Chapter Eighteen: Defeat

How Karakura had managed to butcher Genshijin was beyond me, but all discussions about said match led to Ginjo Kugo and Shukuro Tsukishima. It appeared these two had single-handedly slaughtered last year's champion, which pretty much meant Karakura was the best offensive team Japan had seen. If they could kick monumental amounts of asses, they could very well kick ours on any given day.

The worst was, I wasn't in mint condition. While the past few days had done beyond miracles for my recovery, the rest of my recuperation process was simply telling me there were things in this world that were, flat out, off-limits. I wasn't gonna be one hundred percent healed by the time the show between the Panthers and the Wolves got underway. I felt cheated, robbed of my right to make something out of my life, but then nobody really had cheated me, so all there was to blame was myself, my inadequacy, the brittleness of my bones.

Soon, the match was upon us. I was prepared to be underestimated, to be criticized, and perhaps to be made the bottom of japes among the press. We were, after all, the underdog here.

But while I had failed to expect a lot of things, among these was my nomination in the MVP roster. I'd have thought they had removed my name long ago. First of all, I hardly deserved merit, especially when I had been crippled not quite halfway through the quarterfinals. Many had said I had orchestrated on that game some of the best plays the league had seen, with a broken arm to boot, but what were words, really? At any rate, before the Finals match opened via coin toss, everybody in the audience already had a clear idea as to whose name it was which would be singled-out today as the league's best fucking athlete. Ginjo Kugo. I could see it from the way the Head Commissioner carried the much coveted trophy. Hell, it was even obvious right from the fucking way Asuka Katakura, last year's MVP, handled the precious perfumed envelope, whose otherwise blank page had the name Ginjo Fucking Kugo printed on it. And so,

"Before the most important match in the tournament starts," The commissioner announced, his voice shaky with age, "I would like to honor a particular athlete, whose performance throughout the season has brought about inspiration to us, to spectators and to his fellow athletes alike. We measure an athlete, for the most part, by his spirit and not by statistics. Know that numbers are absolute but they aren't everything. That is why this award is known as the Most Valuable Player Award rather than the Most Athletic Player Award…"

Blah blah blah.

"Kugo…Kugo…" The crowd hummed on, as if any other name had the slightest chance of usurping a glory which was permanently his. Jesus. This was going to be boring as hell, and don't get me talking about 'predictable'. In any case, Commissioner dude went on,

"I won't hold you in suspense any longer, so I am extremely honored to present this award to Grimmjow Jaggerjack Azuma."

Silence.

Whose. Fucking. Idea. Of. A. Joke. Was. This.

I stood there, frozen like everyone else, silent as a fucking assassin, my face blank as a sheet…believing there must have been either a typo somewhere in that fucking envelope or a fucking jinx in my ears.

"May I present this award to Grimmjow Jaggerjack Azuma?" Commissioner repeated over the microphone, over the heads of the stupefied audience.

Behind him, Asuka Katakura was beaming at me with satisfaction. Was he truly going to bequeath his title to me? Me, of all fucking jerks? For him to smile like that, perhaps this commemoration brought about a certain recollection to him. Besides being MVP, he had also been mangled last year. Like me.

I felt myself bombarded with stupefied gazes. No surprises here if I was already shriveling up like some slug in a bowl of salt… Really, just who was the fucking dimwit who thought this prank was going to be funny? I was all set up to demonstrate what indignity looked like, or to holler at the officials to correct their disgracing mistake, when Coach Kensei landed a hand on my shoulder, gently prompting,

"Kid, go up there now."

Reluctantly and seemingly under a spell, looking neither presentable nor happy, I walked over to the platform to be daunted by the spotlight. That was when Shawlong, the shameless bastard, yelled 'All hail the Jaguar King!' at the top of his lungs. At that, the crowd erupted into a deafening applause. There was no recalling how I had accepted the trophy and to whom I had addressed my so-called gratitude. Hell, I might've made a grand idiot out of myself sputtering random unintelligible shit. But when I fell back in line with the rest of the Panthers, my teammates were awaiting me with the widest grinning mouths I had ever seen on human faces.

"Make way for his majesty!" Hisagi was imitating a lackey, bowing so low in an awful curtsey.

"Mr. MVP," Starrk started, "looks like from now on I'm gonna find it hard to determine which nickname best suits you."

"Save your breath. Congratulate me after we butcher some wolves." was my reply.

And so the game commenced.

As in all their previous games, Karakura's strong point was in their offense. With a record-breaking number of touchdown passes and zero interceptions, Ginjo Kugo and Shukuro Tsukishima were the key to Karakura's unparalleled Offense. Kugo was dynamic in his passes and precise in his decisions. He was currently the best high school athlete in Japan, so in reality I could just fuck my MVP trophy. But we, the Panthers, had gotten here the hard way. We'd plowed through our road mainly through sheer luck, and along the way there had been a series of dream-eating misfortunes—injuries for instance. Now that we were here, however, our goal was to cast aside the league's most successful team. By the end of the first half, however, we'd only gained one hundred and twenty-nine yards in total. With little to no option in trying to get points back, Starrk and the other Punt-kicker in the team were the busiest dudes on the field.

We all worked our asses, believing ourselves invincible in so long as we did our very best. But the combination of Kugo and Tsukishima was, indeed, the death of us.

I could go on and on about how we had fucked up, but what would be the use of that?

Bottom line was, we lost.

I could honestly say we came short in every area. After all the effort, that was what the Panthers amounted to. Losers. Just who had we thought we were, defeating Kyoushin and nailing Mikasa shut in a casket, to ultimately end up second best to Karakura? So great was my anguish that Vega had to poke my back when the time came for the victors and the losers to line up face to face in the middle of the field. Within that span of time dedicated to congratulating our opponent, I struggled to achieve the self-restraint everyone else appeared to have been born with. Really, I could've smothered Kugo, Tsukishima or their cocky coach to death. But Kugo had this cordial air about him when he extended a hand to me, and yet, in my mind, every contortion he pulled with his face, cordial or otherwise, was fucking poison to me.

Henceforth, Kugo became the embodiment of every fucking thing I had failed to secure in this life; this game, for instance. Ichigo, for another.

"Thank you for the game, Mr. MVP." He whispered in my ear, his lips touching skin.

Hardly had the confetti started pouring down when we took flight in the dugout, to give free rein to our emotions, to maybe scream our lungs out or cry a little. As for me, I could not determine what manner of release I ought to employ. Once there, however, the most unendurable lecture awaited each of us. Coach Kensei Muruguma started, his eyes on me,

"Grimmjow, your passes were all amazingly on target despite your partially healed arm, but what has made you genuinely worthy of the MVP award is your choices of plays and the spirit you've brought to this team. When it comes down to it, no one in the league can hold a candle to you. Too bad Karakura's unbelievably talented QB is coupled with an equally talented Receiver. To me, however, the best quarterback is you."

Before long he was praising Hisagi, profusely emphasizing he had never before now coached so fierce an RB. He next delegated his dedication to Omaeda, so that at this point his eyes had started to water. When it was Starrk's turn to receive coach's gratitude, Gio Vega started to sniff like someone afflicted by some serious flu. Nevertheless, the dedication droned on, without me fully understanding how or why we had lost. It also didn't help that Lisa was sobbing at the corner, her head bent so low I wanted to smother her with a pillow or something to block the sorry sight that she was. Never minding all these distractions, Coach continued to recite what sounded like a eulogy, but I had not the mental focus to drink in whatever else there was to hear. Upon the approach of night, however, I found myself being embraced by him, my mentor,

"It's over, coach."

Like a father off to part with a son, he was brimming with pride, but the sadness remained overpowering.

"It's not the end, Grimmjow. Go take on the college league by storm."

We lost, and that's all there is to it, I wanted to point out.

For all I knew, life was over. And because it was rest-assured over, there was nothing left for me in Japan. This time, I meant to proceed to America in earnest. Escape the pain, the disappointment, the grief.

Leave everything behind, including Kurosaki Ichigo; that was my resolve.

The knock on my door came when I was just about starting to sink in again into depression. I figured it would do me no good to continuously run away from the sense of defeat because it was doing its best to follow me everywhere anyway.

"What?"

"It's me—Ichigo."

"…"

"May I come in?"

Reconciliation, closure—these were the things I had always known to accept through impulse but seldom through conscious thought. As of the moment, I could hardly forgive my stepbrother for kissing someone like Ginjo Kugo, the very reminder of the Panthers' defeat. But who was I to demand anything now?

"Sure."

He looked neat, but even the neat rows of bangs hanging over his forehead seemed to threaten me. Before I could say something nasty, he remarked,

"I heard you were leaving."

"Yep."

"Congrats for being MVP, by the way."

"Thanks."

"Leaving finally?" And here he was, tinkering with stupid questions at the very minute the rest of my life was to be decided. And so I felt impelled to somehow honor him an explanation,

"I've given my word to my father. America seems to be the only way forward for me. In short, I need to go on with the mess I like to call life."

"Explain, please."

"I need to cool a little. I have lately learned a lot of things. First and foremost, I need to stop getting angry at the world. You taught me that. Secondly, there's the reality that I can't have the best of both worlds. It was Ginjo Kugo, or his existence, that taught me that. As for forgiveness and letting bygones be bygones, I owe it to my whore professor. For the rest, I'll let America and college football offer it to me."

It would be hard to attribute the darkness that fell on his face to something other than disappointment. I had hoped that by serving him the naked truth I could win back his esteem, but then I was wrong. Somehow, deep down inside, I wished to settle our accounts, and be done with all this grudge. And then he asked,

"Will you come back?"

"Perhaps. Depends on the life I'll find there. But…"

"But what?"

I composed myself, held out a hand to him and smiled like I used to. For him to end up in my arms was all I wanted at the moment, and yet a part of me was fighting against a sad and inevitable conclusion. Somehow, the promptings of my flesh prevailed. I requested,

"Come here, Ichigo. Give yourself to me one last time."

I found myself engulfed by a desire. From the dim region of what could be called lust, I fought hard against pinning Ichigo against the nearby wall, to render him vulnerable, helpless, clad in nothing but skin. Being at the mercy of whatever that might come his way, he, for his part, allowed himself to be swept off his feet. Once shoved down my bed, he resigned himself to whatever power I still had over him. Inside that room, I did everything right, all at the right time to bring out the man in us both, so easily, so many times in so small an amount of time, as if neither of us had known the pleasure of making love until now. We climaxed, over and over again, thereby disposing ourselves to forget all that had transpired before this very moment, and after it.

For all this, nothing would stop me from leaving; not even endless nights like this.

TBC