Disclaimer: I do not own slam Dunk and its characters; Takehiko Inoue does. I don't even own the concept of this fic. I got it from Haruki Murakami's novel, South of the Border West of the Sun.

A/N: You might be wondering why I wrote a non-yaoi fic when all SD fics I wrote are yaoi. I don't know why. Sorry. MitRu supporters, don't be mad. it is, after all, my favorite pairing. Believe it or not I intended this fic to be a MitRuMit fic but I just couldn't insert the darn Fox into the picture. I'm so sorry if you are disgusted after reading this. Why am I even saying this? Pardon me for the grammatical and spelling errors.

Warning: This sucks harder than a black hole.

Once I thought I had everything I could ever ask for. I am not, of all things, implying I was very well endowed in terms of luxury. Perhaps, I was just happy. To tell you my story, I had lived a very misleading life for two years, but that was disrupted by my most bitter enemy then, Riyota Miyagi. For that I thank him, with a sincerity I never got the courage to express.

My parents, like most parents, were very understanding. For their part, they made me feel the most enthusiastic sense of admiration when I told them I'd be re-entering the basketball club. And to add on that, they didn't reprove me for the two years of grief I had caused them. Above all, they didn't make me go through the shameful apology I owed them, which was something of the one million things they deserved to receive from their son. I simply thanked them.

I strived to be the sort of student from whom not much trouble was to be expected, but basketball was where most of my heart was. With that at hand, try as I might I didn't have the brains to be an average learner. It wasn't that my mental faculties were incapable of grasping the simple education our professors were well-meaning enough to thrust in our heads; I just didn't think it was necessary to compute the loads, tension and compression of a stupid truss that carries a goddamn roof. Whatever that means.

The Shohoku gym was my second home, that much was true in all respects. There, I could soar in the air without having to think about my head and the ball hitting the ceiling. I could sweat all I want without my mom pestering me about changing my shirt. I could release as many shots as I wanted without anyone motioning at me to let him have a shot. I didn't have to worry about tripping over loose floor boards or second-rate concrete work because the floor was always as well-polished as a pearl. I found friends whom I could laugh with. I found love, at least to the best of my memory. Or so I thought.

During the first part of our romance, she took her post at the courtside, her eyes drilling holes on my body. Her gaze, smitten as she was, never released me. Girls had always been like this, more often than not, but unlike this particular female no one before or after her had dared to stare at me for the three whole hours she or he stood there.

Some weeks after that, we ended up strolling down Shohoku's crowded corridors, hand in hand, and that was how I got to be in a serious relationship. I needed her, she needed me, if some great reason indeed could be derived from my sticking to her. In all, it was a symbiotic relationship.

I assumed the world was ours and that what we had would never go stale. In the light of later knowledge I was wrong in many scores. But in the meantime she was everything I wanted; she gave me many things I never thought I'd appreciate.

One day she walked up to me and handed me a silver necklace. It was the most beautiful thing that my eyes had ever laid upon, perhaps because it was from her, if not for any other reason.

But what little happiness we had was only temporary.

Soon after I realized she was just a momentary bliss, and nothing more than that for all I could tell. In the course of this awakening I just withered and gloomed. Getting rid of her was another story. I, like many others, had never experienced the sensation of hurting someone so badly and at the same time feeling great relief by unburdening myself. But I did it anyway.

She just stood there solemnly, wanting the explanation which might have equaled a thousand curses or more. And tears rolled down her white cheeks but her sob was silent, painful to look at. I waved my hand impatiently, even violently, and cast myself upon her feet For whatever good that might be. All she did was wince in pain. She asked why for the third time to which I simply couldn't come up with something that might appease her or erase my offenses.

Boys were jerks; I never denied that. As for other truths so seldom attributed to them, I'd rather give them no mention whatsoever.

Was it, you might ask, the right thing to do? In whatever aspect one might look at it, he or she wouldn't grasp the rightfulness in that act or at least in the manner by which I executed the completion of my resolve. I must admit I only did what was necessary for me. My conscience, though in existence, all the while never would have bothered much out of itself, even in the face of damaging someone beyond repair. And even under different circumstances, there'd be not much I could've done to prevent it if people could not save themselves from whatever ruin fate had in store for them.

Well, to my credit, I had to go through the following week with a great deal of adjustment. I had to walk home alone, proceed to the gym alone and go to school alone. But, for all the inconveniences our parting brought upon me, I was saddened by our parting only because of the guilt it inflicted upon me.

However, what I learned next crushed me. She moved out of town, without warning, without notice, without clues. She just vanished into thin air, leaving no trace of her existence, like some apparition brought about by people's imagination. Feeling the horror of the unknown, it left me worried sick and I couldn't sleep for a few days. The necklace she had given me, which by now had taken up a whole new value, was kept in my drawer all those times. Without knowing why, I got into the habit of checking it every day to make sure it was still there. I made this a daily routine even when I stepped in to college.

I never heard from her again.

It was as what everyone would always say: Life goes on. Yeah it does, but residues of each and every past remain forever. Much as you wish them to be otherwise, they never go away after a million years. And pain would strike me as though everything happened yesterday.

Months passed and the team had entered into the Nationals. The game against Sannoh was a blast. After we bereaved them of their fourth National Champion title we were crushed by Aiwa. It wasn't bitter. We defeated the best high school team in Japan anyway; that in itself was a victory no one could have erased.

After that, life went on with the speed of light. I was able to finish high school and enter college, which was not as prestigious as the one Akagi and Kogure entered into, but not bad either.

I was selected for the basketball team, predictably. It was as though I was assigned to a Medical mission where I had to treat and help the victims of famine in Africa. Everything seemed foreign. My teammates didn't know humor, they didn't know how to support each other in ways that mattered, didn't know how to encourage or cheer for themselves. I even regretted the fact that I learned to be a 'real' teammate during my stay in Shohoku.

If you call that a team.

Everyone was serious with his studies, reputation, and performance. Even now, I still don't know how we managed to reach the finals when everyone was doing it his own way. It was, after all, a strong team without a backbone; an empty team which would collapse if someone snapped his finger against it, something I wished someone tried to do.

And there we were on a wood paneled floor with seas of audience howling and cheering for a team which could acknowledge fans' support but very little. For the life of me, I endured the indifference that was the sole being that bound us together, if only to prove I was in fact something.

The deepest emotion which ever penetrated the hearts of the members was the joy we had when we won the championship. It was a glorious night, alright. We had never been in that close contact before, among other things we never shared, and never again, for the team never attained something worth exalting after that.

Tears filled the eyes of our coach and the team captain; perhaps after two years of playing in the same team I would learn to recognize the sportsmanship in it.

I congratulated everyone and marveled at the immense crowd which had come down to join in the celebration. My eyes wandered at the farthest corners of the stadium, expecting to come across someone who would celebrate this victory in a way I wanted.

Akagi and Kogure promised to watch the game but they had to leave after the first half for some reason. My other former teammates in Shohoku had apologized because, understandably, they had a game in the same schedule. So much for the joyous celebration.

But amidst the tumultuous crowd, I saw her face. It was as though I ran out of battery and had dropped all the screws holding the parts of my body together. I didn't rub my eye nor blink to confirm the realization of the sight. She was staring at me with the unwavering bluntness of that of a woman's portrait.

I swam my way to the stands not extricating my eyes from hers. But when I reached the stairs and met the necessity to watch my steps, she had gone. I made my way to the exit and was panting and sweating all over when I reached the lobby.

She was nowhere to be found.

I hailed a taxi and looked for her in the possible places she could've gone to, places where we spent pleasant afternoons together. All to no avail.

I went home, half expecting she was waiting for me there with arms spread out, ready to receive me, to forgive ultimately. All this was some foolish hope standing on no ground.

Earlier that morning I was holding the necklace she gave me exactly a year ago. Perhaps I felt she would show up, if that were possible at all. But she never would.

I opened my drawer to hold the only thing that was left of her, the only thing she had given me. Instinct pushed me to do it. Looking back, I took the whole of her, after which I sent her away, having had some of the best times in my life which wouldn't have been possible if it weren't for her.

It was gone. Just like her, not a single trace of it was left; there was not even a tinge of evidence it resided in my lifeless drawer for a year.

All these years not a day passed when I didn't think of her. Once she was mine and the next thing I knew everything disappeared just as a dream would.

But one thing I know and will always know; what little of her she left in me none can take away.

Farewell, lost love, and forgive me.

-END-

A/N: Okay, don't sue me for coming up with a very crappy love story; I just realized that I had to come up with something new. Er, yes you can flame me or hate me for this, but I promise that the MitRu-lover Pollux (me) will never create something like this after I publish it.