A Tangled Love Affair

Disclaimer: I don't own SD boys, Inoue does. The events that followed are not included in the original plot but enjoy anyway.

Summary: Kogure confronts Mitsui as the latter returns to the team while in Ryonan, Sendoh continuously pines for someone. MitKo,MitRu,SenKo.

A/N: I'll be away starting on March 18, and between this date to that I'll be taking my Finals exams (tomorrow included). In any case, it would probably take me a long time before I upload the next chapters so I'm really, really sorry. I'll be finishing this maybe next month after I take my internship and all; you can wait, I hope.

This is for ivyblusummers. I promised to make you a SenKo, right?

Chapter I

There's something more rejoicing in what's lost and found than what has never gone astray—Iris Murdoch

He returned, not so much as a product of inner confusion as a mountain of disgusting inconsistency; the former being his typical excuse for his abrupt diversion, whatever that might mean. He wouldn't, doesn't, and never will see himself as someone completely deserving of the right blame, but only someone who lacked the single-mindedness of a composed person. Probably because his name happened to be Hisashi Mitsui, and that name was rarely associated with things 'done unwittingly'; rather they referred to it as 'juvenile faults conceived with so much pressure.' Sure enough he was pressured, being the captain of a championship team back in junior high and a super rookie of a young promising team called Shohoku High, but there sure was something more to being a paragon than just being plainly idolized and being unfamiliar with the phrase 'no admirers'. Moreover, he was liked and adored. Actually he was loved by many, and not simply loved in terms of brotherhood like what team mates have for each other. He was loved by someone. And that someone was never strong, never could stand up for himself, as people said. Kiminobu Kogure didn't give much thought to it though, unless he came to connect this 'weakness' with what he had for Mitsui because it seemed only too obvious that this very thing drew him to that blue eyed lad, who was strong and, in almost everybody's eyes, excessively masculine. And strangely and ironically, the other liked him too, and must have probably loved him with his half explicit hints that in one way or another gave the full intention behind them. In consequence, they had become a mere contradiction; but not a serious one. A funny one would've suited them better.

That was for a very short time. Mitsui upped and went without giving any logical explanation why he ever chose to quit basketball and in lieu of that obsession, chose to go motorcycling with Tetsuo's gang, trampling his own dignity at such degree. He said he wanted to leave the team 'even if it meant leaving his skin behind' but it never occurred to Kogure that he would altogether leave the sport. He then suspected that Mitsui only played the game with such passion without knowing if that was what he really wanted to do. But considering what kind of hell Mitsui had gone through just to play basketball in Shohoku, Kogure expelled his suspicion; Mitsui was in love with Basketball. When he left the team only did so little to discipline him; indeed, the members only mourned his departure as their ultimate effort to comfort their loss and themselves. Kogure wondered and learned that he wasn't the only weak one in that team. Not that it's supposed to be an ego booster but somehow he wasn't as troubled as what was expected of him. In fact he survived. There WAS life after Mitsui after all.

2 years went by and they reached their final year in Shohoku. He saw Mitsui regularly and was never deficient of news about what had gone on about him. From what Kogure had been hearing, things didn't fare better for the former MVP star who now sported a long, gangster-style haircut and a habitually semi-opened school blouse. But he wasn't sure either if things had been worse for Mitsui; he seemed happy with his 'new' friends, if we put it socially. Surprisingly though, he had been hotter than ever but no more as physically compact as he had been, meaning he might've no longer possessed that athletic charm but had acquired a new one fitted for the new age; that rugged good looks. Kogure secretly grieved for this and realized, little by little, that he could no longer keep up with the fiction of his nonchalance. Apparently, he still cared for Mitsui, much as he denied it to himself since there was no one else to deny it to, except for Akagi. In the earlier stages, Akagi was attentive enough to Kogure's tight-lipped unhappiness; a thing which only his perceptiveness could detect. He had persuaded Kogure to keep Mitsui out of his mind and only once (out of 100 times) had Kogure admitted his hurts to him, indirectly however.

'You're losing your focus on the game, Kogure. Forget him.'

'And what shall I remember then?' Kogure retorted almost angrily.

After that there was no further talk about Mitsui. But Kogure was pained as always, though there were times that he thought he wasn't, times when he wouldn't let anyone have the pleasure of seeing him afflicted. He strove to make a meaning out of his sadness when all this time the attempt had been nonsense itself because he shouldn't really be forgetting Mitsui. Not anyone who had been Mitsui's lover should or could forget him even if it means yearning for what's not. He was unforgettable, and his memory was just like an encircling cloud to Kogure that grew denser as time rolled on.

Finally, just months after their last school year opened, Mitsui returned with the help of newcomers like Sakuragi and Ryota who knew totally nothing about him. But as Kogure predicted, it didn't turn out as a relief. His erstwhile contempt for the situation (of being always unable to make it to the nationals for the last 2 years because of Mitsui's absence) had returned, but this time to himself; caused by being weak and incapable of forgetting. Mitsui seemed changed, though it wasn't a complete shock that he should be so, as a matter of fact, it was understandable and almost anticipated by the others who knew him. But this change only distanced him from Kogure, the creator of the bad connotation of being changed. He mulled over it and could've told Mitsui that if the latter intended to torment him by coming back, he might've been more successful than what he thought. Now Kogure had started to think that what happened in the past, counting their relationship, shouldn't have happened at all now that it had been disconcerting him big time. It was true that Kogure shouldn't have loved Mitsui but come to think of it, it was equally true that Mitsui shouldn't have loved him too. To have thought of each other as lovers, to have fantasized about it was okay; but to have done it…Christ! Kogure had asked what made Mitsui come back and the latter replied, as if he was never acquainted with Kogure, that:

'I've waken up to reality.'

How totally not enough that is. Kogure thought and he ceased nurturing any hope of reliving Mitsui's concern for him. He was heart broken as usual; he had experienced it, was experiencing it now, and would experience it when he had given his damnest not to. And now, the prodigal son had set his eyes upon a rookie. Kaede Rukawa, of all people. That too indifferent, even almost comatose charmer had charmed the whole school and now he had to snatch Mitsui too. Great, just spell great.

Kogure harbored a certain silence following that; a silence that had an enormous weight of story in it. Before, everything he did was with care and now he was agitated and nervous of what might come between Mitsui and Rukawa. He felt the destruction from within and felt it with the infinity of 2 mirrors facing each other.

TBC

A/N: that's the first chapter. It wasn't much of a story; rather it was a re-narration and recreation of Mitsui and Kogure's life in Shohoku. Okay, my plan should be a secret but of course, knowing me, I'm going to make it a MitRu too, and that's not a secret, correct? But it's going to be a SenKo as well as promised. Err, I probably lost any touch of writing fiction because for the last 100 years since I last wrote a fic, I've been writing hard, straight news for the school and you know what news are like; simple sentences without any sense of art in them. So just give me time to bring it back, okay?

Thanks for reading. Have a nice day!