The Heat of Summer (MikaYuu)

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴏɴᴇ - ᴀ ꜱʜɪʀᴛʟᴇꜱꜱ ᴅᴜᴅᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ʜɪꜱ ʙᴀᴛ

"Nine hundred ninety-eight, nine hundred ninety-nine... one thousand!"

Yuu swung his bat so hard it flew out of his hands, the momentum spinning him around like a ballerina. Maybe he should've taken that up instead of baseball. 

Then again, maybe not, he thought as he fell gracelessly onto his butt. 

Taking a moment to catch his breath, he gazed languidly at his surroundings. Dirt was packed tight around the diamond-shaped plot of grass; beyond that, even more grass stretched on and on, continuing even past the curved fence marking the warning track. The white rubber of home plate, coated in grainy earth, and the thick lines of chalk extending in either direction away from it—it was a familiar sight in an unfamiliar place. It comforted him, this baseball field. 

As he sat there admiring it, he spotted a mosquito gorging itself on his arm. 

"Gah!" he cried out, swatting at it in vain. The damage had already been done, and he hadn't even killed it. The insect buzzed away with what he could have sworn was a laugh. Great. Now he would have yet another itchy bump to look forward to in an hour or two.

"I hate those bloodsuckers!" he fumed. "When is stupid Guren getting here? He better not have forgotten about me..."

Guren had dumped him here at noon, telling him he had important business to attend to and didn't want Yuu's idiot self getting in the way. He said he'd be back by 3:00. Well, it was 6:00 now, and Yuu was practically dying in the scorching 80-degree weather, being eaten alive by mosquitoes with nothing to do but twirl his bat around a thousand times. He didn't even know the area well enough to walk home. 

They'd moved to Ashborne—this suburban dump in the middle of nowhere—last week, right at the end of the school year. If he remembered correctly, today was the official last day, which also made it the beginning of summer vacation. Not that it made a difference to Yuu. He'd arrived so late he hadn't even been able to transfer in.  

What's the point of that, he wondered grumpily. Yuu didn't exactly like being the new kid, but he was accustomed to it. He must have moved around a thousand times in his sixteen years, and each time he transferred to a new school, he made sure to show those other kids what was up. He was determined to be the best at everything... except academics, which were a lost cause, and making friends, and... well, basically everything except baseball. But he showed them what was up in baseball, at least! Not that he could ever say he was the best at it...

Now that he thought about it, none of his foster parents ever seemed too happy about his methods. Neither did his teachers or peers. Maybe that was part of why he was always returned back to the Hyakuya Orphanage, waiting to be shipped off and inevitably relinquished again.

Until Guren, that is. 

Guren Ichinose took him in four years ago, a single twenty-year old entrepreneur living in a small apartment, just barely making ends meet. Yuu often wondered how he'd earned custody at all. But at the time, he didn't care. He was nothing but a boiling ball of rage and self-hatred, and he took it out on anyone who dared get close to him. He believed he didn't deserve to be loved, and did his damn best to prove it. 

Yet, no matter what he destroyed, or how much trouble he got himself into at school, or how many snarky insults he tossed Guren's way, Guren didn't abandon him. He got annoyed, sure. Yuu earned himself more than a few choice words and forehead flicks. But Guren never called him a demon child, or a mistake, or a waste of money. There was no bite in his tone, even when he yelled. He never stayed mad—in fact, he didn't seem to care much at all about the boy's antics. Eventually, Yuu forgot why he was acting up in the first place. 

So, even though Guren occasionally claimed to be sick of him, Yuu knew he didn't mean it. He hadn't abandoned him like all the others, after all...

"Wait a minute." A horrifying realization struck him like lightning. "What if he did get sick of me, and dumped me here because he knew I wouldn't find him again? He was so through with my crap that he didn't even bother returning me to the orphanage? He just left me here to die and be eaten by crows?!" 

Yuu couldn't believe it. He had never felt so betrayed in his life. 

"Damn you, Guren!" He heaved himself to his feet and brandished his bat. "You can't get rid of me that easily! I'll find you and make you pay!"

However, as he was setting off to do just that, a small, black, avian creature flew at his face like a bullet, wings tucked and head forward. The crows were already upon him?! He opened his mouth to protest that he wasn't dead yet—or perhaps just to scream—but quickly regretted it when he got a mouthful of flapping wings. Shrieking, he ripped the creature out, only to come face to face with... a bat?

"W-What the hell?" He was half-expecting Guren to jump out of the bushes with a camera, laughing his ass off. "Is this thing real?"

Tentatively, he brought the bat closer to eye-level. It had soft, dark fur, beady brown eyes, a pointy snout, and ears like a devil's horns... ultimately resembling an evil black weasel with wings. It was real, all right, and Yuu felt the beginnings of a freak-out bubbling up in his chest. He was holding a live bat in his hands!

Perhaps sensing the boy's turmoil, the bat convulsed in his grip, letting out a series of high-pitched chirps and squeaks that conjured up images of walking through a dark forest at midnight. Yuu let go with a yelp, only for it to whiz straight toward his head again, flying into his hair this time. Yuu felt it dig its claws into his scalp, perching itself there.

"Augh!" he screamed. "Holy crap, it's making a nest outta my hair! It's going to lay eggs in my hair! Guren, save me!"

Just as the boy was a hair's breadth away from frantically running in circles while slapping the top of his head, a voice snapped him out of his panic. "Bats don't lay eggs, dummy." 

An insult! Yuu thought it must have been Guren, and turned eagerly in his direction. But the owner of the voice, he quickly found out, was not Guren at all. It was a stranger—a boy about his age, donning soft blond hair that fell in waves around his face, curling gently into his cheeks. His sapphire blue eyes, framed by long golden lashes, stood out strikingly against his pale skin.

Yet, however striking they were, Yuu couldn't keep his gaze on them, his eyes trailing downwards across the boy's figure. From his white neck and sloping shoulders, to his smooth and sculpted chest, to his lean waist and toned stomach. He could see all that because, for some reason, this guy was definitely...

Shirtless.

✰✰✰

whAT? A SHIRTLESS guy, in the SUMMER?! Scandalous! 

Anyway! First chapter done! It's pretty short, but that's okay. My rustiness has become painfully obvious after not writing for months :') This took way too long.

Also, can I just say... I am not a fan of the title ∊ಠ_ಠ∍ "The Heat of Summer," really? Is there gonna be a sequel called "The Chill of Winter"?? 

....actually, wait, that might not be such a bad idea-