The People Who Live in the Iceberg
By: dualitas
Distance is more a product of the mind than a physical unit. All it takes is a combined effort of two minds, and it can be traversed. This was what Kuroko believed, so deeply ingrained in him it was carved into his heart like an Egyptian hieroglyph. Is it any surprise to anyone? Kuroko, after all, holds friendships close to him, as though they are extensions from his being. Hence when Kagami tells him at the end of their senior year in high school, "I'm going back to America once I graduate," there is barely a flicker of an eyelid.
"Oh, I see," he says. Flipping a page of the book he is reading, he then goes on, "Please send me a postcard once you land in Chicago."
"It's Los Angeles!" Kagami retorts. "Geez — can't you pay attention to me when I'm talking, bastard!"
Kuroko smiles. (Inside, he quashes down a twinge. A timer is set. Inevitably, there will come a time when his teasing will begin to end.)
Perhaps I could text him my insults? he thinks, idly fiddling with the corners of his book.
Postcard No. 1 is indeed of Los Angeles. The scene is a generic city skyline — it could've been London or Singapore or even just Tokyo, Kuroko thinks — except for the curly print of 'Los Angeles' in neon colours smack across the card. It is unoriginal and artificial and everything he hates in something so personal as a letter. But precisely because the postcard is so thoughtless, he can't let it go. The postcard is all Kagami-kun.
Yo, says the messy scrawl on the back, heres the damn postcard you wanted! — Kagami
It is obvious to Kuroko: Kagami took the first postcard he saw in the airport. No matter how little effort was put into obtaining the postcard though, Kuroko accepts it. Postcards and letters are things with special significance, physical reminders of the people who send them. Ah, Kuroko thinks as he looks at the postcard, Kagami-kun remembers me. As he is prone to do, Kuroko sighs. That breath doesn't mean anything, he says to himself, tucking the postcard carefully into his drawer.
The self-denial is lost on Kuroko, as he corrects the poorly written postcard with an apostrophe.
The long gap between Postcard No. 1 and the others is predictable, if not entirely expected. In between, Kuroko sends one text message.
Hello, Kagami-kun. How is L.A.? I hope you are paying attention in class. The other day I had to kick Aomine-kun awake. Ah — by the way. He misses you. I can tell, even if he doesn't say it. Along with the text, Kuroko sends a picture of Aomine (and Momoi) in front of their university. The text is short, concise, tells an interesting snippet of his life, and keeps to the postcard format (a short message plus a picture). As he types it out though, thoughts run through his head. Another, longer version of this text.
Kagami-kun. Is everything okay in L.A.? I hope you're happy. Do you miss us here in Tokyo? Do you think of us? How's your basketball?
Have you found a new partner?
You must be having fun getting beaten by the Americans. They're good. Don't forget though — you beat the Generation of Miracles. Once you've beaten them, you can beat anyone. We beat them together. Remember?
That text says more things than it really tells. Words remain unspoken, buried under question marks and vague statements. Have you found a new partner? Am I replaceable? We beat them together, remember? The Generation of Miracles will remain in your memories as insurmountable opponents you overcame, but remember as well — I was there with you too.
In the end, Kuroko sends the first text because it's just easier. He's always been better at conveying things for others.
"Oi, Tetsu," says Aomine one day after class. "Have you heard from the idiot?"
"Kagami-kun? No, not recently."
"Dumbass sent me a postcard. Look."
Kuroko takes the postcard Aomine holds out, and looks at it. It is as generic as the one he received. On the back and barely intelligible reads, Kuroko wanted a postcard so I thought you might've wanted one too. The Americans here are a much better challenge than you ever were, hah! Inside Kuroko, there is a tug, a twitch, a rearrangement of his organs. But all he does is exhale, quietly.
"I kinda want to fly over there and wipe the floor with his ass right now," Aomine says, an eyebrow twitching as he takes back the postcard.
"You should. Kagami-kun might be getting too big-headed."
"Right?!"
"Almost as big-headed as you were before we beat you."
Aomine gives a start. "Oi!"
Ogiwara pokes his head between them right before things start to get bloody. "Hey guys," he chirps. "Let's go play basketball now!"
"Hmph. You sure you guys wanna take me on?" Eyes narrowing, Aomine smirks.
"Of course! Just both of us is enough." Ogiwara places a hand on Kuroko's shoulder, and smiles. "I'll be your partner, okay, Tetsuya?"
There is a multitude of expressions Kuroko considers to arrange his face, but in the end, he settles on the easiest one. He returns his smile.
They play round after round until the skies darken and Ogiwara starts complaining of his hunger. Walking to Maji Burger together, Aomine gloats throughout the journey. "Seriously guys," he says, spinning a basketball on one finger, "fifteen consecutive losses is just too embarrassing, don'tcha think? I'm pretty sure I could've gone up to twenty if we'd played longer."
"No you wouldn't've," Ogiwara retorts. "We gave you a pretty hard time during some of your offensive plays. You're just too reckless." They buy burgers and Kuroko a vanilla shake, then sit at a table. Munching a burger thoughtfully, Ogiwara muses, "But maybe we do need to find someone else to play with …"
"Yes, please do," groans Aomine with his mouth full. "Otherwise I'm gonna get bored."
Kuroko stays silent, sipping his vanilla shake. After the meal, Ogiwara and Kuroko split the bill between them ("Didn't bring my wallet," Aomine shrugs. "And anyway, you gotta give me some sort of compensation for losing so badly, right?") and they say goodbye, heading back to their respective houses through the warm, slightly humid streets of Tokyo. That night, Kuroko dreams that he sent the other, longer text instead of the first one. Night has that ability to drag out things you'd rather shove away from sight. When he wakes, though, the outcome is the same. He never receives a reply.
Which would have been the better text? Kuroko doesn't know, and there is nothing he can do about it now. Words are as irreversible as they are valuable. Especially when it comes to the people you care about.
Postcards No. 2, 3, and 4 come in rapid succession several months after that first one. No. 2 is a picture of the giant Hollywood sign, No. 3 is of the Golden Gate Bridge and No. 4 is of Death Valley National Park. The reason for such a surge in volume is obvious: Aomine has flown over to Los Angeles on a basketball tournament trip. Extending his stay, Aomine drags Kagami to all these spots with fervent zeal.
"I told Dai-chan I'd cook for him if he sent me postcards!" Momoi giggles, looking at each of her postcards. Then her face falls and she pouts. "He told me that he'd send me postcards if I didn't cook for him."
"Aomine-kun is a clueless idiot," says Kuroko reassuringly. He looks at the postcards Kagami sent him. No. 2 says, Bastard said he'd shave my head bald if I didn't send this so here, Kuroko, No. 3 says, This bridge is pretty famous for some reason, and No. 4, Death Valley is an awesome name, isn't it?
"Before he went, Dai-chan said he'd make Kagamin send them too," Momoi says, making Kuroko look up. "He said Kagamin was getting too complacent over in the States and that he should start making him do some work."
"I see." Kuroko looks down again, avoiding Momoi's careful gaze.
"Ah!" Momoi starts, glancing at her watch. "You have to go down to the basketball court soon. You're meeting Ogiwara-kun and Matsuda-kun for basketball at five, right?"
Matsuda is from Ogiwara and Kuroko's mathematics class. Though he is Tokyo-born, he lived in Paris for most of his life. Basketball is very fun over there! he said when he first met Kuroko and Ogiwara, So when I came back to Tokyo for my final year of high school, I was a little depressed. Then I met a bunch of really passionate basketballers and I started to love basketball all over again!
Matsuda isn't very tall (only barely taller than Kuroko), but when he plays basketball, his eyes light up with an animalistic glint Kuroko rarely sees in anyone. The last time Kuroko saw that glint, it had been during the basketball match the day before Kagami flew to L.A. Since that day, he couldn't stop himself from searching for that glint in every subsequent game.
This will be the third match he plays with Matsuda. Walking down to the court, he sees Aomine and Ogiwara exchanging barbs with Matsuda.
"So I heard you're pretty alright in basketball," says Aomine to Matsuda, smirking.
"And I heard you were so good that people were calling you a miracle," Matsuda replies with a grin. "They're kidding about the 'miracle' part, right?"
"No, people really did call them the Miracles," Ogiwara pipes up. "Cheesy, isn't it?'
"I'll hear your insults only if you can beat me! Come on, Tetsu, hurry up! We're waiting!"
They start playing, but merely ten minutes into the game and Aomine already has the upper hand. Panting, Kuroko feels a hand on his shoulder and looks up to see Ogiwara, his eyes concerned. "Are you alright, Tetsuya? Your passes aren't connecting."
"I'm fine." Kuroko lifts his collar, wiping sweat from his brow.
"Eh…sorry, Kuroko," Matsuda speaks up, rubbing his neck with a hand. "I'm just not quick enough to catch your passes. They're insanely fast. And strong."
"You gotta slow down if you want Matsuda to catch them," says Aomine. There is a frown on his face and his voice is strange, like he is carefully adjusting his tone with a remote control. A few beats of silence pass; Kuroko does not miss Ogiwara and Aomine exchanging glances.
Then Ogiwara says, "He's not Kagami."
Silence, again; Kuroko's heart is beating a ruckus inside. Finally, Matsuda breaks the silence, "Who's Kagami?"
"A dumbass," Aomine says automatically, and Ogiwara releases a chortle that ends up becoming full-blown laughter. The cheerful sounds break the previous strained atmosphere, and Aomine continues spouting out insults with Ogiwara's laughter becoming louder with each one.
Within Kuroko, however, Matsuda's simple question triggers something. All of a sudden, he realises — has he ever considered the role Kagami played in his life? He remembers countless nights after his Teikou graduation when he pondered on Aomine, Kise, Midorima, Akashi, Murasakibara and what he would do now that they were gone from his life. In the end, Kuroko interjects the sniggering trio, "Kagami-kun was my partner. We played basketball very well together."
"They played amazingly together!" Ogiwara proceeds to tell Matsuda a blow-by-blow account of the Winter Cup finals.
After that brief interlude, they continue playing basketball. Then they head to Maji Burger, as is their customary routine. "Damn, the burgers here are just awesome!" Matsuda says, stuffing two into his mouth.
"You say that every single time we come here," Ogiwara groans.
"The vanilla shake Tetsu's drinking is also the best," agrees Aomine enthusiastically. Kuroko doesn't join in. His mind has somehow gone empty and all he can hear is a strange buzzing noise, like static on a radio, or zigzag lines on a TV.
It is only later that night that something fills his mind, and he remembers Matsuda's question. Lying face up on his bed, Kuroko lays an arm over his forehead, then is finally able to arrange the words in his mind, frame a proper description of Kagami. He brought meaning to my basketball during a time when life had no meaning to me. He gave me the power to control the chaos in my life when it felt like all there is was chaos. He knocked down obstacles when obstacles were all I saw in front of me.
The right words never come until it's too late.
Imagine this: Say you depended on your best friend to discover any meaning in your life. Say your best friend had to go far away. Say you had to let him go because it's his life and you have no right to interfere. Now here's a paradox: Let's say, in order to keep in touch, you ask him to send you texts, Skype calls, emails, postcards. But at the same time, you know he won't do it. It is against his nature. Say you want him to do it anyway, even though to force him to do it is to change him, and to change him is the very last thing you want to do. Say you don't want him to change, but you know he will, because change is inevitable when there is distance between you. My question is: Is it so wrong to want two things at once, even if it is impossible to achieve both simultaneously? All I want to do is keep my best friend. The only possible solution for this paradox that I can see, is for my best friend not to go away at all.
His final exams fast approaching, Kuroko spends entire days in the library. He doesn't know how much time has passed since his graduation from high school, but then again, do you usually keep track? In the distant future, it is only when you're brewing coffee and reading the headlines of a newspaper, then the thought strikes. You consider: what have I been doing all this while? How much time has already gone by, without any thought put into the weight of each second? Time, alas, is invisible when you most want it to be visible.
But that is a story for another day; now a different story takes place. Browsing the shelves for suitable reference books, Kuroko chances upon a book. It is so small it could hardly consider itself a book or a novel — perhaps it is less than a novella and more than a poem. Regardless, Kuroko is sucked in right away.
It starts like this: Sometime long ago in the past, there exists Somewhere, in a secluded area of this world. This Somewhere is an iceberg in the shape of a perfect sphere. The temperatures of this iceberg run extremely low — lower than even the coldest area of the North Pole, or the farthest edges of the universe. Within this place, however, there are people. Humans like you and I. You may be thinking now, If the temperatures are so cold, how do these people survive?
They have a special property. Inside them is a core, not unlike the human heart. This core has a special kind of force. Like a magnet with opposite poles, the cores within these people are separated into two opposing forces. And these forces strongly attract one another, like a magnet's North pole is attracted to the South. It is this attraction which enables the people to survive.
There is a catch, however. Although it is true that there are two opposing forces, these forces are subtly different from one person to another. So one person's core is only ever strongly attracted to one other person, in that whole, giant iceberg sphere. Therefore, in order to survive, these people must find their Other, and live as a pair.
We call them The People Who Live in the Iceberg.
An obvious problem then arises, thinks Kuroko. What happens if you don't have an Other? Will you just die? He closes the book, places it back on the shelf.
There is another problem even more obvious than the one Kuroko points out: What happens if you had an Other, but that person goes away? The problem is not obvious because he had noticed a loophole in the book's premise — it is obvious because it is the premise of the book. The story's protagonist lives a happy, peaceful life within the Iceberg until one day, his Other disappears.
Kuroko doesn't know what happens to the protagonist — he never read till the end.
The day Kuroko realises that no postcards were going to come ever again is a clear, autumn day. The realisation comes upon him slow and stately, like a verse from a funeral march. He is making tea for himself, pouring milk into his porcelain cup with a small jug, the white stream swirling and melding, turning black tea into a delectable brown. By chance, he glances up, and his gaze snaps onto the letter slot (eight inches apart, two inches in width) in his door.
At times, what you expect is what you hope not to expect. Once reality meets expectations, the hope dies quietly, leaving behind a resigned sort of acceptance. This is exactly what happens to Kuroko on that day. He finishes his tea, collects his books, and walks to class, feeling the cold pinch of the autumn air more acutely than he normally would.
A postcard is perhaps directly correlated to memories. Kuroko thinks back to the first postcard he received and realises: that postcard was above all, a reassurance. Forget that simplistic one-to-one relationship that the postcard is merely a physical reminder — it told Kuroko that Kagami still thought of him. No more lies and self-delusions … when he sighed, Kuroko had been tremendously relieved.
"Oi, Kuroko!" Matsuda waves vigorously, dragging Ogiwara with him as he goes up to Kuroko. "Let's quickly get to class or we'll be late."
Kuroko smiles. They head off together, the three of them, and then they are soon joined by Aomine and Momoi. Matsuda can't be any more different from Kagami, but he is still a friend. Sometimes, that is enough.
You go on, telling yourself that you have fully accepted it: someone important has left your life. You ignore twinges, images that flare up during random moments of the day, reminding you of what you have lost. You throw yourself into your studies, eventually becoming one of the top 20 students in your cohort. You go on, telling yourself that you have fully accepted it: you have your old best friend, your older best friend and a new best friend. All of them are different but they are there, and you want to rip yourself to pieces for wishing for someone else to be there instead when you're so lucky to have them there with you already. Because what if —
You go on because no matter how empty the soul is, time inevitably fills the hollowness. It is near the end of his university career and Kuroko stands at the precipice of true adult responsibility. He starts going to careers fairs and filling out job applications. The only reminder of his high school days is the Winter Cup gold medal hanging in the corner of his closet. Dust gathers on top of it … once in a while though, Kuroko pulls it out and a ray of sunlight hits it, making the edges glint and the specks of dust scatter like shavings from a bright, flaming star.
And then, since a neverending series of fork roads is all life is, Kuroko thus reaches one. It happens on a day just like any other, as life institutes its misdirection on the misdirection expert himself.
"We want you to go to Los Angeles."
Kuroko stares at his university tutor, nonplussed. "I beg your pardon, sensei?"
His tutor adjusts his glasses, then steeples his fingers. "We're launching a joint study programme with UCLA for outstanding students in their senior year. Faculty-nominated students in our department will be given the opportunity to do their final semester in the States. I'm nominating you, Kuroko-kun."
Kuroko is silent, then his tutor comes right out and says the question ringing through his mind, "So will you accept this opportunity?"
— what if there was only one Other?
There are two possible ways this story ends. Kuroko feels free to choose either one, everything ahead is uncharted anyway.
Life is filled with choices, and the ones you make end up determining your happiness. Kuroko likes to think that whichever he chooses, he will still be happy.
1. When he first lands in L.A., he doesn't have to crane his head too much — Kagami's red hair stands out, and he is taller than he used to be, therefore towering over everyone in the airport. The first thing he does when he sees Kagami is poke him in the ribs. True to his memories, Kagami responds just as he predicts, "Oi! Bastard!"
Kuroko smiles, and it feels freer than it has ever felt for so long. "You deserve it, Kagami-kun, for forgetting to send me more postcards."
At times, what you expect is what you hope not to expect; an alternative to this is: at other times, what you expect is entirely what you hope to expect. The second outcome is just as sweet as the first is bitter.
2. Kuroko shakes his head at his tutor. "No thank you, sensei. I would like to decline this opportunity. I'd rather finish my studies in Japan."
When he leaves his tutor's office, he pauses just as he walks between two rows of beautiful cypress trees, blinking in surprise. The hollowness left behind by the lack of postcards from Kagami — he can barely feel it there.
Kuroko smiles; and yes, it is freer than it ever used to be. At times, what you expect is what you hope not to expect; another alternative to this is: at other times, what you hope not to expect is what you can expect to accept. The pain left behind from the acceptance, as with all things, eventually seeps into the flow of time, and disappears.
Note: Reviews and feedback would be lovely! =)