JSWGAS Chapter 65

65.

‘Every year, there are tens of thousands of people like this – these people are like sparrows in the sky, flapping their wings to fly, soaring, pausing, falling, disappearing, without leaving a trace.’

Yakemoku Jakumi was falling, every day after entering the third grade.

A strong sense of weightlessness enveloped him at night, making him feel slightly dizzy: “What?” He couldn’t help but ask again.

Nijimura Shuzo walked beside him, smiling helplessly, “Why are you always daydreaming these days…” They were walking home, living only a block apart, “Soon, I plan to let Akashi be the captain.”

“Akashi…” Yakemoku Jakumi was momentarily distracted, “He’s a good choice, he’s very capable.”

“He’s more proficient than I am in both team matters and other things.” Nijimura Shuzo’s gaze wandered aimlessly, “He’s also felt more and more reliable since he became a second-year – including those juniors. So I thought about it, it’s better to let them take over the team sooner.”

“…That’s true.”

“…”

“Jakumi.” Nijimura Shuzo touched Yakemoku Jakumi’s arm worriedly, “Are you okay?”

They stopped. Nijimura Shuzo had to turn into another block at this intersection, while Yakemoku Jakumi had to walk a little further to get home.

He slowly blinked his eyelids: “Just a little tired.”

Nijimura Shuzo carefully scrutinized Yakemoku’s face for a moment, and worriedly instructed: “Then go back and rest early today, the recent training volume has indeed been a bit high.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

Even with such assurances, the fatigue in Yakemoku Jakumi’s eyes deepened with the passage of time. He wandered in and out of the stadium as usual, unreservedly guiding the younger players, and training became more and more diligent.

“Yakemoku-senpai.” A junior who had just joined the basketball club stood by the court and called him, “Want to go get ice cream together? Nijimura-senpai and the others are also going!”

The junior named Kise Ryota had only taken two weeks to be promoted to the first team, faster than Kokonoe Taka’s speed back then. The coach asked Kuroko Tetsuya to be his instructor, but Kuroko often came to ask for passing techniques. So Kise Ryota naturally became familiar with Yakemoku Jakumi again.

Yakemoku Jakumi smiled and replied: “No! I’ll practice for a while longer. You guys go!”

Kise Ryota walked out of the gymnasium, scratching his cheek. Just as he was about to leave, a clear voice suddenly came from behind him: “Yakemoku-senpai isn’t coming?”

“Uwa—Kuroko!” Kise Ryota jumped to the side in fright, “When did you get here?!”

“I’ve been here all along.” Kuroko Tetsuya was used to it.

Kise Ryota complained softly for a couple of sentences before replying: “Yakemoku-senpai said he wanted to practice for a while longer, how long is he going to practice for?” He looked back.

The two walked out of the school together: “It’s been like this for the past two days, I see him leaving last every day.”

Yakemoku Jakumi was also asking himself: How long are you planning to keep doing this?

Even he himself didn’t understand why he had to continue extra training every day after Coach Shirokane’s hellish training, and perhaps he had a slight understanding after taking the gymnasium key from the coach’s hand. But when he ran into the new captain who came to find the coach with the training schedule when he went out, the slightly rippling mood stilled again. Then, in the brief few seconds of passing by, he was finally able to confirm in the averted gaze.

——I don’t want to lose.

——I want to continue playing basketball with Kuju.

These two thoughts occupied reason and emotion one after another, and the competition had always existed, revealing a corner from the gradually widened number of appearances. Wake up, he said, how long are you going to stand still and wait? Kuju won’t look back, he doesn’t need to look back, he doesn’t need to accommodate himself as an ordinary person.

All he could do was desperately keep up with his footsteps, using sweat to fill the gap between the two.

Even if it’s just to get a little closer.

Yakemoku Jakumi took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled, forcing himself to look at the court in front of him.

If I’m stronger, a little stronger.

Will I be able to continue standing by your side?

……

…………

Strictly speaking, that day was no different from any other afternoon.

After Teiko’s school festival, the noisy basketball club returned to its usual calmness. The basketball club’s gymnasium was divided into two distinct sides: one side was doing basic training with their heads down, and the other side had already begun randomly shuffling and reorganizing practice matches.

Atsushi Murasakibara and Shintaro Midorima were a textbook example of people who didn’t get along well being forced together. It was okay when playing official matches, with the upperclassmen pressing down in front and Akashi of the same grade staring behind, so no big blunders were made. But once there was no lubricant, after just a few balls, the two began to argue over who should score.

But after Kuroko separated the two, Kokonoe Taka originally wanted to go over and separate them, but stopped: “It seems like there’s nothing to worry about.” He muttered to himself, turning around and refocusing his attention on the opponent in front of him — the third-year students were also conducting shuffled and reorganized practice matches, and Kokonoe Taka’s opponent was none other than his trusted friend.

Yakemoku Jakumi was also focused on looking at him.

“It feels a bit novel like this.” He looked at the vest on Kokonoe Taka again, “Wearing team uniforms of different colors – in different teams.”

“After all, Jakumi has always been my teammate.” Kokonoe Taka replied with a smile, “Hmm, I always feel a little happy.”

“Happy?”

“Jakumi is very capable.” He said, “The best teammate can also be the best opponent, don’t you think? – Ah, but let me state in advance, I won’t go easy on you?”

Yakemoku Jakumi rejected the first half of Kokonoe Taka’s sentence in his heart when the game started: I’m not capable at all. He thought, not at all.

——I just want to try it out.

All the complicated thoughts were broken down into small parts, and finally piled up silently in the surging blood of the body. Yakemoku Jakumi was perhaps one of the people in the world who was most familiar with Kokonoe Taka on the court, like his shadow, able to judge his chosen attack route in an instant. He was extremely familiar with the other party’s position every time he turned around, his stable center of gravity, and his shooting habits. And these were also integrated into another person’s body through years of getting along.

Yakemoku Jakumi didn’t have Kokonoe Taka’s excellent physical qualities, and his sense of the ball was only a little higher than the average line. Perhaps the only thing he could show off was his instinct to suppress his emotions, like a storm set off in the depths of the Mariana Trench, finally turning into cold reason.

Since he couldn’t keep up, he would use prediction to carry out positioning and pick-and-roll; if one person wasn’t enough, he would simply turn the strength of other people into his own. The two hastily formed three-person teams went back and forth, attacking and defending, and unexpectedly fought to a standstill –

“Yakemoku’s style seems to have changed.” Coach Shirokane said thoughtfully, asking the coach for Yakemoku’s recent training menu: If Yakemoku was gently ‘making suggestions’ when issuing instructions before, leaving all subsequent processing to the scorer; then now he had squeezed his own abilities to the extreme, invisibly locking everyone in the team together.

He was just guessing, while Kokonoe Taka, who was face to face with Yakemoku Jakumi, had already confirmed this fact. TheA monstrous battle intent collided with the desire to erupt, but it felt natural: “Jakumi, have you been practicing this during this time? – You’re amazing.”

“Sort of.” Yakemoku Jakumi gave a vague answer. He had just used a flawless feint to deceive the team’s first small forward, but his expression was still no different from usual. Although he was doing it silently, his subtle aggressiveness had undoubtedly begun to seize territory.

Every second on the court was precious, and a large amount of information flooded into his mind, causing his temples to ache faintly, but he didn’t care – so, what should he do next?

He had been working hard enough during this time, and after training during the day, he would go home at night and turn out the basketball game, turning on the night light and looping the progress bar back a few seconds. He could watch a 50-minute basketball game for two hours before stopping with lingering interest, and his research into various techniques had even reached a fanatical level of being possessed, which objectively led him to frequently enter and exit the office to pay for the mistake of sleeping in class.

Thinking that effort alone can make you omnipotent is arrogant. But at least at this moment, Yakemoku Jakumi’s efforts had paid him back.

The basketball was in Yakemoku’s hand, and he and Kokonoe Taka, who was blocking his way, were at a standstill. It would be difficult to break through with his strength alone, but his teammates’ positions next to him were not good. Yakemoku Jakumi was sure that if he passed the ball, it would definitely be intercepted by Kokonoe Taka, who was equally familiar with him.

He recalled the screen flashing with a faint blue light in the dimly lit room, holding the ball in his right hand, pretending to dribble past, and after feinting, he turned over with his right foot as the axis and leaned back for a jump shot.

He was retreating, and the ball was advancing.

He grabbed the corner of his already distant friend’s clothes.

——And then, in this instant, it ended extremely abruptly.

……

…………

The scene was chaotic.

After hearing a muffled sound behind him, Kokonoe Taka turned his head subconsciously, and the pupils of his constricted eyes reflected his friend lying on the ground, biting his teeth with a face full of cold sweat. Yakemoku Jakumi’s arms were tightly tensed, even protruding with blue veins, and his left foot, which he was protecting, was trembling violently.

“Jakumi!”

Amidst a chorus of exclamations, he immediately rushed to Yakemoku Jakumi’s side, carefully letting him lean on himself. Coach Shirokane also quickly ran to their side, “Did you twist your ankle?” He carefully observed for a moment, and Yakemoku Jakumi’s left ankle was swelling at an alarming rate.

Coach Kiyota immediately contacted the hospital and called for an ambulance, and in less than ten minutes, the injured person was taken away. Coach Shirokane hurriedly left with the ambulance, leaving only a group of teenagers who had not yet recovered from the sudden incident and Coach Kiyota cleaning up the mess.

And after Coach Kiyota announced that today’s club activities would end early, he urged them to go back. Kokonoe Taka stood in place after changing his clothes, staring at the palm print on his right hand that had been split by a scar. Yakemoku Jakumi had tightly grasped it a few minutes ago, and it was faintly painful, and there were even faint finger marks now.

The atmosphere on his body was too low, and only Nijimura Shuzo dared to step forward and press his shoulder: “Kuju?” The latter’s tone was worried, his palms were warm, and he had to increase his strength again to recall the wandering conversation partner.

“I’m fine.”

But your expression doesn’t look like you’re okay at all.

In any case, Nijimura Shuzo suppressed these words in his heart.

The look in Yakemoku’s eyes when he ran over kept appearing in Kokonoe Taka’s mind.

Not only because of the injury, but because of something else, a sad and painful look.

Therefore, he grabbed him, so, so tightly.

……

…………

Yakemoku Jakumi was sent to the hospital, lying on the hospital bed being pushed, watching the pale lamps above his head flickering and constantly receding. The sharp pain in his ankle made him grit his teeth, and his expression was a bit distorted. But compared to the pain in his body, Yakemoku Jakumi cared more about the consequences of this accident. His heart almost stopped beating under the huge emotional impact, and he felt like he had fallen from a high altitude, but he had not yet fallen to the ground.

After a brief treatment, his parents rushed to the hospital and stood in front of his hospital bed, looking at the doctor in a hurried and uneasy manner: “This child -?”

“Avulsion fracture.” The doctor explained with the medical record in hand, and he noticed that the injured boy was staring straight at him, so he gave him a reassuring smile, “This child was injured while playing basketball. During the fall, the muscles contracted violently for protection, causing the bone tissue to be torn off. But if he rests well, there will be no sequelae.”

“Then, how long will it take to recover…?”

“At least half a year.”

——He finally fell, shattered to pieces.

Everything ended on this ordinary day. Whether it was the unyielding self-esteem or the hope of continuing to stand side by side, it all settled down with the diagnosis issued by the doctor.

Every day he opened his eyes, he saw the square ceiling of the hospital, and then he sat on the bed and stared at the pale walls in a daze, spending the whole day like this. In the first few weeks, friends, classmates, and teammates visited his ward one after another; but as time passed, only his close friends were left to knock on the door on time in the evening. Among the two friends, Kokonoe Taka came the most often –

But every time he appeared, he was reminding Yakemoku Jakumi of his failure. His injury could not catch up with the Inter-High Championships, which would open its preliminaries at the end of June, and his parents strongly demanded that he honestly spend the next year. So the door to the middle school league was no longer open to him.

“Preliminary qualifying…” He asked softly when Kokonoe Taka visited again, “Did you win?”

Kokonoe Taka sat in front of the hospital bed and peeled an apple for him. He didn’t know where he had learned the skill of peeling an apple into a rabbit, and he was extremely gentle when he lowered his eyes, “We won.” He turned the masterpiece in his hand and handed it to Yakemoku Jakumi, “Isn’t it amazing? Eat the rabbit and get well soon, Jakumi.”

Yakemoku Jakumi subconsciously supplemented the words he hadn’t finished saying.

“Then, let’s win the championship together again.”

Kokonoe Taka looked at him gently, just like before. He didn’t say anything else. – This sentence was just his own fantasy, his wish. It was the agreement that should have been made by that spirited Yakemoku Jakumi, smiling with Kokonoe Taka. But the reality was that Yakemoku Jakumi, trapped in the ward, was silent, and pulled the corners of his mouth as if he was a pool of stagnant water.

Why did he have to work so hard during that time?

Obviously, the team can do better without him.

Alone, staring at the same scenery every day, his heart was questioning himself at the time. His parents only thought it was an accident, but Yakemoku Jakumi himself knew that the reason why he fell at that time was because he suddenly lost consciousness at the moment he shot the ball. In a trance, only the thought of ‘this ball will work’ remained in his consciousness, representing his desire to continue moving forward with Kuju.

But in reality, it was the bitter fruit of overwork.

His parents became haggard after he was hospitalized. They thought that with the door closed, Yakemoku Jakumi couldn’t hear their mutual accusations and quarrels – but in fact, those words clearly drilled into his ears. Even if he closed his eyes and covered his ears, he couldn’t stop their omnipresence.

Little by little, little by little squeezing him.

Muddled. “Recently…” He leaned on the hospital bed, the curtain next to the window was half drawn, just pushing him into the shadows, “I feel like I’ve forgotten a lot of things from the past.”

Prolonged loneliness and the urgency of being abandoned can indeed create such an illusion.

Kokonoe Taka noticed his depression: “Jakumi,” he thought for a while, and said, “Do you remember what you said to me after we first played basketball together?”

“…”

“‘Let’s play basketball together next time too’.”

Don’t come over.

I don’t want to hear it.

“Jakumi, I’m waiting for you.”

I can’t do it.

I can’t go to your side anymore.

Yakemoku Jakumi’s eyeballs trembled. He was like a fragile glass bird, with cracks all over its crystal clear body. Some were caused by wind and rain, and some were pecked by the glass bird itself.

Why do you look at me with such trust?

Why do you stay in my world?

He was stiff, as if his blood had frozen along with his thoughts, his brain blank. Who is the person in front of him? His face is so strange.

He sat quietly in the darkness, as if he had been completely swallowed by the darkness.

A sentence he couldn’t control blurted out: “It’s really great that I don’t have to play basketball with Kuju anymore.”

The light in front of him stopped, like a cold statue melting in the light.

Almost as soon as these words were spoken, regret overwhelmed him.

——It’s not like this.

I still want to continue playing basketball with you.

I still want to continue being your teammate.

I still want to continue standing shoulder to shoulder with you.

…Just like before.

But.

We already——!