Disclaimer: I do not own Slam Dunk; Takehiko Inoue does.

Party at my place, he said, to which I just nodded back. To my surprise two days later, I found myself standing in front of Mitsui residence. No sooner than I could pound my fist against the front door did it swing open for me to be greeted by sempai's grinning face.

The entire team was present, including some of sempai and Sakuragi's classmates. I must have downed a total of a glassful of brandy when the alcohol's urgent influence began to manifest itself in the form of my vision doing some acrobatics I never had thought it could do.

'You alright, Rukawa?' I felt a palm on my left shoulder. It was Mitsui-sempai, of all people. 'You can invade my room if you have to, but only for tonight.' He continued and winked at me shrewdly, apparently noticing what power alcohol had over me.

I had never been to anyone else's room aside from my parents' and relatives'. Sempai's was rather disorganized although the sheets and pillowcases were clean. When I collapsed in his bed the pleasant smell of fabric conditioner fluttered all around me. I didn't really feel like sleeping but the sudden drop in the temperature and the soft drizzle outside invited sleep and sleep only, if nothing else. And yes, all the more reason for me to fall into a deep slumber.

I awoke when the scattered sounds of objects being clumsily run over assaulted the peace there was in the room. Someone had entered, apparently too drunk to locate the switch, which resulted to sempai's things being thrown around. I could make out the silhouette against the faint moonlight, and from what my eyes could tell he had a sculpted built and was almost as tall as me.

It was Mitsui-sempai.

He laid his body beside mine with what little space there was to occupy. The first thing I took note of was his breath; it reeked of vodka. To add on that, his shirt smelled as though someone had mistaken it for nachos and dipped it in a bowl of salsa. In his nearness, I could feel his breath against my face. Hence I held myself with restraint and just laid there, watching him.

To my convenience, or perhaps inconvenience, the clouds outside danced so that fingers of moonlight touched his face. I was almost too startled to find his sleepy eyes staring straight at me. It, however, occurred to me that they weren't fully awake.

As it was seemingly inescapable, so absurd yet so sensible all the same, for nothing else logical would've taken place and nothing less bizarre was likely to happen, we kissed. To my quiet astonishment we went on staring at each other after that until his consciousness resigned to oblivion. I had expected that what took place would occasion me so much difficulty in sleeping so I didn't bother to close my eyes. However, falling asleep at that moment presented no serious challenge at all, for as soon as I heard sempai's snores, I fell into a deep sleep.

I left in the morning when I had gathered enough composure to walk a few blocks home. The day after that would find me in Shohoku's gym along with my teammates, burning fats off our asses in preparation for the Nationals.

So I'd see him again. Big deal. An hour might have passed away without me noticing it when I finally realized I was repeating the same sentence in my head since I first spoke it. Big deal for me I guessed. I hoped not for him.

I arrived with the same air as I had always done; completely unnoticeable. I chose not to stray my eyes in his direction. Unfortunately for me, my eyes were as manageable as it was easy to maneuver one's actions in a straightjacket. To my relief and for the most part disappointment, our eyes never met, which went to say he didn't look at me throughout practice. Not even accidentally. Now, I could tell what was going on here; he was binding me into some sort of trick where I would have to play the fool and he was to be the hard-to-get catch. Luckily for me, I could go on with this stupid pretense, which he'd like to call a game, for decades and not crack a smile for the hilarity of it all.

Let's bring it on.

As was common among boys of my age, booze was finding it hard to miss me. All these senseless revelries for petty causes proved to be nothing more than lame excuses to get stoned, or some other more or less recondite reason. But again there I was, ringing the doorbell of Miyagi residence, on time again for the week's party in celebration of the redhead's jump shots. I must also add that my alcohol tolerance had gone from pitiable to eerily strong.

Miyagi sempai welcomed me and led me inside. I could see Mitsui sempai surrounded by his friends who were too attentive to his pals' chattering to notice that the microwave beside them was smoking red and burned popcorn stench was engulfing them into suffocation.

I attended for myself, for no one was willing enough to engage me in a non-awkward conversation, unless you count the girls who went up to me only to stutter for 30 seconds before actually succeeding in pronouncing my surname. Among other things, if I could spot the fun between the guntai's hysterical laughter and Kogure sempai's eardrum-splitting attempt to hit the high score in karaoke, perhaps I could hang around for a minute more and not aid in taking the ridiculousness to a higher level.

But I stayed up at Mitsui sempai's house until morning; I even spent the night there. So what was it that delayed my supposed early departure? Booze. And so it was only natural for me to find my way to the fridge. Halfway there, I felt a tap on my shoulder. Before I could turn to look, a can of Colt 45 was holding itself up my face, begging me to take it. Drink me, it beckoned. It was Mitsui sempai. Again.

I managed to say thanks before I grabbed the accursed object and immediately made my way to the backdoor. Easy escape. I sat on the back porch, wanting nothing but get dizzy drunk for some reason I still couldn't accept to myself. But before I could begin to study my situation in a wordless absorption or in any way I would have preferred, a pair of legs sticking out the window caught my attention. Who the fuck would think it more convenient to stick his ass first instead of his head in wanting to get the fuck out the house? Moreover, he could've used his fucking head so he wouldn't have to land ass-first on the fucking foliage. Without a question, that someone would have to be drunk. And that someone happened to be Mitsui sempai.

"Hello" he waved at me with the accompaniment of an idiotic grin, to which I would have openly laughed at if my name wasn't Rukawa Kaede.

"Hn." I just nodded, which was nothing more than an acknowledgement of his presence; nothing more to it like wanting him out of the scene or the opposite of it.

"Wassup, Kaede?"

"Not much."

He clumsily made his way beside me. As circumstances decreed, it might have been a more pleasant sight had he instead deliberately and literally tried to plant his face on the steps, because before he managed to take his second step he had lost balance and landed face down, nourishing the ground with his saliva. I wouldn't be surprised if seedlings started to sprout off the ground. And as if nothing idiotic had just occurred, he stood up and zigzagged his way towards me. Senselessness had obviously infiltrated him altogether; I was sure about that. But I was also quite sure that people get more guts from alcohol, therefore it would be safe to assume that while intoxicated, we could perform actions that we would not normally execute when sober or under normal premises…it was either that or I was giving too much meaning to a kiss amid a drunken spree. It was, so it seemed, meaning too vaguely founded to lay my hopes on; the type which one wouldn't even think of jotting down on his diary in fear of reading it in the future only to remind him how much of desperate he was.

"Sempai" I just had to say something.

"Yes?"

"You're not gonna get any"

"…" It was as if he had momentarily snapped out of booze. He shot me a questioning look.

"…"

"What is it, Kaede? More beer?"

"…" I sighed in relief…and in disappointment.

"What is it?"

"Yeah, more beer."

He handed me his half empty can, which I tossed at the nearest trash bin without him noticing.

It had indeed crossed my mind that he was not in the condition to remember the episode in his room. As I recounted our brief encounters after that, during practice sessions, and at school corridors, I realized nothing more could have fallen at the right place than the fact that he sincerely couldn't remember anything at all. Now, where the fuck did I wander off and pick up some silly little toys I'd like to call delusions to play with them until now? Of course, he wouldn't have the wit to remember, for fuck's sake! Unless for some comic reason, despite having downed at least half a liter of vodka, he managed to pretend being drunken stoned.

What the fuck.

Out of nowhere I felt a menacing urge to prove something right then and there. I wasn't in the mood to prolong this game nor did I have the patience to pretend that all was faring well for me. Heavens bless me for what I was about to do.

I pulled him closer by the neck and kissed him. It was the kind of kiss that would, under such circumstance where the kisser happened to be NOT me and the receiver wasn't Hisashi Mitsui, put me off my food.

So there, sempai, the oh-so icy and passive Kaede Rukawa had just robbed you of your second kiss, not that it was something precious to lose.

But he didn't resist, rather he couldn't. He wasn't even moving, perhaps too embraced by the reality of the entire body-heat trade. I disentangled myself from him to learn that the alcohol had knocked him out already—whether halfway through the saliva exchange or even before our lips touched, I couldn't tell.

I left him lying there and treaded my way home, scowling at the world as it went by.

If he persevered to act as though nothing bizarre was there staring right at us straight in the face, then whatever. I wouldn't suffer to think about it anymore than he did.

Apparently, after everything and anything in between, life was still the same. The world just moved on while I was the only one left and the worst part of it was, it didn't even bother to look back or, better yet, pick me up. He just went on being himself without care for whomever he had stepped on. Therefore, as the half-dead hope presented itself, the very fair expression of the odds against that little inkling which implied sempai was somehow aware of what we had shared, I chose to let bygones be fucking bygones.

There were times when serious interruptions of thoughts of him would draw deep sighs from me, but not for long. After a few days I would still recall details of that kiss, though not with disturbance. He was drunk and so was I. It might have had less meaning than I had earlier allowed, rather led myself to believe.

And it didn't cost me much hesitation or thinking in accepting Ayako sempai's invitation to her upcoming birthday. I vowed never to drink alcohol again, but before I could complete this pact I made with myself, Ayako sempai told me that she wouldn't serve any alcoholic drink. Nothing called for an explanation; we weren't supposed to be drinking in the first place.

I never understood why I continued attending parties when it was no different for me if I had just stayed in my room and talked to the ceiling. If the amount of social interaction I had with the pieces of furniture in whomever's house they were holding the party was the same as the amount I had with the people in there, I would have made it to politics before I get to my sophomore year. But what was the point this time when we weren't allowed to sip a droplet of booze at all? I just sat there, not really waiting for anyone to come up to me. Honestly, I was just waiting for the clock to hit a later figure to grant me the ever so famous excuse, 'it's way past my bedtime'.

I hadn't spotted sempai until around 10 in the evening when I was at the point of retiring from wondering if he even came in the first place. And then he himself made the effort to tell me that he actually existed.

"Hi" he said as he sat himself beside me. The feeling was almost unrecognizable; being that close to him outside the basketball court in his sober state.

Nod.

"Uhm, would you like a soda? That's all we have here, Ayako-"

"I know; NO alcohol."

"Okay"

The silence ensued, almost reaching infinity, when I chose to be our savior from drowning in this ocean of awkwardness.

"I have to go."

He just stared at me, not with disappointment or, that which I was so used to receiving, the what-a-joykiller look. There was a pleasant look of surprise about the stare and I couldn't exactly tell if he was okay with me leaving so early.

I turned to my heels, not expecting anything to prevent my departure when, unpredictably, he made an offer,

"I'll see you off the gate."

That would have rooted my feet on the ground for 3 solid minutes if only I was not wholly relieved of his spells. I managed to give him a nod in response.

"I can take it from here." I assured him when we reached the gate. It was, if nothing else, a form of dismissal, actually, and if it were vocally translated to my language it would've screamed 'I'm over you so go away'.

"…"

So I made a motion to signal that I was to brave the dimly-lit streets whether he liked it or not. It was then so much easier to turn my back on him, perhaps because he was watching.

"Wait"

"…"

"…"

"What now, Sempai?"

The silence was startling. If the cicadas could just cut it with their wings I could've clearly heard the man on the moon singing his song. This time he was looking at me in a different way. It didn't seem like he was waiting for something to happen, because the mood he had invited said it all; there was something he had to say, so what was to happen should be triggered by him alone.

"Well," He swallowed the lump in his throat as if he was to ask a huge favor. He then continued, "Aren't you gonna kiss me?"

Sobriety definitely has its advantages.

-END-