Basketball

 

Fuji finds Ryoma playing basketball by himself in a back lot somewhere. He’s good at it, the orange ball swishing through the hoop nearly every time.

 

It’s all very odd, Fuji thinks. He’s never seen Ryoma show interest in any sport other than tennis, so this other side of his scowling kohai intrigues him.

 

He doesn’t say anything, restricting himself merely to watching. He brings his camera every once in a while and when Ryoma stops to wipe at the sweat beading on his forehead Fuji takes a picture of the exhaustion, and then as Ryoma begins to dribble again he takes one of his determination.

 

(Fuji finds that he enjoys photography more and more as the days go by. Maybe in high school he’ll quit tennis and take it up. Who knows?)

 

Every other day after tennis practice has ended, Fuji sees Ryoma at the back lot practicing religiously, as if the thud of a basketball against a wooden backboard holds more secrets than the smack of a tennis ball against a racket. He remembers, briefly, a story someone told him a long time ago when Ryoma first joined the team.

 

Ryoma used to play basketball. He was good at it, and he made the team. He was the youngest, and the other players didn’t like it. They fouled him nearly every chance they got, even if it cost them their games, even after the coach told them to stop or they were off the team. They caught him after practice and hit him, tried to make him quit. In the end, Ryoma did because he couldn’t stand cheaters. He still can’t, you know.

 

Fuji studies Ryoma thoughtfully.

 

“Do you have any trouble with your homework?” he asks during lunch. Ryoma has escaped his fan club on the rooftops, as the doors are usually locked and access is banned. Fuji gave him the key a long time ago.

 

Ryoma looks at him blankly. “No,” he says. “Why would I?”

 

“No reason,” Fuji says and turns his attention back to his wasabi rolls.

 

Why, he wonders, would a tennis prodigy like Ryoma want to play basketball?

 

He wants to know. He wants to know the answer more than anything he’s ever wanted, and he ponders this even as he scrubs his hair in the showers and Ryoma borrows Momo’s shampoo—without asking, of course—from across the shower room, all too aware of Fuji-sempai’s sharp gaze on his back.

 

Ryoma might know he’s watching and might not, but he never mentions it. Neither does Fuji, who finds the heavy thud of the basketball against gravel strangely soothing as time passes.

 

Why? he wonders. Why would Ryoma like basketball? There’s nothing in it for him, no one even knows he plays it—

 

He thinks he understands.

 

There’s nothing in it for Ryoma. There are no expectations, no expectant gazes on his form, no breaths held in anticipation, and when he loses the only person he’s lost to is himself. He is not Ryoma Echizen, son of Nanjiroh Echizen, tennis prodigy—he is Ryoma Echizen, a twelve-year old boy who enjoys basketball. He plays basketball not because everyone expects to, but because he wants to.

 

He treats basketball the way I do tennis, Fuji thinks. It’s just a hobby, something to help him unwind. In the end, it doesn’t matter.

 

It’s autumn and the back lot is filled with leaves, red and orange and gold, crisp and crackling under Ryoma’s feet. He kicks them aside carelessly, taking a basketball out of his bag and starting to dribble.

 

“Ryoma, may I play as well?”

 

He looks up into Fuji’s eyes, at the smile, and shrugs. He passes the basketball to Fuji with the same ease he might serve a tennis ball.

 

Five minutes later, Ryoma’s come to the same conclusion Fuji has: “Fuji-sempai, no offense, but you suck.”