Coach Ochiai did not like Sawamura Eijun.
The boy had been far too restless in the dugout earlier, completely stealing his thunder as coach. If Ochiai hadn't already written off this game as a learning exercise, he would have made it very clear to that kid what a coach's authority meant.
But now, watching the powerful home run Zhang Han had just sent into and through the net, a flicker of genuine worry rose in Ochiai's chest.
He would never admit it out loud, but the reason the freshman team had been able to compete with their upperclassmen to this degree was entirely because of that two-hundred-and-fifty-pound loudmouth.
His energy had ignited the team's fighting spirit, inning after inning. If he suffered a real setback now, the freshman team's ability to sustain the game would be in serious doubt.
"Motivational speeches. That's really not my strength."
Ochiai kept trying to put himself in Coach Kataoka's position, asking himself what Kataoka would say to a pitcher in this moment to help him get past the blow and find his footing again.
He wasn't Kataoka. No matter how hard he thought about it, the answer didn't come.
He reluctantly let it go. Inspiring words were just words. He could find something to say. Whether it landed would depend on the player himself.
Just as Ochiai was about to send someone over to relay a message, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. Sawamura, who had been briefly deflated after giving up the home run, suddenly lifted his head.
What was that expression?
There was no fear on his face. No timidity. Only excitement.
"The game has to be like this to be interesting!"
Ochiai's worry evaporated instantly, replaced by irritation.
He shouldn't have spent a single second worrying about that kid. That kid was not a normal person.
Coach Kataoka, standing behind the catcher, felt much the same thing. He had a clearer view of Sawamura's face and was equally surprised by what he saw.
Like a pure baseball beginner, Sawamura seemed to have set aside the game situation entirely and was simply enjoying the thrill of the confrontation.
"This one really is different."
After giving up a home run, not only was Sawamura unaffected, but he had made both Coach Kataoka and the coaching staff look at him in a new way.
Without even knowing it, Sawamura had already stepped onto a path where the team would invest seriously in developing him.
By contrast, Toujou and Kaneda, who had pitched before him, now found themselves in a harder position. Measured against Furuya Satoru and Sawamura, catching the coaching staff's attention would require several times more effort than it would have otherwise.
The world worked that way. Opportunities went to those who were ready for them. Miss one, and getting back to the same starting point required far more work, with no guarantee of the same result.
Zhang Han had jogged home and watched all of this firsthand.
It moved him.
The Zhang Han of before had always been at the center of attention, carried there by his appearance and his talent. He had grown used to it without really noticing. Opportunities had always seemed close at hand. There were very few things he had wanted and not eventually gotten. That ease had shaped him into someone relatively relaxed about how he moved through the world.
It wasn't until he entered high school, and Coach Kataoka and the coaching staff began to push him seriously, that he had started to change.
And it wasn't until now, seeing the stunning emergence of Furuya Satoru and Sawamura, and then seeing Toujou sitting in the freshman dugout with a towel pulled over his head, that Zhang Han suddenly felt the weight of what opportunities actually meant.
His previous life had allowed him to coast on talent and the goodwill his appearance generated. But if he genuinely wanted to enter professional baseball and discover where his ceiling was, his opponents would no longer be ordinary high school students.
They would be the best players selected from across all of human society. At that level, opportunities were equally scarce for everyone. Miss yours, and there might never be another.
Coach Kataoka had tried many times to get Zhang Han to understand this through direct conversation. Zhang Han had grasped it immediately the moment he saw it with his own eyes.
That was partly because Toujou was not just anyone to him. He was a junior, yes, but also a former rival. Seeing Toujou's situation now, Zhang Han felt as though he were glimpsing a version of his own possible future.
That was sobering.
He made a quiet promise to himself. He would never let himself end up in that position.
The path of baseball was like climbing a mountain. The higher you went, the fewer people remained. Stop moving, and the chance to reach the top was probably gone for good.
The game continued.
Sawamura had not been affected by Zhang Han's home run. Through every subsequent pitch, he remained full of fight.
"Sorry. I didn't finish him off."
Zhang Han met Chris as he was heading up to bat and offered the apology lightly.
"We weren't entirely counting on you for that."
Chris had his own pride.
Though if he was being honest, his hitting power was not his greatest asset. And whatever anyone said about eight months of inactivity leaving no mark on him, how could that actually be true?
Experience and awareness, those things really weren't diminished much. But the feel of the swing, the fluidity, the raw power behind it, the muscle memory built through continuous repetition, that was a different matter entirely. A boxer who stops throwing punches feels it after three days. A singer who stops singing feels it after three days. Eight months was not three days.
Against a typical opponent, Chris's experience and analytical ability could still carry him far. But Sawamura's pitching was a problem that experience alone couldn't solve. Even Sawamura himself didn't know exactly where the ball would move. No amount of past knowledge could prepare a hitter for something that unpredictable.
Back in the dugout, Zhang Han's eyes followed Chris to the plate.
"Chris-senpai switched to the largest bat."
"He's probably trying to use the surface area to compensate for the ball's irregular movement."
"But that last pitch Sawamura threw against Han-san, you could see the movement from the side even at this distance. With a break that large, even the biggest bat might not be enough."
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