Swing for the Fences (Tamsin/Shouhei)

It wasn't the batting cages that she was used to. No, sadly the last of her precious hard-earned cash had gone towards purchasing the latest of the Daylight novels. She was almost half way through it already, too. Sadly, she'd have already finished if the boys didn't keep barging into her room to pester her, forcing her to hide the book away where they wouldn't find it. Each time, having to find her place again...

She sighed, setting down the metal pale of balls she was carrying beside the home plate. There were quite a few balls in the bucket. They were ratty, torn in places from over-use, and some of them weren't even baseballs. Some where soft-balls...some were whiffle balls. She'd likely break those today. She hated picking them up off of the floor when the twins were done playing wiffle golf in the common room anyway.

Another sigh, this one to clear her head. Tamsin blew a bubble, and popped it, and swung her wooden bat around to limber up a bit. Then, reaching into the pale for a ball, she tossed it into the air, planted her foot and...

*Crack*

The ball went flying across the abandoned field, landing somewhere in the grass beyond third base. It was strangely therapeutic, playing this way. At the batting cages she could rig the machine to give her nearly endless free hits, and keep swinging. With this, she'd have to go retrieve all the balls when she ran out, which was a silent, almost meditative affair.

She threw up another ball, watched, hit. Another ball zoomed past center field. Tamsin blew another bubble, tapped the bat against to sole of one cleat as she flexed her leg muscles. She was proud of that hit, but the pleasure didn't reach her stoic-expression. Instead, she simply reached for another ball, and tossed it into the air.

The ear piercing cry of a motorcycle engine cut through the baseball field, only to die out in a matter of moments.  Its rider, Shouhei Kagawa, apparently had the same idea as Tamsin this day.  Unfortunately he thought the lot would be empty at this time; his experience working as a courier across the city had scouted out this field to be a potential solo hang out spot.

From all the stress and hectic moments at the Academy, including his part-time jobs, Shouhei felt he needed some relief.  There were few things that allowed him to unwind.  Cracking skulls was out of the question; the former delinquent could no longer afford that luxury.  Instead of smoking a carton of cigarettes he found a healthier and cheaper alternative- cracking balls- baseballs that is.

“...Wasn’t expecting anybody to be here at this time,” Shouhei said aloud as he unzipped his sports bag.  He wasn’t about to let a kid, or rather young lady, deter him from slugging it out this day.

Tamsin's utterly perfect reverie was broken then, but a man who had just cut the silence in half with the sound of his motorcycle. It wasn't that Tamsin was upset. This was a public place and anyone was allowed to use it. What irritated her was personal. She had brought ratty old balls in a beat up old bucket, and here was this guy, with a motorcycle and a nice leather jacket and a *sports bag.* And the sound of his motocycle had made her *miss her swing.* perhaps that was the worst part of it right there.

She knew that the irritation was not warranted, but she still felt a little intruded on. She picked up the ball as he walked closer, determined not to acknowledge his presence. She tossed the ball, swung, and launched it off into the outfield. If she wasn't mistaken...it had gone father than the others. Ofcourse, he had to say something, now that he was in ear shot. Her slender shoulders sagged a little, and she dropped the bat to her side, turning to look at him. She had this picture in her mind of him telling her to shove off. That he was bigger and he claimed the field for himself. Well she would tell him right where to shove that idea.

Quiet type.  Works for me, Shouhei ignored her staring at him and he shrugged to himself.  He interpreted that as they could both swing to themselves in peace, just as intended.  With a gleam in his azure eye he pulled out his trusty bat, “Softly.”  Softly was a well-worn aluminum bat, its markings faded away, its grip almost in tatters.  It was lined with countless indentations, mostly from solid hits of the ball, but some from unsavory encounters with rival gangs.  Perhaps a few bits of red on it could have been dried up blood…

He kept a fair distance from her just as if this was like the batting cages.  Shouhei twirled Softly a bit, fondly remembering its weight with a few practice swings.  Then he took a ball out of his pocket and cut loose.

smack

Tamsin's bat hit another ball. Fine, if he wanted to swing his bat too, then that was cool, she guessed. Although...

tink...tink....tink...

Metal bats were annoying. The reverberating metal sound just made her more Tense, and...She missed. Flinching from a particularly loud clank from his metal bat. Her ball dropped just shy of her strike zone, bouncing on the ground and rolling down the base line a couple feet. She sighed, taking a few short steps to crouch and pick up the ball. She stayed in her crouching position for a minute, biting her lip, trying to decide if she should just call it quits and go see if she could find Patty or Archie and do something with them. But no, her pride wasn't going to let her slink away from this. She narrowed her eyes, and stalked back over to where she had been swinging, and launched the ball into left field.

The hit brought some of her confidence back, but as she reached back into her pale she realized...she had nothing but crap balls left. She pulled out a whiffle ball, looking at it forlornly. Normally it'd be fine, but somehow hitting crappy balls that weren't even meant for baseball felt like hanging a billboard over head that said "look at me hitting shitty balls in public because I'm poor."

Crap. No way could she hit this...but she was out of anything else. She thought quickly about putting it back, and just waiting for him to finish so she could retrieve her crappy balls and use them. Had he already seen it? She hoped not...

Shouhei no longer heard the sound of balls being beaten from the young lady.  He figured she needed to fetch them from the field so he paused to let her go.  However, upon further inspection, she held a whiffle ball instead. That wouldn’t do.  It always felt better to keep hitting, to keep swinging, instead of hitting something with no satisfaction or leisurely picking up baseballs.  So he picked up his bag and strolled over to her.

“...Here, have some of mine,” he splayed open the bag to her.  Inside of it were several canisters of baseballs, a catcher’s mitt, a pair of batting gloves, a couple of water bottles, and a towel.   However there was something noticeably different in there and its juxtaposition made it almost comical.  

Of all things to be in a sports bag, for some reason, was a box of doughnuts.

“Oh, ah... that I can explain,” Shouhei couldn’t help but laugh at how bizarre it seemed, “I’m a Japanese guy, yeah?  I recently moved here to the States not that long ago, and one of the foods I didn’t get much of across the ocean was doughnuts.  But here, they’re always tauntin’ me in cafes and stuff I pass by.  So before I came here, I pigged out a bit.  Maple bacon was one of my favorites.”

As another gesture of good faith, and the fact that he knew doughnuts didn’t have a particularly good shelf life, he opened the box to her.  Only a few of the pastries remained.  Unable to resist the urge Shouhei took one himself and chomped down.  In between his chewings he garbled out, “I was savin’ these jelly doughnuts for later, but you can have one if ya like.”

Tamsin looked a little suspicious of the man offering her jelly donuts out of his sports bag. It wouldn't be hard for someone to plan this sort of thing. What if he was some kind of Pedo out to nab her or something. Well...if that was the plan, a motorcycle wasn't gonna get very far with nearly 100lbs of dead weight.

still...He wasn't the first stranger to offer her food. Archie had bought her chips from the vending machine after the damn thing had eaten her quarter. Then there was the lady at the church...and Yuri, who gave her twenty dollars just so she could keep batting at the cages...

Ofcourse she'd spent that money elsewhere but still. With a tiny huff she decided to accept the offer, "...Okay, if you're sure." She set down the baseball and looked at her hands. She dusted her hands off on her shirt before reaching for the box. "I'm Tamsin, by the way." She added, reaching in and accepting a donut. It still felt awkward accepting free things from people no matter how many times it happened. One day she'd be older and have a job and she wouldn't have to accept charity from people...right?

Suddenly she had a realization, mouth half full of donut, she covered her mouth with a hand and said with her mouth still full, "Also, thank you."

"Again."

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, it ain’t a big deal,” Shouhei answered back with his own stuffed mouth, “These things’re cheap.  An’ tasty.”

Somewhere in the distance, out of nowhere, maniacal laughter echoed across the baseball field.  Where it came from was a mystery; it was almost as if it came from the ether.  After glancing around with a raised eyebrow, Shouhei shrugged, then smiled after finishing the last of his doughnut.  He didn’t realize that Tamsin hadn’t even given him proper thanks until after she started eating.  Was she that hungry?

“Nice ta meetcha, Tamsin.  The name’s Shouhei.  If you’re so quick to gobble ‘em down, you can finish off the  last one too.”

Tamsin felt herself blush a little in embarrassment as he told her she could eat the last one if she was that hungry. It wasn't that she was hungry or anything. But you never turn down free food...or atleast most of the time. In this instance, she shook her head. "N-no, that's alright." ignoring the fact that the donut she'd grabbed was already mostly gone. "Just one is enough for me." she assured him, finishing the last of her donut and picking up her bat as a way to keep her hands busy.

She decided to ignore the embarrassment by digging in and hitting another ball. Which she did, and sent it flying for center field. "...Ever been on a team?" She asked finally as the ball landed, looking over at him from where she stood.

...Not the kinda team that hit stuff with baseball bats that you’re thinkin’ ‘bout, Shouhei quipped mentally, but it was nice to see he opened her up a little.  He packed away the food but left the bag closeby so they could both keep swinging.  “Nah, but baseball’s huge in Japan.  Outta all the western sports, that’s the one they love the most.  Me, I’m more of a casual fan that just likes to hit the ball.”

He cracked a ball of his own; it arced wide and high towards left field.   “How ‘bout yourself?  Ya got a nice swing there.”

Tamsin let her bat drop to her side before looking over at Shouhei. The look she gave him was a little terse, maybe a little insulted. Was he really so ignorant of how things worked in America? Maybe it didn't work that way in Japan... "Girls can't play." She said with a shrug as she took a step toward the sports bag and pulled out another ball. "Instead they get softball. Which has a smaller field, a bigger ball, and tighter pants." She made a face as she tossed up another ball and smacked it out between first and third.

"It's a little insulting."

“...I don’t blame ya.  Like I said, I’m a casual.”  With a huge emphasis on just liking to hit things with a bat.  “Doesn’t make sense to me why they’d need to make a sport watered down based solely on gender, so yeah, I’m kinda insulted too.”

With that said Shouhei slammed the ball directly down center field- it crashed into the fence with a rattling shriek.

“...I thought all pants were needlessly tight in this game though?”

Tamsin let out a small sound somewhere between a scoff and a laugh, and glanced over at him with something close to a smile. She returned her focus to the field though, and continued hitting balls in silence. It wasn't an awkward silence. She simply didn't have anything else to say at the moment. After a few moments, she'd lose herself in the rhythm of her swing, savoring the wooden Crack of the ball as she hit it. She even managed to drown out the terrible sound of his metal bat...mostly.