Legend of the SuperRookie (October 12,2003)
Rating: R
Part One
All my life, I lived in the wilderness. The farthest I could remember, I was four years old. My own biological father took advantage of my vulnerable, weak and young body. He treated me like a toy. A toy he enjoyed kissing, touching, kicking and punching.
For several years I buried the pain. I resisted every abuse my own source of life did. Before I stepped in Junior High, he was imprisoned. A very caring neighbor helped me through and provided me right education and shelter that my father should've given me.
But I never excel in school. I never was to anything.
Every moment I find a classmate smiling, giggling and laughing with their fathers, I felt envious. Why didn't I have a father like those? Had I committed a sin in my past life to be punished in the present?
No tender care hug my grievances, miseries and despair. I struggled through childhood in solitude and neither the persons who adopted me nor the teachers who had been concern of my past have comforted my burning heart and soul.
Nothing but Basketball.
It is the only thing I am good at. It is the only thing where I could feel like flying and soaring up high to the vast sky.
Until I met him.
It was one afternoon. A gang of evil guys bullied me in the public court while I was playing Basketball alone. I tried to defend myself but my young skills weren't enough to stop a horde. Until he came. He came into my life.
He saved me. He was one but his strength was of ten men huddled in one package. He saved me the way Basketball did to my life.
We became friends. Although he didn't play my favorite sport, we enjoyed each other's company. Although we came from a very different world, we became one.
In a matter of weeks, we fell deeply in love. We had our first intimate kiss, held each other's warm embrace and enjoyed the pleasures of ones bodies colliding.
My foster parents knew about it. They're minds were too pent-up to accept the only person who ever stepped in my life and gave me hope.
Owing them my life, I obeyed but not to the extent that I'll give up the only person I ever loved for eternity.
Yes, I said farewell to Hanamichi but not forever. I didn't expect I had the brain to think of it.
In my last year in Junior High, I released all the best in me and I won the rookie title in Basketball. I received some cash prizes and other gifts from people who admired me, almost obsessed. I used those material gains to start on my own.
I worked part time in a fast food chain to maintain my breathing life. This was a plan. A plan I did on the day before I bid good bye to Hanamichi.
Now I'm ready to go back in his arms again.
People asked me why I didn't enroll to Kainan or Ryonan High. I'd be better off with those competitive Basketball teams. I just shrugged. No one would understand me anyway. I mean, no one ever did but Hanamichi.
But two years seemed like a century when I finally met him again in the Shohoku High's rooftop. Even with a colored hair, I recognized the face of the person I thought of every day and night, of every hour and every minute. But what shocked me was that he queried for my name like we were both strangers to each other's eyes.
That question was like daggers hitting my wooden heart in the bull's eye.
Even more surprises stunned me when I saw him in the Basketball gym wearing sports attire. Since when did he learn the sport? Hanamichi never enjoyed that sport. He never intended to.
I hope I didn't try hard to know the reason because it only killed me inside. He was doing it to impress a girl. The Shohoku's team captain's sister. Why Hanamichi? You didn't even try playing it during our time. You just watched me.
Day by day and bit by bit I erased the most special name in my thoughts. I urged myself to forget about the Hanamichi Sakuragi I loved and cared for. Although it was hard, I succeeded because I made Basketball the center of my life and nothing else.
Hanamichi was a new person. He didn't talk to me, he plays Basketball and much worse, I've heard so many insults from him. He called me kitsune. He grumbled when I make a shot and he went berserk when people cheered for me. Unlike before, he killed the persons who criticized me.
Why? Aren't you happy I made it without you?
Girls never impressed me, nor anyone. Why would I dare to open my heart again when I only felt pain on the first trial?
Our constant bickering pursued as days went on. The scenario played on and we acted almost real that we had never met in this lifetime. That's what they all thought.
One night, after Mitsui tried to ruin the Basketball team with his gang mates, I sat on my couch with an ice pressed on my forehead. I had several cuts on my head and face after the constant beating of the evil guys.
Someone knocked on my door. It was him. The face I longed to kiss for so many nights.
He inched towards me. He whispered in a very angelic tone that had always conquered me. He said he was so worried that afternoon. He thought he would lose me.
The night went long. Hanamichi planted his sweet kisses on the aching cuts in my forehead. It cured the pain so much. I missed it. His warm breath caressed my face and his wet lips dig on mine.
His tongue danced with my own and his long fingers crawled down my naked chest. The irresistible sensation felt the same even after so long. His hard palm delicately revolved on my chest and massaged the knob so moderately.
He just grew. We just grew taller. We only changed physically, but the feeling we had treasured before lived on.
It was a more intense and aggressive moment. We hummed like hungry mammals. Perhaps craving for the burning sensation we missed for so many sunsets.
He was over me and I slid my fingers to his bare muscled back. His loving essence touched my lower abdomen and it increased my orgasm. My fingers inserted between his thighs and rubbed my hands on it like a sponge.
I heard him moan. The tone had become lower. But it was till my most beloved Hanamichi. I am absolutely certain about it.
If I knew it would be my last taste of being with his warm embrace, I should've not let him go. I should have kidnapped him and locked him in my own cage of passion. But I'm not a genius to predict the future.
After our match against Ryonan High, he talked to me. He apologized for the very special night he gave me. He said in his lower and husky voice the words I loathed to hear, "We're really over."
I hoped for nothing but to vanish on that exact moment. The love of my life said good bye to me like I did years ago. I felt my entire body numbed and ached but I knew I must go on. I've forgotten him, almost, before and I know I can do it again. I know I would. My life doesn't revolve only around him.
So I decided to fly to America and be a pro. I would do it to impress him. To let him regret about the time he said OVER. I can feel his interest in Basketball and one thing to hurt him is to see me flying high in America. I knew it would kick him in the face. The boy he refused to love again is better than him.
So I did, but unfortunately Coach Anzai restrained me.
Perhaps to save me or allow the love Hanamichi and I had shared to bloom again. Apparently, Coach Anzai noticed our intimate link from our frequent brawls and in one query, I told him the truth.
He told me that I'm not the type of person who says die. No one gets the best of me. No one beats Kaede Rukawa. I believe that too.
I'm back on the court. More determined, stronger and more than anyone ever knew. I'll be the best player in any High School in Japan. I will be the best among the rest and I will never feel inferior again. NEVER! I will wade through my own way and no one could hinder me. Not even the most special person in my life or perhaps in my life before.
On the night I had a one-on-one play with Mitsui, he challenged me. The fuck with you Sakuragi Hanamichi! Isn't enough yet that you took half of me?
No one knew what really happened because no one watches. It was we, alone. Him and me.
When he dribbled the ball passing me, I grabbed him robustly. I locked him on my hungry kiss and even if he struggled, I blocked his way to freedom. I rubbed my own body to his naked chest and I licked the tongue tongue inside his very warm cavern. It didn't take long for him to yield. He yielded on me. We played on each other's tongue once and again.
I maneuvered my sweating palms under his white shorts to his inner essence and touched it gently like a pillow. I knew he had the desire dominating his entire body. But he shoved me off with all his might.
He didn't look at me like I was a creature to gross about and he didn't even pursue our one-on-one.
I went off the gym and found three of our teammates guarding outside. I wished no one see it for my own sake and his.
I'm so sorry Hanamichi, or shall I say Sakuragi. Someone knew of our very hidden mutual feeling. Coach Anzai and his wife for an exemption because I found from them the parental comfort I crave for since the day I was born.
On the night before the team left to play against the Jousei for a practice match, you jaded my apartment.
You gave a hard jab on the face to shake my mind of what I've just done on our suppose-to-be one on match. Damn it Sakuragi! It's nothing. The punch was nothing compared to all the pain you've given me from sleepless nights, pending emotion and crumpled pride.
"It's over don't you get it? It's over for so long ago!" You said it. Those words howled like a horrible monster to my mind. I knew it. I definitely knew but why did it still strike me so deep? Why did those words still hurt me?
What did I do wrong to be punished like this? Was it because of the countless girls that had cried for me? Was it because of my metal heart and too much self-praise? Or was it because of the day I gave up on you?