He didn't plan to stop.
He was just walking—
hands in pockets, hood up, morning air still clinging to the concrete—
when he saw the field.
Small.
Not even a stadium.
A public baseball ground tucked behind the station, hemmed in by chain-link fencing and cherry blossom trees that hadn't fully bloomed yet.
There were no crowds.
No announcements.
No music.
Just a few boys in white jerseys practicing under a pale sky.
He stood outside the fence and watched.
Aarav didn't know the rules of baseball.
He knew the shape of the game.
Pitcher. Batter. Bases. Strikeouts.
But he didn't know the language.
The signs.
The signals.
The moments between action.
Still—
his body reacted to it like it had seen it before in a dream.
The way the pitcher wound up—
the pause.
The release.
The thud of the ball in the catcher's mitt.
There was rhythm here.
A kind of music.
He stepped closer to the fence.
The batter swung.
Missed.
The coach said something in Japanese—he couldn't tell if it was a correction or encouragement.
But the tone was soft.
Patient.
The boy tried again.
Connected.
Not far.
Not powerful.
But clean.
The coach clapped.
No one shouted.
No one cursed.
The team jogged in place, light and loose.
It wasn't intense.
It was… free.
He watched for an hour.
Maybe longer.
No one told him to leave.
No one asked who he was.
He leaned against the fence, eyes scanning every movement.
He didn't understand the words—
but he understood everything else.
The frustration in the missed catch.
The relief in the bunt.
The pride in the clean slide to third base.
Emotion didn't need subtitles.
Someone tapped his shoulder.
He turned.
Hana.
Hands in her pockets.
Jacket half-zipped.
She looked past him, at the field.
"You've been here a while."
He nodded.
"They play like they don't have to prove anything," he said quietly.
"They don't."
"They miss. A lot."
"Missing is part of it," she said.
"Isn't it part of everything?"
He didn't reply.
They stood together, silent.
A ball rolled near the fence.
One of the players jogged over, bowed slightly, picked it up, and smiled at them.
Aarav bowed back—awkwardly, but honest.
The boy ran back to his teammates.
"They don't know who I am," Aarav said.
"They don't care," Hana replied.
He looked at her.
"That should scare me."
"But it doesn't?"
He shook his head.
"No.
It feels… safe."
After a pause, Hana asked,
"Did you ever feel like this when you played?"
He looked back at the field.
The pitcher threw slow this time.
Let the batter find rhythm.
"I used to," he said.
"When?"
He closed his eyes.
"Before my name got louder than my game."
The sun slipped a little lower.
One of the players laughed so hard he dropped his glove.
Another mimed hitting a home run with a ridiculous stance.
The coach laughed with them.
Aarav smiled.
For real.
"They're not scared to be bad at it," he said.
"They're still allowed to love it," Hana replied.
A wind passed between them.
Soft. Petal-laced.
He felt something loosen in his chest.
Not break.
Not vanish.
Just… shift.
That evening, back in his room, he opened the bat towel.
Held it.
No stance.
No gloves.
Just his fingers wrapped around something that once hurt,
and now simply waited.
He placed the bat on the floor beside his futon.
Sat down.
And started writing.
Just a sentence.
On a blank paper.
"Today, I saw baseball. I didn't understand the words, but I understood the boys."
He folded it.
Slipped it into the bento cloth Hana had left the night before.
Returned it outside her door.
No note from her this time.
Just a quiet knock the next morning.
And a reply scribbled on the inside of the bento lid.
"You don't need to understand the language.
The game already speaks to you."