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Chapter 5: The Game He Needed

For the rest of the night, one could be forgiven for thinking that there were two completely separate games being played out on the field. For the most part it seemed like a normal – albeit tense – baseball game. Once the two star players emerged onto the field, however, it was an entirely different story. The rest of the players seemed to fade into the background, and the entire stadium became a stage for a one-on-one duel.

When Yamcha and Ivan were on the field, the entire crowd found themselves on the edge of their seats, unable to take their eyes off the action. The two attacked each other mercilessly, with each encounter escalating from the last. The crowd regularly erupted into a thunderous roar at every gravity-defying leap, every record-breaking pitch, and, most exciting of all, the close encounters on the bases.

These were what Yamcha was forced to concentrate on. No longer could he count on always knocking it out of the park, no more could he guarantee striking his opponent out. Most of their duels took place between home plate and first base, when the excitement hit its peak just after the ball was hit. He soon found out that, in addition to being just as strong, this mysterious blond man rivaled him in speed as well. Yamcha found himself having to sprint towards first as quickly as his legs could carry him, truly a first for his career. Even so, it was often no use. Ivan had beaten him there a number of times, leaving him in stunned disbelief as he was once again declared out.

Yamcha wasn’t about to take it all lying down, though. Whenever he was sitting on the bench, he would replay the previous inning in his head, meticulously combing over every detail to find a kink in his rival’s seemingly impenetrable armor. By about halfway through the game, he had analyzed enough of his gameplay to come to a startling realization; this Ivan Scherbakov guy really was a rookie! He seemed to know just enough about baseball not to make obvious mistakes, but for the most part he seemed to be getting by on raw strength and speed alone. It was enough to impress normal people, but he was starting to see through it. The man’s actions were overly deliberate rather than relying on the muscle memory of a seasoned player, and he didn’t try anything fancy. Perhaps that could be taken advantage of.

Yamcha didn’t let himself get too confident when he went out to pitch next. He may have had a plan, but his opponent’s raw physical superiority was nothing to sneeze at. Sure enough, Ivan was the first sent up to bat. Yamcha waited for the catcher to give him the signal for a bog-standard pitch. If his plan was to work, he wanted to make his opponent’s response as predictable as possible. He didn’t want to throw him any curve balls – literally or figuratively. He wound up for the pitch and sent the ball rocketing towards the batter.

Rather than swinging the bat with all his might as he’d been doing, Ivan brought it forward into something resembling a defensive sword stance. The ball bounced off into the left infield as he dropped the bat and sprinted right towards first. Yamcha was initially caught off guard. He’d bunted it! Well, he hadn’t planned for that, but he wasn’t about to let his strategy get derailed by a goddamned bunt.

He took off after the ball as it bounced away, diving to scoop it up off the ground. By the time he’d looked back towards Ivan, however, he found that he was already halfway to first base. Yamcha cursed under his breath. He wouldn’t be able to close the distance in time. Looks like he didn’t have a choice. He wound up for another pitch, launching the ball straight at the runner.

Ivan spotted the ball coming towards him, immediately moving to try to dodge the projectile. However, in stepping out of the way of the ball, he briefly stepped outside the narrow path in which he was allowed to run. An effort to correct the mistake brought him back tonto the path of the ball, and he was struck square in the face.

“Oh fuck!” Yamcha gasped out, cringing at the sickening crack of the impact. He didn’t mean to hit the guy in the face! Shit, that had been one of his more powerful throws, too. He’d just wanted to get the guy out, he didn’t want to kill him! He heard the crowd gasp in shock as Ivan stumbled off into the grass, all the while dreading seeing the damage he’d done.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Ivan didn’t fall. After stumbling a few steps, he managed to get his feet under him again and continued on to first base. Yamcha was too stunned to feel relieved that he hadn’t just killed a man. Hell, it didn’t even look as though he’d inflicted so much as a bloody nose on the guy.

Finally, the first base umpire snapped out of his own state of shock to make the much-anticipated call.

“O-out!”

Yamcha couldn’t help but celebrate quietly to himself at that, even though the crowd was rather vocal about their displeasure. It hadn’t gone perfectly to plan, but his strategy actually worked! Ivan had stepped out of line just before he was hit with the ball, resulting in an out for interference. It hardly ever happened, and Yamcha had gambled successfully that his opponent would fall into the trap. It was a bit of a scummy move, if he was being perfectly honest, but in this case it got the job done.

He watched as Ivan calmly made his way off the field, walking past a group of concerned medics and dismissing them with a wave of his hand. He then caught Yamcha’s eye, flashing him that same serene smile as before, the only sign of having been hit at all reduced to a small bruise that had already formed on his left cheek. Well, at least there were no hard feelings about it.

___________________

Of course, there would be an opportunity for the smiling devil to have his revenge, and it inevitably came down to the final inning. Yamcha was up to bat once more, and that meant he would be staring down the inhuman Ivan on the pitching mound. There was one out on the board already, and one of his teammates had managed to worm his way onto first. The Titans were only down by one run, so there was still a very real possibility of salvaging the game and winning by the skin of their teeth.

Yamcha could feel the eyes on him as he readied his bat, the tension in the stadium so thick it threatened to smother him. Everything relied on him beating out this blond demon and getting at least one more run. Despite the mounting pressure, however, he felt the sort of rush he’d not felt in years. It had taken him the entire game to figure it out, but this was exactly what he’d wanted. Finally, a challenge! He’d never been pushed this far to the edge of losing in his entire career, yet he’d never felt more excited in a game!

The anticipation came to a head as Ivan wound up for the pitch, and soon enough the ball was sent streaking through the air towards home base. Yamcha had gotten used to the speed of it, though. He wouldn’t be getting another strike here today. Rather than attempting to hit it out of the park as he’d always done, however, he opted to repeat his opponent’s last strategy and bunted the ball out to the left infield. He didn’t wait to see how the other reacted to this move, instead dropping his bat and taking off at full sprint towards first base.

His curiosity got the better of him about halfway there, and he glanced to the side to see where Ivan was. His eyes widened in mixed surprise and horror. The bastard had already retrieved the ball and was running at him at an unimaginable pace. Shit, this guy was faster than he’d thought! He put as much power into his legs as he could, aiming to beat this fiend to the plate before he’d gotten close enough to touch him with the ball. By the time he got within spitting distance of the base, he could already feel that bastard’s breath on his neck.

Yamcha’s foot had hardly touched the white plate of first base when he felt something akin to a punch in the gut. The wind was knocked out of him for a moment, but he stubbornly refused to move his foot from the plate. He glanced up to see the giant that was Ivan towering over him, his gloved hand wrapped around his torso to shove the baseball against his abdomen. The intense look in his dark eyes was intimidating to say the least – a stark contrast to the tranquil expression he’d held for most of the game – but something about his expression betrayed that he wasn’t entirely sure whether he’d caught the Titan out or not.

The two stood frozen there together as the umpire rushed over, meticulously inspecting their positioning to determine the correct call to make. As he waited, however, Yamcha soon noticed something that made him completely forget to worry about all that. He’d taken a glance up to the bruise he’d made on Ivan’s cheek, except, now that he got a closer look at it, he realized it wasn’t a bruise at all. It looked more like a smudge, like someone had taken a paintbrush and ran a streak of bright green paint across his cheek. Yamcha’s eyes widened in sudden realization.

“N-no way…” he barely breathed out with what little air he’d managed to force back into his lungs. Still, the other man seemed to hear him, and he responded with a smile that showed off a pair of vampire-like canines.

“Well, it certainly took you long enough,” was his quiet reply, the familiar sound of his deep voice putting the final nail in the coffin for his disguise. Yamcha couldn’t believe it! This entire time, he’d really been playing against—

“Safe!”

The moment of revelation was spoiled somewhat by the umpire’s call. He soon felt his opponent’s arm slide from around his waist, which filled him with a sense of disappointment for some reason. He then turned to watch as “Ivan” made his way back to the pitcher’s mound to get ready for the next batter. Yamcha stared after him for a long while as he let the new information sink in, a small smile spreading across his lips. So that’s how it was, eh? Well, at least he knew exactly what he was dealing with now. He took a quick look around the rest of the field. His teammate had only gotten to second base, being understandably unwilling to push his luck too far with Ivan on the field. That was a decent enough plan. He’d take this slow from now on. He couldn’t afford to get cocky.

The crack of ball hitting bat was the starting gun for Yamcha’s mad sprint to second. He knew he was the prime target, and he wouldn’t give that devil in disguise another chance to get him out if he could help it. However, he was struck with a sudden confusion when he found that he’d arrived onto second base with no sign of Ivan hunting him down. He looked up to discover that his opponent had gone after his teammate running to third instead. Unlike Yamcha, who’s training prepared him for the sort of speeds Ivan was capable of, this poor sod didn’t stand a ghost of a chance. The Devils’ pitcher easily intercepted him, holding out the ball to tap him on the arm with considerably more gentleness than he’d done with Yamcha.

Yamcha cursed under his breath as his teammate was declared out. Well, there went all possibilities of winning there and then. Now the best he could manage was to tie up the score and throw the game into extra innings. It was all on him. He absolutely had to make this run, and he had to distract his opponents from going after his teammates for an easy out in the process. As the teams set up for the next batter, he made a desperate play: he went to steal third.

While Ivan was distracted with the new batter, Yamcha broke out into a sprint towards third base. His move did not go unnoticed, as a commotion rose in the crowd and all eyes on the field went back on him. His opponent noticed as well, immediately turning to throw the ball, not at the batter, but towards one of his teammates nearest the base. The teammate managed to catch it, but he was no Ivan, and he couldn’t catch up to Yamcha.

Yamcha skidded to a stop across third base, panting lightly as he turned to face his rival once more. The look on his face suggested that he knew full well he couldn’t stop him from taking the base. That throw to his teammate was mostly for show, to keep from getting bitched at for letting the enemy team steal a base. Besides, this was what they both wanted, he was sure of it. The game wouldn’t end on a cheap out. It would all come down to the two of them and one last mad dash to home.

Yamcha was practically shaking from the adrenaline coursing through his body as he waited for the next pitch. Finally, the instant he heard his teammate hit the ball, he ran for home. Ivan had to let the ball past him to keep from catching it before it hit the ground, meaning he had to go chasing after it before he could start his pursuit. This gave Yamcha the head start he desperately needed. He focused on home plate, running as fast as his legs could carry him. Soon enough, though, he caught a blindingly fast movement out of the corner of his eye. Ivan had started his run to intercept him at home. This was it! He could still do it!

He was mere meters from home plate when he made a leap forward, sliding through the dirt in an effort to get those extra few inches on his opponent. Ivan was just as determined, diving forward with his gloved hand outstretched to try to touch the plate first. The great cloud of dust that it all kicked up stung in his eyes, forcing him to snap them shut, but he could feel that his foot had touched something. Had he done it? Had he actually touched home plate first?

“Out!”

What?! That single word forced Yamcha’s stinging eyes open and he looked down towards the plate to see what had happened. His foot was indeed touching something, but it wasn’t home plate. His toe rested against the edge of Ivan’s glove, which held the ball firmly against the dusty white plate. He’d missed it by less than half an inch.

‘I don’t believe it, folks! What an amazing conclusion to an absolutely unprecedented game! The undefeated West City Titans have lost 12-13 against the Satan City Devils! What a night! This is definitely one to go down in the history books!’

The entire stadium broke into a cacophony of cheers, boos, yelling, and celebration. The entirety of the Satan City Devils ran out onto the field, all gathering around their last-minute addition to congratulate and hug the man for more or less single-handedly delivering them a win that no one thought they could get. The Titans’ coach was absolutely beside himself with rage, having already screamed himself red. The rest of the team could only sit there in stunned disbelief.

Yamcha himself merely stood there by home plate, watching silently as the opposing team celebrated jubilantly before him. Then, quietly at first, he began to laugh. His laughter grew the more he thought of what had just transpired to the point that tears were soon gathering in his eyes. He wasn’t sad, though, and he was the farthest thing from angry that a man could get. Quite to the contrary. He’d never in his life felt happier. That had been the best goddamn game of baseball he’d ever played, and he was truly glad it would be his last.

________________

The mood in the Titans locker room after the game was somber indeed. No one even wanted to look at each other, ashamed that they had lost, and to a rookie no less. Yamcha himself didn’t want to bother with any of it, opting to avoid his team altogether and slip out of there before he had the chance to change out of his uniform. He didn’t intend to leave the stadium just yet, though. There was someone he wanted to talk to first.

He made his way through the visiting team’s dugout and back towards their own locker room. Technically speaking, he wasn’t supposed to be back there, but he doubted anyone would try to stop him. He stopped outside the door, listening as a conversation faded into hearing range.

“N-no, please! I-I’ll give you the biggest contract anyone’s ever heard of! Y-you’ll be the highest paid player in the history of baseball! I need you on my team!!”

“I’m sorry, but the deal was one game. I got what I wanted, and you got what you wanted. I’m afraid that’s all there is to it.”

The locker room door then opened up, and Yamcha was greeted by the sight of Ivan standing there still in his uniform, the owner of the Devils clinging to his ankle and begging him to stay on the team. Ivan seemed to not hear him anymore, though, and he gingerly pulled his foot from the team owner’s grasp before closing the door behind him. Once the two of them were alone out there in the hall, he dropped all but the appearance of his disguise.

“Sorry for crashing your last game like that. You seemed so dejected about playing tonight that I thought you could use a real challenge for once. I hope I didn’t go too far,” Piccolo apologized, rubbing idly at his cheek where his pale make-up had been smudged off in their earlier encounter on the field. Yamcha’s response was a grin that seemed to spread from ear to ear.

“Are you kidding?! That was amazing! I’ve never had so much fun in my life playing this game! I mean, what’s the point if I win all the time? There’s no excitement if there’s no risk of losing, and tonight was just… just…”

Yamcha was at too much of a high to form a coherent explanation of how he felt. Now he knew for sure that this was the perfect end to his baseball career. After all, no other game he could ever play would come close to this one. And to think it was Piccolo of all people who gave him such a game. He’d even went out of his way to disguise himself as a human and manipulate his way onto a professional baseball team to do it. Not only that, but he did it for him. No one had ever been so thoughtful towards him, no one had ever gone to such great lengths to give him what he truly needed. No mere words could describe how truly grateful he was. So, without thinking, he grabbed the alien’s jersey, pulled him down to his level, and kissed him.

Description
Chapter 5: The Game He Needed

For the rest of the night, one could be forgiven for thinking that there were two completely separate games being played out on the field. For the most part it seemed like a normal – albeit tense – baseball game. Once the two star players emerged onto the field, however, it was an entirely different story. The rest of the players seemed to fade into the background, and the entire stadium became a stage for a one-on-one duel.

When Yamcha and Ivan were on the field, the entire crowd found themselves on the edge of their seats, unable to take their eyes off the action. The two attacked each other mercilessly, with each encounter escalating from the last. The crowd regularly erupted into a thunderous roar at every gravity-defying leap, every record-breaking pitch, and, most exciting of all, the close encounters on the bases.

These were what Yamcha was forced to concentrate on. No longer could he count on always knocking it out of the park, no more could he guarantee striking his opponent out. Most of their duels took place between home plate and first base, when the excitement hit its peak just after the ball was hit. He soon found out that, in addition to being just as strong, this mysterious blond man rivaled him in speed as well. Yamcha found himself having to sprint towards first as quickly as his legs could carry him, truly a first for his career. Even so, it was often no use. Ivan had beaten him there a number of times, leaving him in stunned disbelief as he was once again declared out.

Yamcha wasn’t about to take it all lying down, though. Whenever he was sitting on the bench, he would replay the previous inning in his head, meticulously combing over every detail to find a kink in his rival’s seemingly impenetrable armor. By about halfway through the game, he had analyzed enough of his gameplay to come to a startling realization; this Ivan Scherbakov guy really was a rookie! He seemed to know just enough about baseball not to make obvious mistakes, but for the most part he seemed to be getting by on raw strength and speed alone. It was enough to impress normal people, but he was starting to see through it. The man’s actions were overly deliberate rather than relying on the muscle memory of a seasoned player, and he didn’t try anything fancy. Perhaps that could be taken advantage of.

Yamcha didn’t let himself get too confident when he went out to pitch next. He may have had a plan, but his opponent’s raw physical superiority was nothing to sneeze at. Sure enough, Ivan was the first sent up to bat. Yamcha waited for the catcher to give him the signal for a bog-standard pitch. If his plan was to work, he wanted to make his opponent’s response as predictable as possible. He didn’t want to throw him any curve balls – literally or figuratively. He wound up for the pitch and sent the ball rocketing towards the batter.

Rather than swinging the bat with all his might as he’d been doing, Ivan brought it forward into something resembling a defensive sword stance. The ball bounced off into the left infield as he dropped the bat and sprinted right towards first. Yamcha was initially caught off guard. He’d bunted it! Well, he hadn’t planned for that, but he wasn’t about to let his strategy get derailed by a goddamned bunt.

He took off after the ball as it bounced away, diving to scoop it up off the ground. By the time he’d looked back towards Ivan, however, he found that he was already halfway to first base. Yamcha cursed under his breath. He wouldn’t be able to close the distance in time. Looks like he didn’t have a choice. He wound up for another pitch, launching the ball straight at the runner.

Ivan spotted the ball coming towards him, immediately moving to try to dodge the projectile. However, in stepping out of the way of the ball, he briefly stepped outside the narrow path in which he was allowed to run. An effort to correct the mistake brought him back tonto the path of the ball, and he was struck square in the face.

“Oh fuck!” Yamcha gasped out, cringing at the sickening crack of the impact. He didn’t mean to hit the guy in the face! Shit, that had been one of his more powerful throws, too. He’d just wanted to get the guy out, he didn’t want to kill him! He heard the crowd gasp in shock as Ivan stumbled off into the grass, all the while dreading seeing the damage he’d done.

Much to everyone’s surprise, Ivan didn’t fall. After stumbling a few steps, he managed to get his feet under him again and continued on to first base. Yamcha was too stunned to feel relieved that he hadn’t just killed a man. Hell, it didn’t even look as though he’d inflicted so much as a bloody nose on the guy.

Finally, the first base umpire snapped out of his own state of shock to make the much-anticipated call.

“O-out!”

Yamcha couldn’t help but celebrate quietly to himself at that, even though the crowd was rather vocal about their displeasure. It hadn’t gone perfectly to plan, but his strategy actually worked! Ivan had stepped out of line just before he was hit with the ball, resulting in an out for interference. It hardly ever happened, and Yamcha had gambled successfully that his opponent would fall into the trap. It was a bit of a scummy move, if he was being perfectly honest, but in this case it got the job done.

He watched as Ivan calmly made his way off the field, walking past a group of concerned medics and dismissing them with a wave of his hand. He then caught Yamcha’s eye, flashing him that same serene smile as before, the only sign of having been hit at all reduced to a small bruise that had already formed on his left cheek. Well, at least there were no hard feelings about it.

___________________

Of course, there would be an opportunity for the smiling devil to have his revenge, and it inevitably came down to the final inning. Yamcha was up to bat once more, and that meant he would be staring down the inhuman Ivan on the pitching mound. There was one out on the board already, and one of his teammates had managed to worm his way onto first. The Titans were only down by one run, so there was still a very real possibility of salvaging the game and winning by the skin of their teeth.

Yamcha could feel the eyes on him as he readied his bat, the tension in the stadium so thick it threatened to smother him. Everything relied on him beating out this blond demon and getting at least one more run. Despite the mounting pressure, however, he felt the sort of rush he’d not felt in years. It had taken him the entire game to figure it out, but this was exactly what he’d wanted. Finally, a challenge! He’d never been pushed this far to the edge of losing in his entire career, yet he’d never felt more excited in a game!

The anticipation came to a head as Ivan wound up for the pitch, and soon enough the ball was sent streaking through the air towards home base. Yamcha had gotten used to the speed of it, though. He wouldn’t be getting another strike here today. Rather than attempting to hit it out of the park as he’d always done, however, he opted to repeat his opponent’s last strategy and bunted the ball out to the left infield. He didn’t wait to see how the other reacted to this move, instead dropping his bat and taking off at full sprint towards first base.

His curiosity got the better of him about halfway there, and he glanced to the side to see where Ivan was. His eyes widened in mixed surprise and horror. The bastard had already retrieved the ball and was running at him at an unimaginable pace. Shit, this guy was faster than he’d thought! He put as much power into his legs as he could, aiming to beat this fiend to the plate before he’d gotten close enough to touch him with the ball. By the time he got within spitting distance of the base, he could already feel that bastard’s breath on his neck.

Yamcha’s foot had hardly touched the white plate of first base when he felt something akin to a punch in the gut. The wind was knocked out of him for a moment, but he stubbornly refused to move his foot from the plate. He glanced up to see the giant that was Ivan towering over him, his gloved hand wrapped around his torso to shove the baseball against his abdomen. The intense look in his dark eyes was intimidating to say the least – a stark contrast to the tranquil expression he’d held for most of the game – but something about his expression betrayed that he wasn’t entirely sure whether he’d caught the Titan out or not.

The two stood frozen there together as the umpire rushed over, meticulously inspecting their positioning to determine the correct call to make. As he waited, however, Yamcha soon noticed something that made him completely forget to worry about all that. He’d taken a glance up to the bruise he’d made on Ivan’s cheek, except, now that he got a closer look at it, he realized it wasn’t a bruise at all. It looked more like a smudge, like someone had taken a paintbrush and ran a streak of bright green paint across his cheek. Yamcha’s eyes widened in sudden realization.

“N-no way…” he barely breathed out with what little air he’d managed to force back into his lungs. Still, the other man seemed to hear him, and he responded with a smile that showed off a pair of vampire-like canines.

“Well, it certainly took you long enough,” was his quiet reply, the familiar sound of his deep voice putting the final nail in the coffin for his disguise. Yamcha couldn’t believe it! This entire time, he’d really been playing against—

“Safe!”

The moment of revelation was spoiled somewhat by the umpire’s call. He soon felt his opponent’s arm slide from around his waist, which filled him with a sense of disappointment for some reason. He then turned to watch as “Ivan” made his way back to the pitcher’s mound to get ready for the next batter. Yamcha stared after him for a long while as he let the new information sink in, a small smile spreading across his lips. So that’s how it was, eh? Well, at least he knew exactly what he was dealing with now. He took a quick look around the rest of the field. His teammate had only gotten to second base, being understandably unwilling to push his luck too far with Ivan on the field. That was a decent enough plan. He’d take this slow from now on. He couldn’t afford to get cocky.

The crack of ball hitting bat was the starting gun for Yamcha’s mad sprint to second. He knew he was the prime target, and he wouldn’t give that devil in disguise another chance to get him out if he could help it. However, he was struck with a sudden confusion when he found that he’d arrived onto second base with no sign of Ivan hunting him down. He looked up to discover that his opponent had gone after his teammate running to third instead. Unlike Yamcha, who’s training prepared him for the sort of speeds Ivan was capable of, this poor sod didn’t stand a ghost of a chance. The Devils’ pitcher easily intercepted him, holding out the ball to tap him on the arm with considerably more gentleness than he’d done with Yamcha.

Yamcha cursed under his breath as his teammate was declared out. Well, there went all possibilities of winning there and then. Now the best he could manage was to tie up the score and throw the game into extra innings. It was all on him. He absolutely had to make this run, and he had to distract his opponents from going after his teammates for an easy out in the process. As the teams set up for the next batter, he made a desperate play: he went to steal third.

While Ivan was distracted with the new batter, Yamcha broke out into a sprint towards third base. His move did not go unnoticed, as a commotion rose in the crowd and all eyes on the field went back on him. His opponent noticed as well, immediately turning to throw the ball, not at the batter, but towards one of his teammates nearest the base. The teammate managed to catch it, but he was no Ivan, and he couldn’t catch up to Yamcha.

Yamcha skidded to a stop across third base, panting lightly as he turned to face his rival once more. The look on his face suggested that he knew full well he couldn’t stop him from taking the base. That throw to his teammate was mostly for show, to keep from getting bitched at for letting the enemy team steal a base. Besides, this was what they both wanted, he was sure of it. The game wouldn’t end on a cheap out. It would all come down to the two of them and one last mad dash to home.

Yamcha was practically shaking from the adrenaline coursing through his body as he waited for the next pitch. Finally, the instant he heard his teammate hit the ball, he ran for home. Ivan had to let the ball past him to keep from catching it before it hit the ground, meaning he had to go chasing after it before he could start his pursuit. This gave Yamcha the head start he desperately needed. He focused on home plate, running as fast as his legs could carry him. Soon enough, though, he caught a blindingly fast movement out of the corner of his eye. Ivan had started his run to intercept him at home. This was it! He could still do it!

He was mere meters from home plate when he made a leap forward, sliding through the dirt in an effort to get those extra few inches on his opponent. Ivan was just as determined, diving forward with his gloved hand outstretched to try to touch the plate first. The great cloud of dust that it all kicked up stung in his eyes, forcing him to snap them shut, but he could feel that his foot had touched something. Had he done it? Had he actually touched home plate first?

“Out!”

What?! That single word forced Yamcha’s stinging eyes open and he looked down towards the plate to see what had happened. His foot was indeed touching something, but it wasn’t home plate. His toe rested against the edge of Ivan’s glove, which held the ball firmly against the dusty white plate. He’d missed it by less than half an inch.

‘I don’t believe it, folks! What an amazing conclusion to an absolutely unprecedented game! The undefeated West City Titans have lost 12-13 against the Satan City Devils! What a night! This is definitely one to go down in the history books!’

The entire stadium broke into a cacophony of cheers, boos, yelling, and celebration. The entirety of the Satan City Devils ran out onto the field, all gathering around their last-minute addition to congratulate and hug the man for more or less single-handedly delivering them a win that no one thought they could get. The Titans’ coach was absolutely beside himself with rage, having already screamed himself red. The rest of the team could only sit there in stunned disbelief.

Yamcha himself merely stood there by home plate, watching silently as the opposing team celebrated jubilantly before him. Then, quietly at first, he began to laugh. His laughter grew the more he thought of what had just transpired to the point that tears were soon gathering in his eyes. He wasn’t sad, though, and he was the farthest thing from angry that a man could get. Quite to the contrary. He’d never in his life felt happier. That had been the best goddamn game of baseball he’d ever played, and he was truly glad it would be his last.

________________

The mood in the Titans locker room after the game was somber indeed. No one even wanted to look at each other, ashamed that they had lost, and to a rookie no less. Yamcha himself didn’t want to bother with any of it, opting to avoid his team altogether and slip out of there before he had the chance to change out of his uniform. He didn’t intend to leave the stadium just yet, though. There was someone he wanted to talk to first.

He made his way through the visiting team’s dugout and back towards their own locker room. Technically speaking, he wasn’t supposed to be back there, but he doubted anyone would try to stop him. He stopped outside the door, listening as a conversation faded into hearing range.

“N-no, please! I-I’ll give you the biggest contract anyone’s ever heard of! Y-you’ll be the highest paid player in the history of baseball! I need you on my team!!”

“I’m sorry, but the deal was one game. I got what I wanted, and you got what you wanted. I’m afraid that’s all there is to it.”

The locker room door then opened up, and Yamcha was greeted by the sight of Ivan standing there still in his uniform, the owner of the Devils clinging to his ankle and begging him to stay on the team. Ivan seemed to not hear him anymore, though, and he gingerly pulled his foot from the team owner’s grasp before closing the door behind him. Once the two of them were alone out there in the hall, he dropped all but the appearance of his disguise.

“Sorry for crashing your last game like that. You seemed so dejected about playing tonight that I thought you could use a real challenge for once. I hope I didn’t go too far,” Piccolo apologized, rubbing idly at his cheek where his pale make-up had been smudged off in their earlier encounter on the field. Yamcha’s response was a grin that seemed to spread from ear to ear.

“Are you kidding?! That was amazing! I’ve never had so much fun in my life playing this game! I mean, what’s the point if I win all the time? There’s no excitement if there’s no risk of losing, and tonight was just… just…”

Yamcha was at too much of a high to form a coherent explanation of how he felt. Now he knew for sure that this was the perfect end to his baseball career. After all, no other game he could ever play would come close to this one. And to think it was Piccolo of all people who gave him such a game. He’d even went out of his way to disguise himself as a human and manipulate his way onto a professional baseball team to do it. Not only that, but he did it for him. No one had ever been so thoughtful towards him, no one had ever gone to such great lengths to give him what he truly needed. No mere words could describe how truly grateful he was. So, without thinking, he grabbed the alien’s jersey, pulled him down to his level, and kissed him.