"We're here." I hear Youhei announce.
I look up. We're here, at Shohoku. It took forever to even get here.
As usual, the world outside doesn't seem to have changed. The familiar chattering of couples and groups walking into school attacks my ears. But as usual, I still feel so ... empty.
A long time ago, I was a part of this. It seems like ancient history now. I was a part of this high-spirited, carefree youth that made a loud entrance into school every morning, laughing and nudging and fooling around. I used to be part of this. But now I'm not part of anything anymore.
I move my gaze over to Youhei. What is he thinking? What does he think of me now? I can't bear to imagine how pathetic I am in his eyes.
But then he turns back to look at me, and his eyes shine with a type of sad understanding that I feel so profoundly comforted by. It's been so long. It's been so long since I've known how nice it is to have a chat with Youhei, with this true friend that's always been here. And ... and something about him makes me trust him again. Somehow, I don't feel pathetic in his eyes anymore.
"Youhei..." I start, my voice trembling mildly. "...I'm sorry..."
Youhei smiles - a smile hiding some type of sympathy. He knows that I don't like being sympathized with. He still remembers. And I wonder if he knows how deeply grateful I am to have a friend like him.
"You never need to say sorry, Hanamichi.." he answers.
I try smiling back at him, but somehow, I just can't smile anymore.
"I should be sorry," he continues, sighing deeply. "I should ... I should have known."
I shake my head briskly.
"Iya," I say, waving my hand in dismissal. "it's my fault for being so ... so weak."
Youhei frowns now.
"Don't do that to yourself," his voice is stern, serious. "don't hurt yourself like that, Hanamichi."
Hurt myself? What do you mean?
But I don't question him. I just nod briefly and look ahead.
We walk into school without a word, side by side.
"Sakuragi Hanamichi!"
From a distance I hear someone calling my name. Someone nudges me hurriedly in the back.
I blink myself back into reality and look around me. At the front of the classroom Sensei is growling, fuming from his ears. Everyone around me is staring intently, expectantly, waiting for my reaction. I still don't know what's going on.
"What a great honour!"
Sensei gesticulates sarcastically, but I can hear the venomous infuriation seeping from his every syllable.
"What a great honour, Mr. Sakuragi, for you to tune back into my lesson!"
He glares at me, waiting for an answer. I stay still, speechless, emotionless.
I drifted off again. I drifted off during a lesson once again. This must be about the hundredth time that this has happened. How do I do it? I don't even know. I guess my brain just shuts down.
"What's the matter -" Sensei hisses, leaning forward with narrowed eyes. "cat got your tongue?"
I blink again. What do I say?
"TALK TO ME, BOY!" Sensei is practically screaming now.
"Sumimasen, sensei." I mutter dutifully. That's what I'm supposed to say, isn't it?
Sensei sighs deeply and mumbles something under his breath. I can imagine him inhaling fire out of his nostrils. He turns back to the blackboard and continues scribbling down lines that I can't be bothered to try and read.
How did things become like this? I think. I can't think. All I can think of is him.
Is this what people mean when they say that you never know how much you need something until it's gone?
I need to see his ice-blue eyes. I need to hear his stone-cold voice. I need to watch him tossing a ball into a hoop as if all his hopes and dreams are inside that very ball. I need to feel him here, alive, present in my world. I need him.
I don't hate him. At least I don't think I do. What is hate anyway? Can you hate someone because of all the lonely nights spent thinking of nothing but them? Can you hate someone because you don't understand why they can capture all your attention? Can you hate someone because that's the only way you can get a chance to understand more about them?
I'm supposed to hate him. But I don't hate him at all. Instead I ... I don't even know what I feel for him anymore.
I don't want to think about what these feelings for him are. I'm scared of what they might be. I don't want them to be...what I think they are.
Could it be...? Am I ... gay?
I can't be gay. That's not possible. I can't. I simply can't be. I don't want to be.
I'm so ... tired. All this is making me ... so, so tired.
Stupid kitsune! I don't want to think about you anymore! So why is it so hard for me to let go ... for me to carry on without you? It's all your fault! It's all your fault that I'm ... that I'm dying inside. It's all your fault that I ... miss you so much.
And suddenly everyone's standing up and walking out of the classroom, talking and laughing with their friends about what they're going to do during the weekend. These people have lives worth living. I used to. I don't anymore.
I'm still sitting down. If I'm not mistaken, the bell has just rang. It's break now. But it doesn't matter, does it? It doesn't matter.
Youhei pulls up a chair and sits down next to me. I look down immediately. I don't feel like talking, Youhei. I don't feel like doing anything. Don't you understand? Can't you see what I am, what I'm becoming?
I'm ... gay.
Youhei is silent once again, just watching me. I don't know what to say.
"Sakuragi!"
It isn't Youhei's voice. There are two voices now, coming from outside the classroom.
I look up to see Mitsui and Ryota standing by the door, pointing at me. My eyes widen in surprise. They've never come to look for me like this. They're from a different part of school. So why are they here?
"Micchy?" I wonder out loud. "Ryocchin?"
I only realize now how long I haven't seen them or spoken to them. The days when I actually went to basketball practice have been long gone. The days when I actually touched a basketball seem so far away. Those days seem like a totally different reality compared to the one I'm living in now.
I watch Mitsui and Ryota walking over to me, their footsteps hasty and purposeful, their stares fixed and determined. It only takes a few seconds before they are next to me, Mitsui holding my arm on one side, Ryota holding my arm on the other. And before I realize what is happening, they're hurling me up from my seat and out of the classroom.
"Nan da..?" I manage to squeal. "What...what are you doing?"
Ryota looks at me from the corner of his eye but doesn't smirk like I was expecting him to. I glance over at Mitsui on the other side, but he looks just as serious.
"Where...where are you taking me?" I choke.
I try to pull back but Mitsui and Ryota both pull me forward again, arousing the alarmed stares of the chattering students standing in the busy corridor. What...what is going on?
"How about some basketball, Hanamichi." Ryota says, in more of an order than a request.
"You're coming to practice with us." Mitsui announces.
Practice? Basketball?
"But..." I panic. I don't want to play basketball. Not without ... him.
"No buts!" Mitsui and Ryota insist in unison, both turning to stare at me.
"I can't..." I resist under my breath.
But they aren't listening to me. They're pulling me along this corridor that I recognize so well, and they're pushing me into this gym that is so painfully familiar it makes me want to cry.
I stand, frozen, rooted to the spot, by endless memories of the past.
How many words we exchanged inside the recesses of this hall. Yes, they were cruel words, insults ... but they were still words. How many times our skin had touched here. Yes, they were punches, kicks, blows of anger ... but our skin had still touched.
I miss him. I miss the times that we would see each other here. God, I miss him.
I can't do this. I can't do this. I don't want to be here.
I spin around and try to walk straight out of the gym.
But a high voice behind me holds me back.
"Sakuragi-kun."
I don't turn back. I feel too ashamed to face her. Haruko-san.
I hear her light footsteps approaching me slowly from behind.
"Do you remember what you said to me during the Sannoh match?"
The Sannoh match. I remember that match. It seems like centuries ago.
"'I like it a lot. And this time I'm not lying.'"
I said that, didn't I? I remember saying that.
"That's what you said. And you meant it, Sakuragi-kun."
I still mean it, Haruko-san. It's just that, I can't bring myself to play anymore.
I don't want to turn around. I'm afraid of what she might see in me. But I do all the same.
She's holding a basketball in her hands, and it looks like she has tears in her eyes.
"You meant it." She looks down at the basketball now, stares at it absently, then looks back up at me. "Then why ... why are you giving up now?"
Why am I giving up? Because ... because of something that I don't understand. Because I...because he....
I remain speechless, motionless. All I want to do is say sorry, turn and leave. But now I see all these familiar faces around me and somehow I don't feel like going away yet. I miss this. I miss being a part of this.
"Do you remember..."
This time it's a voice from behind Haruko-san, a deep, stern voice.
I haven't heard that voice for ages either. I look into the distance. Gori.
"Do you remember, Sakuragi," he begins, trudging towards me, frowning. "do you remember your first match? Your first dunk? Your first jump shot? Or have you forgotten all this?"
I close my eyes feebly. Stop, please. I don't want to remember. I don't want to remember anymore. But they won't stop.
"Do you remember all the hope you gave us, Sakuragi?" Kogure's voice cuts in. "All the hope you gave us so many times, when we thought we were losing?"
Stop, please. Everyone. It ... hurts.
"Do you remember our amazing alleyhoop, Hanamichi?"
It's Ryocchin. It's Ryocchin, sounding more solemn than the time where he confessed his feelings about Ayako when I first met him. Stop, Ryocchin. I'm not used to you being so serious.
"Remember - tensai?"
"Have you forgotten all this, Sakuragi?"
Mitsui nudges me softly, forcing me to open my eyes again. He's staring at me just as solemnly as everyone else in the gym.
"Have you given up all this? If you give up just like this, then you're much worse than what I used to be."
So many voices attacking me. Yet the one most important voice is missing.
How can I not give up? This is too much for me to stand. How can you people just go on when he's no longer here?
I wish I could tell them everything. But ... that would just scare them off.
I'm so tired. So tired of all this.
I miss him, don't you understand? Every single corner of this hall reflects images of him, echoes sounds that he once made, moves that he once pulled off. And I can't stay here without thinking of him, don't you understand? I can't just stand here like this without feeling like breaking down.
I can feel stinging tears blurring my vision once again but I try desperately to blink them away. I can't be seen crying like this.
"Why, Sakuragi?" Gori raises his voice. "Why are you giving up?"
"Do you know..." Haruko-san continues. "...that you really are...a tensai, Sakuragi-kun?"
I can feel my body beginning to tremble. I need to get out of here, before they see me, before they see this shameful side of me, this wimpish side of me that I hate so much. I get ready to make a run for the doors.
But all of a sudden, a basketball is bounced into my hands. I stare down at it, spellbound. I can feel the rough dimples of the ball underneath my fingers. I miss this feeling. How long has it been since I last held a basketball like this?
"You can't, Hanamichi," Ryota insists, moving towards me. "we won't let you. You can't just throw away your talent like that."
"We will not let you give up." Mitsui adds, standing next to Ryota.
I look around me, tears barely hanging onto the sides of my eyes. These were my team mates. It seems like ... like they still are. And that, combined with the fact that he's no longer here right now, is tearing my heart in two, is breaking me down inside, more than ever.
They all have their eyes on me. Yet they still don't know the truth.
"I'm sorry," I whisper shakily, swallowing back my tears. "but I can't."
And with that, I let go of the basketball, turn, and run as quickly as I can out of the gym, hiding the tears that are now running unstoppably down the sides of my face, releasing tiny particles of the suffocating pain that has now latched onto my heart.
I'm running down the street now, running along this street that I must have been down hundreds of times, running as fast as I can towards the direction of the hospital, running against the chilling autumn breeze and the drifting Sakura blossoms that are so unsuitably beautiful.
I'm so tired. I'm so tired of this pain, of this hiding. I'm so tired of this.
But yet the only solid thing that occupies my mind at this moment is him.
"Kitsune..." I hear myself sobbing inaudibly. "kitsune...please...
"save me, please .... wake up...."
Notes: -_- … hmm…I haven’t thought seriously enough about what the Shohoku team knows…like, do they know why Sakuragi’s not playing ball anymore? Originally I was thinking that they would have gotten the hints…like…’first Rukawa goes and then Sakuragi? Hmm..what’s going on between them?’ …But now I’m not too sure…I don’t know…. >_< I don’t know… *sigh* sorry guys..I guess I am a crappy writer.. -_-“