Slam Dunk Fan Fiction ❯ Hello, Goodbye ❯ Cynical Pink ( Chapter 2 )

Title: Hello, Goodbye

Chapter Two: Cynical Pink

Warnings: Shounen-ai (I think). Includes language games, or to put it simply, pun.

Disclaimer: Slam Dunk is not mine.

Sunshine peeked right throughout, the clouds making a pallid backdrop on the light blue skies, as faint chirps from birds became its harmony. It was such a very good day, indeed. The gym, as usual, was full of girls screaming for either Rukawa and Mitsui, while others, even men, cheered for Hanamichi. Everytime I see them go gaga for their idols makes my heart scream, too, of flattery. Our team is one of the best teams there is in Kanagawa, and winning basketball tournaments is yet surely centimeters away from our palms. I sighed in excitement as I dribbled the ball, looking through Yasuda's eyes as I fake, running as fast as I could but still with the sense to avoid Hanamichi's growl of attack, then, jumping gracefully, threw the ball as it made a two-point shot.

"Well that's not bad at all", Akagi complimented.

"Thanks", I said as I felt my sweat trickle and tickle my nape.

***

I entered the lockers to change, and as I turned the knob, a figure that was once very bothersome to look at and carefully stopped behind me to pat my shoulder.

"Good game today, Kogure." Mitsui said in a tone I couldn't decipher.

I chuckled warmly. "Thanks. I guess I've been sitting down the bench for quite a while that I went excited to play basketball."

Mitsui grinned. "Yeah, well, if you keep on doing that you might as well replace Sakuragi in the first five." Another grin.

I turned the knob for the lockers. "Guess so..."

"Hey Micchy! What did you just say to Kogure-sempai?! The genius won't be replaced in the first five!" Sakuragi came barging in without notice, and when Mitsui replied with a nonsense shriek, both went sprawling down the entrance of the lockers as they playfully tease each other with... well, punches. I interrupted them, saying, "Sakuragi-san, Mitsui and I were just kidding..." warmly, I then opened my lockers and went to change clothes.

***

I was the last one to leave the gym because Akagi had to do something very important, about his college entrance exam results perhaps, and as I locked the gate, I sighed something that meant like... I was dreaming again. I've been having reveries about someone and it's making me more and more disturbed everytime and I think about it, which makes it more absurd when the person I am thinking about is...

"Kogure!" a voice yelled behind me and I was startled, startled that the voice was very familiar in my ears that it felt like music to me.

"Mitsui-san?" I swiveled. "But I thought you went home early?"

"Well, I've talked with my physics teacher. He's giving me another chance about school and all. Heck, was I relieved to get out of that room."

"So you've talked with them? That's good, Mitsui-san." I smiled as I went walking down for the school gate.

"Ey, Kogure, wait!"

"Hmm? Oh, sorry..."

He walked beside me. "Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you."

I was, again, startled. "Hmm? About what?" I asked, feigning to be nonchalant and warm all at the same time.

"Well... um... I just need to talk..." His eyes went to the other side and avoided my gaze, then sighed. I couldn't believe what situation I am into right now. Might as well grab it.

"Well?" he said.

"Um... okay."

"To the coffee shop?"

***

I was getting anxious and blissfully anxious, but the thought of having the joyous feeling wasn't the one I wanted. I'm having these reveries that someday Mitsui would walk up to me and say, "hey, can we have coffee or something?", because the thought was just disturbing. There ain't no homo in this team. Since junior high, I've been having trouble getting to date with women, even talking about them, maybe because the I am just too mellow to, and with this happening right now... with this happening right now... I want to brush off this topic.

"Kogure, are you alright?" Mistui asked.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine." I sipped another liquid of black caffeine.

"I've been thinking that I should have said this to you right after I entered the gym when I went back for the basketball team..." his voice was stuttering.

"What?" my heart's beats quickened.

"Well... damn, I'm just... well..."

"You're not good with words? Yes..." I joked, but still feeling my blood rush throughout my body without any reason.

"Well, I just want... damn..."

"Want what?"

"I'm sorry about... everything."

"Huh?"

"Kogure, you know what I mean. Please don't make it harder for me."

Then I remembered. Oh, yes. That memory. "Mitsui, there's nothing to be repentant about. I know you didn't mean what you've done."

"But you know I hurt all of you. Especially you. You even broke your glasses, for god's sake!"

"It's okay Mitsui-san..." another smile. "We're really glad that you came back to the team. I am glad that you came back to the team..." the last line was more of a whisper.

"Thanks, Kogure. Now that I can patch my life up again, I am no longer going back to become a delinquent." He said with an assuring eyes, eyes yet full of dreams to be fulfilled... and eyes that could melt anyone... anyone like me. God, what am I thinking?!

"Well," I said as I stood from the table, looking at Mitsui's shocked face. "I better get going. We still have this math project thing and it's due tomorrow." I can't let this insanity continue.

"Thanks," he said as he patted again my shoulder, feeling a rush of feeling in my spine as I left the coffee shop, feeling struck from the word that I last heard from him...

***

I stretched myself at my bed as I clutch the sheets, feeling all cocky and fussy as thoughts splurge down the veins in my brain. Another moment in life to be remembered and it's making me drown in fear. And bliss. As much as I wanted this feeling to go further and develop itself into something I would regret someday, the disease just keeps spreading as if there's no cure to it, and the fact that the everydayness makes it not easier for me. I stood up from the bed, went on my study table and opened the lampshade.

Feeling more ambiguous and unclear, I started to heave a very deep sigh that I have never sighed in my entire life. The feeling after that was a relief, but not total relief, and the muscles all over my body shuddered as I went again for another sigh. I then burrowed my head to the table.

"Why am I like this?"

The statement, although a whisper, echoed throughout my room. The feeling was unbearable, and I couldn't keep myself from knowing and realizing that... I got deeper identity than I thought. I never wanted to be one, but the surge down my blood gives me the unfortunate assurance of guilt, fear, calling and yearning for people that I thought I would never yearn.

"Why?" I whispered again.

In my entire life, I have dated three women. Two if childhood pettiness won't be counted. In junior high, I dated this lovely Alice Yoko, with brown locks as mine and with green cat-like eyes that made impression to everyone that time that she was one unique girl. Yes, actually she is, and I couldn't express more how idyllic I was when I was with her - those everyday picnics/lunches in the school prairie, the nightly movie watching and daily studying in the library... but as soon as I found that she was leaving for America there to study, I knew already that the happiness I found with her won't last. So we slept together.

I lightly bumped my head on the table. Then there was Tamina Yugi, a senior in Shohoku High when I was still a freshman. That girl... Akagi used to tease me that time with that fine girl, and when a friend of mine talked with her and confessed that I had feelings for her, she started to befriend me and then... after a month... we became lovers. She was one of the top, brightest students there that time, and I wouldn't be surprised if she gets a highly-paid job at a very young age. She would always let me stay on her apartment, always studying and... well, fondling with each other until we tire ourselves from running around the apartment teasing each other. Their parents work in an American bank, and she has no family besides her uncle who lives one kilometer away from her apartment. Her grandparents live in America, too.

She got accepted to one of the top universities in America. I had the right to be disappointed, but then again, just as much as I wanted to be with her for the rest of my life, I let her go. And now that America is one big word equivalent for capitalism, my grudge against that country infuriated, now that Japan is also imitating it.

I sighed again. Those were the days. When I stepped in to become a sophomore in the Shohoku High, I have decided to be like Tamina. I had to be the very best so that I could follow her there in America. I took various offices, and when Akagi told me I was being exaggerated about my studies, I took some of the offices down and resigned, having only three clubs, including the basketball club, left in my academic palms. I still think of going to follow Tamina, but then again when I met this certain person, I changed my mind. Not really changed my mind, but, I felt like somehow the pledge of following Tamina became not sprouting in my thoughts that time. This person was a lot, and I mean a lot, different - that academic delinquent and well... he's a he.

I bumped my head in the table for the fifth time. I've only been assuming and somehow those assumptions grew into something I didn't expect, when Mitsui came back on the team. He got all over a lot better in his exteriors and even his emotional sides, and that is why I felt something that boys shouldn't feel. God, no... I don't want trouble in my life. Yet the indescribable feeling of pleasure and torture in my mind kept rolling and revolving around me, as if it would grab me whole with its fangs ready to tear up my identity of being when everything was once all right. Now, with these thoughts reeling my head, I don't want to think anymore. I don't know what to feel anymore. I tried my very best to get this disease out of me, but the cure is faraway to reach. I busied myself by getting more offices and befriending more girls, but it just won't go away. A freak like me is the one who's always punished with prejudice and bigotry. Freaks like me are the ones that gets narrow minds focused on, and even if you try to speak of sameness and fairness, the world can never be something as good as you always expect. Goodness is conventional, and conventional is bound to the dictations of temporary answers that satisfy people from asking truth. Few can only notice, and perhaps for a much better world, they would say, they have considered such temporality an infinity.

"Freak..." I whispered to myself as I went for my bed, crying and wetting my pillows as I bury me and my thoughts to sleep.

***

The Shohoku auditorium was filled with smiling people, and busy school staffs as they ready for the seniors' graduation. In the stage, I can see five or six people pulling up the red curtains, with the others arranging the podium as others playfully display the flowers on the rears and facades of the stage. I was fixing the chairs as well as Akagi, who was helping me because the stress of having to be me and someone else and another someone else all at the same time was disturbing him. I laughed when he said this, assuring him that I will just be fine, besides that I have company on the offices that would help me on the way. Fixing up the last chair, Akagi finally broke the silence. "You know I'll be expecting your speech..." he teasingly said. Akagi's humor can only be seen when he's around his closest friends, and fortunately I am one of them. "Don't be so ridiculous, Akagi. I'm not going to blurt out profanity or anything," I said.

"You sometimes speak in rhetoric's, Kogure." He laughed. Now I know what he's talking about. He has known me for quite a long time, quite a long time that maybe he can read my thoughts. He knew what trouble/disease I am in, but for whatever gods' love he accepted me the way I am. Of course I have to grateful for him.

I blushed. "No I won't!", I lightly shouted as he snorted another laugh.

***

"Now, let me introduce to you the best students of Shohoku High School, giving their inspirational messages to you students so you can all fulfill your dreams as well as your hopes in your life." the man with gray tresses said with a warm voice. "Our salutatorian, Mr. Kiminobu Kogure." Everyone clamored their hands, feeling myself tighten up as I stood to reach the podium, readying my speech as Sakuragi yet again made another scene by shouting my name and well... praising me. I blushed, but to set aside all of the things that happened, to set aside of all of these, I delivered my speech.

"People from many walks of life say that if you have stopped dreaming, your existence is nothingness. I have come to an understanding that dreams are the carbohydrates for your existence, and as what I have experienced here, it totally gave not only the carbohydrates to keep on existing but the bad bacteria's as well." everyone laughed at this, but when they knew what was I talking about, everyone had their faces puzzled, and I continued. "Dreaming for the best, dreaming to be someone that will be the key for the survival of the human race... everyone wants to be someone, and they say that if you do well in your studies... well, it'll be a big advantage to you. Yes, I wanted to be someone, and by having this diploma right here," I looked at the tables where diplomas are put, then sighed before continuing. "we can have the advantage of being that somebody. However," I sighed again. I looked at Akagi, who seemed to be very busy listening to my speech. He smiled, and I continued. "existence will still be well-founded even if dreams don't exist, or won't be reached for that matter, because I believe that as long as we make it to a point that we always assure ourselves of our identity... our existence of what we are, then dreams will be just words meant to refrain us from knowing, experiencing, feeling..." I looked at Mitsui who was giggling. I know.

"I've been in Shohoku High for years, and this is what I'm going to testify. Dreams are those who believe that existence is convention, though it may not let you lose anything at all. On the other hand, as what I have experienced here, I will be much prouder to those who believe that identity is existence, and accepting it is as easy as breathing. I thank the Student Council for letting me be a part of its remarkable history, to the Arts Club who..." I chuckled "who accepted me even if my art contributions can be compared to grade-schoolers' works..." the members of the club laughed, then clapped. "And especially to my family, the Shohoku Baskteball Club, who taught me to accept my existence which they recognized as well." I looked at my teammates, who now have their chins up. "My mom, dad, thanks for all the things that you've done..." I smiled, trying not to cry. I looked at Mistui. I hope he got my message to him. "Congratulations to our batch... we all made it."

I heard loud noises after that, which seemed vague to hear since my head was reeling from that dreadful speech. I sat, sighed then looked at all those people that just have listened to my speech. I sighed again, but this time, for relief. "And now, our valedictorian will be going to deliver her speech. Please, give hands for the Shohoku High valedictorian..."

***

The equipments we just fixed came tumbling down after three hours. The commencement ceremony was over, and group of men, women and alike were laughing about, giving hugs and handshakes as they bid farewell to each other. I first went to the council to bid them good luck, then to the arts club, and then, went for the Shohoku basketball club whose members were swarming at the corner, teasing with each other, congratulating each other, and of course, taking pictures.

"Hey! Everyone! Here comes the salutatorian!" everyone looked at me happily, congratulated me as I welcome their warm greetings and such. They were having a good time, with Hanamichi again requesting for trouble with Kaede, and Akagi just in time saved the day. Miyagi was talking with Mistui and he noticed me, letting me join their conversation with Akagi as well. We talked about our future plans, more future plans and drowning future plans. I wasn't really paying attention. I'm tired of thinking of what's going to happen after this. I might as well cast my shadow on the future.

After some time, the conversation was over, and they decided to go somewhere, a KTV or anywhere, to celebrate. Akagi, for the rarest time, accepted to join the party.

"Why?"

"Well, um... I still have things to do. Me and my parents are going too."

"That's a bummer." Rukawa said, and I was surprised.

"It does not mean we're not going to see all each other, ne?" I said in nervousness. "I'll still come to check up on you guys."

"But you'll be swarmed with school works then and you're not going to see us anymore! Besides, you won't see the genius be the MVP next tournament!"

"Keep dreaming." Miyagi said... nonchalantly.

"What did you just say to the genius?!"

"Um... Sakuragi... Miyagi... everyone... I can't really come. My parents are waiting... next time, I promise." I looked at Akagi for help.

"Bummer." Mitsui said, looking rather slightly annoyed.

"Let him be. He'll keep his promise. Let's go before all KTV's get crowded." Akagi pushed everyone out, leaving me with an assuring smile that someday, someday, I will.

"See you some time, Kogure!" Hanamichi yelled as everyone followed, looking at Mistui for the last time as he bid me goodbye, looking at those eyes that meant nothing but familiarity. I'm calling, can't you hear? I'm falling, can't you see? I'm staying myself longer.

I ran hard as I brush my desolate thoughts away, leaving it on the floors with every step I make as I ran towards my parents, who were busy talking with the valedictorian's parents. I ran hard, hard enough to see vague images of the auditorium, not noticing that there was someone in front of me. In a second, I felt my body bump heavily against the person's body, and I stumbled down and left my head swim in ache. The person stood, patted his clothes to remove dusts as he put forth an arm, an arm that cannot be a woman's. I clutched his wrist and we were now both standing. Somehow his face looked familiar.

"Are you alright?" the voice asked in sincere concern.

NOTES:

1. Pairings are going to be different, and the only constant character would be Kogure. Timelines will very spontaneous and fast-paced. There are allusions, so if you're philosophical enough, you can find it.

2. There are going to be more and more punned dialogues and storylines, so bear with me.

3. I need reviews.