of broken understanding and hoping someone there speaks Japanese passably, to find the right way to Customs and then baggage claims.
He’s startled yet relieved when the phone crammed in his pocket (he’s still not used to carrying one on his person) jingles to life. Yet a smile spreads as soon as he sees who is calling.
“My hero,” Miyuki greets.
On the other end of the line, there’s a scoff. “I can’t tell if you’re messing with me or not,” answers You Shunshin, Miyuki’s newest friend-slash-roommate-slash-lifeline-slash-maybe-something-else-entirely in this country, which feels almost alien after spending his entire life in Tokyo. “Are you near the baggage claim yet?”
Miyuki sighs. “No. I just got through Customs, but I’m headed there now. Did you know they have little pictures of suitcases posted so you don’t have to be a walking Rosetta Stone to find stuff?”
“Um . . . yes?” Shun chuckles. “Sometimes, I forget you’re only a baseball genius.”
Laughing, Miyuki sticks his tongue out at the phone, earning himself a wrinkled nose from the lady hauling a flock of kids behind her when she sees him. “I’m almost there,” he finally says, noting the excess of natural lighting that characterizes the large street-facing windows of the baggage claim an old noodle vendor had told him to look for in broken Japanese.
Spotting Shun is automatic. He’s easily the tallest person in the room, and Miyuki’s smile is reflexive when they make eye contact. Shun offers him a shrug when he holds up Miyuki’s suitcase.
Miyuki doesn’t feel the need to complain after his long day of airports and popping ears and the clamor of unfamiliar languages in his ears as he follows Shun outside to the waiting row of taxis. They weave through brutal traffic for two hours until they reach a more suburban neighborhood that Miyuki is sure would be out of the price range of everyone he knows.
The Yang house is no larger or smaller than the ones on either side of it, but he knows who lives there by the Tokyo Yakult Swallows pennant hanging from one of the upstairs window. “Home sweet home,” Miyuki comments as they exit the taxi, relieved to be somewhere that doesn’t move for more than an hour.
Shun’s cheeks redden as he pulls Miyuki’s suitcase behind him. “I . . . hope you like it here. I know it’s not like Japan at all, but —”
“Shunshin,” Miyuki interjects, resting a hand on his host’s upper arm. “I’ll love it.”
The inside of the house definitely seems like a place Shun had grown up, Miyuki thinks. Nothing is there without purpose, save for a decent amount of portraits of the family, but mostly of Shun in various stages of growth. The one nearest the door makes Miyuki smile. “Sheesh. You were always stupidly tall.”
A regular photo set like every kid gets in every little league team hangs nearest to the door. At the top is a tiny Shun, holding a bat way too big for a rubber ball leaguer, and below is a team full of gap-toothed chibis, with Shun towering over most of them by a head.
Shun chuckles. “It certainly didn’t win me any friends, but I was always picked first on sports teams. With your talent, though, I’m sure you were, too.”
Miyuki laughs until tears stream from his eyes, and when he takes in Shun’s alarmed expression, his amusement only doubles. Once he finally catches his breath, he wheezes, “Oh, that wouldn’t have been fun at all. I mostly got beat up for my smart mouth and for getting picked as a starter in my first year of seniors.”
“I see.” The corners of Shun’s mouth quirk upwards as he takes a final glance at his younger self. “My hands were too big for the little bats, so they had me use a regular one.”
“My head was huge,” Miyuki countered, framing his fingers around small Shun’s picture to add scale. “I had to wear a high school helmet. I looked like a bobblehead.”
Shun puts a fist over his mouth, and Miyuki knows he’s being laughed at but doesn’t care. It still hasn’t sunk in quite yet that he is standing on foreign soil, where he’s going to live for over three months, in the childhood home of one of the best pitchers he’s ever had the opportunity to see in person.
When the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles’ management had arranged for Miyuki to play winter ball in Taiwan as a form of training, he had not thought much about it before accepting. However, as the day of his departure had sped closer and closer, the unfamiliar sensation of panic had set in for Miyuki, who had never even left Tokyo before.
He had been told a host family would be arranged, which had been a relief, but everything changed the moment he had sent an off-the-cuff text to Shun about them being in the same country again. Three days later, his trip and accommodations were arranged, and Miyuki had himself a roommate.
It had been a surprise to hear that Shun isn’t planning on pursuing baseball, instead favoring a college major that Miyuki can’t pronounce, but the knowledge of having someone near who knows him as a person and not a player has an appeal he would rather not put a name to, lest he mistake it for comfort. After all, comfort tends to walk hand in hand with failure, and that simply isn’t an option when baseball is Miyuki’s chosen major, so to speak.
However, Shun quickly deters Miyuki’s train of thought with a clap on the shoulder. “Come. I’ll show you to your room. You’re probably tired.”
Miyuki’s brows raise in surprise. “I get my own room? I figured I’d just sleep on the floor or something.”
Shun shakes his head. “We’ve hosted winter ball players in the past, so the guest room usually ends up being reserved for that. But if you’d prefer to sleep on the floor, that’s entirely up to you.”
Miyuki opens his mouth to rebut, but his answer dies in his throat when he realizes that sleeping while surrounded by other guys has been his whole culture for three years. Years when Seidou had been his home and the house behind his father’s shop the aberration.
The burden of admission is lifted by Shun when he says, “But you’re probably used to roommates. We can pull out a futon for now. I’ll make room.”
A hundred objections blare in Miyuki’s mind, but the only words his traitorous mouth seem to manufacture is a quiet, “Thank you.”
Shun merely nods as he picks up Miyuki’s suitcase and heads for the stairs, where Miyuki’s feet are nearly taken out from under him by a black blur of furry paws. Shun’s eyes narrow as he grumbles something in Taiwanese and shaking his head. “Sorry. She normally hides from strangers.”
Miyuki looks down at the black cat on the stairs, tail twitching as he regards him with large golden eyes. “She’s gorgeous,” he says truthfully as he leans down and offers a noncommittal hand for her perusal. Something warms inside of him as the cat butts her head against his fingers, an appreciative purr rumbling in her throat when he gives her ears a scratch.
“I hope you like company when you sleep,” Shun remarks as he continues up the steps. “She seems to like you, so you’ll become her next sleep cushion, especially when it starts to cool down.”
This draws a smile from Miyuki. “I don’t mind at all.” Giving the cat one last stroke, he follows Shun and asks, “What’s her name?”
“Wǔyè.” Shun sets the suitcase down in front of the second door to the right before opening it. “It means ‘midnight’.”
“Wu-yie,” Miyuki parrots as he tries to wrap his tongue around the unfamiliar syllables and knowing he isn’t doing them justice. “In a few months, I might even be able to say that right.”
Over his shoulder, Shun throws Miyuki an incredulous look. “I’m sure you will do far more than that in your time here, Miyuki-kun.”
Miyuki grins. “And I’m sure you’ll finally stop calling me that sooner rather than later.” He slides past Shun into the room and plops down in the middle of the neatly made bed and cocks a brow. “Roomie.”
He has to squelch his sense of victory as he sees Shun’s cheeks brighten into a blush, instead settling on the conclusion that everything about this room suits Shun to the letter. All the walls and furnishing some various shade of blue, the only shocks of other color coming from the neat line of pennants hanging from the ceiling. Each row, he finds as he reads the names, is a different professional baseball league. Some he doesn’t recognize, but even the American teams flutter in the breeze of the half-open window.
But the row over the bed is unmistakably monopolized by the Nippon Professional Baseball League: the pinnacle of Japanese baseball and, fates permitting, Miyuki’s future. And his lot lies with that red and gold flying E that he can’t help but get an eyeful of when his head hits the pillow.
“Thank you,” he says softly, just loud enough that he knows Shun can hear.
On cue, Wǔyè lopes up onto the bed and nestles into Miyuki’s side, a warm and steady presence that brings that dreaded comfort he is beginning to think isn’t so dreadful after all.
Slowly but surely, the travails of the day drape over Miyuki and drag down his eyelids, but as he drifts off to sleep, he wonders if he imagines the soft rumble of Shun’s voice as he says, “You’re welcome.”