Threshold
It is spring, and Fujima is determined not to be nostalgic. He stands exactly seven steps away from the gym entrance and moves not at all, even as he hears Hanagata's familiar voice floating from the doorway, assuring the others that Fujima is going to be here any minute now.
The cherry trees are shedding blossoms like dogs shedding water in the rain; it is faintly annoying.
It would be highly inappropriate for Fujima to be late today. He isn't sure what the other schools do, but on his last day--today--he will walk into the gym and give a speech, hand over his No. 4 jersey to Itou Taku, and then he will walk out again. It is symbolic, he supposes, and it is certainly better than sitting around playing games of "Remember the time when" and "In the good old days."
He would much rather play basketball than any of those games.
Basketball should be simple, he decided a long time ago. It should not cause him to stand here seven steps from the threshold, paralyzed and unable to cross to the other side. He is not afraid, he says to himself, that basketball is ending for him.
Nor is he afraid that it ended for him a long time ago.
In the beginning...
No, that is a dumb way to start things off. Because Fujima insists that real stories don't begin anywhere, they just continue from somewhere else. What he really wants to say is...
In the beginning, there is basketball.
Here Fujima takes the first step.
After the beginning there is Shoyo.
In many ways, Fujima's entrance into high school is a welcome break from the past. None of his middle school teammates are good enough at basketball or academics to get into Shoyo, and so on the first day of his high school basketball career Fujima finds himself in a gym full of tall strangers. But Fujima is not intimidated at all; he is used to being the smallest and the fastest, and he smiles indulgently when the captain asks him to introduce himself.
"Fujima Kenji," he says simply, knowing his name will be recognized.
The captain pauses, as if waiting for Fujima to finish his introduction, then moves on to the next freshman when it becomes apparent that the insolent one has nothing more to say.
The next boy is named Hanagata, and the next after that Hasegawa. Fujima says hello, friendly and full of confidence, and here perhaps is something like a beginning.
It doesn't take long for the second years and third years to notice that the freshmen are abominably close this year. It's strange watching them together, those four tall boys gravitating toward the smaller one, the other first years hovering eagerly outside that close-knit circle...so Shoyo's coach does the only thing he can do and makes the shortest player on the team into a starter. No one is surprised but they act outraged anyway.
Nor does it take long for the second years and third years to notice that Fujima is not the only one with an unusual amount of talent. By winter Hanagata is a starter too, and Hasegawa is regularly subbing in as a shooting guard. Nagano and Takano seem to be competing with each other for the most outrageous growth spurt, and not only in terms of height. With teammates like these, Fujima knows that no one will be able to stop Shoyo when he is in his third year.
Then, one day, Fujima meets Maki Shinichi.
They have never played each other before, oddly. Fujima's middle school team was frankly terrible, even with him in it, and they were usually eliminated by the second round of the Inter-high Preliminaries. But now Maki belongs to Kainan and Fujima to Shoyo, and everyone at the Winter Tournament wonders why the two best teams in Kanagawa have freshmen for point guards.
Fujima plays the best basketball he has ever played on the day he meets Maki, and he loses.
Afterwards, Fujima lingers on in the empty locker room, a towel draped over his head and a subdued expression on his face. He has never been so thrilled during a game before, or so disappointed afterwards. He wants to wallow for a while, but the door opens and it's the coach, so Fujima stands and bows. He does not respect the captain, but he respects the coach.
Sensei is looking at him a little strangely. Fujima expects a reprimand for losing to Kainan's point guard, but instead he's given a question.
"Fujima-kun," sensei asks, "what is your goal?"
When the coach has his answer, he replies, "Become the number one point guard in Kanagawa first. Then you can think about becoming the best player in Japan."
And Fujima feels the words filling him, granting him purpose and importance and a belief in himself that he hardly knows how to give thanks for, but...
Strange, he thinks. Strange how those words sound like they belong to someone else.
Here Fujima takes the second step.
Step one is to beat Maki Shinichi, but Fujima is always one step behind.
By the beginning of his second year, the media has settled on labelling him the second-best point guard in Kanagawa. Fujima will have none of it.
He practices until he can't lift his arms anymore and his muscles are almost but not quite ready to cramp. He is always glancing at sensei, hoping to be noticed, and even when sensei doesn't seem to be watching Fujima still works himself half to death, just in case.
His parents become concerned about his studies and the topic at dinner is usually, "What do you want to do when you grow up?"
Again, that strange feeling of living someone else's life. But nothing could be simpler than saying, "I want to play basketball." He says it cheerfully, but his parents see the look in his eyes and stop asking what he wants to do with himself. Fujima only has to think back to the day he met Maki and the words his coach gave him after his defeat, and there are no doubts.
It comes as a remarkable surprise when he goes to practice one day and finds the vice-principal there instead of sensei.
"Where's sensei gone off to?" he asks, as if he suspects the man has stepped out to the grocery store.
"Moritaka-san has gone to America to teach at a university," says the vice-principal, too weary for niceties.
It is Hanagata who asks, hesitantly, "To teach basketball?"
"To teach Japanese. I suppose they offered to pay him very well."
The players look at each other, unsure of what to say, and then they look at their current captain, who says unnecessarily, "We don't have a coach now."
"We'll find a temporary coach from among the teaching staff. In the meantime you'll have to make do," the vice-principal says and places a hand on the captain's shoulder.
After the adult leaves, they all look at their captain silently. He clears his throat and looks around, as if hoping their coach will return from the hypothetical grocery store, then orders them in a halting voice to run laps.
A month later the school somehow convinces the old math teacher Yanagi-sensei to become the temporary coach. Yanagi knows nothing about basketball and he has no words to fill Fujima with purpose and importance and belief in himself. The captain relegates Yanagi to being the team "advisor," and the old man happily deals with the account books while the captain deals with everything twice, once as captain and once as coach.
When no one else is around he goes to Fujima for help, asking him to come up with strategies and plays and training regimens. Fujima flounders at first before finding that he is actually very good at this sort of thing. At practice he often stops in the middle of whatever he is doing in order to watch some of his fellow second years running and bounce passing the ball between them, back and forth, a boring and but necessary drill, and Hanagata waits impatiently to resume their one-on-one while Fujima scribbles something in the notebook he has taken to carrying around.
"You're getting weird," Hanagata tells him.
"At least I didn't start out weird, like some people," is Fujima's light reply.
One day Fujima finds himself stopped at the threshold of Shoyo's gym, unable to step across because he cannot believe that he has made the decision to bench himself during today's exhibition game. He stands paralysed, able to think but unable to do.
Then the moment passes, and he steps across the threshold.
Everyone is astonished when they hear that he won't be playing today, and Hanagata asks him, "Are you okay with this?"
Fujima thinks about the words his sensei gave him a long time ago in a locker room far far away--become the number one point guard in Kanagawa, then become the best player in Japan--and he understands that those were selfish dreams. He doesn't need to become the best; he just needs his team to become the best. Perhaps if sensei had stayed...but sensei did not stay, so Fujima says to Hanagata, "I'm fine." Then he grins, a real shit-eating grin that feels weird on his face, and he says, "We're going to conquer the nation."
Funny, how those words feel in his mouth. Bitter, perhaps.
Here Fujima takes the third step.
Fujima is not surprised when he loses to Maki again. He begins to think of it as a yearly ritual between them, this shaking of the other boy's hand in defeat.
But Shoyo goes to nationals anyway, and everyone says it is because of their junior ace, the second-best point guard in Kanagawa, the small one who is so full of himself that he sits on the bench when he thinks the opponent isn't worthy.
In round one of the nationals Shoyo plays a team from Osaka called Toyotama.
When Toyotama's captain comes at him, Fujima looks the other boy in the eye and takes the blow--because he has an ace's pride and an ace's responsibility.
He awakens lying on the bench in the locker room, a towel draped across his forehead, and there's an old man there and his heart leaps for a second--but it is not the one he had hoped for. There is the dulled roar of the crowd filtering through the door, and Fujima realizes the game is still on.
"What's the score," he asks without getting up.
"119 to 98 for Toyotoma," says the man, his voice oddly gentle. "There are two minutes left in the game."
Fujima can feel what little strength he has in his limbs seeping out. "I thought so," he says.
The old man is apologetic. "You must forgive Minami. He didn't mean to injure you...he used to be my student, so I could tell."
"I'm sure." He closes his eyes wearily, knowing that he has to go out on that court soon to reassure his teammates that he is alive.
The old man is asking him a question, he realizes.
"Do you like basketball?"
Perhaps it is the fatigue, or perhaps it is just one of his moods, but as Fujima lifts a hand to the blood on his forehead he realizes he cannot answer. The question doesn't belong to someone like him. Not looking at the old man, he gets up from the bench to play basketball for the losing team.
Here Fujima takes the fourth step.
When Fujima comes home from the nationals he throws himself into his training with more than his usual zeal. The day is coming soon when the seniors will retire, when he will officially become captain of Shoyo in name and not only in fact.
The day comes.
As expected, Fujima becomes not only the captain but the coach as well. The school has decided that old Yanagi-sensei is looking after the basketball team rather well for someone who knows nothing about basketball, and Fujima is so talented and responsible there is no need to hire a new coach. It would hurt his pride, everyone says.
But every day after school he heads to the gym and finds himself stopped at the threshold, unsure of who he will be today--Fujima the captain or Fujima the coach, leading the team on the court or off?
And sometimes he stands on the threshold and also wonders: what ever happened to Fujima the basketball player?
More and more, Fujima sits on the bench as his best friends go out to conquer the nation. He tells himself it's all for the best, that personal goals are hardly as important as the team's success. He's not going to become the number one point guard in Kanagawa or the best player in Japan like this, but he can leave those dreams to others. Oh, he still talks about beating Maki every waking hour, but this bravado is for the sake of his teammates only.
In his sleep, though, Fujima still dreams.
It is now his third and last year at Shoyo, and Hanagata and Hasagewa and Nagano and Takano's too, and they all know it is time to deliver of their promise. Summer arrives too quickly, and Kainan looms. They wait impatiently, confidently, as the unseeded teams battle their way to the semi-finals where Shoyo waits to destroy them. It turns out their opponent is some team no one's ever heard of--Shohoku, is it? It hardly matters. Fujima tells his players that they are the best, to go out there and win, and then he sits down to study this upstart team Shohoku.
But as the game progresses, Fujima finds to his great surprise that he must decide whether to cross the threshold to join his teammates on court. Perhaps it is the moment when he wavers, when he cannot decide whether to move or to stay still, that costs Shoyo its dreams of conquering the nation.
Benchwarmer, Sakuragi calls him. How apt. Fujima wants to cry out with frustration, to show them what happens when he is forced to stop playing the game he loves, to see why he becomes a demon when he is finally able to hold a ball in his hands. Instead he goes to shake hands with the self-proclaimed number one point guard in Kanagawa--not Maki, as it should be, but Miyagi.
Fujima looks at Miyagi and sees himself as he was a long time ago, in a locker room far far away. He had forgotten how to show weakness, but now he is unable to stop the tears. He does not look up to where he knows Kainan is watching; he will not accept Maki's pity.
"Thank you for the game," he says to Shohoku.
Here Fujima takes the fifth step.
"It is time now to move on," Fujima tells his team after their loss, as he should. They have to concentrate on the Winter Tournament and nothing more. He wishes he could take his own advice, though, as he somehow ends up going to watch Kainan and Shohoku and Ryonan battle it out in the finals after saying he would not. He is feeling petulant and irresponsible, and for once he lets it show.
Perhaps seeing Maki acknowledge Sendoh as his equal, something Maki has never done before for anyone, is what causes Fujima to sober. Kanagawa is changing, and his and Maki's era has almost come to an end. Winter, he realizes with a calm sense of desperation, is Shoyo's last chance.
He does not care that Shohoku defeats Toyotama in the first round of the nationals and Sannoh in the second round, or that Kainan makes it all the way to the finals only to lose at the end. He does not care because these things do not concern Shoyo. The Winter Tournament is never anything like the Summer Inter-high, he knows. It all depends on which teams' seniors are crazy enough to keep playing right before entrance exams.
At Shoyo, all of the seniors keep playing.
Fujima works his teammates like dogs, and they know he is desperate and they want to win as much as he does, but time seems to slip through their hands like water. The dread and eagerness build to their peak and Shoyo is terribly hungry by the time the Winter Tournament arrives. It must be Shoyo's time, now. Fujima does not sit on the bench this time.
It is over much too quickly.
Shohoku is eliminated by some team he's never heard of--Ryokufu, is it? Without Akagi and Sakuragi they are weak and spiritless, and Fujima wonders how Shoyo ever lost to them.
Kainan, too, loses before Shoyo has a chance to exact revenge against them, before Fujima gets to play his farewell game against Maki, and he has Ryonan to thank for that. Sendoh is so good it's scary, and Fujima is glad that the junior is exhausted enough to lose against Shoyo the next day.
As the final horn sounds, and Sendoh's arms fall in resignation, Fujima looks at Hanagata and Hasegawa and Nagano and Takano towering above him and at Maki's rigid figure in the stands and suddenly he feels like a dinosaur. His and Maki's era is over. They are meant to be extinct, all of them. They should have been graceful enough to retire like the other seniors.
"Why aren't you celebrating, Fujima?" Hanagata is asking him, grinning even as the sweat rolls down his face.
Fujima plasters a smile across his face and says, "I just can't believe we won."
"Well, we are going to conquer the nation," Hanagata replies, a loyal broken record.
And they do go to nationals, Kanagawa's only representative, and they are eliminated in the third round by Daieh Tech.
Later, Fujima sits in his hotel room and realizes that he has played his last game of high school basketball. He will never play basketball with Hanagata and Hasegawa and Nagano and Takano again.
Then Hanagata comes in and says, "Want to play one on one?"
Fujima looks up from where he has been wallowing on his futon at the boy who has been closest friend for three years. They haven't played one on one since...he can't remember when.
"Don't you need to rest?" Fujima asks, an automatic reflex, but then realizes that Hanagata has no reason to save his strength. They won't be playing a game tomorrow, or the day after that.
Hanagata is grinning, a real shit-eating grin, and he says, "If you're too tired just say so."
Fujima almost says that, yes, he is very tired and has been this way for a very long time, but something--perhaps instinct, perhaps friendship--makes him say instead, "Not too tired for basketball."
They play one on one. Fujima wins, barely.
Afterwards, when they stand facing each other doubled over with exhaustion, Fujima asks Hanagata why he started playing basketball.
Brown eyes blink behind thick-rimmed glasses, as if this is a stupid question.
"Because I like basketball."
He has not changed since the day they met, Fujima realizes, and the thought comforts him.
"You still planning to play after this?" he wonders.
"Of course. Liking basketball, wanting to play basketball--those things always stay the same," says Hanagata, giving his captain a careful look. "Why? Have things changed for you?"
Fujima pauses, waiting to catch his breath.
"Some things changed," he says. "I gave up some dreams."
"Really? Which ones?"
"Being the best point guard," he admits. "Being the best player." And he laughs quietly to himself, realizing why he can finally unburden himself. They have played their last game; his responsibility to the team is ending.
Hanagata's eyes widen a little, and Fujima knows he has said something forbidden.
"Why?" the taller boy finally asks.
"Because those are dreams for other people," says Fujima with the bitterness he has long wanted to show. "I frankly had other priorities."
"Don't be stupid. We all have the same dreams when it comes to basketball. You don't have to give yours up just because you're a player and a coach."
"You don't know what it's like--"
"And you don't know what it's like to hear you say this."
The words are uncharacteristically fierce, and Fujima sees Hanagata's eyes looking the way they do during a game--focused and charged, even behind those ridiculous glasses.
"Do you like basketball?" his best friend demands, and Fujima remembers being asked that question a long time ago, in a locker room far far away. He was not able to answer then--but now, even as his time at Shoyo is coming to an end, even with his dreams lying unfulfilled and his feet still stopped at the threshold--perhaps now, standing before Hanagata, exhausted and defeated but still fighting, Fujima can find his own words.
Do you like basketball?
Basketball should be simple, he decided a long time ago.
"Always."
Here Fujima takes the sixth step.
In the end...
No, that is a dumb way to finish things. Because Fujima insists that real stories don't end anywhere, they just keep on going somewhere else. What he really wants to say is...
In the end, there is basketball.
Here Fujima takes the seventh step, across the threshold.
End
Authors Notes:
Man, Fujima is such a drama queen.
Next story will be about Kainan. Lighthearted fluff ahead, thank goodness!