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Satsuki was crying. Dai-chan did not know what to do. For the first time in his entire short 7 years of life, he regretted that his best friend in the whole world was a girl. Only a girl would cry like this, Dai-chan thought, firmly believing in his infinite 7-year-old wisdom.
He peered concernedly into her face. She was still hiding her face and trying not to show him she was crying. Pfft, as if it would work. Dai-chan knew her almost as well as she knew herself. As it always did when she yelled or was upset, Satsuki’s face (or what he could see of it, which was her forehead) was redder than her hair, and she was making weird noises, a little like a (muffled) whining puppy.
“I’ll...play basketball with you later?” Dai-chan asked, trying to make her feel better. It was the best thing he could think of - basketball always made him feel better. Even if Satsuki never played (Dai-chan had tried and tried to get her to play, but she always refused), and prefered watching him, he could not think of a better way than basketball to make someone happy.
Satsuki didn’t answer, and gave another muffled sob.
“I’ll let you look at my B-ball Monthly magazine,” Dai-chan offered, scratching his head worriedly. It was a big gesture. Dai-chan fought any boy who dared even look at the magazine, and he was the proud winner of five self-started fights so far. Two of them had even been with 8-year-old boys who were way bigger than him. Of course, he got numerous timeouts (no basketball for the entire day!!) and bruises from them, but they were badges of honour that Dai-chan showed off proudly.
Satsuki ignored him, still hiding her face. She was crouched in the corner of their classroom. She looked as though she was trying to fold into herself, to hide herself from the world.
“Come on, Satsuki, what’s wrong?” Dai-chan pleaded. He had found her like that after a rousing game of tag with some of the boys. He had wanted to play basketball, but those boys complained that “we’re always playing basketball, Daiki, let’s play something else!”. Hmph, they were no fun. Well, the tag had been pretty fun - Dai-chan had won the game easily. As usual, they refused to play with him the next day. It was like a cycle- they played together, Dai-chan won, they got angry and bored, and threatened not to play with him the next day if he kept winning. Daiki didn’t care- he had fun, and all he wanted to do was play. Preferably basketball.
She just shook her head. After a few deep breaths, she forced out a “Go home without me, Dai-chan. I”ll be fine.”
Dai-chan frowned. He knew he had no choice but to walk back with her. There was just no way that her mum, and his mum, would allow him to leave her like this. (He had forgotten about her on their way home once, so engrossed in his argument with another boy about who was a better tree-climber. Satsuki had been fine, but Dai-chan had been punished so thoroughly - no basketball for a week!! - that he never forgot her on the way home again.)
There was only one thing he knew to do when Satsuki was like this. It was a move he remembered from a story book they did in class, and it was the bravest thing he could think of to do to threaten her into feeling better.
“If you don’t stop crying, I’ll-I’ll...kiss you! On the mouth!” Dai-chan yelled, his own face turning red. In the comic book, the boy had kissed the sick sleeping girl, and she had gotten better and woken up immediately. Dai-chan knew Satsuki was neither sick nor sleeping, but he could threaten to do so and make her so scared he’d do it that she forgot why she was crying in the first place.
It worked like a charm. Satsuki stopped crying, looked up, and screamed into his face, “Ew, no! Get away from me!” She pushed him away, and stood up.
Dai-chan smirked. “Hah, your face!” he said, doubling over laughing and pointing at her. “Like I want to kiss you anyway, girls are gross!”
She sniffled and glared at him, but had stopped crying. “If girls are so gross, why do you bother being friends with me?” she asked, self-importantly.
Dai-chan hated that about Satsuki. She thought she was Always Right. So what if he found her more fun than all the other boys, who complained when he won their games (fair and square mind you), and never wanted him on their teams because “Daiki makes things unfair”? So what if she was the only friend he felt got what he loved about basketball? So what if she was his best friend, even if she was a girl?
He pointedly ignored her question. “Let’s go, Satsuki,” he said, turning around and heading out. He peeked back to see if she followed.
As always, they stopped by the convenience store on the way home to flip through basketball manga and magazines and peer longingly at the expensive, glossy pages. She later forced him to buy her a popsicle, but he didn’t mind (she never could finish hers and always gave the rest to him anyway).
He didn’t mind because Satsuki had stopped crying. It didn’t even matter anymore what she had been crying about. It didn’t even matter anymore because they could talk about basketball, as always, Dai-chan telling her all the moves he would learn and Satsuki telling him how to learn it like an NBA player. It didn’t even matter anymore because he had gotten his non-crying, happy, smiling, know-it-all best friend back.