私は空を見上げChapter 2: Sanada's Window

STADARD DISCLAIMER APPLIES

Credits to LinneaFarhenn for the original idea of Sanada's love interest.

This is set in Sanada's first year of Senior High in Rikkai.

-oOo-

I hate winter mornings. Fall and winter mornings to be exact. Let's include late nights in those seasons as well. My knees keep hurting. It's been this way since my match with Tezuka in the Nationals. I must admit, I overdid it back then. If Yukimura didn't force me to stop my outright challenge to Tezuka I would have destroyed my knees for sure. Now I understand what Tezuka was talking about during our short chats when we go camping with our Ojii-sans. About taking one for the team, and why he was perpetually injured.

I've always believed in strict discipline, in using brutal force and training to get my team on its feet. Yes Yukimura is still the buchou, but they were my team too. And as much as I enjoy winning on my own, the collaborative effort of these people helps me to fight on and go for victory. After all, besides Hyotei, we are the only team that is still complete to now. I must also admit, having some of the good players from rival school transferring to other schools and Tezuka leaving for Germany made a difference; admittedly the high school tennis scene was just not the same as in middle school.

It was rehab day, and I've packed my bags last night, but being me, I just needed to double check it again. Make sure I had everything in place, and everything I needed for the day was there.

I've never been interested in people much, not unless they have this extra ordinary talent for tennis, then I have no other reason to be interested in them. I have no interest in people outside the world of tennis, especially people who are not men. You know what I mean.

"How long do you plan on being cold and cynical Sanada?"

"I'm not cold and cynical."

"You're not, if the topic is tennis. But when it's love—."

"Aw sheesh! Here we go again!"

"Come on Sanada, at least open yourself to the possibility of actually being in in-love."

"The possibility is zero Yukimura."

"One day, you'll find someone, and you won't be able to stop yourself from saying that you've found love."

I always hated it when Yukimura talks about love. Even now, after what happened during our senior year in middle school, even if he keeps going back to the place where it happened; Yukimura still keeps talking about love. It was just crazy. It's like he's turned into this masochist who just wants to be hurt repeatedly. I think its insanity, but until I figure out a way to convince him of such, I'm just going to have to live with the fact that my best friend will have this insanity attacks every now and then. And I have to make sure he doesn't end up like his girlfriend, her soul rest in peace.

The rehab place was like a haven for me. It's a place where I can think, it's a place where I don't have to worry about the team, or my academics, or my crazy love sick puppy of a best friend who still hasn't gotten over her girlfriend's death. It's a place where I can focus on myself and fully recovering from my knee injury; so Akaya would stop bugging me about how 'Sanada-fukubuchou had gotten soft'; I want to recover fast, so I can crush that midget to pulp. Just because he's now the Middle School Tennis Club Buchou doesn't mean he can talk to me that way. I'm sure Yukimura and I will be Buchou and Fukubuchou again, we are after all ichnen High School students now, we can't expect to be placed on top of the food chain instantly.

"Moshi-moshi."

"Hai, Sanada desu."

"Sanada, been a while. Is something wrong?"

"Why does something have to be wrong for me to call you?"

"Gomen, it's just, I'm not used to getting phone calls from you. E-mails maybe, but not phone calls."

"I can't seem to figure out that e-mail thing, if Yuimura's not around I have a difficult time using it."

"And Yukimura's not with you today?"

"Hai, how did you know?"

"Because you called me."

"Tezuka!"

"Gomen, gomen."

"Anyway, I just wanted to confirm the rumours."

"What rumours?"

"About you and this foreign girl, I heard it's been going on since senior year."

"You called me in Germany to ask me if I really have a girl friend? Sanada, are you sick? Have you seen a doctor?"

"Don't make this difficult for me Tezuka!"

"Why the sudden interest in my love life?"

"I lost a bet."

"Pardon me."

"I lost a bet to Yanagi and Yukimura; they made me bet that Marui would chicken out confessing to this girl before we graduated middle school."

"And he didn't chicken out."

"Hai. So as punishment they said I was task to confirm the rumours about you."

"Eto, not very like you to accept defeat this way."

"Will you just answer the question Tezuka!"

"Hai. It's true, her name's Amani."

I hated the fact that Tezuka was in love. I thought if there was someone who would be sane enough to talk to about these things, it would be him. He was focused and dedicated to tennis as much as I was. Well, maybe he and Yukimura were more alike than I thought. He even went to the trouble of having a long distance relationship with a foreign lady, Asian, but still foreign.

I think I have established the fact that the people around me are all insane, insanely in-love that is. And all the mushy feelings surrounding me just suffocates me.

So, like I said earlier, I like the rehab place, because I don't have to think about them, or their love-sickness. I can focus on myself. I like my therapist, he's focused, like me. He pushes me, and challenges me. And he is not love sick like the other people in my life. Well, he did have a girl friend, but at least he doesn't talk about her twenty-four-seven. He talks about recovery, and getting back to shape a hundred percent. We talk about tennis, and basketball, and any other sport we can think of. Never about girls. That's why I like my therapist.

I like the rehab place, because the stronger clients who were in the more advance stages of recovery were in a separate section from the other more sickly clients; not that I mind being with them or anything; but I like how I see people being progressed from one room to another.

There was this glass window that separates each section of the rehab place, one window that I looked through were cubicles with beds, probably for patients who needed to lie down, or those that could not tolerate sitting or standing. The other window I looked through were bars and wheels and stairs, for clients who were recovered enough to learn to walk again, stand again, those who used to just lie around the rehab place were now learning to take the world on their own again. Then there was the window to the place where I was treated, where the more recovered clients would just need strengthening and proprioceptive training, those of us who didn't need crutches or canes or wheelchairs. I loved those windows, because when I look through them, I see hope, I see progress, I see how people who fell down, rise again from the ashes.

I love the rehab place, because it was a place of hope and second chances.

In the short time that I spent in this rehab place, one particular person caught my attention. I will admit she is a girl. But she didn't catch my attention because of the fact that she was a girl. I think I've established the fact that girls in particular do not interest me, in the least bit. She was different from all the clients in the rehab place. I've always seen people progress from one window to the other, except her. The first time I saw her in the rehab place, she was being assisted by her parents to walk-in. I use to see her through the second window, where the bars and wheels and stairs were. She had a strange way of walking, limping, but she seemed perfectly healthy other than that. I thought maybe she got into an accident that caused the limp. I shrugged it off and focused on the strengthening.

Next I saw her come in using walkers, her parents still beside her, ready to catch her if she falls. I still saw her through the second window. The limp had gotten worse. It felt strange to see her be getting worse when everyone around her seem to be getting better, myself included.

Next I saw her come in, in a wheelchair, her parents pushing her. That was the first time I saw her in the first window, where the cubicles and beds were. I found it stranger that she was being demoted than promoted. I thought, maybe her therapist was not as good as mine for her to be experiencing what she was going through; but then my therapist told me that her therapist was the best that they had. The top cat of the bunch. Then why was she not improving?

Over the months I saw her coming in on her wheelchair, sometimes using her walker, then her wheelchair, then her walker. I saw her in the first window, then back to the second window, then back to the first window, then back to the second window. But I never saw her the same room as me. And somehow, it bothered me.

"Renji, can I ask you something?"

"Hai."

"Do you think it's possible for someone to be improving then deteriorate, then improve, then deteriorate again?"

"Are we talking about tennis?"

"Iie, iie, there's this girl in the rehab place-."

"A girl?"

"It's not what you're thinking."

"What am I thinking?"

"Yanagi, tarundorou!"

"Iiyo, iiyo, gomen. You were saying."

"There's this girl in the rehab place who seem to be going back and forth from improving and deteriorating. And I can't seem to figure it out."

"And this bothers you, because?"

"Because everyone around her were improving."

"There are some illnesses that could cause that, I think, but I'm not sure, why not talk to Yagyuu, his father is a doctor, maybe he knows the answer to your question. Or better yet, why not ask your therapist about it instead."

Yanagi maybe the data man in tennis, but somehow, in other aspects of life, he's useless to my inquiries. No offense to him, we're really close friends and all that, but sometimes, Yagyuu makes more sense. But he was right, I should ask someone more knowledgeable about my inquiry. So I did, I asked my therapist about her condition, that was when I found out she had a condition affecting her nerves and the central nervous system, it was a progressive paralysis that debilitated her. I learned that it was a remitting and relapsing disease, she was weak when she had her attacks, and she was stronger when she didn't. I understood why she kept going back from window one to window two and back.

Her condition sparked an interest in my mind, or so I thought.

The rehab place was having an event in celebration of the International Disability Week, my therapist says it's to inform people and to empower debilitated individuals. I was hesitant to attend, I wasn't actually debilitated or anything, just a little pain in my knees every now and then, but I could still play tennis, and I was still good at it. But curiosity killed the cat they say, and my curiosity killed me as well. So I came. And that was the first time I saw her up close. She was beautiful. Breathe takingly beautiful. Her long shinny black hair extended to about her waist, her hazel-brown orbs were more round than almond shaped, her nose was perfectly chiselled, and her lips were pale pink, she always had a smile on her face despite her condition.

My curiosity led me to walk up to her, my intentions were to find out more about this peculiar paralyzing condition she had, I knew Yukimura had one back in middle school, but a surgery cured him. I wondered why her condition couldn't be cured by one. She was very accommodating and friendly, she always smiled and had a gentle voice. Even Yukimura's creepy cheerfulness outside the tennis court could not compare to hers. Not that she was creepy. It's just, I was not used to such a jolly personality, especially one coming from a debilitated person who to me seemed to carry the burden of the world on her shoulder. How she does it, I can only speculate on.

I like the rehab place even more now. When I look through the windows of the rehab place, no matter which window I see her in, I always see her smiling at me, I always see her hopeful.

I like the rehab place even more now. Because when we move pass those windows, I don't just get to see her smile, I get to talk to her, I get to push her around on her wheelchair to see the gardens outside. I get to hear her insights about things that bother me. I hear her ideas and suddenly I find hope in the most hopeless situations. It seemed odd at times, when I was healthier, I was stronger, and had more to look forward to in life, yet she was the one talking about positive things.

I like the rehab place even more now. Because windows were just windows to me before I came here. Now windows were hopeful things to me. Because through these windows I saw people who fell rise up again from the ashes.

It's been months that I kept coming back to this place, and each time I do I see her from the other side of the window. But today she was not there. They said she had a really bad remission and had to be taken to the hospital to recover. I shrugged it off, thinking the next time I come in she'll be there. But she never came. They said her condition was getting worse and that she was still in the hospital. So I decided to come visit her there.

I hate hospitals. Hospitals keep reminding me of Yukimura, and how I almost lost my best friend. I like the rehab place better.

I asked the lady in the information counter where her room was and she directed me to it. When I finally reached her floor I saw her parents outside her room, they were hugging each other, her mother was crying. There was chaos everywhere, doctors and nurses running in and out of her room. I looked through the window of her room and a lot of people were swarming around her bed, they were doing chest compression and pushing things through her IV line, there was a tube stuck in her mouth and everyone was just chaotic.

When the chaos was over, they said the paralysis had reached her chest muscles and that she had a cardiac arrest. They said it was not uncommon for people who had her condition to have one, because the nerves that supplied her heart were also affected, or something to that extent. I didn't quite understand what they were saying. But I did understand that she was gone.

I stood outside her room, staring at her from the window as they covered her body with white linen; and I felt numb, paralyzed even, like all the colors of the world disappeared.

Today I came to rehab, and they said I was being discharged from the program. I was well enough, and that I was being given a personal trainer who would continue the program during tennis practice. So today was my last day in the rehab place. I looked through the windows of the rehab place one last time. I saw a boy from the second window got promoted to the room where I was in; and I saw the Obaa-san from the first window promoted to the second window, she was learning to stand on her own again. And there was a new girl in the first window who came in on a wheelchair.

I like the rehab place, I like those windows. This is a place where I find hope. This is a place where I see people who fell down rise up again.

I stepped out of the rehab place for the last time today. From outside I look through the window and see people inside laughing and smiling, I see people full of hope and dreams.

Now that I've been discharged, I like the rehab place even more. Because this was where I found hope. This was where I understood why Yukimura kept coming back to the rooftop garden. This was where I understood why Tezuka keeps fighting for her girlfriend even if there were oceans apart. I like the rehab place even more now, because this is where I understood, love was not such a silly thing after all; this was where I realized, love was not insanity. So I look at the windows of the rehab place one last time, because like so many who came and gone from this place, I was someone who fell and rose up again.

I am Sanada Genechiro, and when I look up the sky, I see my first love, smiling at me from the windows of heaven.

-oOo-

I modified the original plot suggested by Linnea, but the essence is still there. Didn't make the "Sanada in-love" part too mushy, I just feel like it wasn't very Sanada-ish if it was too mushy. =) Hope you readers liked this chapter.

For those of you wondering who Amani is, it's the OC love interest of Tezuka from my other story When Worlds Collide. And Yukimura's dead girl friend here is the same girl that I used in Chapter 1.