It is an all-too-common misconception that some men are born to greatness, that others have greatness thrust upon them, and that some men, for all their striving and good intentions, are simply born to mediocrity. This is, at best, a pervasive lie of culture, and at worst, a self-perpetuating excuse for inactivity and defeatism. No man is born great. One-hundred-and-eight billion humans have, across the course of our long and storied history, eked out existence on this lonely ball of molten rock and water. Every single one has been born in blood and placenta, and every single one has and will die, and return to dust. No man, no matter the circumstances of birth, nor their upbringing, is destined for anything more or less than any other. Fate, chance, and circumstance shape us all, from the lowliest slave, to the loftiest king, to the most obscenely wealthy billionaire, and this leads me to the unshakeable belief that all men are created equal. We are all at the mercy of the fates, but they ravage us the same, and therefore, regardless of our station, our only recourse is to do everything humanly possible to build our own destiny, before the inevitable scattering of brick and ash, and the inescapable embrace of death.
No man is born great. Some men, through the cunning of their mind, the sweat of their brow, and the mettle of their pasture, build greatness for themselves. Some men build their greatness into Kingdoms, Empires, and Dynasties, and exert their will and control over the fates of others. And yet, without exception, every Empire awaits a fall. Every great work, no matter how mighty or long-lasting, will eventually be scattered at the whim of the distant Divine. Therefore, it must be that only God is absolute.
Man proposes. God deposes. If man proposes, it is the nature of God to depose. And if God deposes, man must propose, lest they be swept away.
I truly believe this to be the world's one and only truth.
Akashi and I sit on opposite ends of the large, concave couch that is front-and-centre in Akashi's private box. There seems to be an understanding that all seats are fair game save for this one – this seat with the best view over the bustling arena below. Tip-Off isn't for another hour, but the building is still utterly packed with fans. To my surprise, there is a three-on-three half-court game taking place on the court below – six kids in Alvark jerseys who Akashi says have been randomly selected from the crowd, and who are being cheered on and refereed by the club's mascot. It's a nice touch, as it gives the early fans something to watch, and is a good way of keeping some of the kids occupied before the two teams take to the court. The players should be beginning their warm-up relatively soon, and even though I sit far above the main arena, I can feel the tension of anticipation in the and every person in the stands below me has come here to witness something incredible, and I would be very surprised if they were disappointed.
If Kise has noticed me at all, then I haven't heard anything, but he has found Kuroko, and the two of them are now stood leaning against the bar, Kise chattering excitedly away and Kuroko half-listening, half watching the rest of the room. Seeing them next to each other really highlights just how much Kuroko has are the same age, and yet Kise looks every bit the young, beautiful actor. Kuroko, on the other hand, looks to be well and truly into his middle age (it really is that ridiculous moustache that does it). Yet both share a common sparkle in their eyes and smiles that mirror each other's. It then strikes me that I have been entirely separated from my old teammates.
I have no idea what they have been up to. Of course, I know of their careers – I have seen enough kids wearing Murasakibara's Los Angeles jersey to know what happened to him. Kise is a semi-frequent feature on movie billboards, Aomine and Kagami were only ever going to play basketball, and Akashi... is Akashi. But I don't know anything else. I have no idea if Kuroko and Kise are smiling so much because they have met again for the first time in years, or because they have remained friends all this time and meet up frequently. I have no idea if Aomine and Kise still enjoy each other's company, if Akashi spends time with any of the old team outside of a business capacity, if Aomine and Momoi are still joined at the hip... I do not know these people anymore, and as much as I always saw myself as somewhat parallel to their convoluted social orbit, it is uncomfortable to not know.
However, all is not lost. Kuroko is with me, Kise is across the room, and Akashi is sat two feet from me on the same couch, sipping a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. The stars have aligned. This is what the universe has for me today, but what I make of the circumstances it up to me.
Man proposes. God deposes. And God has already deposed me.
"Akashi-san..."
His face as he turns to look at me is not cold, but there is displeasure there, somehow.
"Shintaro, your respect is patronising. You do not serve me, and I have already allowed you to look down on me. I will consider any further use of this honorific an insult to the affection that I bear you. I will accept kun,or my name. Anything else, I shall consider defiance. Do you understand?"
I lower my head.
"I understand... Akashi. I was going to ask you how you knew where to find me."
He turned to look back down at the court below, reaching for his glass.
"My income comes from, and travels through, a great many places; such is the business that I have created. A small portion of this income comes, on occasion, through Uoshin Nogizaka. I was informed the day you handed in your resume. From there... well, you ended up at Tetsuya's preferred Izakaya all by yourself, and..."
He takes a lazy, languid sip on his wine.
"It was the easiest thing in the world to let the pieces move of their own accord."
His manner of speaking is as familiar to me as my own rituals and routines, but after all these years of distance, it rubs me ever-so-slightly the wrong way.
"The pieces? Is that what we are to you?"
The faintest ghost of a smile quirks at the corner of his mouth.
"Life is as shogi, and all the world moves accordingly. However, this does not change the fact that you are my friend. Had you not already been on your path back to me, I would, of course, have intervened. As it was, Kuroko was already on my guest list for this evening. The extra ticket was nothing..."
He trails off, deep in thought, and then turns to smile at me.
"I have often imagined how I would engineer our reunion. I have hypothesised the where, and the how; the strings I could pull and the pieces I could manipulate... and yet, it feels far more fitting to allow the tide of fate to carry you back to me."
He pauses, and I find myself watching as he breathes in, and then out.
"Tell me, Shintaro... how do you feel?"
His question throws me off guard, and I find myself nervously fidgeting with my tie – the tie that is beginning to feel increasingly like the red string of fate, wrapped around my neck.
"What do you mean?"
"Have you forgotten me so easily? I always mean exactly what I say. In this moment, how do you feel?"
In some ways, Akashi is similar to Kuroko. In others, he is not. With Kuroko, these sorts of questions come like a curveball. With Akashi, I always get the feeling that he is simply placing another piece on the board.
"I would put forward that it is you that has forgotten me. Feelings are not something I indulge often... and certainly not to my own awareness."
He shakes his head softly.
"I know you better than that. Your feelings are simply worn within your chest, rather than on your sleeve. Are you nervous?"
"I... Yes. Everything that has transpired in the last two days has been entirely unexpected. I feel... I feel helpless in the face of the circumstances around me. I feel uneasy in this environment. I feel... Truthfully, I feel cautious and suspicious of your motives in inviting me here... But I feel excited too. Excited to watch basketball, excited to be with you again, and..."
Unexpectedly, my hand shakes. Once. In fact, it is an involuntary spasm of my left arm, one that I cannot put down to any external or internal stimulus. It takes me a second before I realise that I have pulled my tie uncomfortably tight in the process.
"Shit..."
Akashi is already on his feet, gently returning his glass to the table and moving quickly to stand in front of me. And then, to my surprise, he drops to his knees, face warmed by a smile, and hands snaking out to gently take a hold of my tie. His face is level with my chest, but he is close. There is only one man who would dare come this close to me uninvited, and he is permitted only by the fact that to challenge him would be as challenging God.
"Please... keep talking. Allow me."
He... said please?
As he gently and deftly undoes my tie, I swallow the shock in my throat and try to gather my thoughts together.
"I feel, most strongly... some strange blend of anxiety and curiosity... like a mixing of paints. For the first time in many years, I am not in control of my own destiny... and yet in this limbo, Kuroko has found me. He has convinced me to pick up a basketball again, and he has brought me here, into the path of people I..."
I take a sharp intake of breath as his fingertip brushes against my collarbone, but I do my best to continue. After all, Akashi asked me to.
"Into the path of people that I left... I worry that you see all of this as me... well, coming home, but I do not feel that way. Instead, I feel..."
Akashi looks up at me as he ties my tie into a double-Windsor, his hands gentle and his face attentive.
I take a deep breath, and with one gentle tug on my tie, Akashi stands and places a kind, fleeting hand on my shoulder before returning to his seat next to me.
"Go on, Shintaro. I am listening."
I don't belong here. I do not belong here. What on earth am I doing in this place, with the man who should have been my best man listening to feelings that I have neither indulged nor acknowledged in nigh-on twenty years? I take a deep breath and almost choke on it, and every muscle in my left arm clenches suddenly, my hand sharply clawing into a fist and clattering against my leg before I have a chance to get it under control. I don't understand how in just 24 hours I have gone from talking with Kuroko in a bar, to sitting with Akashi in a private box full of the rich and famous, spouting such self-pitying, emotionalbullshitto the man that, in many respects, taught me to mask and repress my emotions in the first place. Yes, my father was the first to instil in me the need for control and coldness (I still bear the scars in my soul from those lessons), but Akashi was the one to lead by example, to inspire me to desensitise myself to the world around me and to tackle the storms of life with reason, logic, and apathy. I am not desensitised now. I am an exposed nerve, every cool brush of wind bringing new pain – there is a pit of sickness in my stomach that I cannot shake, an ache in my head, and every voice in the room seems louder, clashing together into one singular cacophony that makes me want to run as fast as I can away from this place. Embarrassingly, I can feel myself beginning to sweat, and I have no idea what to do about this sudden attack of self-doubt, uncontrolled emotion, and... and anxiety.
I am having an anxiety attack.
What an embarrassing, inconvenient pain. My hands move to my forehead in some childish attempt to cover my face, and I look down pointedly at my knees – the crease in my suit trousers, the exquisite blend of the fabrics, the high thread-count, the slight shaking of my left leg...
Akashi clears his throat, and I look up to see him reaching out - an open, ornate cigarette case in his hand.
"Here... Turkish on the left, Bhutanese on the right. You are welcome to smoke where you are, but if you need a breather, we can go outside."
And that is the other thing that I cannot, for the life of me, wrap my head around – since when has Akashi Seijuro been kind?Yes, I have always enjoyed his company more than most, but the Akashi that I know is shrewd, more than a little prideful, single-minded and utterly ruthless. And while that Akashi is still there, I am now faced with an Akashi that is interested in my detailed feelings, who has no problem getting on his knees and tying my tie (that I am perfectly capable of typing myself, by the way), and who can, apparently, notice my having an anxiety attack despite the fact that I myself have no idea what those look like for me.
I manage a slightly shaking breath and take one of the Turkish cigarettes.
"How..."
I trail off, and Akashi chuckles gently.
"Emperor Eye. If I can read in your legs when you are going to shoot, does it not stand to reason that I can read when you are experiencing anxiety?"
I shake my head, rolling my eyes as I feel the beginnings of a laugh in my stomach.
"I was going to say, how did you know that I smoke?"
"Oh, that?"
Out of nowhere, a man wearing a similar bowtie to the bartender appears out of nowhere and passes Akashi a gold-leafed cigarette lighter. The Captain of the Generation of Miracles gives me a sly, predatory smile, and expertly flicks the flame into life.
"Tetsuya told me... He has an incorrigible habit of texting me while drunk."
Kuroko, you lying bastard.
Far below, in the underbelly of the Arena Tachikawa Tachihi, Kagami Taiga steps out of the locker room showers – towel slung over his shoulder, washbag in hand, dick swinging in the non-existent wind – and strides confidently into the locker room... much to the indignation and mockery of his teammates.
"Jesus, Taiga! You'll have someone's eye out with that!"
Kagami laughs, darting over to the offending teammate (Darius Jones, Alvark Tokyo starting Center) and sharply slapping him with the end of his towel – bizarrely, back when Kagami was a kid living in the states, DJ had been one of the younger hangers-on at the courts where he and Tatsuya played. This sort of banter was entirely commonplace.
"Don't hate me 'cause I'm beautiful, DJ! You shoot like a blind man anyway, so no difference there."
DJ offers a half-hearted kick in Kagami's general direction, and chuckles as the B. League's reigning MVP dances out of the way with surprising grace, slapping a hand on another teammate's shoulder and plonking himself down on the chair in front of his rocker.
"And if you knew how to pass the rock, that would matter. But you don't, so it doesn't."
The teammate whose shoulder Kagami had slapped (Tyler Dorsey, Alvark Tokyo starting shooting guard, and Greek National Team regular) laughs loudly, threading his right leg through a compression sleeve.
"Eat your words, DJ – you saw the stat-sheet last time out. The mighty Kagami managed ten whole dimes! "
DJ rolls his eyes, taking the studs out of his ears and placing them carefully inside his locker.
"Whatever, that last one was a fumble – it doesn't count!"
Kagami stretches high over his head like a cat, and DJ sharply turns away in affected disgust as, once again, Kagami's dick comes dangerously close to assaulting his face.
"A fumble perfectly placed into your driving lane, big boy. The stats don't lie."
He opens his locker and (finally) pulls out a pair of boxer shorts, sitting back down on the chair to put them on.
"But while we're on the subject of my dick...Yo, Dorsey!"
Tyler shakes his head in despair.
"Why do I get the feeling that..."
"Who's bigger; the Greek Freak, or me?"
Tyler rolls his eyes in exasperation.
"Giannis. In every possible way. Stop bringing me into this imaginary competition you have going on – he's on the other side of the ocean, and the last time he played you he dropped forty on you and dunked on you so hard I felt it here in Tokyo."
Kagami laughed, flipping the bird across the changing room.
"Exactly! Shit like that really lights a fire in me."
"Yeah, well save some of that fire for players you can actually play."
"No issues there, Dorsey. Hey DJ! Do me a favour and remind me what my box score was last time out."
With a roll of his eyes, DJ obliges.
"Thirty-two points, thirteen rebounds, ten assists, three blocks, and a steal."
A tribal whoop goes up from the assembled players, and Kagami basks in their praise for a brief moment.
Tyler Dorsey chuckles, and starts to lace up his sneakers, as Kagami begins to gloat.
"I guess it's like I said... the stats don't lie."
Kagami is triumphant, and punches the air.
"And tonight, the truth shall set you free, boys! Who fancies putting on a show?"
There's an enthusiastic grunt of assent, and a brief pause, before, predictably, Kagami breaks the silence.
"Yo, Genki, you got any of that cologne I like?"
From the corner of the locker room, Motoki 'Genki' Kojima, Alvark Tokyo Captain and starting point guard, gives a quiet chuckle.
"What's the occasion?"
Kagami (still only wearing his underwear) jumps to his feet and bounds over to his Captain's chair.
"Motherfucking Mikawa SeaHorses, Captain! My plan is to kick ass and smell fresh doing it."
Captain Kojima affectionately shoves Kagami away, and opens his locker, taking a bottle of cologne and handing it over.
"And of course, this has nothing to do with wanting to smell nice for Mikawa's oh-so-gorgeous captain..."
Kagami generously sprays his pulse points and chest, and passes the bottle back.
"Some nerd back in high school told me that of all the senses, smell sticks most in the memory..."
And he grins in such a way that every player in the room knows that a storm is coming.
"And I'm gonna give Aho-mine a beat-down he'll never forget."
There is silence in the locker room for a moment, each player weighing the declaration and sealing it in the part of their psyche that thrives on competition.
And Captain Kojima nods.
"Good. He's all yours. Just remember what we discussed – signal for the switch over the screen, and call for the fast help. I'm not calling any double teams on Aomine is I can help it, so stay in front of him and wherever possible, make him beat you from range... After the last game, DJ could do with a few more rebounds in the stat sheet.
Kojima, already changed and game-ready, stands to his feet, and it is the mark of an exceptional captain that every player turns to listen.
"Every player on that team is faster than us in transition, so unless you find a clear lane, slow the ball down and we'll beat them in the half-court game. Dorsey, I'm going to need your A-game on defence. I know you've held Mibuchi before, but never with Izuki feeding him the ball. Keep an eye out for incoming passes, and don't bite on his fakes – make him think you know exactly what he's going todo, and be ready for the pass to Aomine. Use DJ's screens as much as you can when you're attacking, and be patient: if you can't get to your spot on your own, use the team – we'll find you. DJ, we only have a slight height advantage overall ,but you're the favourite on the glass today. Work hard, and find me or Dorsey for the outlet pass. Aomine and Izuki are going to be glued to Kagami after the defensive board, so don't let that Eagle Eye steal your passes. I will facilitate the pick and roll and call plays when needed, but don't expect me to drive and kick – Izuki Shun is one of the smartest defenders in the league, and I don't fancy having my rock stolen. Hot hearts and cool heads; look for the extra pass... and if all else fails and the shot-clock is running down, box out and get the ball to Kagami."
He flashes the room an easy, confident smile.
"We all saw that Kaz Nagatsuka article yesterday. We all know that Japan Times doesn't even have us making the finals this year. We all know that Aomine's a shoo-in for their MVP this year."
The Captain chuckles at the face Kagami makes.
"Kaz Nagatsuka is, of course, entitled to his opinion... but let's fight hard and call him on his bullshit, okay?"
Every face in the locker room is steel, and Kojima takes a deep breath.
"WHAT TIME IS IT?"
And every voice in the locker room responds,
"GAME TIME! FIGHT!"
Author's Note: This felt too short to be a full chapter, and the idea of an interlude just felt right to me. I am utterly thrilled to be able to finally write the older, more emotionally mature Akashi that I have always wanted, and I do so hope that he resonated with you as much as he did with me.
Finally, the elephant in the room... KAGAMI'S HERE! Yeah, I tried writing the basketball game through Midorima's perch in Akashi's box, and it felt far too distant and awkwardly worded. Thus, I have decided to take you guys into the uber-competitive, cali dude bro world of Kagami's POV. Hope you like it, I found it a blast to write.
Side note: Genki Kojima and Tyler Dorsey are both real players, and Genki really is the current Alvark Tokyo starting PG. DJ... Yeah, I made him up.
love y'all, and thanks for reading,
keep living
melodramaticglassescharacter