Smiley and the Scrooge
It was odd meeting her outside the train station. Sendoh had gotten so used to their interactions on the train and only on the train that seeing her outside in person now seemed surreal. And yet it was real, it was happening. On a balmy early October afternoon, Shohoku's basketball team had shown up at the doorsteps of Ryonan's gym for a practice match. And with the arrival of the team of tall scruffy boys who all looked like they hailed from some delinquent teen gang was the appearence of the lithe team manageress whom he had come to associate with a train ride.
He didn't quite know how to interact with her in this setting. Normally, on their nightly train rides back, he would skulk behind her and attempt to scare her by suddenly announcing his arrival with a jab to her ribs. These attempts were not usually successful since his height made it easy for him to be spotted at the station's platform. But on the occasions where he was successful, he would be soundly rewarded with a quick smack to the head and with a string of words that no young lady should really be seen uttering. It was something of a game between them, one that Ayako had given up discouraging him on since he was usually unsuccessful at surprising her anyway.
In any case, he couldn't very well greet her the normal way he usually would given current company. He had no doubt that every one of his teammates would think him mad for suddenly "attacking" the opponent's team manageress. Worse, Ayako was known to be something like a matriarch in the Shohoku basketball team. To attack the matriarch probably also meant incurring the wrath of the entire team, no matter how innocuous the attack might be. And then, there was the whole business of explaining how they were on friendly terms with each other when no one else knew that they were friendly. All these considerations when added up gave the clear implication that the occasion did not warrant the effort of greeting her in his usual manner. Nonetheless, it did make Sendoh feel very awkward not to say a more personal greeting to a person whom he had come to be very familiar with and whom he interacted with on a daily basis.
He tried to shoot her a smile across the gym where she was standing with Sakuragi Hanamichi. He felt Koshino nudge him and quickly turned his gaze to his teammate.
"Are you trying to raise Coach Taoka's blood pressure? The man is going to have a stroke if you keep appearing distracted and not listening to him!" Koshino muttered under his breath. Sendoh trained his eyes towards his coach who was indeed fuming at him. He flashed an easy grin at his coach so as to reassure him of his attention but the smile only seemed to infuriate him further.
"Why does he keep smiling at me?" Sakuragi Hanamichi complained as he agitatedly paced back and forth along the sidelines of the gym.
"Hmm? Who is smiling at you?" Ayako asked distractedly as she looked through the team's roster and the statistics of today's starting line-up on her clipboard. Given his recent return from his back injury, they had decided to bench the redhead power forward until the second half of the match.
"Sendoh!" Sakuragi bellowed. "That cheeky spiky-haired no good basket-baller keeps smiling at me! Is he laughing because I don't get to play in the first half? Is that it? Is that it? Huh? Huh?"
"Shush!" Ayako said urgently. As usual, Sakuragi had no filter and did not know nor care for how loud he was being. "Nobody is laughing at you. Now sit down and support your teammates!"
"But he's still smiling! Let me talk to Oyaji. This tensai is fine. I should be playing in the first half too!"
"Sit down, nobody is smiling!"
"He is! I'll show you" Sakuragi insisted and grabbing Ayako by the shoulders, he turned her attention towards Sendoh who sheepishly smiled and waved at her.
"Augh! He's even waving now! Look at how he's provoking me!" Sakuragi raged. Ayako didn't know whether to crack up or to just give Sakuragi a good thumping with her fan to knock some sense into him. Her quick senses, however, told her to exercise a third option.
"Yeah, you're right. He is smiling. But I think you're wrong about why he smiles." She said, her fingers played with the rim of her cap as she spoke.
"Why is he smiling then? And so continuously. Its creepy." Sakuragi said.
"I'll tell you, come closer. I know the secret" She said and beckoned Sakuragi to bend down.
"Well?" Sakuragi said as he scooted closer and dropped to Ayako's ear level.
Ayako smiled as she cupped her hands around Sakuragi's ear and in a conspiratorial whisper, she played her third option.
"It's because he's relieved you're not playing in the first half."
And with that Sakuragi Hanamichi was immensely satisfied and placated.
"You shouldn't have smiled so much at me during the game today" Ayako said as they boarded the train together.
"Hey, I was just trying to be polite and say hi. You kept avoiding my gaze" Sendoh said as he took her heavy book bag from her hands. "Besides, its weird to meet and act like strangers when we're not."
"You know that's why Sakuragi fouled out three consecutive times on the court the moment he joined the second half. He thought you were goading him with your smiles the whole time"
"Is that so! I did think he was more aggressive today. I thought it was just pent-up energy from not playing in the first half." Sendoh said in amusement and stretched his legs out before him. He was having a good day. Ryonan had won their practice match against Shohoku and he had been in top form.
"Yes. We could have won if Sakuragi wasn't so wrapped up with shutting you down" Ayako muttered, a little miffed since her team had lost. Although if she was fair, it was both Sakuragi and Miyagi who seemed a little off in their game today, while Ryonan, propelled by Sendoh's excellent plays, had been on fire on the court.
"Maybe, but I think my team did well regardless" Sendoh said proudly, "Everyone connected and the plays were seamless."
"Yes, yes. You played well." Ayako said albeit grudgingly. Sendoh grinned back, his joy evident on his face. He knew she was fiercely loyal to her team but he also knew that she did honestly agree that his team did better today. So he was satisfied with her grudging admission.
"So you still had extra practice after our match?" Ayako enquired, pulling absently at the knots in her hair.
"Mm, no. We went out to celebrate." Sendoh said, grinning at the memory of the team piling into Uozumi's restaurant, it was now the default location for all team dinners. The ex-captain had given them fresh tuna belly on the house. And just for the captain and vice-captain, Uozumi had even sneaked them a can of beer to share, but no more than that since Uozumi had to act responsibly as the only (18 year old) adult in the room.
"Oh, and you still took this train back?" Ayako said whilst looking at Sendoh quizzically. "It wasn't out of your way?"
"I wanted to hear somebody congratulate me as well on my excellent plays." Sendoh said breezily, the little bit of beer he had imbibed gave him an extra dash of boldness in his conversation this evening.
"Oh for ... fine. Congratulations. You were fantastic on the court today." Ayako said, a little embarrassed that he had come all this way to the station to meet her after her usual night school classes.
"No prize?" He said teasingly. Ayako stared at him in amusement. Sendoh's spirits were unusually bouyed tonight. She supposed the taste of victory always made one feel like they could do anything. Including annoying one's friend. Impulsively, she took out a notebook from her bag. scribbled something onto one of the sheets of papers and ripped out the page from the book.
"Here, a coupon stating 5 minutes of my time whenever, wherever, for when you need a friend" She said, handing the ripped out page to Sendoh. He looked at the paper dubiously, a little incredulous that this was the extent of his prize.
"You're such a miser." he groused. He took out his cell phone from his pocket and proceeded to hold it up against her face.
"Here, hold your crappy coupon, I want to take a picture of Ebeneezer and her gift. " Despite her protests, Sendoh managed to snap a clean shot of Ayako with the scrap of paper that she had termed a coupon. He quickly tucked his phone back into his pants pocket before Ayako could dive for it and delete the offending picture. As he smiled back at her now pouting face, Sendoh decided that he did get a prize he was satisfied with.
Author's note: I love Sakuragi, he's such an awesome character to play with.