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It’s the top of the ninth inning and Sesshoumaru was already partially changed, wearing his team’s October baseball hoodie, and watching the final stand his teammates were putting up against their opponents.
With two outs already, he had hope that they could pull through this series by the skin of their teeth, but Naraku was fantastic at dingers. Their teams were currently leading by one run, so one bad pitch from Kouga and they would have to fight to regain the lead. As long as they held off Naraku’s killer left hand bat.
It was the two-two pitch, two balls and two strikes. Sesshoumaru could hardly believe that Kouga had managed to stave off the eastern team’s star player for so long. With a quick cursory glance around the field, he had apparently missed that even with two outs, there had still been a player to make it to second base and was chatting up with his half-brother.
Inuyasha had been recently acquired by Sesshoumaru’s team right before the trade deadline and had proven to be a solid asset to the team in the few months that he had been with them. It was also fun for Sesshoumaru to have his little brother nearby. After leaving to the American league before him by four years, it was a fools wish to even contemplate playing on the same team again. The opposing team? Of course, something he would have expected.
Kouga pitched, a beautiful fastball that Sesshoumaru could only imagine was over ninety-nine miles per hour and Naraku swung and missed and suddenly he couldn’t hear anything with how thunderous the stadium got. His teammates surged around him and rushed the field to celebrate.
Sesshoumaru was stunned, the ringing in his ears overpowering all of his senses. A teammate clapped him on the shoulder and suddenly he was moving with the last of his teammates and jogging onto the field, joining in on the big circle dance. The rest of the team was hootin’ and hollerin’, the joy on their stress-lined faces was good to see after battling for so long. Sesshoumaru was proud of how far their team had come this year and how all of their hard work was paying off. Even if they had to continue playing a few more games before their season was over, he would take that over not having made it to the play-offs at all.
After the team had broken up from their celebrations, the star players going off for post-game interviews, Sesshoumaru decided to go treat some of the fans that had stuck around. It was the usual sort of fans who had lingered: the kids who had begged their parents to run down to the field for a chance of getting something signed, the diehard adults who had been fans for decades and had maybe caught a ball or had a baseball card that they wanted signed, and others who just wanted a simple selfie.
He put on his best public facing face on and greeted them all with a charming smile, one that reflected the elation of his team’s mood. As he worked through the gaggle of fans, he came up to a beautiful woman in his traveling jersey, a near exact replica based off the detail alone. She was clutching a ball and a sharpie, the regulation red dirt staining the ball, marring its appearance.
She looked hopeful, her large blue eyes captivating Sesshoumaru’s own and he found it hard to look away, hard to even glance down and look at what she was holding. When he did, he signed his name and in a split second, just like changing his pitch at the last second, added his number. In a flurry, he handed the ball back to her, having spun it so that his addition was facing her palm.
In his stupor and rush of boldness, he wasn’t too worried about her not spilling his number to the masses. After all, he had known of her.
Kagome Higurashi, someone he had known back home but from a distance. And someone he wasn’t going to let get away again.