References to The Shins, Fiona Apple and Tori Amos.
CARNIVAL TOWN Version 3
In which the Story Turns to a Dialogue of Boredom & Rukawa Reveals His True Nature Again
Jewels trickled down the foliage and the university's fields are humid at the slightest stroke, while the sun appears, only to recede behind the vertical of pallid clouds. In flash seconds it re-appears with an immaculate blueness against the sky; ever so fresh, the way the morning ached for a view. It proved otherwise for the vice-captain however. The clock ticks too rapidly, and he can even hear the pulsating heartbeat of the examinee beside him. The lukewarm air within the room swirls into unnoticeable anxiety, and Kogure thinks he's seen better days, while the other seniors reclined themselves with flexing legs and hesitant fingers, struggling to burrow correct answers up the ceiling like an archeologist, almost snapping their necks.
It's been three weeks since. Words and silences before were hued with appreciation and sensibility. Both of them smelt of jasmine and cherry and lavender while the nights retire with sweet taste; they reveled in mere presence, bound with the ceaseless sighs of ease, unbound from the limits of bodily interaction. The beauty in all these is that these're memories accompanied with a sense of merit and subtlety, feelings which take them both to surprise despite the repetitiveness.
And yet surely, the brown-haired is always a thought ahead of everybody else. An attempt to be imperceptible when someone recoils in a conversation is a lame excuse for Kogure; so are the vacant eyes, the screaming insincerity of the words, the empty concerns. Everything was growing too chronic, and yet there was nothing to do but thrive in such bitterness. Sendoh Akira has become frailer than ever, no longer capable of implicitness as to the demands of his ever-so-frail existence. And the russet-eyed, fastened with a vague sense of obligation to protect him, has endured three weeks of haziness of his daily encounters with Sendoh.
He stands up, folding the sheet, taking a last look, reserving a slot for college. He gives it to the examiner, uneasily smiling. "Here,"
"Yup. Results in three days. Good luck."
"Thanks."
And so he leaves, assuring himself. The placidness of the morning turns into the cruelty of the afternoon and the sunlight scorches his skin. The immensity of the plains before him whelms his tired soul, quenching a thirst for seeing new and better things. His lips quiver to form a smile, an act of voluntariness that the thought of lunch with the spike-haired almost slipped into his mind; and when he approached the Pontiac Solstice at the car park Sendoh was already holding take-out bags. He takes his glasses off and wiped it with his sleeves, trying to see if it would help him set his eyes on Sendoh anew.
"How was it?" the spike-haired hands the brown paper bag, smiling.
"'Twas okay."
"Of course. You've been studying too much to fail it yes?"
"Uhuh. Thanks," he says, trying to be nonchalant but failing miserably.
Minutes passed and the clicking chopsticks are deafening for them. Silence has been more or less a way to escape the dullness which radiated flourishingly, and Kogure's almost afraid that a word escaping from Sendoh might writhe him to the floor. Trading the relationship into tea and sympathy was the better barter for them; for even Sendoh's susceptibility to a beauty's terror is beginning to wane, cultivating a lackadaisical attitude, although regretfully at that. The car's door is open enough for some crisp air, and the chirping birds are begging for their food.
"Where to next?" Sendoh attempts to break the ice.
"I don't know," was the meek reply, "the team's readying for Inter High."
"Well I can tour you to Ryonan, meet them and all, ne?"
This sparks an interest. "You sure?"
"Yeah yeah sure," he smiles, handing Kogure the bottled drink.
"I've always meant to see you guys play,"
"Uhuh..."
And so the dryness of the conversation resumes. Kogure would soon talk about his own basketball team and Sendoh would be as listless, whereupon he would stare at the blue jays squeaking gratefulness at the leftover noodles, and the sight would be a much better view. It now appears for the spike-haired that the experiment was botched to be even resumed, leading itself to secure and take a much higher standard more than anything, a higher perfection which thus made this creature beside him merely bordering on disqualification and easy access. Looking at the jays presumably happy, he admits a sense of envy and regret at the same time.
He looks at the brown-haired, this man of fortuity; Kogure's smiles begin to be repulsive, and the way he seats beside him oppresses him. He likes to think that the relationship has seen its golden days and it was beginning to crumble. What was it really that made his head reel just now? "I think I'm going by the bays instead," he says between Kogure's words.
This of course made Kogure wince. Although he harbored an assumption glowering from the suggestions of the sophomore's twitching eyebrows, his eyes cannot hide a staggering soul. He looks for appropriate words, but his lips would not move at all; an unspoken truth of so-called difference can only get blatant and malodorous, and so Kogure ceded to a stillness which spoke too meaningfully for its own good. He stares at him, long enough for the birds to start flapping their wings, away from them, away from the tightrope they're treading. At his mind's eye, he wished to be a jay.
"Wanna come?" he continued, trying to grasp whatever Kogure's face evoked.
"...you're catching fish?" was the reply.
"Ah y'know me well Kimi-kun," he says, kissing Kogure's cheek, closing the door and starting the car's engine. The kiss of course was compensation, and he wasn't rueful to think of it that way. Not at the least. Some hours later and they parted with a few words and long silences afterwards. Sendoh drops him off to Shohoku's main entrance and told russet-eyed he might have an overnight with Hikoichi and the team, emphasizing the role of the freshman's sister to further a sense of intimidation from within Kogure. And he kisses him goodbye like he's a faceless ghost.
The heavens are cheering him up, at least Kogure thinks so as he looks up at the afterglow of the sun. He bathes into its light as he walks for the gym, and in the distance he can hear the strained voice of Hanamichi, the laughing Mitsui and the serious Akagi. The bouncing sounds are heard, and he feels himself touching the ball, trying to shoot. He would like to think of the team as a haven of some sort, the leviathan of a place where Kogure can relinquish himself just for the sake of it; but then a growling heart thinks this place was more of compensation, too.
"Megane!" was the first declaration.
"Hello Hanamichi. Hey," he smiles voluntarily, basking in the acceptance that his teammates are emanating like they're long lost family.
"Missed us?" Mitsui says, elbowing his side.
"Yeah yeah... making progress yes?"
"Definitely! Megane, how's the exam?"
"'Twas okay Hanamichi. Where's Rukawa?"
Where did that come from anyway?
"Hmm... I wonder," Mitsui replies with a teasing tone, caressing his chin and almost whistling rubbish as the vice-captain shies away.
"He went to Tokyo for some unknown reason. Of course, Rukawa likes to keep everything to himself," he continues.
"Megane! How was Tokyo eh? Many many sushi?"
"Shut up Hanamichi, he's tired from the exam." Akagi finally enters the seeming pandemonium, and attempts to thump a certain redhead but missing, infuriating him.
"I can't practice today, I'd rather watch."
And so he watches. Long minutes passed and the pale fox dresses himself for practice. He sits at the uppermost stair-like benches, and his dreamy thoughts begin to weigh him down, yet again, and he can feel himself carrying the forsaken gymnasium. The polished floors metamorphose into calloused skin as more running come to pass, and he's seeing them like celestial motions against the finite terrains of the hall. He sees Miyagi do a lay-up; and he suddenly reckons the spike-haired doing the same three weeks ago. Such fortuity; at the bench, his angst.
What was he to expect anyway, being born from the cocoons of three fortuitous episodes? A feeling of self-commiseration begins to burden him, turning into easily answered queries of the despondent idealist heart, turning into a fatalism which foreboded eternally recurring attempts to domesticate the wildness of everything that is the blue-eyed youngster. He's too kind, he muses, and too hopeful that the striking innocence within him has forgotten all the harshness that accompanied it. But then would he really eviscerate this optimism?
His phone rings. Everyone took a halt for a second.
"Sorry... don't mind me," he says, pushing a button. "Hello?"
"Let's meet tonight," says the all-too-familiar husky voice.
"Meet? I thought you had an overnight," he whispers, sensing the eavesdropping Rukawa.
"I took a raincheck. Tonight please?"
"I'm honestly tired. I can't go anywhere,"
"I'll pick you up then."
"Would you?"
The other line was silent.
"Six. I'm picking you up."
"I don't mind."
"See ya then," and the line went dead. Kogure thinks of arbitrariness as the culprit as his thoughts scatter into the universe of a psyche, and he can feel an ache from somewhere in his head. A meager nuisance can be scoured, a slight excitement and a measly hope; these feelings are escorted with a mind taking caution to intentions; but with an idealist heart a romantic can go depths of killer bees to reach the glistening honey.
At the other end of Kanagawa, the cobalt-eyed resumed his fishing as the conversation ended. Now here he despises himself at the odd contradiction which stings him deadly, a striking foolishness and an arresting compromise, these dualisms which afflicted a sense of self-disdain and terror at the same time. On one end was the feeling of dearth within himself, an emotional famine that only genuine gestures of mediations can nourish, something the russet-eyed is adroit of. But with this sense of incompleteness was also the feeling of distaste, apathy and boredom at the slightest presence of Kogure, reeking of the tediousness of the so-called mediations.
He sardonically smiles at himself, this composite of clowns of who made a town out of his body.
And so he drives en route Shohoku's main entrance, availing for himself enough time to deliberate this open-ended dispute within himself. This warring mix of longing and revulsion spirals too much for a brew that it's almost poison; and to realize that, all these are born from too raw of a choice. What if he didn't enter the bar, if he didn't see a contrast to this man of fortuity, if he didn't spot him at the sidewalks, if he didn't see him at all? It was so much easier before; and so says his thought – caring is creepy.
He blamed the seer next.
The brown-haired captain on the other hand was left with one choice if he's to meet him. The clouds have turned too grey, indicating a heavy downpour; the sun doesn't like the him at all so it hides up the vertical. Thirty five minutes have passed and the freshmen were left to make sure that the floors of the gymnasium shone against the bleak light of the afternoon, and Kogure was sitting by the concrete stool beside the sliding doors of the gym. He's done enough intervals to interrupt the team, and so he tried to slacken outside with an utmost sense of hope, waiting for hope. A drop of the sky's oceans trickled down the foliage, not really much of a morning dew, and soon the waters shine heavy on him.
The lightning roars, thereupon Kogure shifted his body, leaning against the wall protected by the unfriendly shade of the gym's doors, and the roof can only do much as to not drench his body. He looks up, and a jewel dropped on his glasses. He sighs, taking it off, wiping it with a handkerchief. "It's like it hasn't rained for a year," he whispers.
"Hnn."
He stares at the raven-haired as the fox feigns to mop the floor. Both of them eat silence for food for thought, trying to eavesdrop each other's thought-designs. Here stands a man who looked like the spike-haired, a pale youngster who presumably had the similarities; it's become upsetting, and Kogure thinks of the times that this freshman failed to stir an interest. His insinuations are comical if not lackluster; but now, thinking about it, who is an original anyway?
"Your stare is disturbing Rukawa."
So he looks away, feigning yet again to mop the floor. It occurs to the vice-captain now that; this pale youngster before him never really needed a comfort of sorts, something he's adroit of – there was no sense of duty to be a safeguard, only companionship.
"Why do you hate me?" whispers the fox, surprising the senior.
"I... I don't hate you Rukawa. I... well I'm sorry if you feel that way," he mutters, his right sleeve wet. "It's just that I'm so confused at what you do."
"Why?"
He stares at him, only growing harrowing.
"I don't really know if you like me or not."
"Oi fox! Come here and mop this freaking floor darn it! This's all unfair!" declares Hanamichi while Yasuda assumes the role and mopped those floors instead.
"Then I like you."
He felt an empathy surging like the downpour.
"I don't like your style either."
"You really like him?" was the reply.
There was a bit of hesitation on his part a few seconds before whistling a yes. "What d'ya think of relationships?" Kogure says, ever so soft, like he's talking to himself.
The skipping heartbeats turn into a long fall of silences. The drenched asphalt against rubber created a swooshing sound at the verge of friction, and a penetrating shriek can be heard as the car stops. The window opens to reveal the waving arm and smiling face of the Ryonan ace, and Kogure can feel a sense of sadness on both ends of his sight, these two before him. These blue-eyed youngsters; the other needed an emotional safeguard while the other one reveled in mere presence. Who is winning? Who is he betting to win?
"I'm happy for you then," came a voice, ever so soft against the seeming callousness of this Shohoku ace. "And much better off without glasses."
And after a few more hours, Sendoh would finally decide to drive towards Hikoichi's place (and spend the night drinking away with his teammates) and drop Kogure in front of his house. And for the lack of better things to do, he justifies, he strolls away from his home; and the brown-haired would spend the night quasi-tutoring the allegedly delinquent Rukawa. The night clears away with a sense of quandary for Kogure, a warring mix of presence and incorrigible obligation; and all these contradictions and oddities of convictions would persist for a few more months.
tbc.