Chapter One
Springtime. A new curricular year dawning, and one that I did not know if I looked much forward to. Too much had changed, too much had been lost or forsaken; the leaves falling off the cherry trees and gently, delicately swirling to the ground on the light breeze held a whole different meaning to me now. It was not so much the beginning of a new season as it was the end of an old era.
Haaa . . . A deep sigh escaped me as I leaned on the railing on the back staircase of our wing. I hardly even noticed when the wind caught my hair—maybe because I had just had it cut short again.
"Aizawa?"
I started. "You scared me," I said accusatorily on the exhale. Turned around to face him. Amazing what a couple years could do for a person; he had grown up to be quite the young man since I first came to know him at Seisyu High.
"Lecture's about to start," Hamaya informed, resting his elbows on the railing on my left side. A sigh escaped him as well, but one quite unlike my own. "Don't you just love it when the cherry trees blossom? The air feels so fresh, so . . . promising."
I could not help but snort. "I don't see much promise in the new year, I'm afraid."
Hamaya turned around and gave me a long, quizzical look. "Are you okay?"
Instead of replying—which I did not feel like at the time—I headed for the door. "Better get going, can't miss the start of our new lives."
I could feel his gaze burning a hole in my sweater, but even though he must have been equally burning to press the issue, he decided to let it go and followed me inside.
It had only been a week since we all embarked for college, but we were already settling in to our new lives at Nippon Sports Science University in Setagaya, Tokyo. Many of the guys from the team at Seisyu had applied for and been accepted to NSSU, Imai being the first and a year later followed by us. Even though I had played on the women's basketball team for almost two years in high school, I still considered myself a member of the men's team. They had been my family back in freshman year, always being there, supporting me—no matter what. Living in the dorm had helped a lot with becoming a family with the other guys, and that's why I had chosen to live in the university dormitory rather than staying at home with Dad.
Hamaya and I were in the same class, majoring in Athletic Sports, a program that would teach us how to become professional athletes or athletic trainers. For me there had not been any hesitation as to what educational program to apply for; I knew I wanted to work in athletics, and if I could not become a professional basketball player I could at least train others. Most of our old team mates were enrolled in NSSU, studying sports medicine, management, or education, and when classes were done for the day we played together in the Basketball Club—a team again.
Yes, I was back to being a boy again.
I had my reasons.
Being in a different place, among different people, felt good. I could move forwards now, forget about the past and just . . . go on living my life. There was nothing back there that I wanted to remember, nothing that I wanted to keep in my beaten, battered heart. There was no fight left in me—I just wanted to be able to breathe painlessly again. To inhale the spring air and sigh it back out in that same content fashion that I had watched Hamaya do. But life is not that easy on you. You have to survive on your own.
The lecture passed slowly, in a kind of fog that obscured my thoughts and made it hard for me to take notes. Our teacher's words went straight over my head, but I could not find it within myself to care. Things would work out, eventually. I just needed some time.
Some time.
Shorty!
A needle fine dagger pierced my chest, straight through the breastbone and into the heart. For a second or two I was unable to breathe, unable to blink. That voice still caught my full attention and took a hold of my entire being, effectively forcing me to turn around and walking towards it, as if the person it belonged to was standing right behind me, once more opening his arms to me. But the rows behind us were already empty.
"Aizawa?" For the second time that day, Hamaya's voice broke through my daydreaming state of mind and ruthlessly pulled me back into reality. There was a note of worry in it now, and I forced myself to squeeze out a tiny smile to disarm it. "Yeah, I'm coming."
We went out of the building, into the mild April breeze, to make out way to the cafeteria. "You know," Hamaya said with a wistful note in his voice, "just a couple months ago I never thought I'd graduate and go to college—never thought I had what it takes, even though I got the scholarship and everything—but now that we're actually here, I kinda feel . . . at home, you know?" He smiled down at me, and his genuine gaiety was so infectious I found myself smiling back at him.
"Yeah, it's not bad," I admitted, feeling a little better. Maybe this year would not be that bad anyway. Maybe it would have more to offer than I had originally thought.
"It's just too bad we can't all be here," Hamaya went on, and my momentary calm was once more shattered, because I knew what he was going to say next—and I did not want to hear it. "I wish that Chiha—"
"Hey, let's hurry before all the yakosibapan is sold out, ne?" I cut in desperately, grabbing his arm and pulling him towards the cafeteria building by the sleeve.
For a moment he just blinked down at me sheepishly, but then he shook the bafflement out of his head and gave a quick nod. "All right."
Ten minutes later we were sitting on a bench in the courtyard, silently eating our lunch. Yakisobapan had always been a favorite of mine, but that particular day I could not even taste the fried noodles in the freshly baked bread. A week. I could not even go a week before getting all depressed? Was that the best I could do? Hadn't I decided that I would go away to college with an open mind and not let the past screw up my new life?
Anger at my own weakness began to boil inside me, until it finally erupted from me like lava from a volcano and I shot up from my seat with my left arm raised high above my head, bread in hand and face flushed with a new determination. "I will fudging live happily and do whatever I please—just watch me!" I declared passionately to the ghost of my past self that I was facing in my fancy.
A loud, violent burst of laughter woke me from my daydream and made me stiffen warily. Uh oh, I did it again, didn't I? Burning with embarrassment, I turned around and found Yura lying in the grass behind our bench, hidden by a bush save for the shins and feet. Neither Hamaya nor me had noticed him there when we sat down, and the shady bastard had probably loved that perfect opportunity to eavesdrop. He thrived on listening in on people when they least expected it. . . .
"Why, you—!" Acting on a dangerous impulse, I threw myself down on top of him and started shaking him by the collar of his shirt. "How dare you eavesdropping on me again?!"
People stopped to stare at us, whispering to each other, but I did not give a damn.
Yura just kept laughing, holding his left hand to his stomach. "Oh my god, you're killing me, Kyo!" he wheezed between hoots. "'Fudging!' Hahaha, awesome! How did I ever manage an entire holiday without you around!?"
"Shut – UP!" I warned him with my face only inches from his, tightening my grip on his shirt collar for emphasis.
"Or what. you'll 'fudge' me up?" Yura managed to get out before he completely imploded on himself again. Against better knowledge, I felt the corners of my mouth twitching. I could not help it—he just looked so hilarious lying there, pinned down and dying of laughter, all red in the face and his stomach muscles cramping against my thighs. . . .
Then all of a sudden he just stopped and became all seriousness. "You know, it kinda gets me going having you straddling me so casually," he said, and his words were like a slap to the face.
I looked down and noticed that I was indeed straddling him, and I imagined I could feel something twitching to life under my butt. Yes, I could distinctly feel something poking against me once, then again with slightly more force, and a third time turning into a permanent pressure as blood evidently pulsed into his nether regions.
"Waaaah!" I flew up from him in shock, unsure of what to do or how to behave. How did a girl behave after feeling a guy stiffen under her? No, wait . . . I was a guy now. So, how did a guy react to another dude getting all turned on by him? Because people were staring and apparently expecting some sort of reaction, I just could not for my life figure out what it was or how I should get myself out of this situation—my head was reeling from the experience. I had never felt a guy's . . . that before—what was I to do?!
"Oh my lord, Aizawa and Yura . . . Aizawa and Yura . . ." Hamaya was chanting on the bench, in a worse state of shock than my own.
This situation was swiftly turning into something bigger than I could handle, and in a moment of thoughtless impulse I grabbed Yura's hand and pulled him up from the ground. Even though my cheeks flushed a hot red when I got a fleeting glance of a sausage-shaped bulge along the inside of his left thigh, I dragged him away from the courtyard to someplace quieter, more discreet.
When we were finally out of sight of all those staring people, I exhaled a huge sigh of relief and began to calm down somewhat. What a day. . . .
I could feel Yura stepping in closer before he even spoke, his low voice right next to my ear. "If you wanted to get me alone, all you needed to do was say so," he told me sincerely.
I shrugged away from him before he could touch me. "Yura, please. . . . I just wanted to get away from them all. Okay?"
He nodded. "Sure."
I relaxed. Nodded myself. "Good." I had forgotten how easy it was to be with him. No expectations, no tension, no judgment. It was so refreshing, feeling like I could be myself with him without having to worry about how he would interpret my words or my actions like every other guy seemed to do. Well, every other guy who knew my secret, that is.
We were standing in an archway between two buildings on campus, far enough away from the courtyard to make what had just transpired between us seem like the foggy memory of a dream. I leaned back against a pillar and looked down the archway, allowing myself to get lost in my thoughts again.
"Do you regret it?" he asked all of a sudden.
I looked back at him again. "Regret what?" I asked against better judgment and hardly had time to regret my question before he answered it for me.
"Letting him go."
I flinched.
A basketball falls to the ground with a hollow thud, bounced off the blacktop a couple times and then rolls away into the distance. The air is suddenly completely still, all sounds of the town around us drowned out by the earsplitting, deafening pounding of my heart. My throat goes dry and I am finding it hard to get a single word out, even though a million questions are jostling inside my head, each of them hitting the inside of my skull as though shot from a gun. Throbbing pain is spreading across my skull, but also from the center of my chest, blossoming towards every extremity as if a tree is opening out its crown, its limbs naked and sharply edged. I can do nothing but stare at him, not wanting to believe what he has just said, because believing will mean the end of my existence as I know it.
"Aizawa?"
I close my eyes. Close him out. Suddenly I can't even take looking into his eyes anymore, even though I know I should love gazing deep into his eyes. For almost three years I have loved gazing into those eyes and fancied myself knowing what's been hiding behind them. But boy, was I wrong. . . .
"Aizawa, please say something. . . ."
A trembling starts in my fingers and swiftly travels up my arms to my shoulders, where it finds support and takes a firm grip on me. Slowly I become aware that I'm shaking my head violently.
"Aizawa, I'm sorry, I . . . I didn't mean to . . . hurt you, or anything, I . . ." He stops. Sighs. Then he starts anew. "I never thought I'd ever get a chance like this, 'coz this just doesn't happen, you know? I had no idea that scout was there during the finals, didn't know he'd offer me this position. But Aizawa, this is the greatest opportunity I'll ever get in my life—the only opportunity I'll ever get. And I just have to take it. Don't you see?"
Oh yes, I see it all right. Right here and now I can see everything more clearly than I ever have before, and our whole life together is suddenly shown to me in a completely different light. A defeated chuckle escapes me. "Still unable to call me by my name, huh—Chiharu?"
He is silent for a long while.
I save him some trouble and force out a smile. Not a bitter smile, not a sad smile—oh no, I am not going to give him the satisfaction of seeing what he has just done to me—but a radiant, understanding smile. Playing the good girlfriend who knows she must do the right thing for her man. "I'm happy for you. I'll cheer you on, okay? So make sure you kick some ass over there, okay?"
He hesitates, not knowing how to interpret my sudden calm. "Uhm, okay. . . ."
I manage to laugh and give him a friendly punch on the arm. "Cheer up. You've just got a ticket to the NBA, right?"
An uncertain smile tries to get a hold on his facial muscles, but it does not quite win over his wariness. "But will you . . . will you be okay?" he finally asks.
"Sure. Of course. I'm fine—really."
Inside I am slowly but successively breaking apart. But I do what I have to do and give him a last pat on the shoulder. "Good luck." I have to keep it together, I just have to, just a few seconds longer. "Good bye, Eniwa."
Because the right thing to do is let him go.
The memory stabbed a new hole in my already leaking heart. Pretty soon the ship would sink, and there would be nothing left of me, unless I found a way to live with the pain. To survive . . . him.
I felt a hand on my shoulder and started. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to open up old wounds," Yura said sympathetically.
A small chuckle escaped me. "Not so old," I whispered, hardly with enough energy to make myself heard.
But he heard. Without hesitating or first considering the social implications of his action, he put his arms around me and pulled me into a compassionate, caring embrace. I allowed myself to be held and even to let the warmth of his body console me. It was nice to feel close to someone again, even if it was just a friend.
"You know, I would never leave you if I was the guy you had chosen," Yura suddenly said with that same sincere, low matter-of-fact tone of voice.
I stiffened a little in his arms, but he held me firmly.
"If you chose me, Kyo, I would never hurt you," he continued, and my heart began to beat with apprehension as it dawned on me what he was about to say. "So please, choose me."
A/N: This is my first Power!/Girl Got Game fanfic, so please let me know what you think by reviewing. =) I recently re-read the entire manga and when I reached the end this idea sprang to mind because I always wanted to know what happened next - and because I always liked Yura a lot. XP I am also working on a cover pic, so hopefully I'll get that up soon, as well as a second chapter. /Pipe.