The Past V – Sakuragi's motivation
Sakuragi, smiling to himself, sprinted up the court in preparation to play defense after his monster dunk over Gori. He knew that he could win, but he remembered what it had been like when winning seemed like something which he would never again experience ….
"Now, try the other side." The doctor winced in sympathy as Sakuragi tried to bend to his left, but couldn't manage to go through more than 20 degrees of movement before his back seized up. "It will go away, eventually, young man, but you need to rehabilitate your back religiously."
As his doctor wandered off to look at another patient in the ward, Sakuragi lay back down on his bed and looked glumly out the window at people waling on the pavement leading to the hospital's entrance. A month of therapy, and still minimal results, thought Sakuragi. Why had this happened to him?! He was a genius, the best basketball player on Shohoku, and now … this.
A big sigh escaped the red-head's mouth, and then to his right, a voice spoke up: "You, red-head, why are you so glum?"
Sakuragi ignored the question at first, but after it had been repeated a second time, he looked over at his ward-mate and snarled, "What's it to you?"
The teenager on his right looked a bit surprised, and then smiled. "Nothing, I just wanted to see if you were all right. You looked a bit down after the doctor spoke to you, is all. Sakuragi."
Sakuragi's anger, the fuel which had powered his rise as a basketball player, immediately disappeared as he began to sink back into his funk. "Oh." Then, he wondered to himself about how the boy knew his name. "How do you know my name?" he asked while turning away to face the other direction.
The teenager answered, "Everyone here knows who you are! You're a famous guest here, after your performance in the Nationals! I'm Jinichiro, by the way." Jinichiro smiled again, and then asked, "What will you be missing?"
Sakuragi turned back to look at the other boy, confusion on his face. "Eh? Missing?"
Jinichiro said, "Yes. Missing. You know, what will the doctor be doing to you in surgery?"
Sakuragi replied, "Nothing. My back was hurt in the last game, so I need bed-rest to allow the muscles to recover." Sakuragi's anger came back for an instant. "Bed-rest! All I want to do is play basketball, and I'm stuck in bed, like a …" Then, Sakuragi looked around the ward, and embarrassment shamed him into silence.
The other boy finished his thought, "… cripple? You can say it. Hito over there lost his arm in a motorcycle crash, the foreigner down the hall had the retina of his eye cut by glass in a bar fight … and I am going into surgery for a tumor in my neck, with the possibility of losing my voice if the surgery doesn't go well."
Jinichiro continued, with a smile on his face. "And yet, you are the one that is angry. Don't you see, Sakuragi? You're the lucky one here. You aren't facing life with one eye, one leg, or no voice. You just need to … live life to the fullest. Enjoy what you have, for as long as you have it, and have no regrets."
Sakuragi thought back to the past basketball season. He knew that everyone back at Shohoku was depressed after their final loss in the Nationals … but how could he face his teammates? He had let them down by not being there for him, because he had been selfish enough to play longer than the Old Man told him he could play. He should have listened!
Sakuragi bounced out of bed and pounded the wall behind his bed's headboard in frustration. As he did so, Jinichiro began to clap. Startled, Sakuragi stopped beating his fists against the way and spun around to face Jinichiro. "What?! Why are you clapping?"
Jinichiro stopped clapping and said, "See? Look! Your anger! Without knowing it, you just leapt out of bed with no fear of injury to your back, and I'm betting you don't feel any pain … correct?" As Sakuragi frowned, Jinichiro continued. "Sakuragi, it's mind over body. I'm no philosopher, but even I know that any person can do what they want to as long as they want it enough. If I lose my voice because of my surgery, so be it. I'll just have to learn to speak another way, using sign language, or writing, or painting. I know I'll be fine, I don't' doubt it at all, because no matter what happens, I know I can do whatever it takes to let those around me understand my ideas, my hopes and my dreams. What do you really want, Sakuragi?"
Sakuragi, stunned by Jinichiro's words, had a flashback to a day not so long ago, when Micchi, that troublemaker, broke down in the middle of a fight in the gym with the basketball team upon seeing Anzai-sensei appear. The words that he had said on that day now came out of Sakuragi's mouth, without him even thinking about it: "Basketball. I want to play … basketball."
Jinichiro nodded. "Then, play it! What's stopping you? Not that back! Only yourself. Do what your doctor says, do it religiously, and then do even more, and you will have what you truly want. Or, are you afraid?"
Sakuragi, who would normally have exploded at that comment, now smiled himself. "Jinichiro, if you can live without a voice, then I can certainly do what is needed to play basketball once again! Without a doubt!"
Sakuragi's doctor returned. "What? Why are you out of bed! Get back in, so I can finish my examinations and then decide what pain medicines you need …."
Sakuragi spun to face the doctor. "Bed? Medicine? Bah! Just tell this genius what I need to do to take care of my back and make it stronger, strong enough to play basketball again! Don't worry about the pain, because I will overcome it!"
The doctor looked at Jinichiro in amazement, who simply shrugged his shoulders and said, "What?"
Sakuragi turned to strip the ball from a surprised Maki, and then shot up the court. With Rukawa and Akagi between himself and the hoop, he stopped, spun past an outstretched Rukawa as he tried to steal the ball, dribbled to his inside to avoid Rukawa's desperate attempt to backpedal and force him to the outside again, and launched himself into the air. Akagi, seeing how high Sakuragi was jumping, didn't even challenge the basket, instead moving to the side to watch what was true poetry in motion.
Sakuragi, unaware that the eyes of all players on the court were now on him, kept his own eyes on the hoop as it grew closer, and thought of Jinichiro. Yes, he had lost his voice, but his writing had really taken off, to the point where he was getting interest from numerous magazines to publish his work. He had conquered his difficulties on his own terms, and so had he. Did he still feel pain in his back? He'd be lying if he said no. But, the thrill of playing this game … it more than made up for the small niggles he felt from time to time. There was a time he thought he wouldn't be able to play it ever again … luckily for him, that time was now in the past, and the future … well, it was up to him what the future would hold for him. But, as for the present …
"SLAAAAAM DUUUUUUUUNK!"
