Disclaimer: I do not own Slamdunk or anything associated with it
you know you love me
one
It was routine.
Ride bike to school, sleep through class, sleep through lunch, basketball practice. Rukawa's life basically consisted of two things, basketball and sleep. Nothing else was important to him, nothing else mattered.
He met her thrice; once before school, once during school, and once after basketball. And suddenly it wasn't so routine anymore.
It was his fault really, he fell asleep on his bike again, and nearly killed her. Or so she said. They were a tangle of legs and arms on the ground, before he opened one blue eye only to be met with a green one, her breath on his cheek, his body a little too close to hers, and his face too calm for her flushed one.
She finally managed to breathe, "Maybe, you could get off?"
He nodded, complied and gave a short bow to show that he was sorry. As she dusted herself off, he gave her an once-over; long hair, tall, and that was about it. Same uniform as the other girls in his school, but he couldn't put her face to a name. Not that he particularly cared.
"You nearly killed me," She stated, straightened, looked at him. He glanced down at her, said nothing, instead walked over to where his bike lay neglected on the ground, picked it up and rode away. He heard her laugh as he rounded the corner and he wondered why.
He learned her name during math class, when his head was tucked comfortably into his arms on the table, when he was drifting between the boundaries of feeling drowsy and falling asleep.
"Did you see Sachiko this morning? She was bleeding and had to go to the nurse,"
"Why?"
"She said somebody ran her over with their bicycle,"
He frowned, wondered why that these girls didn't sound concerned, if they were her friends. As he finally felt the lure of sleep take over, he hoped she wasn't not ok.
X
She was there on the roof at lunch and for the five point three four seconds that he watched her for; he thought he knew her from another life. Then she turned around, and he decided that he didn't know her at all.
"Oh," She recognized him, "It's you,"
He nodded, poker face already put on. He was good at that, he knew.
"You don't talk much, do you Rukawa-san?" Of course she knew his name, who didn't? Within Shohoku, he was famous. She tried again, "I'm Tachibana Sachiko,"
"Ok," He wasn't one to engage in conversation. He chose a warm looking spot on the ground before he lay down and tried to sleep. He felt her watching him, and he looked over at her, searching for an answer.
Her eyes were green.
And for some reason, he could picture her as the lead role in the old movie Casablanca; sweet, tragic, irritatingly feminine, cheesy and beautiful. He fell asleep, and when he woke up he'd forgotten about Casablanca, and she wasn't there.
X
It was Mitsui who saw her first, after practice.
"Hey who's that? She's cute," He asked, pointing his thumb towards the school
Miyagi glanced in the general direction, "That girl in third year, how could not know? Tachibana or something, don't bother, a real bitch,"
She had already walked out the gate by the time Rukawa had got to the bike stand, but when he was two blocks down the street, he saw her again.
He pretended he didn't. But she wasn't one for pretending.
"Hey!" She yelled at him as he rode by.
He slowed down and looked back to where she was, nodded.
"What, you haven't run me over so you don't talk to me?" She ran up to him, demanded attention, like a seven year old wanting candy.
He stared blankly, waited. Realized once again that she had green eyes, but instead of Casablanca he thought of Breakfast at Tiffany's. He wondered if Hepburn had green eyes, because the movie was black and white, and he could never tell.
"Never mind," She sighed, rolled her eyes, turned and walked a few steps away from him. Paused, turned around to face him again. "You know, you remind of the tin man, from the Wizard Of Oz. If only you had a heart."
He stood there for awhile and watched her disappear behind a brick wall at the end of the block.
At home, when his mother was watching another one of her movies, Rukawa thought of Sachiko, and wondered how much of tin man did he remind her of?
He didn't know why, but he hoped that it wasn't too much. And instead of basketball, as he stared at his stucco ceiling, his last conscious thought was,
Follow the yellow brick road.
