Chapter Text
Follow Me
Sakuragi Hanamichi X Rukawa Kaede
1
Massive Attack - Unfinished Sympathy
Hanamichi Sakuragi was always extreme. That was just the way he was. When he was excited he was deafeningly loud, and when he was quiet, unnoticeable. Most did not notice his true heart, therefore, clouded by his boisterous demeanor. This was the reason why he was often called a fool, a clown, an idiot.
Sakuragi, though, was more intelligent than he appeared. In fact, he was so intelligent that he could be considered what he himself often proclaimed to be: a genius. Well, at least when it came to basketball, that is. He was just a beginner but he had an inherent insight that pierced through the entirety of whole games, and transcendental concentration that exploded, if needed, enabling his inhuman physical ability to take over and rule the game. Also, Rukawa thought that Sakuragi had a supreme athlete’s body, probably given to him personally by God himself. When they first met they were about the same height, but now Sakuragi had risen well above 190 centimeters. Sakuragi’s limbs were long and strong, his wingspan overreaching the average of most big-man centers in Kanagawa.
What was most extraordinary about him was that he was overcoming, with incredible speed, an injury which would have easily disabled an average man. He was showing miraculous recovery during his rehabilitation, all the while gaining in height and muscle mass. What was this, if not a God-given body? Rukawa was almost jealous of him. Sakuragi had, apparently without much effort, an unending stamina that never left him tired no matter how much he ran, jumped, and went berserk on the court, and a powerful musculature that perfectly filled his magnificent frame. If Rukawa had to choose between his own current ability to play basketball and Sakuragi’s innate build and talent, he would hesitate a bit. After all, basketball was a sport in which a tall and strong body could be as much an asset as skills honed by years of training.
Sakuragi’s flaming hair had grown a little after the fateful game with Sannoh Technical High School, but he had shaved most of it off again. He sat on his bed, looking at Rukawa with a disinterested expression. Perhaps Rukawa, with his gym bag in one hand and a shopping bag containing snacks and a videotape (of Houston Rockets and San Antonio Spurs), looked like a ghost, an unlikely visitor to him. It was Rukawa’s first time visiting him.
“Why’re you here?”
Sakuragi, his arms crossed before his chest, glared at Rukawa with narrowed eyes. When Rukawa threw the shopping bag to him, however, he received it with open arms.
“Six tangerines! Only that, for this genius?”
“There’s some beef jerky too, you idiot.”
“Where?”
“In the bottom.”
Sakuragi’s face lit up as he discovered the pack of jerky in the bottom of the shopping bar. A total child. Rukawa was by no means mature himself, but sometimes Sakuragi was so childlike and innocent, that just looking at him made Rukawa a little bit sad. Rukawa was curious where the purity came from and if there would be some kind of psychological explanation for it, but curiosity was just that, a curiosity. Rukawa was not one to delve into things like that.
“So like I said, why’re you here?”
“When does it end?”
As if caught off-guard by Rukawa’s question, Sakuragi appeared dumbfounded for a moment.
“What?”
“When does it end? Your rehab.”
Sakuragi’s face lit up again, this time brighter than ever. His face was so free in going through extremes, from seething anger to unbridled joy, which amazed Rukawa.
“Haha! I knew you would ask me that. You need me! You need this genius basket-man, huh? You can’t win games with my genius rebounds!”
Instead of answering, Rukawa merely looked at Sakuragi, his expression unchanged. Sakuragi’s face reddened again in irritation. Heaven and Hell, what his face displayed in seconds.
“Ugh, I just can’t stand it when you stare at me like that!”
“So when does it end?”
When Rukawa asked again, Sakuragi calmed down, and sat up straight.
“I don’t know, either.”
“......”
“...They said that they’re not sure if I can go back hundred percent to the way I was before.”
The reason for Rukawa’s visit was to ask: What about basketball? Can you ever play again? His seemingly casual inquiry about when the rehabilitation would end was a roundabout way of asking these questions. Rukawa knew how heavy the same questions were weighing on Sakuragi, so he could not bring himself to be direct.
“Well, then, I’m off.”
“Hey!”
When Rukawa stood up to leave, Sakuragi rose from his bed and walked toward him. It was always annoying, Sakuragi grabbing him by the collar without warning.
“Stop gloating just because you were picked for the national junior team. It’s annoying.”
“I never gloated.”
Sakuragi chuckled at his response. It was mere two weeks ago that Rukawa flashed to Sakuragi, who sat widely grinning on the beach with a piece of paper, his junior national team uniform.
“I’m going to catch up to you one day. United States? I’m going to get there before you!”
“Sure. Whatever.”
Rukawa turned around, shaking off Sakuragi’s grasp. As he walked out of the room, he could not stop smiling, and he covered his mouth with his hand. To be truthful, there was only one thing that Rukawa wanted to hear from Sakuragi from this visit, and with only a few provocations, Sakuragi had given it to him. His visit was worth it.
“Hey, fox.”
Rukawa stopped in his tracks, but did not turn around, so as to hide from Sakuragi the smile on his face.
“You… you better not touch Haruko-san while I’m not there.”
Rukawa knew who Akagi Haruko was. Somehow, he did not like that Sakuragi chose to mention her.
“Who?”
“Don’t pretend like you don’t know, you little…!”
“You shouldn’t have time for stuff like that if you want to catch up to me. I knew you were an idiot.”
“Wha- what?!”
Rukawa sighed exaggeratedly. Sakuragi was red again, trembling from rage.
Well, you sit there and simmer, thought Rukawa.
“Rehab like your life depends on it, you idiot.”
“......”
“I’m going.”
************
After the summer break, Shohoku had several games without Sakuragi Hanamichi. Sakuragi came to school, but he did not come to basketball practices, and did not even drop by to joke around with Miyagi or Mitsui. Rukawa sometimes passed by his classroom and caught a glimpse of him, surrounded by his usual friends, laughing. His hair had grown a bit, grazing his forehead, but Sakuragi did not put his hair up in a sculpted pompadour like he used to. According to Miyagi, Sakuragi was still going to rehab after school. Rukawa had not expected Sakuragi to come and see him, but for some reason, that he hadn’t, bothered Rukawa.
“This is crazy…”
It was somehow sweet to think of Sakuragi Hanamichi burning up to catch up to him. Initially Rukawa thought that this was because Sakuragi would actually never catch up to him, at least in terms of skill, but on second thought realized that wasn’t the case. Rukawa genuinely liked watching Sakuragi grow as a player. It was funny that he felt that way, considering that he wasn’t Sakuragi’s family, or even a friend. On the other hand, he was perplexed that he felt that way. Like a bothersome defender, thoughts about Sakuragi followed him and stuck to him, more so when he tried to shake them off. So when Rukawa was going home alone that day after practice, he was thinking of Sakuragi’s face, boiling and seething, promising to catch up to him.
It was right before dark. Rukawa’s house was a two-story home in a quiet neighborhood, with a gray brick wall surrounding the house and a red front gate. Rukawa’s house was stationed on an incline, so Rukawa often got off his bike and pushed it uphill when he was almost home. He was pushing his bike slowly, when he noticed a familiar figure next to the gate of his house.
He had flaming red hair. It was Sakuragi Hanamichi, in his black school uniform. He had his hands in his pockets, kicking pebbles around. When he found Rukawa pushing his bicycle toward him, he looked at him, wide-eyed.
Sakuragi sometimes made a face that was so serious and genuine that it felt foreign to Rukawa. Sakuragi knew that he had that face, too; he had fooled Rukawa before by faking it. He asked Rukawa to show him how to make a layup, and then switched in a nano-second, throwing basketballs his way. Rukawa had felt surprised that day. He had thought that Sakuragi was so dumb to not know how to use emotional decoys like that. Well, Rukawa still thought Sakuragi was kind of dumb, but before, he thought of him as a total airhead. Maybe that was why Rukawa was still being caught off-guard by Sakuragi’s unlikely, but real, intelligence.
Well, that moment, Sakuragi had that face, completely true. Sakuragi looked at Rukawa, his face real and open, with no laughter, no other feigned gestures. Underneath his thick eyebrows, his eyes were wide open, and his mouth drew a firm, straight line. In this moment, Sakuragi had nothing to hide, and nothing to fake or show off. He was just Sakuragi Hanamichi. Rukawa was, perhaps, looking at how Sakuragi really dealt with the life that was given to him, with innocent and pure acceptance. It was an awe-inspiring look of truth.
So Rukawa stopped where he stood, and returned Sakuragi’s gaze for a moment. Because Sakuragi was standing in the incline above him, he had to raise his head. A light breeze, holding the fragrance of the sea, blew from where Sakuragi stood, and caressed Rukawa’s hair.
Rukawa did not know how Sakuragi felt about this sudden act of kindness from nature, but he averted his gaze when Rukawa’s black hair, which usually covered his forehead, parted and pale skin beneath was revealed. Feeling like he had shown Sakuragi a weak spot, Rukawa quickly combed his hair with his fingers into place. He pushed his bike up to the gate of his house, and rummaged through his pocket for the keys, as if he did not notice Sakuragi standing there. Usually Sakuragi would have exploded from this act of nonchalance but he stood there, motionless.
“Why are you here?”
Rukawa returned the question that Sakuragi had thrown him during his visit for Sakuragi in the rehabilitation center. At that, Sakuragi came near and stood before him, blocking his way. Rukawa tried to approximate Sakuragi’s height. Sakuragi was wearing his flat blue sneakers that he usually wore to school. He was visibly taller than before, and his eyes were no longer level with Rukawa’s. How tall would he be now? 193? 194 centimeters?
Sakuragi scratched the back of his head, and looked at the flower pots next to the gate.
“I’m going to be out soon.”
“What?”
“Rehab, I mean. It’s going to be over soon.”
Their eyes met again. Sakuragi had brown eyes that often looked reddish-brown, just like his hair, the color of ripe sunset.
“I was at Kainan University hospital. They said it was a miracle, and they had no patient before who recovered so perfectly from a back injury. We’ll have to see if I can play like I did before, but…”
Sakuragi stepped aside, allowing Rukawa to open the door with his key.
“Well, I came to tell you that. Oh, and this…”
Sakuragi took from his book bag a videotape. It was the one that Rukawa had brought to him at the rehab center, of a game between San Antonio Spurs and Houston Rockets. It was a game in which Dennis Rodman had caught dozens of rebounds.
“I needed to return this to you.”
Sakuragi held the videotape by the long end, and when Rukawa took it from him, their fingers touched lightly. Sakuragi would have, in the past, balked at the sight of his hand touching Rukawa’s, but he did not, like he did not even notice the contact.
“I enjoyed the video. Anyway…”
“......”
“I’m going to be back near the end of October, so. You just wait.”
Sakuragi stood still for a moment, looking at Rukawa’s lips, as if waiting for a response. When he did not receive one, he got out of Rukawa’s way and walked away from the gate toward the street.
“Damned fox, I came all the way here and can’t even hear his voice!”
He muttered as he turned around, and started walking downhill, his hands in his pockets.
“...Hurry back.”
It was entirely unexpected by both Sakuragi and Rukawa himself that this plea came from Rukawa’s lips. Sakuragi, who was walking away with his back to Rukawa, stopped where he was. He stood there without turning around, as if hiding some new expression that came about his face.
“I will.”
“......”
“Sure I will. I know that it’s not enough for you to get all the rebounds without me!”
“You idiot. Hurry about going away, too.”
When Sakuragi turned around, he was smiling. Taking into account how recently he had started playing basketball and his recent injury, it was wild how confident he looked. Rukawa felt a shocking freshness as he looked at Sakuragi, like he was doused with ice-cold water in the middle of a hot summer day. This pleasure made Rukawa realize how much he had been desiring this smile from Sakuragi.
“You would have to practice for your life if you don’t want to be caught up by me.”
“......”
“I already caught up and outgrew you in height! Well, it’s not catching up when I was always taller than you, anyway. Haha! Eat a lot and sleep well if you want to grow as tall as me, fox!”
“Go away.”
Snickering, Sakuragi Hanamichi walked along the street, where lights were coming on one by one. Rukawa stood before his house, watching until Sakuragi disappeared. He only realized that he was smiling when he entered the yard and leaned his bike against the wall.
“I’m home.”
He went straight upstairs to his room, and threw himself on his bed. Next to his bed were an audio set he had gotten for his birthday, and a photograph of Shohoku’s basketball team, taken by a reporter right after the game against Sannoh. This photograph had been copied and distributed to all of the basketball club members by Ayako, who said that a commemoration of that day’s game was due. Rukawa reached sideways and picked up the photograph in his hand. He looked into it, staring at Sakuragi’s triumphant face, happy and glowing despite the pain. Surely, Rukawa was missing this face. Maybe he could see it again soon.
Rukawa put the photo back on the bedside table and rolled on his side.
“Come back soon… Idiot.”