Bildungsroman
Chapter 10 (Holy shit I'm in the double digits)
Please read the longish Author's Note at the end. It has a small announcement regarding this story.
Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction, with no copyright infringement intended. I don't own PoT, which belongs to Takeshi Konomi.
Heartbreak is poetic. Some people craft their pain and their shattered selves into verse, art, sculpture; they shape their feelings like copper wire and turn the lights on it, and it can be so, so beautiful.
There was nothing poetic about the way Sakura dropped to her knees on the court. Fuji's heart drummed painfully, a little higher in this throat, and harder, but he couldn't tear his eyes away. The girl was crumpled and hunched in on herself, and her knees were a mess of old scabs and new wounds.
Her heart was a wasteland of its own.
They were all silent, absolutely silent. No one said a word; they didn't need to. When she finally, finally, managed to walk off the courts, she was met with gentle embraces and hushed, cut-off words of cold comfort. The worst part wasn't even the pain in her eyes; it was the incomprehension. Forget acceptance; Sakura was struggling to simply understand the reality of losing.
Fuji knew the numbness, the slow rush of the world as it rushed by, every movement like wading through molasses.
Earlier that day-
"She's not fit to play." Kazumi ground out, glaring at Nomura, who pinched the bridge of her nose. Beyond them, Sakura was warming up with Mikabi, and anyone who knew her well could see the slight lag that plagued her usually brisk movements.
The captain looked equally unhappy. "I know. But we don't have a reserve either." She pointed out.
"Then one of us should play Singles 3." Kazumi snapped. "Don't be an idiot, Ayano-chan; you know she's not going to win against Yamabuki off the back of coffee, energy drinks, no sleep, and a mountain of stress!"
Imako shushed her, but she looked equally upset. "Sakura-chan can take a lot of pressure, but no one can have that kind of baggage and play Singles 3, Nomura-buchou. We all know that."
"And she's the only one with consistent wins in that very position." Nomura retorted. "I've lost every Singles 3 match I've ever played. Kazumi has won ONE. Kagawa's record in that position is the best on our team, apart from Reiko, and if she weren't injured, Kagawa would be warming the bench, I promise you!"
The three seniors broke off the argument as Sakura and Mikabi returned, and the former took the court in the midst of blustery cheers from Seigaku's cheering section. She looked relaxed, excited, even; but the wildness in her eyes had been replaced by a hundred lingering questions, none of which she could really answer.
Impressively, it wasn't a one-sided match. Sakura was slightly better-rested than before (she could afford to throw one test for a day of rest, she'd reasoned), and her accuracy and ball control lived up to its reputation at first. The Yamabuki girl hit harder shots, was a little better at the net, but her accuracy was only at about 70 per cent, and Sakura was smart enough to keep her running about the baseline.
And then it happened.
Yamabuki hit a drop shot, one that looked to bounce in the front court. It wasn't a major point, Sakura could still break her serve.
Instead, she lunged.
Her knees dragged in the concrete, and the trail of blood and grit they left behind was enough to make Ryuzaki Sakuno cry out. Sakura was visibly wincing, trying to brush as much dirt off as she could without getting a great deal of blood on her hands.
It wasn't working. Ryuzaki-sensei called for a time-out.
Both knees bandaged, Sakura returned to the court, but the pain slowed her, and it looked like the exhaustion she'd so valiantly (foolishly, perhaps) held at bay until now was beginning to overcome her. The Seigaku team watched stonily as shots began to veer wildly out of bounds, hit the net, and miss her racquet entirely.
Sakura panted, silent and desperate.
It took little over fifteen minutes for her opponent to wrest back the three games she needed to win.
"Game and match, Yamabuki's Shimizu, 6 games to 4!"
Sakura's mangled knees buckled.
Now-
The worst of it all was realising that the incomprehension in her eyes was reflected nowhere else. Sakura remembered how she'd argued to play, and shame turned her cheeks a bright, painfully warm scarlet. She dropped her eyes from her captain's.
"I'll go and change." Was that her voice? It was so… tiny. Even with the exhaustion and the pain, it was a strange sound to hear from her own mouth. Her voice had never sounded like this before.
She left as quickly as possible, but no matter how fast she walked, it wasn't fast enough. The burn in her legs told her she was running, but Sakura still felt like she was swimming through quicksand. Or ice. Everything was terribly, terribly cold.
She couldn't go back; not to a team she'd let down so heavily. It didn't matter that Kazumi-senpai would win and take the next match. She'd pleaded for the chance to play, used every trick and smart argument she could– the least she could have done was win. It was expected of her. Clad in a loose old dress, she sat rigid on a bench next to the children's park.
Perhaps Sanada-san was right. Maybe she should just leave tennis… it wasn't that she wasn't putting a hundred per cent in, it was that she literally couldn't. With her school and debate responsibilities, it was like trying to run on a broken leg. Leaving would be the smart thing to do. She'd even made it clear that between tennis and debate, she'd pick debate.
Then why did the idea of leaving hurt so much?
Fuji was wrong; Sakura was no stranger to losing. No one could win everything, obviously. Her confusion stemmed not so much from the loss, but from the realisation that it hurt. Losing in tennis hurt, and the idea of quitting the team even more.
She swiped at her cheeks; god, only losers cried. A few more tears slipped down her cheeks, hot and rebellious.
"You should eat."
The deep voice made her start violently, and she turned around on the bench. "Tezuka-buchou!" She gulped, scrubbing at her face. He pretended not to notice, and handed her a couple of bananas and some chocolate. "Takada hoped these would make you feel better."
She took them, numb, unable to look him in the eye. "Thank you." She mumbled. Mikabi-chan was sweet, but chocolate really couldn't fix everything.
"Stop punishing yourself." The captain's continued presence, as well as the weirdly commiserating (in a door-post kind of way) note in his voice, made- her blink. "Punishing… myself?" She repeated slowly.
"Winning and losing is a part of every game. There is always one winner and one loser… unless you're Kawamura, perhaps." Sakura had to crack a grin at that. "What is important is that you play well. Have you done that today?"
Her fingers picked at the chocolate wrapper. "I don't know. I don't know if I should have played at all. But I'm not upset about losing, captain. It hurts, but I can deal with that."
It was Tezuka's turn to blink. His intuition as a captain was rarely wrong, but it seemed that it was now. "I see." Hesitantly, he seated himself on the bench beside her. "Then…?"
Sakura kneaded her eyes with rough palms. "It's weird." She admitted. "I guess… I never expected it to hurt." Her voice was soft, almost embarrassed. "I've gone on and on about how debate is the most important thing… It's unsettling to think I care so much about tennis, too."
Also, I may have to quit one of them, and what was an easy decision two days ago just became much, much harder.
Tezuka regarded her carefully. It was gratifying to realise that she did in fact care for the tennis team, but her dilemma was a real one, and not one he could solve.
But he could say this. "It's fine to like two things, Kagawa." He began carefully. No one was going to accuse him of trying to influence her. "But when the cost is one's own health, it becomes too high. That's when one has to choose."
There. A foregone conclusion, perhaps, but still something she needed to hear. And it wasn't like he could say much else, anyway.
A strange light was in the girl's eyes. She was absorbed, it seemed, in contemplating a crack in the tiled ground, but her mind was a million miles away.
"Priorities, huh…" She mused. Tezuka raised an eyebrow, but said nothing. Her thoughts were her own.
The sound of footsteps roused the two after a few quiet minutes. Sakura, who had finished the chocolate and was now wolfing down the first of the bananas, stiffened, at least until Mikabi thumped her really hard on the shoulder. "Ow!"
"Idiot. You're supposed to have the bananas first." The taller girl snorted, as she plonked herself in the place Tezuka had just vacated.
"Says who?"
"Basic science?" Mikabi rolled her eyes. "Whatever. How're your knees?"
Sakura winced as she extended both legs. "Cursing my stupidity." She admitted, grinning wryly. "Won't be doing that again in a hurry."
"Damn right you're not." Kazumi-senpai poked her in the side, sitting down too. "What the hell were you thinking?"
"I…wasn't?"
"Kazumi-senpai, don't bother asking questions we know the answers to." Mikabi advised, slinging an arm around Sakura's neck.
If either girl noticed the subtle sag on Sakura's body into Mikabi's side, they didn't mention it.
Imako, doctor in waiting, removed the bandages carefully. "They should clot quickly enough." She nodded, satisfied. Just to be safe, she changed the bandages.
"Once it starts clotting, slather some coconut oil on it, if you have some." Ryuzaki-sensei advised. Sakura was to bitterly regret her replying eye-roll when both her cheeks were seized in a firm grip. "OWOWOWOWOWOW–!" She squealed, shaking her head in an attempt to dislodge said grip– a futile endeavour.
"Don't roll your eyes at me, brat!" Sensei growled. "Respect your elders!"
"Yes ma'am– owwwwwwww!" That sound probably qualified as howling.
"Haaa…" She moaned softly when sensei finally released her. Mikabi went off into peals of laughter upon beholding her friend's red, abused cheeks. "Mean, Mikabi-chan! It hurts!" Sakura whined.
Fuji's smile widened, just a touch. She seemed better. Fragile perhaps, still, but better. There were still questions in her eyes, but the staggering incomprehension had gone. She would be fine.
Man, this week has been intense. Sorry for the delay in posting this chapter, folks; I got pretty sick in between.
Alright, now on to more important things: I am delighted to announce that I have FINALLY received my T4 visa for the UK. So come late September, I'll be beginning my MA in English Literature at the University of Warwick! I'm so excited- new country, new climate (any Brits reading this? Your temperatures scare me), and a return to academia in the country of Shakespeare, Wilfred Owen and my beloved, beloved Jane Austen. So much to look forward to!
Unfortunately, there is a flip side (naturally): Bildungsroman and After The End will most probably go on hiatus from mid-September until at least the New Year. I'm pretty sure settling down and adjusting to life in a new country halfway across the world will be stressful enough on its own; and I suspect English lit will probably be a little more time-consuming than undergrad History, so I'll be left with very little time for fanfiction writing. If I do manage to get a chapter or two written, I probably won't post it either, because they'd be very rough drafts, unpolished. I won't just disappear on your guys, though; I'll make it clear whenever the final chapter before the hiatus is coming up. It'll probably be between September 5th and 19th, which is when I leave Delhi.
I WILL DEFINITELY FINISH THIS STORY. Ouch, shouty capitals- but I want to make that very clear. It might be slow, with gaps, but it will happen. So don't fret.
Anyway, reviews are love, as always! Thank you for reading!
Cheers,
Chilli.