The Se7en Days of Christmas
Day 1 - Slam Dunk
Pairing: RuHana

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A Rare Grace
by Alexandra Lucas
kohlcrimson@hotmail.com

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He enjoys watching him practice. The energy he put into
it, and the pureness of the concentration evident on his
face reminds him of a child in a playground, as though
what he was doing was, at that moment, the most
important thing in the world to him.

Sakuragi, he reflects, just never gives up. The days are
cooling, getting shorter and more bleak, the trees
shedding leaves almost the colour of his hair, in shades
of brown and yellow and orange and the occasional
brilliance of red, just variations of a theme. But he
still comes everyday to practice, more constant than the
changing of the seasons.

He's practicing his jump shots now, moving further and
further from the hoop as he goes, and he's sworn that
he'll complete five hundred shots by himself.

Rukawa doesn't remember how long it took him to get it
right nine times out of ten, then as close to perfect
as he could get. It is a brutal process, he knows,
the training of muscle and skin and bone to so fine an
edge of control to sink shot after shot after shot. He
has hazy impressions of afternoons stretching into
evenings outside the court, and shooting hoops until
his feet went numb and his arms ached. The tips of
his fingers could still feel the even roughness of
the ball even though he was no longer holding it, and
only then did he stop. Stumbling home with his eyes
half-closed, dunking his head under the tepid spray
of the shower and falling into bed with the towel
still wrapped around his hips.

He doubts that it will take Sakuragi very long. Already
he jumps, arms stretched out towards the hoop, the
easy flick of a wrist and the balls sails easily
through.

Privately, he doesn't think that Sakuragi is learning
about jump shots at all. Pleasantly buzzed from the
endorphins after his own training, he allows himself a
rare moment of whimsy and really looks at the shift
of muscle under skin, the small jump and the
infinitesimal pause in the air, the leisurely flick,
and he thinks that Sakuragi is learning about grace.

On the court, in a game, he charges forward. He is
rarely still, his very feet are kinetically charged,
and he is unstoppable. Sakuragi is basketball's
firecracker, all explosive red energy and noise,
standing out from all the other players. He was
boundless, untamed, unpredictable energy, and dangerous
because of it.

But he was not really /graceful/.

Mitsui is. So is Ryota, but it is in Mitsui that
you truly see it. He is restrained power; the three-
pointers that he scores are seemingly effortless,
almost as natural as breathing. It comes naturally to
him. His shots look almost gentle, the lightest push
of his fingers, the single, perfect moment in time
when it is all perfect and he knows it will go in, and
his body relaxes in mid-air as though it is where he
has always belonged, like coming home, and all he
needs to do it push the ball. He once saw Anzai-sensei
demonstrating shots to Sakuragi, and even he had had it,
the graceful relaxation like the movements of a cat,
unexpected, yet undeniably there in that rotund body,
hidden in the folds of skin.

It is one of the few kinds of grace that Rukawa can
appreciate. It is one that he understands.

On the court, Sakuragi bends, jumps, shoots.

Sakuragi has a wild, elusive beauty in his body, in the
strength of his legs and the long, muscled reach of his
arms. Rukawa knows, with the lazy, possessive langour of
a tactile memory, that skin only a few shades darker
than his own bruises easily, but heals faster than his
own. He has a player's musculature, lean and corded
around his limbs, and surprisingly slim hips. He knows
that his lips will soften and open after the initial
hitch of breath that reveals that Sakuragi is still
surprised every time he kisses him.

It is getting colder, and the sky is darkening to
purple; soon it will be too dark to play anymore.

He saw grace only in terms of flesh, muscle and skin
and bone, in the flex of an arm, the line of a wrist
and the bend of a waist just before a jump. It has been
a very long time since he had seen grace in anything
not remotely connected to the game.

Bend. Jump. Shoot.

But he can learn.

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