Sendoh always liked a challenge. He was practically sick of those incompetent people whom he didn’t even have to break a sweat to beat to pulp. He was always open to a challenge where he knew the opponent was a worthy one. In all of Kanagawa there were only two people whom Sendoh looked forward to playing- Shinichi Maki of Kainan, who’ll be graduating soon and has already quit the basketball team, and Kaede Rukawa, who’s peevish disposition is a controversial topic amongst many of his critics, which is comprised primarily of those who have lost to him; badly.
Under normal circumstances, Sendoh would have invariably chosen to play Rukawa if it was a choice between that and a visit to the World Lemon Fair. But circumstances then were hardly normal, seeing as Sendoh was officially not a part of the Ryonan basketball team, and was therefore just another riffraff. Rukawa probably exploited Sendoh’s mental state at that moment and deliberately provoked him in order to take revenge for the three times that Sendoh had beaten him in the past, although the mere notion that Rukawa should possess such deep profundity disturbingly overrates the boy. Hell, if Rukawa did anything besides sleeping and basketball- (note that sleeping was mentioned first)- Sendoh had might as well have been a transsexual ballet dancer.
Kaede Rukawa had openly challenged Sendoh- something he’d been looking forward to ever since their last match- and yet there Sendoh was, unable to decide what he really wanted. Even as he told himself it would probably be the last time he’d be playing basketball another side of him kept countering this statement with a ‘You’ve-already-quit-playing-basketball.’ Torn between this... this multiple personality syndrome-like thing, Sendoh was quite a sight, with his mouth partly open, a distant and dreamy look in his eyes and his whole body swaying dangerously, as if even the slightest breeze or a blink of the eye could topple him.
“Sendoh,” Rukawa said, “I want to play you.”
“Pardon?”
“I want to play you.”
“Oh. I see. Yeah, well, I know that already.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know that all day and all night you dream of me.”
A round of gasps from the spectators of this scene.
“I have better things to dream about than you, moron.”
“I meant you dream of beating me.”
“I do.”
“See? I do, too.”
“Dream of beating yourself?”
“No, of you.”
Another round of gasps from the crowd.
“You mean you dream of beating me, don’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant.” Sendoh said, coloring a trifle.
“Then let’s play.”
“Yeah, and make our dreams come true.”
The conversation took a turn toward passion for some unknown reason, and Sendoh began passionately telling Rukawa about how- as a kid- he used to play basketball for seven hours every day with the neighborhood boys, who would hardly stay for half an hour, saying it was getting boring, and one fine day, Sendoh single-handedly beat the crap out of all those seven boys.
“Seven? Ha! They must have been just two or three.”
“Yeah, actually- two of ‘em.” Sendoh conceded, laughing sheepishly.
“Just as I thought. You’re a lowdown liar. I just want you to play me.”
Sendoh smiled and shook his head even as he considered Rukawa’s challenge repeatedly. In his heart of hearts he knew he won’t be able to refuse Rukawa and the Super-Rookie will have his way in the end. But a part of him- a tiny voice- didn’t want him to give up without a fight.
“Rukawa, I’ll play you.” Sendoh said after a prolonged silence.
“Finally-”
“Tomorrow.”
Sendoh had plucked a wrong cord.
“My dictionary doesn’t have the word ‘tomorrow’.”
“I know. That explains why you never wake up. Besides, your dictionary has always had very few words.”
He was right, of course, in a way. Although Rukawa may purport that he does know quite a few words that exceed two syllables, one may argue that’s only when two or more monosyllabic words are put together.
“Play me now.” Rukawa said, ignoring the little digression in between.”
“Let’s see, that makes a total of three monosyllabic...”
“Cut the crap, Sendoh, and play him already.”
Everyone turned toward the doorway, through which a figure had just entered in all majesty.
“Mitsui-sempai!” exclaimed Ayako; “What the heck are you doing here? Don’t you have class?”
Mitsui conceded that he did have a class at that time, but argued that in a democracy no man is bound to his obligations.
“I needed a break. Sheesh! You’ll know when you graduate. Double chemistry? That’s like the cruelest thing this school’s done to me!”
Ayako apologized and said that she didn’t intend on hurting Mitsui’s sentiments, adding that she wouldn’t be opting for chemistry at all in her third year.
“You can opt out of chemistry?!” Mitsui exclaimed.
“Didn’t you know that? You can take an arts subject instead.” Ayako explained.
“Heck, I didn’t even get to choose from anything!”
“It says so clearly on that form thingy- I was helping Coach Anzai with a couple that he had brought for Akagi-sempai and Kogure-sempai last year.”
“My form wasn’t even filled out by me!” protested Mitsui.
“That explains it,” said Ayako. “Those office people can be pretty injudicious when they think it fit to do the choosing for naïve students.”
“I’m not naïve, and B, Hotta had filled mine out.”
“Well, you’ve been miserably made a fool of, Mitsui-sempai.”
“That explains why he was looked so maniacally gleeful on the first day of school!” Mitsui snarled, cracking his knuckles and his neck before running out of the gym with the desire for revenge burning brightly in his eyes, and screaming, “Hotta Nori, I’m coming!”
“Just look at him,” Ayako said, staring after Mitsui and sighing; “He’s taking revenge for something that was probably intended as a practical joke some ten months ago.”
“More.” suggested Miyagi.
“Hey guys, can we please get back to this right now?” pleaded Sendoh, alluding to the case that caused him immeasurable perplexity.
“Yes, Sendoh,” Ayako said, “it’s your turn to bask in the limelight.”
“Hey! That was totally uncalled for!” protested Sendoh.
“Watch what you say, Sendoh,” warned Miyagi, “or your parents might just find your dead body delivered at their doorstep in a giftwrap tomorrow morning.”
“How morbid, Ryota!” Ayako said, covering her mouth in disgust. Evidently the idea of opening a life-sized gift and finding a dead Sendoh smiling peacefully up at you was a highly disconcerting one.
“Sorry, Ayako,” Miyagi said; “I was just protecting your virginity.”
“My what?!”
“Virginity. You know, when a man-”
“I know perfectly well what virginity means, thank you very much!” snapped Ayako indignantly. “And to think that you had the audacity to suggest that Sendoh here could possibly think of stealing my virginity when all he dreams about- to speak verbatim- is Rukawa.”
A round of gasps.
“Really,” Sendoh began, but he was ignored, because Ayako had just started on Miyagi again.
“Just because you’re the captain of the team, which you’ve been only for a couple of months, you think you can have a go at anyone you like and brazenly bring up people’s private lives, don’t you?” Ayako rebuked.
“I didn’t mean-”
“Oh sure you didn’t mean anything! Going around telling women you’re the savior of their virginity and openly labeling innocent guests as the subjects of your moronic whims.”
“Ayako, please-”
“I’m not done yet! When you spoke so callously a while ago, you wronged two people. Apart from having insulted Sendoh you implied that I was a whore.”
How that implication was derived was beyond Miyagi. All his hard work- his attempts (albeit futile) at attracting Ayako’s attention and earning her love- going to utter waste when he saw Ayako leaving the gym. She never left before practice was over. This very thought snuffed out that little flint of optimism that was there inside Miyagi hitherto.
With tears in his eyes, he turned to Sendoh, a look of pure loathing on his face, as he said, “Are you happy now?”
Sendoh wasn’t. Why should he take pleasure in others’ misfortunes, especially if it involved love- a subject he found supremely sentimental, yet knew nothing about. Then again, he argued, Miyagi had blatantly called him a fag. Allegations like that can never be condoned. That was a mark against all of humanity- Or at least that portion of it that took pride in being straight.
Miyagi had meanwhile run out of the gym after Ayako, in what was presumed to be a futile attempt at appeasing her.
“Wanna play?”
Oh, yeah. Sendoh had completely forgotten about Rukawa and his challenge. But wait, did he say “Wanna play?” ‘Wanna’? Sendoh nearly laughed aloud at Rukawa’s ignorance. That ‘wanna’ clearly implies that Sendoh had a fifty-percent chance of refusing to play Rukawa- Thereby giving Rukawa as much chance of failing in his self-assigned mission.
“I’m not really sure.”
“You’ll play.”
Okay, so this gave Sendoh a zero chance of refusing Rukawa. But why was he behaving so submissive? Surely, he’s too proud to depend on how the challenger presents the same old challenge over and over again and thereby be apprehensive.
“No.” said Sendoh. There you go, Rukawa. A dubious question gets a dubious reply, and a straightforward one gets as straightforward a reply.
“You’ll play.”
“Darn it, Rukawa, I said ‘no’. Don’t you understand? It’s a monosyllabic word, so I don’t get why you aren’t able to understand!”
“Ignore him Sendoh, he’s just pissed that we woke him up two hours early this morning for practice.”
It was Miyagi. It appeared that he had- however miraculously- managed to win back the trust of the damsel in distress, except here it was the one responsible for her distress that rescued her.
Sendoh was mentally hurling a variety of invectives at Miyagi for not having told him that before and thereby wasting a hell of a lot of his time, but none of those invectives could sum up to the hole Miyagi had rented in his heart by calling him gay. He would not be able to atone for such a crime if he served as a bonded laborer for the rest of his life.
“Rukawa,” Miyagi said, turning to the Super-Rookie, the shadows under whose eyes became conspicuous to Sendoh only then; “You may go to sleep now. You’ve practiced hard today, and you deserve rest.”
The speech had the desired effect and Rukawa walked out of the gym as stiffly as Frankenstein.
“Don’t mind him, Sendoh,” Miyagi said, “he’s always like that unless he gets his twelve hours of sleep every day.”
Sendoh didn’t mind Rukawa- Not at all, if you juxtaposed his offense with Miyagi’s. No, Sendoh wasn’t about to forgive him that easily. It pained him to no ends when people began suspecting his sexuality and experimenting with his feelings. He supposed all good-looking hunks paid the price for being oh so hot by being subjected to opprobrious and invidious remarks from the less fortunate folk of the same sex, and evidently the only consolation the latter got was by making themselves believe that the better-looking guys were no threat to their ability to attract the gentler sex. Getting back to the nub, the less fortunate Ryota had openly accused Sendoh, with whom Luck seemed to have fallen in love, of being a threat to the stagnant relation between the former and Ayako. Hell, how did Ayako get here in the first place? Sendoh was dead sure Ayako was hitting on Kainan’s Jin and was already planning her first move.
Under normal circumstances, Sendoh would have invariably chosen to play Rukawa if it was a choice between that and a visit to the World Lemon Fair. But circumstances then were hardly normal, seeing as Sendoh was officially not a part of the Ryonan basketball team, and was therefore just another riffraff. Rukawa probably exploited Sendoh’s mental state at that moment and deliberately provoked him in order to take revenge for the three times that Sendoh had beaten him in the past, although the mere notion that Rukawa should possess such deep profundity disturbingly overrates the boy. Hell, if Rukawa did anything besides sleeping and basketball- (note that sleeping was mentioned first)- Sendoh had might as well have been a transsexual ballet dancer.
Kaede Rukawa had openly challenged Sendoh- something he’d been looking forward to ever since their last match- and yet there Sendoh was, unable to decide what he really wanted. Even as he told himself it would probably be the last time he’d be playing basketball another side of him kept countering this statement with a ‘You’ve-already-quit-playing-basketball.’ Torn between this... this multiple personality syndrome-like thing, Sendoh was quite a sight, with his mouth partly open, a distant and dreamy look in his eyes and his whole body swaying dangerously, as if even the slightest breeze or a blink of the eye could topple him.
“Sendoh,” Rukawa said, “I want to play you.”
“Pardon?”
“I want to play you.”
“Oh. I see. Yeah, well, I know that already.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know that all day and all night you dream of me.”
A round of gasps from the spectators of this scene.
“I have better things to dream about than you, moron.”
“I meant you dream of beating me.”
“I do.”
“See? I do, too.”
“Dream of beating yourself?”
“No, of you.”
Another round of gasps from the crowd.
“You mean you dream of beating me, don’t you?”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what I meant.” Sendoh said, coloring a trifle.
“Then let’s play.”
“Yeah, and make our dreams come true.”
The conversation took a turn toward passion for some unknown reason, and Sendoh began passionately telling Rukawa about how- as a kid- he used to play basketball for seven hours every day with the neighborhood boys, who would hardly stay for half an hour, saying it was getting boring, and one fine day, Sendoh single-handedly beat the crap out of all those seven boys.
“Seven? Ha! They must have been just two or three.”
“Yeah, actually- two of ‘em.” Sendoh conceded, laughing sheepishly.
“Just as I thought. You’re a lowdown liar. I just want you to play me.”
Sendoh smiled and shook his head even as he considered Rukawa’s challenge repeatedly. In his heart of hearts he knew he won’t be able to refuse Rukawa and the Super-Rookie will have his way in the end. But a part of him- a tiny voice- didn’t want him to give up without a fight.
“Rukawa, I’ll play you.” Sendoh said after a prolonged silence.
“Finally-”
“Tomorrow.”
Sendoh had plucked a wrong cord.
“My dictionary doesn’t have the word ‘tomorrow’.”
“I know. That explains why you never wake up. Besides, your dictionary has always had very few words.”
He was right, of course, in a way. Although Rukawa may purport that he does know quite a few words that exceed two syllables, one may argue that’s only when two or more monosyllabic words are put together.
“Play me now.” Rukawa said, ignoring the little digression in between.”
“Let’s see, that makes a total of three monosyllabic...”
“Cut the crap, Sendoh, and play him already.”
Everyone turned toward the doorway, through which a figure had just entered in all majesty.
“Mitsui-sempai!” exclaimed Ayako; “What the heck are you doing here? Don’t you have class?”
Mitsui conceded that he did have a class at that time, but argued that in a democracy no man is bound to his obligations.
“I needed a break. Sheesh! You’ll know when you graduate. Double chemistry? That’s like the cruelest thing this school’s done to me!”
Ayako apologized and said that she didn’t intend on hurting Mitsui’s sentiments, adding that she wouldn’t be opting for chemistry at all in her third year.
“You can opt out of chemistry?!” Mitsui exclaimed.
“Didn’t you know that? You can take an arts subject instead.” Ayako explained.
“Heck, I didn’t even get to choose from anything!”
“It says so clearly on that form thingy- I was helping Coach Anzai with a couple that he had brought for Akagi-sempai and Kogure-sempai last year.”
“My form wasn’t even filled out by me!” protested Mitsui.
“That explains it,” said Ayako. “Those office people can be pretty injudicious when they think it fit to do the choosing for naïve students.”
“I’m not naïve, and B, Hotta had filled mine out.”
“Well, you’ve been miserably made a fool of, Mitsui-sempai.”
“That explains why he was looked so maniacally gleeful on the first day of school!” Mitsui snarled, cracking his knuckles and his neck before running out of the gym with the desire for revenge burning brightly in his eyes, and screaming, “Hotta Nori, I’m coming!”
“Just look at him,” Ayako said, staring after Mitsui and sighing; “He’s taking revenge for something that was probably intended as a practical joke some ten months ago.”
“More.” suggested Miyagi.
“Hey guys, can we please get back to this right now?” pleaded Sendoh, alluding to the case that caused him immeasurable perplexity.
“Yes, Sendoh,” Ayako said, “it’s your turn to bask in the limelight.”
“Hey! That was totally uncalled for!” protested Sendoh.
“Watch what you say, Sendoh,” warned Miyagi, “or your parents might just find your dead body delivered at their doorstep in a giftwrap tomorrow morning.”
“How morbid, Ryota!” Ayako said, covering her mouth in disgust. Evidently the idea of opening a life-sized gift and finding a dead Sendoh smiling peacefully up at you was a highly disconcerting one.
“Sorry, Ayako,” Miyagi said; “I was just protecting your virginity.”
“My what?!”
“Virginity. You know, when a man-”
“I know perfectly well what virginity means, thank you very much!” snapped Ayako indignantly. “And to think that you had the audacity to suggest that Sendoh here could possibly think of stealing my virginity when all he dreams about- to speak verbatim- is Rukawa.”
A round of gasps.
“Really,” Sendoh began, but he was ignored, because Ayako had just started on Miyagi again.
“Just because you’re the captain of the team, which you’ve been only for a couple of months, you think you can have a go at anyone you like and brazenly bring up people’s private lives, don’t you?” Ayako rebuked.
“I didn’t mean-”
“Oh sure you didn’t mean anything! Going around telling women you’re the savior of their virginity and openly labeling innocent guests as the subjects of your moronic whims.”
“Ayako, please-”
“I’m not done yet! When you spoke so callously a while ago, you wronged two people. Apart from having insulted Sendoh you implied that I was a whore.”
How that implication was derived was beyond Miyagi. All his hard work- his attempts (albeit futile) at attracting Ayako’s attention and earning her love- going to utter waste when he saw Ayako leaving the gym. She never left before practice was over. This very thought snuffed out that little flint of optimism that was there inside Miyagi hitherto.
With tears in his eyes, he turned to Sendoh, a look of pure loathing on his face, as he said, “Are you happy now?”
Sendoh wasn’t. Why should he take pleasure in others’ misfortunes, especially if it involved love- a subject he found supremely sentimental, yet knew nothing about. Then again, he argued, Miyagi had blatantly called him a fag. Allegations like that can never be condoned. That was a mark against all of humanity- Or at least that portion of it that took pride in being straight.
Miyagi had meanwhile run out of the gym after Ayako, in what was presumed to be a futile attempt at appeasing her.
“Wanna play?”
Oh, yeah. Sendoh had completely forgotten about Rukawa and his challenge. But wait, did he say “Wanna play?” ‘Wanna’? Sendoh nearly laughed aloud at Rukawa’s ignorance. That ‘wanna’ clearly implies that Sendoh had a fifty-percent chance of refusing to play Rukawa- Thereby giving Rukawa as much chance of failing in his self-assigned mission.
“I’m not really sure.”
“You’ll play.”
Okay, so this gave Sendoh a zero chance of refusing Rukawa. But why was he behaving so submissive? Surely, he’s too proud to depend on how the challenger presents the same old challenge over and over again and thereby be apprehensive.
“No.” said Sendoh. There you go, Rukawa. A dubious question gets a dubious reply, and a straightforward one gets as straightforward a reply.
“You’ll play.”
“Darn it, Rukawa, I said ‘no’. Don’t you understand? It’s a monosyllabic word, so I don’t get why you aren’t able to understand!”
“Ignore him Sendoh, he’s just pissed that we woke him up two hours early this morning for practice.”
It was Miyagi. It appeared that he had- however miraculously- managed to win back the trust of the damsel in distress, except here it was the one responsible for her distress that rescued her.
Sendoh was mentally hurling a variety of invectives at Miyagi for not having told him that before and thereby wasting a hell of a lot of his time, but none of those invectives could sum up to the hole Miyagi had rented in his heart by calling him gay. He would not be able to atone for such a crime if he served as a bonded laborer for the rest of his life.
“Rukawa,” Miyagi said, turning to the Super-Rookie, the shadows under whose eyes became conspicuous to Sendoh only then; “You may go to sleep now. You’ve practiced hard today, and you deserve rest.”
The speech had the desired effect and Rukawa walked out of the gym as stiffly as Frankenstein.
“Don’t mind him, Sendoh,” Miyagi said, “he’s always like that unless he gets his twelve hours of sleep every day.”
Sendoh didn’t mind Rukawa- Not at all, if you juxtaposed his offense with Miyagi’s. No, Sendoh wasn’t about to forgive him that easily. It pained him to no ends when people began suspecting his sexuality and experimenting with his feelings. He supposed all good-looking hunks paid the price for being oh so hot by being subjected to opprobrious and invidious remarks from the less fortunate folk of the same sex, and evidently the only consolation the latter got was by making themselves believe that the better-looking guys were no threat to their ability to attract the gentler sex. Getting back to the nub, the less fortunate Ryota had openly accused Sendoh, with whom Luck seemed to have fallen in love, of being a threat to the stagnant relation between the former and Ayako. Hell, how did Ayako get here in the first place? Sendoh was dead sure Ayako was hitting on Kainan’s Jin and was already planning her first move.
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