The Wannabes

XI. Who is Your Daughter?

"Get away from our daughter."

Nanairō

I stared in disbelief from beside Miyuki as we both stood up to face my parents and snarky sister. Miyuki pushed me behind him gently. "All due respect, Mr. Nakatomi and Mrs. Nakatomi, I distinctly remember Chibana-san declaring that she was disowning the Nakatomi name." My father must've been drunk, because he only got violent when drunk. He stumbled forwards and grabbed Miyuki by the collar. "Does it look like I care? Don't meddle in family business." His words were clearly slurred. I stepped forward and pulled my father off of Miyuki. "Don't touch Miyuki-kun." My father grew angry and wound his hand back to slap me, but was stopped by Miyuki catching his wrist.

"You shouldn't hit her." My father glared at Miyuki before jerking his hand away and stumbling a bit. "Mind your own business kid." I felt anger, fear, and anxiety building up in my chest. "I already disowned the family what more could you want?" My sister laughed. "We're going to send you to Omyojī school, where you belong." I backed away in disbelief but Miyuki supported me from behind. "Over my dead-"

"That's enough! All of you! You three better get out of here and stop harassing my baseball players unless you'd like a negative connotation to the Nakatomi name. Clearly this is Chibana, not your daughter so leave Chibana and Miyuki alone." Hope built up in my chest as Coach Kataoka's booming voice made my family flinch. "This is ridiculous!" Coach came closer. "No, you're ridiculous. Harassing someone who is clearly not your child. I mean, look at Chibana. Does Chibana share any attributes with the likes of you three?" Coach was right. I knew my father was my birth father but I didn't take after him. I took after my mother. The ones who called themselves my family stood speechless, rooted to the spot. "Leave. Now." The two females scurried off, dragging my estranged father with them.

"Thank you, Coach Kataoka." I bowed respectfully in thanks to the man. "You two should get to your dorms. I'd like to speak to you tomorrow morning, Chibana. Be there before morning practice." I nodded. "Yes sir." Miyuki and I left Coach as he recommended.

We walked side by side in a comfortable yet awkward silence. "I'm sorry. About this morning... I mean-" I shook my head at my catcher with a tight-lipped smile. "No, don't be. I shouldn't have lied. You catch for me every single day and I should have known better than to try and hide something like that from you." He sighed, and I knew he was still frustrated with the events of the day that transpired between the two of us. "Say it, Bakazya, I can't read your mind.'' He stopped walking and looked at me, so I returned his action. "Doesn't what happened earlier... y'know, bother you at all? With your parents.. and me and what happened-" I should've known that it would bother him. "Miyuki, I've dealt with my dad and his witch of a wife's antics for years. At this point, nothing bothers me with them anymore, because quite honestly they haven't felt like family since my mom died. My family for almost two years has been Seido, and Ji Yūko, and Shunpei. And regarding what happened earlier between the two of us, if it truly bothers you like it seems like it does, then let's pretend it never happened. I don't want an awkward environment every time we practice so lets just agree to keep it to ourselves, yeah?" He opened his mouth to argue but nothing came out. Of course it hurt to pretend that the personal moments we shared never happened, but I was willing to forget it if it meant getting to continue having a friendship with the person I never would've expected to mean so much. "Look, that's not what I meant-"

"Then what did you mean, Miyuki? If it bothers you then forget it." He sighed in frustration and took a step closer. "You don't get it do you? It bothers me that I have to call you Chibana because I don't know what to call you, because thus far we clearly don't have the established trust in each other we thought we did. What bothers me is that I don't even know your name and I've been your catcher for two years," he stepped closer so that he was in my face, "You can't seriously tell me that it wouldn't bother you if you didn't know the first name of the person you have played with and sat in a classroom with for nearly a year and a half." I could feel his anger and frustration rising in the atmosphere. "I don't know, Miyuki, I really don't. I won't pretend to even know what its like, but you do know my name. My name is Nanairō." He sighed and I could see through his eyes that my comment wasn't helping the situation. "If that's supposed to make me feel better, it really doesn't. If anything, it only pisses me off more. What parts of your personality are real? Can you at least honestly tell me that?"