Winning felt like losing

Fifteen years ago ...

“You should join a club too,” said Hikari on their way back from school one day. “A sports one. Before they all stop looking for members.”

“When do they ever stop?” he mumbled as he paid for the fresh meat buns with the money her parents had given him.

He was fed up of being startled by older club members who tended to pop up out of no where and grab at him like ghosts, begging him to give their hobbies a chance. In an attempt to improve his socialising skills, he tried to look the cashier in the eyes but Hikari had had too much faith in his abilities. He looked away instantly as the young lady behind the counter smiled at him before handing over his purchase.

“It's not right but they'll probably stop harassing you once you join a club,” said Hikari. He wasn't sure of she was laughing at his words or his alien-like manners whenever he tried to interact with people. “Not that that's the only reason you should sign up, of course.”

“I should just pretend I've picked one,” he said sullenly, fishing out one of the hot steamed buns and handing it to her. “Then no one'll talk to me ever again.”

He wondered why he hadn't thought of that before as the convenience store doors closed behind them. He unwrapped his own bun and closed his eyes briefly as its savoury aroma rose up, giving his nostrils a warm welcome.

“No lying,” said Hikari at once, speaking in between huge mouthfuls. “If you join a club, you won't have to walk home without me any more, and you'll get to train up your body at the same time.”

“What do I have to train for?” His shoulder brushed against hers. He had stopped apologising for it recently but the words were difficult to hold back every time.

The idea of not going home alone made his brain salivate. Maybe then he wouldn't have to search every corner and scan every shadow for the silhouette of a certain hulking alcoholic. Maybe then he wouldn't flinch as badly every time he walked too close to someone else or whenever he heard raised voices, regardless of the emotion that coloured the speaker's words.

“So I don't have to be the only one with muscles.” She grinned, flexing an impressive lean teenage arm, then taking another bite of her bun. “And so you can see how fun it is to be part of a team.”

A team? He already knew how fun it was to be part of a team. Why didn't she? His hands tightened around the meat bun and his uniform hung awkwardly around his upper body, especially in the chest and bicep area. He was sure the other guys in her class didn't have the same problem. They probably knew how to smile back at the cashier too without looking a ripe bell pepper two seconds later.

“I don't think it'll be fun for me,” he grumbled.

He didn't know which was worse. Searching for his dad whenever he had to be alone in public or forcing himself to hang out with people who would more than likely hate him for everything he couldn't be.

“I know you hate it when we say this but you really won't know for sure unless you try.” She scrunched up the empty wrapper and shoved it into her pocket, checking her mouth for stray crumbs or embarrassing streaks of sauce.

“I do know,” he insisted, hunching his shoulders against a chilly breeze she didn't seem to feel. “I'm not you.”

“Hmm.” She examined the early summer sky, hands in her pockets, eyelids half lowered calculatingly. “I had to learn how to become me. So maybe you'll just have to learn how to be you.”

“What do you mean?” he asked with a frown. “You're already you and I'm already me.”

The fifteen year old stared at him in a way he had come to both welcome and fear. Sometimes that stare meant he had done something smart and she didn't know how to point it out without making him uncomfortable. Sometimes it meant he had disappointed her by being unable be clever all the time and she couldn't work out how to tell him without leaving him devastated for days. Mrs Oshiro had warned her to be more careful with her choice of words on more than once occasion but it seemed like the advice hadn't settled in yet.

“You know who you are whenever you're with me, right?” she replied. “Or when you're at home with all of us. But you still haven't had the chance to find out who you are when you're with other people in class or in a team. Do you know what I mean?”

He didn't have a clue. Hikari was the same no matter where she went and who she was with. She only laughed at jokes that she genuinely found funny and questioned those that were offensive in a calm yet dangerous way. She helped people who needed help and shut down those who tried to hurt others.

She spoke her mind and usually knew how to do it without hurting the other person's feelings. Unless that person was him. Even then, he didn't think she did it on purpose. It seemed more like it was the first time she had met someone like him and that was why she struggled to communicate with him properly sometimes.

Her hadn't ever heard her deliberately soften her voice around guys or wear things she wasn't comfortable with just to fit in with the other girls in her class. And everyone seemed to love her for it. She joked with the teachers, helped assistants when they struggled with their tasks, and never lied to her parents, even when she knew the truth would get her in trouble with them.

She didn't have to change herself at all. Unlike him.

Yota hesitated and finished the last tasteless bite of his steamed bun, then nodded. “I think so.”

“Don't worry.” She poked the side of his nose and smiled as it scrunched up. “You'll see what I mean one day. Now, which club are you gonna join, huh? ”

~

Twelve years ago ...

They were going to lose, eighteen to twenty, unless someone managed to get the ball through the hoop soon. Gym shoes squeaked endlessly against the polished floor of the gymnasium. The musty scent of sweat held his mind hostage and his body tried its best to continue on autopilot without running into one of the other nine players on the court.

“Yota!” One of his teammates, a tall boy with short hair and elongated eyes called Daichi, lifted a hand so he threw the basketball to him.

Daichi pointed briefly at the hoop and Yota followed his lead. Sprinting further up the court, he shook off the two boys who had marked him from the beginning of the match and tried to appreciate the taste of air. Although over the years he had grown used to the repetitive boom of the leather ball meeting the floor, and the touch of his teammates both inside and outside of their games, the violence to the opposing team's movements and voices drained him right from the start.

With the weight of the people watching from the upper level and the pressure of playing in the second to last match of the tournament on his shoulders, he found himself almost completely worn out by the halfway point. Daichi launched the ball at him but a quick, lean member of the other team stole the pass and redirected it towards their end of the court effortlessly. Yota spun round to chase it and his fellow forward mirrored him as he ran to reclaim the ball.

They only had a few minutes left to score. Victory could only be achieved now via an extremely synchronised set of passes between the least exhausted guys on the team, or by someone pulling off an incredible three pointer beyond their usual capabilities. No one on the team seemed like they could do something so heroic right now. Unless they had to win. Unless they had to prove their place on the court. Unless they needed the game to end before something bad happened. Unless …

Hikari yelled something at him, leaning dangerously over the railing above, and he nearly tripped before he could pick up the pace. The fluorescent lights in the building stung his eyes as did the sweat trickling into them. He dashed his black woollen wristband across his brow and one of their guards slapped the basketball out of the other team member's hand right before they could take a shot.

It hit the floor and bounced straight towards Yota. The clock in his mind stopped ticking. The strong lights seemed to flicker, then blazed stronger than before. The noisy crowd consisting of teenagers and the occasional adult seemed to collectively hold their breath as he caught the basketball with both hands, whirled around until he could see the opposite basket, and threw one of the craziest three pointers he had ever attempted.

It flew in a perfect arc, up and over, as if he had practised throwing from beyond the half-court line for months. Before he could see it drop through the net, a member of the opposing team crashed into him. He barely managed to turn his face aside in time, avoiding an elbow to the nose. They had probably been trying to block him from making the shot. They probably hadn't meant to collide with him so hard and smother him with their body odour. But their elbow grazed his shoulder like a small flame passed over a pile of gunpowder, igniting an entire network of old bruises and cuts that had lingered beneath his skin and within his skull for years.

Yota dropped onto all fours, then clutched his upper arms as the world warped around him. The cheers of the crowd turned into demeaning words and insults that burned him from the inside out. The hands now tugging at his shoulders and back out of concern became cages that tried to steal his freedom and force him to obey. Apologies and questions from both his team and the other were no more than guttural growls. He curled up on the court where his new dreams were supposed to come true and hid the tears that marked them shattering behind his hands.

Even after all this time, nothing had changed.

He was still the pathetic boy who got scared instead of angry. He still couldn't do what needed to be done, especially when the people around him needed it the most. He still let them hurt him without fighting back. He still wasn't strong enough to stop the pain, no matter how impressive his muscles might have been.

“Excuse me, young lady, you're not allowed to be on the court,” said someone who sounded like the referee.

Something lightweight and warm landed over his head, partially blocking out the lights and the voices, but not the sensation of Hikari's hands as she pulled him closer to her.

“I know but he's my friend,” she replied, gasping as she wrapped her arms around his back and head. “I've got this.”

As she had so many times before, she created a small cave where he was allowed to be as sad, angry, or confused as he needed to be. He grabbed the back of her shirt with both hands and buried his face against her as if his expression was a corpse. Her comforting scent, soft ginger and hot skin, balanced out the claustrophobia left by phantom sensation of a pillow being pressed down onto his four year old face. A memory he questioned every time he failed to forget about it.

“Yota?” Hikari patted his back, her hand firm but careful as it landed between his shoulders. “Remember to breathe, okay? That's all you have to do right now.”

His shin bones ached but he couldn't get comfortable. Not when he could hear the guys on his team asking what was going on, and those on the opposing team whispering that there was something wrong with him. Not when he had spoiled the entire match for all of them, as well as the onlookers, by having a mental breakdown in the middle of the court.

“Hikari?” he moaned, his voice thick with dread and suppressed agony and lungs releasing smoke along with her name.

“You'll be okay,” she murmured. “Just keep breathing.”

“I can't –”

“You always say that.” Her ribcage quivered around her laughter and the bones in his face felt like twigs in a thunderstorm. “And then you always do.”

She was right but sometimes being right wasn't good enough. Sometimes it just made everything worse by showing you exactly what you didn't have in the first place.

“Hey, is he hurt?” asked Daichi.

Yota cringed, loosening his grip on the girl who kept him in her arms despite all of the attention they were currently receiving. She should have had to run down the stairs like a crazy person just to make him feel better. His teammates should have been able to line up and bow to the other team as they usually did without him making a scene. The people watching them all should have had the chance to talk about the match excitedly and complain about the parts they didn't like without him giving them a massive reason to do just that.

Everything he had built with Daichi and the others crashed down on him like a meteorite. Every training session and every time he had forced himself to hang out after school. Every inside joke he know understood and every prank he hadn't been brave enough to partake in. They all landed heavily on his vision of the future and he wondered if this was how the dinosaurs had felt hundreds of years ago.

“Not really,” replied Hikari as he let go of her clothes but didn't even try to straighten up. “He just needs a second, isn't that right, bestie?”

She peeked under the expanse of her sweatshirt, her half visible face framed by its edges, and tapped the tip of his nose.

“I messed up again,” he sniffled, pawing at his damp face. “Everything's all ruined because of me.”

“Since when did buzzer beaters ruin anything?”

“Buzzer beater?” He peeked at her from between his fingers and couldn't remember hearing the timer go off at all.

“That's right,” she said, rubbing his shoulders carefully before emerging from the confines of her sweatshirt. “Why else do you think everyone's waiting for you to come out of there?”

He could think of many reasons and couldn't bring himself to pull the fabric off his head. Instead, he chose to stare at the floor as if it could show him what his life would look like from that point onwards. They had won the match but he had still spoiled the moment. Winning didn't mean that he would be forgiven for making them look weak and stupid right at the last second. Hikari being there for him didn't mean she wanted to be there for the rest of their lives.

“You're the one who put me here,” he told her shakily.

And he wondered if she had any idea how much winning felt like losing sometimes.