Author's Note: First things first- I just suddenly had this idea and even though I am not sure how accurate this can be, I want to write this. I think the main idea might be a bit too dark/bitter but I don't think it is that impossible.
This story links to what happened in "Who is it for?", which is the second story in "Chapters". As I said before, I find Watanabe Osamu a very interesting character and one of the things I am really curious about him is how come he is coaching Shitenhouji when he is still so young. I mean, now that I think about it, there probably is quite a lot of normal reason why you might coach instead of doing the sport yourself, but somehow I have my mind fixed on this idea.
As you can probably guess by the title, this story is an attempt of trying to say that he is actually very different from the person we see in the original story, that it is only a farce to an attempt. I suppose one reason I can get away with this is because there is even less information about him then Shiraishi. But so, as I said, this story have some tragic elements so if you don't like that kind of stuff, don't read.
The story is linked to "Sacrifice", although it is set after it, so by this time the third years has all graduated from junior high and is now in senior high- for the ones who wanted to. Ashita does come out although it will be even more of a guest appearance.
"I want to be buried under a sakura near you, Osamu. Do you know that the most beautiful sakura are always burial grounds of women in love? That is because we bloom for our lover, wanting to be beautiful for their sake. Because I love you so much, my sakura will bear the most beautiful flowers."
That was her wish, and he vowed to grant it the moment she told him about it, as he did with all her other desires. That was why he spent a long time arguing with her kin about letting her be buried in Osaka, even though her immediate kindred were all in Kanagawa. He also had to spend a very large amount of money in order to let her have a resting place that was directly underneath the tree which she so loved- the plant she was named after.
But he was unable to fulfil all aspect of her wish. There was no way that the park coordinator closest to his home would agree with the request of burying her in the middle of the public space.
Just how much power did a fiancé have anyway? He asked himself as he stared at her for the final time, it was so strange that she had not aged at all. The person who lied in her final bed was not a woman in her mid twenties, but the young girl who recently turned eighteen.
She was wearing that white dress which she had loved so much, and he could almost smile as he recollected what she had said when she brought it, after she laughed so hard at seeing him in a proper suit for the first time.
"But this is what I want! You in a suit while I will wear this white gown that a princess will wear as she prepares to live happily ever after."
Sakurako was that kind of girl, very different from her sister. She was like an angel, and maybe that was why, to an extent, he was almost acceptant about all that has happened. Sometimes he believed that she was never meant to remain in this world for a long time, as she could never survive in the battle against her greatest rival: reality.
But it was still so unfair! She was so young and about to start a new dream. She shouldn't have been snatched away so soon.
The coffin was closed, and she was lowered into the grave just below the sakura. He closed his eyes to allow his tears to fall without blurring his vision- she was truly gone from him now, he could never touch her again.
"You are feeling guilty, aren't you?" the voice of Hanamura Aoi, her elder sister said chillingly, her voice much colder then it had even been now that Sakurako was finally gone. "You should be, since you are the one that caused this."
"Aoi!" their mother said sharply, at least he believed that she was the two's mother since he had not seen her for many years. "We've talked about this many times and…"
"I am sorry, Osamu-kun." Their father apologised. "But it is just that Sakurako's death is very hard for us to accept, even thought it has been eight years…"
"Eight years since that bastard caused all this!" Aoi repeated again, screaming between her tears, obviously in hysteria as she had loved her sister greatly.
Her words were accompanied by actions this time- she began to slap him, shaking off her parent's grasp. She continued to hit him despite the muttering of the others who had gathered for the funeral. "You killed her!"
Watanabe just let her keep on hitting him, as he did believe that he was the cause of Sakurako ending up in that state. Wasn't it him who wanted to go out that night?
As to be expected of a skilled tennis player, her slaps were actually very hard, and despite the numerous times that she struck him, his face was still being stung each time.
That was why he immediately noticed when she stopped.
He tilted his head to see what caused this-for once it was not under that hat which he always wore- the bucket hat that she had put on his head as he prepared to board his flight to England.
"Hanamura-senapi, please stop this." A woman stated in a voice that was soft, but hard, "You are causing quite a scene in your own sister's funeral."
The woman had grabbed his attacker by the wrist and due to the careful positioning of her nails, she managed to force the other to halt. Aoi even winced when the younger woman tightened her grip.
He didn't know who she was, but then he had not seen any of these people for ten years at the very least, while others he had not seen since his graduation from Shitenhouji chuugakkuu.
"Hanamura-senpai, please stop hitting Watanabe-buchou." She repeated again.
At this address, Watanabe frowned, as this indicated that she was someone in the tennis club, and might have been in the team of Shitenhouji chuu. When he was a student there, the tennis club had been combined, so the buchou of the boys and girls team were also the buchou of the whole club.
"Aoi, we have to talk to your aunt." Their mother said as she and her husband half dragged their remaining daughter away, giving them both an apologetic nod.
"Are you alright, buchou?" she asked him politely, although her tone was not exactly warm, let along friendly.
He nodded before he asked her: "Who are you? Since you call me buchou, you must be in the tennis club of Shitenhouji chuu all these years ago."
"I was." She said with a nod. "I was also in her class."
"Sakurako's class?"
"But I didn't really know her, even though we were in the same class." She added rather quickly, interrupting any questions that he might have asked. "Just like how you have no idea who I am even if you were my buchou."
"Will you not introduce yourself then?" he pressed on. "You did help me and…"
She gave a slight shrug, either saying that the help was nothing, or indicating that she would have done it for anyone else.
Nonetheless she did say who she was.
"Tanako, Tanako Aizuki."
"Tanako?" he repeated the last name as he recollected another female who had that name. "A second Tanako."
"It is true that my last name is pretty popular, but it is not a coincidence that I have the same name as Tanako Ashita, the girlfriend of Shiraishi Kuranosuke, the buchou of Shitenhouji Chuu's tennis club for the last two years," she said with a slight smile, "That Tanako is my precious little sister."
Watanabe suddenly remembered a scene from about thirteen years ago, when a bunch of girls had been causing a severe disruption in practice due to trying to cuddle a little child.
"She's so cute!!!" almost all the girls were saying as they crowded around the little girl that was only three years old, making her clung onto her sister even tighter.
"My parents have to go to the hospital so they entrusted Akio and I to look after Ashita." Her elder sister explained, and many were shocked at how loving she was with the child, considering her reputation and attitude in school, as well as her own relationship with her twin brother. "Ashita is my precious little sister."
"Tanako Aizuki," Watanabe said her name softly. "I think I can remember you."
"I rather you don't." Tanako Aizuki said dryly as she moved to let the next person approach.
Her words was strange but he did not spend any time to ponder on them as he was hit by a wave of grief and tears once more when some of Sakurako's classmates and friends began to talk to him.
"Everyone says I am so lucky to have the great Watanabe Osamu from the tennis club as my boy friend!"
"Do you agree with them?"
"Of course, I love you the moment I saw you, but not because you are the buchou of the tennis club or anything like that. It is for the simple reason that you are you."
She spun so many dreams…but they were all snatched away from her just as she was going to start to weave them into reality.
He found himself ending up in the nearby bar after the funeral. He was the last one to leave as he spent a long time kneeling beside her grave. Maybe he was asking forgiveness for all that he did, as well as all that failed to do.
She had wanted her last bed to be the earth with sakura petals as her blanket, not a coffin. He was unable to give that to her.
"Like a princess in a fairytale." He admitted softly with a slight smile. "But then that is who you are."
Whether he go home or not did not matter because there was no one else in that empty building, and he was now faced with the bitter realization that his future would always be like that, since she was finally taken away from him.
He had a family, but they were too distant in either the physical or mental sense, if not both. Most of them could not forgive him for throwing away the opportunity of continuing a very prestigious career, especially after all that they did to grant him that, while he was still bitter at the fact that none of them tried to understand him.
How could he make them understand that Sakurako had become so important to him so that everything he once took pleasure in disappeared because she was no longer there? That was what drove him to teaching, as he discovered that he could at least be happy when his students were.
The ability of laughing was something that he could only do when he was with his students. With them he would behave to the extreme as that was the only times he could do so. The real Watanabe Osamu was actually very different from the perception the whole world had.
A figure sat down at the seat next to him and since his head was bent down, he could only see the medium and lower part of the body and much to his surprise, it was actually a woman. As she was wearing an all black kimono he was sure that she had come from the same place as him.
Turning his head slightly, he could see what she was drinking - something that could almost compete with the drink in front of him in regard to strength, making her even more unusual.
The nails on her fingers were carefully trimmed with the faintest hint of nail polish on some of them to indicate that she must have experienced some rush in going to Sakurako's funeral.
Regardless of the latest fashion, or what anyone else suggested, Sakurako never once wore any nail polish, let along make up. Likewise, her hair was always natural.
"It doesn't matter, does it?"
"Of course not! You don't need them at all!"
She had been buried with her face free of any make up, and her hair only decorated by a garland of sakura. Her family had been quite shocked at this, but he simply reminded them that this was what she wanted.
He placed his glass down and turned to the person beside him, deciding that he could no longer stay in these memories. Was that going to be another aspect of his future? To be tormented with memories in every single thing?
"Tanako Aizuki." He said in some surprise.
"Don't worry, I'm not stalking you or anything." She told him with a smile, but her smile was so different from Sakurako's, it was double edged, as if she was laughing at the person she smiled at. "I happened to come here since this is the closest bar that a woman can come into without being seen as too strange."
Her phone chose to ring at this time and she immediately frowned at seeing the caller-id. Her lips curled into a hard sneer as she switched it off.
"It is likely to be from my asshole of an ex-boyfriend." She said upon his slight reaction. "We broke up today as he didn't believe me when I told him that I'm going to a funeral."
Now that he thought about it, Sakurako had gossiped about this with him. Tanako Aizuki had a reputation of being a bad girl due to the crowd she hung around with, her behaviour was also seen as much worse then it really was due to her twin brother- one of the model students in the school.
There had been a time when he found her sitting outside the club room after everyone else had gone. Since Sakurako was not waiting for him that day, he decided to have a talk with her.
Upon his approach she had shrugged and told him that she was having some problems with her boy friend.
"Why are you telling me this?" he asked again, as the same words appeared.
"Because you happen to be here." She told him bluntly, taking another sip of her very strong drink. "Please don't flatter yourself into thinking that I am hitting on you."
"All I know from you is what I have heard in Junior high, and your reputation isn't assuring at all." He reminded her.
"I am actually pretty conservative," she said with that mocking smile again, "and that is usually the cause of any problems in my relationships. But just because I decide to be extreme in what I am prepared to do, as well as doing that since junior high… I am seen as being a slut. But you are the opposite, I'll talk to anyone I want even if I am attached…even if I am in love. You, on the other hand, regard addressing any woman your own age with the exception of Hanamura Aoi as an act of adultery."
How was it that she could actually decipher him so easily when she only saw him again after thirteen years? And it was not as if they had a friendship in the first place.
"Don't get me wrong, it is not as if I really dislike you, but I quite liked Sakurako when I went to school with her, although…"
"Although?"
"But nothing." Aizuki said firmly, he was definitely not able to learn the bitter truth from her yet. "You were my buchou so I sort of know you. I do still talk to some of my friends from my school days but I do not have that many. But the most important thing is this, I don't have much people to complain about the crap that is happening in my life. I want a listener, but not someone to lecture or sympathise with me."
"And you obviously think that I wish for the same thing?"
"I know you need the same thing." She said confidently, as she signals to the bar tender in order to place another order. "Why else would you be here? Why would a man be drinking all alone in the bar when his fiancée just died if he actually has a choice?"
He could only chuckle, and his students would be greatly surprised if they ever heard this laughter, because it was filled with great bitterness. There was no trace of the coach who always laughed easily at almost everything.
"This is true." He admitted, drinking the whole glass in one go. "So where should I start? About the car crash? About…"
"Just admit that you are actually really miserable will do," Aizuki interrupted him, her voice surprisingly gentle, "My sister mentions you sometime, while her boy friend talks about you a bit more since you were his coach. That is why I am able to fit everything together when I saw you at the funeral."
He had cried many times since the day the doctors told him that she might never wake up again, but this was different. He had forced himself to only weep when he was alone by focusing on his tennis- then on being merry with his students to prevent these tears from falling, This was his way of evading the truth, by refusing to cry in front of anyone else, as that meant he has really given up and lose all hope.
Tanako Aizuki did not touch him at all, although her fingers almost brushed across his as she handed him his glass. Later on, as he lied in his empty apartment, he would suddenly recall that water had replaced the original context.
She didn't say anything either, she just let him kept on crying.
And that was what he needed the most.
Author's Note: As always, if you like it them please leave me a review. Also, if you would like me to write more then please tell me. I'll still put it up but I'll feel so much happier if I have a review. So that is that, Shiraishi and some of the members of the Shitenhouji tennis team will be making a guest appearance in the next chapter.
I don't know why but I can see Watanabe and Hanamura sort of knowing each other.
By the way if any one is interested, Ashita and Aizuki's last name, Tanako, is 棚子 in Kanji, while Ashita's name is 明日, while Aizuki's name is 愛月. I don't know whether their last name have any particular meaning but Ashita's name literally means tomorrow, while Aizuki's name means love and moon.
Please keep on reading!