Part 1

I wish my life were simpler. I hate it when things are complicated, but complexity literally defines my life now. But so does mundane boredom. This so-called life of mine is just so full of contradictions. Doesn’t it sound presumptuous, though? I sound like a whiny brat, don’t I? I guess everyone has a whiny side to himself or herself. I rarely speak my mind on the outside, in fact, to whoever recounts me talking more than ten words in a sentence, I’ll stand up and give them a friendly hug. And that’s like the two things that would take nothing less than a miracle for them to ever happen.

Why, you ask? Why ask me? You can see for yourself. Look at me. Look at me and tell me that you don’t feel sorry for me. Look me in the eye and tell me that you don’t think it’s a pity for someone my age to be the way that I am.

I don’t feel sorry for myself. Why should you? But you do. Everyone does. And I can’t blame them at all, for if I see someone who was stuck in the same situation as I am now, back when I was not like this, despite my stoic exterior, I would, deep down inside of me, feel sorry for that poor bastard, even if I didn’t want to. I still do, whenever I see people like me, or worse than me. And I can’t help it. I can’t help how I feel. So I shouldn’t take it out on you when I see unwanted pity in your eyes. You can’t help it.

Stand up and give them a friendly hug. Why does that take a miracle to happen? Well, it does for the likes of me. The hugging part was already a non-probability back when I was…not like this. I’m still me, I’m still the way I am, but many tell me that I’ve gone from bad to worse since the accident. I can’t help it. I’m depressed, but I’m not feeling sorry for myself. Do you understand what I mean? Am I sounding like a hypocrite? If I do, then you just don’t understand how I feel. I’m not sure I fully understand it myself.

I don’t want to be stuck in this shell but…I somehow feel that I deserve it, too. That’s about…what I meant earlier, the thing about me being depressed and yet not in the way where I’m feeling sorry for myself. Depression doesn’t just come when one feels sorry for him or herself. You won’t understand that unless you’re in my shoes but I hardly wish for what has befallen me to befall on others.

I still haven’t answered your question? My God, are you blind or something? Can’t you see for yourself? Oh yeah, you’re just reading this, huh? What are you reading this for? This is /my/ journal, godammit, no one’s supposed to read another person’s private stuff! Can’t you even respect my privacy? I have nothing left. Why are you taking this away from me? Why?

Oh, you’re curious, huh? That’s rich. Well, since I can’t be stopping you, and you’re /still/ reading this pathetic little entry of mine, well then, there’s nothing we can do about it, can’t we? Always. The likes of you always let your curiosities get the better of you. But I admit, you /do/ find out interesting things that way.

Well, since you’re still at this and you have got no respect whatsoever for another’s privacy, then so be it. And if you’re asking, let me tell you that I’m not crazy. It’s only common sense that to read this, you are actually what were stated above.

Stand up and give them a friendly hug. Well, my personality isn’t so very different from what you’ve gathered about me as a person so far, as you’re reading this, from before what happened. I’ve just gone from bitter to…more bitter, I guess you could say. As for standing up, that’s where the difference lies. I would, if I could.

People don’t realize just what they have got until they find that they don’t have it anymore. I guess I’ve taken what I had for granted, too, but it’s hardly something that you thank God, if there is one out there, everyday that you had ‘cause it’s just there. You might think that you’re lucky when you see someone who doesn’t have it, this normal thing, but then, it’ll just pass. You can’t be expected to dwell on that same thought every moment of your life. And if you’re lucky, you just get away with it.  Most people do.

I’m just not one of them. And well, things happen. But the feelings that come afterwards…really, I can’t help that. When I lost the ability to walk, I lost my future, and my future, or the thing that fuelled it, more like, was everything that I was. I was never a sunshiny-bright type, I was rather cold and unfriendly, so I’ve been told, and some even said arrogant –though I seriously was not aware of that, maybe I was, maybe I was not—and that I was a downright asshole. I believe being an asshole means you obviously have something that people find annoying or pissed off about so if my aloofness, that much about myself I’m aware of, means that I am one, then I guess that I am one. They don’t have the heart to tell that to my face now, but I can see it in their eyes when I brush off their good intentions with, what I think, strikes them as arrogance. Where does this cripple get off being arrogant? Pity either turns to anger and bruised ego for them, or it turns to even deeper pitying.

The doctor told me that the accident has left my lower spine broken, and despite intensive surgery afterwards, I was paralyzed from the waist down. I can’t walk anymore, seemingly for the rest of my life. I wasn’t exactly in the position to rebel and disbelieve him, since I really could no longer feel the lower half of my body, despite my hands being on my thighs. I felt my hands touch my thighs, but not my thighs touching my hands.

From then onwards, I had a notion that life was going to suck a lot more for me. And I was not the type to take my own life. I was at a loss, really. And surprisingly calm. I never had an outbreak of wanting my legs back or whatever, not yet, they’re there after all, I just couldn’t feel or use them, that’s all. I was still whole, even though I didn’t feel whole. I felt strangely disjointed from my lower half, like it’s just no longer there.

I had nightmares of myself playing and dribbling like I usually did, surged with adrenaline, on the court, in the middle of an important match, and then in the next moment, I was missing the lower half of my body and still on the court, and everyone was so high and looking at me with this horror-stricken look on their faces, and everything was just so silent. So horribly silent. And I would wake up, sweating, a scream choked off at the back of my throat, ripping the blankets off myself just to be able to /see/, to make sure, that my legs were still there. That everything below my waist, were still there. I still had my legs. So as long as they’re there, maybe someday…

Deep inside, I always wanted to scream and to shout. Why had that bastard been drunk? Why the f**k was he driving if he was so damned drunk? Why the hell was I cycling home? Why didn’t I just take the bus? Why did I even go to school that day? Why did I start playing basketball and made it my life at all?

I could go on and on but it still doesn’t change the fact that it happened. And I won’t be so self-righteous and selfless as to say that if it happened on me, then at least it didn’t happen to someone else who didn’t deserve it. I didn’t, still don’t, want it to happen to me. I want to wish this whole thing didn’t happen at all. But I had stopped believing in wishes and miracles long before this happened. Long before I was even a teenager.

I concede that no one else deserved it and no, I do not wish the same for others, I do not also wish that somebody else had taken my place, but did /I/ at least deserve it? Maybe it happened for a reason. Maybe I did deserve it. Maybe that’s the reason. So I should be glad that it didn’t happen to anyone else. Though the same could apply to another person if it was he or she this had happened to, but if this didn’t happen to me, I wouldn’t be having these thoughts. I would only know how to feel sorry for the victim, even if I didn’t want to be.

But I had to accept reality. I thought it may have been a dream for the longest time, but I always came back to myself the way I am now. And back then, so far, I never did have that nervous breakdown I thought would only happen in time. I just…I don’t know what I did or thought exactly, it just never happened. Maybe I was too numb? I had been feeling some sort of strange emptiness where my meagre emotions used to be. But…no, I was screaming and shouting inside, I just couldn’t bring myself to voice my frustrations out loud, even if I tried. I kept thinking, strangely, that there had to be worse cases than mine. What good would screaming and shouting and tearing at my hair do? It won’t change what happened. But I still felt like I’m bursting inside, and whenever I felt like I was going to vent, it just…didn’t happen. Like my actions were not connecting with what my brain was trying to tell my body to do…like my legs no longer responded to what my brain was always telling it to do.

Was I giving up? Am I giving up? Then what is this flicker of hope inside of me, that somehow believes that I /may/ be able to walk again someday? It’s not consciously done, it’s just there. And until that day comes, I somehow subconsciously promised myself that I would hang on, and survive, until the day arrives. Not being able to walk, or to use the lower half of my body, it’s terribly inconvenient.

I refuse to stay this way. I don’t want to be taken care of for the rest of my life. I want to be able to walk, to run, and to jump again. I want to be able to play basketball again. I also first thought that I wanted to be able to have a girlfriend and marry and have children next time. Strangely, I have never thought of that when I had still been able to walk. That’s taking for granted for you, I guess. And sex. I never thought of it before. Funny how I think about it sometimes now. I want to be able to do it. I want to be able to have sex, to make love with someone whom I care about. I really never thought of these things before the accident. Before, I didn’t even know how being turned on feels like.

They say teenagers have raging hormones, but as strangely single-minded I was towards basketball, I never /ever/ held perverse feelings towards it before. I’ve only ever felt what other players, or people for the matter, who hold a special passion towards the sport, felt. I’ve only ever wanted to improve my technique, to play well, to give the audience excitement when watching a game, to win, and to go professional. Maybe I was more serious about it since I thought of little else. But now I realize how much I have been missing out on. Despite being able to walk, I never did or felt the things I should have done or felt, so it really didn’t make a difference whether I had been able to walk or not.

The only real big difference was not being able to play anymore. But since having been this way, I’ve realized so many things…and maybe, if given a second chance, I won’t screw it up and take all these things for granted anymore. Now I wonder what it feels like to be able to…never mind. I’m beginning to feel like a handicapped pervert, having nothing else to occupy my mind since I don’t have basketball to obsess over anymore. I heard it’s normal for teenage boys to think that way. So why am I only thinking normally now when I can no longer function normally physically? When my condition had been worse, I couldn’t even do what I /really/ want most, and that was to be able to go to the restroom on my own again.

I wasn’t enjoying life at all. And I refuse to look back into the past. The future is not set. I won’t dig myself into a hole so deep I can’t even come out of it myself but still, I really wasn’t enjoying life one bit. I felt like an overgrown baby on a wheelchair most of the time. Only this is a more permanent thing, not some phase that I can just grow out of. Speaking of which, I can’t recall having any phases that I grew out of. I must have had some, I just can’t recall them.

But I am still alive. And I’m not exactly a vegetable. I don’t let people wheel me around, not if I can help it. I don’t let anybody get too close either. People who had been attending to my personal needs, were well, they’re clinical. Nothing I can say about them. It’s good, too, otherwise I would be feeling embarrassed multiple times everyday. The humiliation’s still there, though the degree of it isn’t so great. It comes with the acceptance of reality, I guess. A gradual thing.

My life was a rut. There weren’t any excitements at all. I’ve gotten used to the pity that I see reflected in people’s eyes whenever they looked at me. I’ve developed a natural shield against that. Life goes on, whether I liked it or not. Some handicapped people still lived, and I mean, actually /living/, and I’ve tried, but I guess I’m one of the majority just…living out our lives. That’s not really living, isn’t it? But I’m getting there, I like to believe. Right now, we still have our rightful places on the planet, we may be able to do something productive someday. Though I hope when that someday comes, I’ll be able to walk again. I’m seventeen now. I’m still allowed that small bit of hope.

The school that I’m going to now isn’t so bad as I had first thought it to be. People are friendly, they are accepting, and well, they are generally just getting from me what my old schoolmates had gotten from me. Only thing is they’re more or less handicapped somewhere, in some way or another, so I feel as if we are all on equal grounds. It’s better than what I feel when I’m outside with normal people, though I rarely go out, besides to school and back. I don’t even know why mom just doesn’t stash me there in the dormitory but I should be grateful that she still wants me around, I guess. She’s one person I can openly say that I love very much, and hold dear to my heart.

Actually, I’m not so sure about this, but maybe, I can say that I feel something akin towards caring to this other person. I still don’t know why, but he just showed up in the room I was staying in while I still had been hospitalized all those months ago. I wasn’t all that close to him. He was in a rival team, and a personal rival of mine, in terms of basketball playing. I wasn’t going to be playing basketball again anytime soon so I had felt that there’s no more need to be rivals, though we never really were rivals even when we weren’t playing basketball. I didn’t know what to call him, how to consider him, and I still don’t.  He just showed up with this same smile he always had and well, the only thing I really noticed, even in that early stage, was that he held no pity or sorry feeling towards my situation. He had warmth, though, as he always had, a contrast to my so-called coolness, and he was instantly sitting down and starting small talk. I could only stare and gape at him at the time, I even had this ‘Hello?!’ look on my face which had made him chuckle. That was his description by the way, that look that had been on my face.

He asked how it happened like how one would ask somebody who’d just taken a fall and broke his arm or something minor like that. And after picking my jaw up from the bed, I surprised myself by telling him what happened, as casually as he had asked, like I really had just taken a bad fall and broke my arm, and once set, it’ll be OK again. Even the part where I told him I could never walk again, I just shrugged and told him that I was sorry, but I guess he had to find himself another rival. I think I even gone as far as to suggest Sakuragi. Those drugs they injected into me must have really done my head in.

He had just smiled and shrugged saying who knows? I may heal someday, like my broken arm-bone would just take an extra longer time to heal, and then we can play again. But he had not said that in a definite way. Nor was it indefinite. I have trouble recalling it now. My life had been a rut but it’s broken every time he visited. The only times I ever went out were when he insisted that we should. He’s always taking me places that he thought I might be interested in, restaurants that he thought the food was great and that I might think so, too. Funny how all those restaurants had been handicap-friendly. And how he always managed to coax me into letting him push me around, not literally, my wheelchair, I mean, where no one else ever succeeded in doing so unless in the most necessary of situations. Ever.

And how it was through him first, actually, that I first started thinking about sex. In general, I mean. Whenever we went out, I, naturally had nothing else better to do, or to think, so I looked around, started noticing things that I had paid no heed before. I saw a lot of couples in various stages of relationship, I was aware of the romantic relationship between a boy and a girl, despite my previous single-mindedness, so now, to actually look at them, I felt myself think of what I had been missing out, what I still was missing out, only now that I was aware of what I was missing. I saw some couples making out and I wondered what that felt like. Before, I either totally passed them by, not noticing them, or when I did, I just ignored them, thinking such public showing of affection was disgusting. I was really a narrow-minded bastard, I shake my head at the revelation now. 

I usually did my surveillance whenever I was in a restaurant, never stopping to wonder why there were so many of these couples in the restaurants he chose to bring me to. Surely there must be some that were out there that catered to a bigger variety of patrons. I doubt that only restaurants that catered to couples serve good food and were handicap-friendly. I think this now, but I had never thought of it then. Even if I did, it was just a fleeting thought that  was instantly banished the instant he flashed his friendly smile at me. His eyes were always looking into mine, always reflecting something that I couldn’t identify back then.

I had always wondered though, why the heck was he spending time with me, when he could be out doing more active and productive things with himself and his more physically able team-mates and friends? He’s into his third year now, and the summer championships were coming up, why did he not spend more of his time training with his team like he should? Ace or no ace, he would deteriorate if he did not practice or train regularly. And this was his final year, too. He really shouldn’t be wasting his time burdening himself with me. It was not like I could challenge him anymore. I asked him that to his face, and gave him my opinion, something that I would and could do only with him, another mystery I had thought better left not pondered and unsolved, and all he would say was that I not worry, he knew what his priorities were. He had this smile on his face, and this look in his eyes when he said that , like it had a double meaning to it, though I couldn’t figure that out then, either. Even if I could, I would probably…well, I don’t know what I probably would have done. 

I didn’t realize how close we had become, how important a friend I unconsciously considered him as, until it was too late. By then, it was impossible to turn back, and I think he had thought the same as well, though I hardly think that he had been unconscious of what he’d been doing. He may be unconscious about what he had thought of me earlier, what he’d come to think of me but once he realized it, he was unconscious no more and became rather…determined. I know this now, but before, I had merely been confused and questioning.

It all became clear that one night almost half a year ago. We were in his car, he had turned eighteen and had just gotten his license and his parents bought him a car for the high-flying results he achieved in his trials, said to be tougher than the real thing. I’ve never seen him worried about his academics, really. He still visited and brought me out regularly like it wasn’t exam time. I could go out since I had a lot of free time, which I used to fill with basketball, now used to study. My mother hadn’t worried but in fact seemed to have encouraged and egged him on during his visits. Those two had been sharing something between themselves, leaving me out.

I did OK, a lot better than I hoped, but I had to work for it. He still had school and basketball and yet he was still coming over to take me out. We were in my bedroom one night and I told him I rather thought his results would suffer for it, I was worried for him as he would be entering into university soon, and despite his basketball skills, his high school final results still count for a lot. But at that time I had been deluding myself that I just didn’t want him to blame me when his academic results suffer, and he had given me this mischievous smile and said that he’s handling everything OK and that there’s no need for me to worry. I had been insulted then, thinking him presumptuous to assume that I had been worried about him, and said it to his face as well but he just sat back and smiled, really smiled, giving no indication that he heard what I have said, or that my reaction only served to confirm his suspicions more.

He should’ve looked smug but he didn’t. He just looked…joyful. I can’t really explain it. And I can’t explain the exhilarating feeling in my heart when I saw that look upon his face. This expression was so different from the one he usually wore though I couldn’t exactly place a finger on /how/ exactly had it been different. Then he said that he was happy that I cared and that, of course, ruffled my feathers again. I felt blood rushing up to my face. Why had I been embarrassed? Why to this degree? Even if I did care, it’s not so hard to admit that he’s a good friend of mine and there’s nothing wrong with caring for a good friend. I didn’t have to hide it from him, I rarely could hide anything from him, unless I was not thinking about it, and he rather blatantly showed that he cared for me as a friend, so what’s wrong with me showing him that I valued him as much?

But I swear I had been embarrassed up to my ears. Why is that? I was so confused back then and he looked so amused when he saw me all red that I wanted to beat his smiling face in. My fingers twitched and itched to do so but I had no idea why my heart was telling me not to do it. And why I had listened to it.

I forgot how I came back at him but he left soon after, a happy little gait not seen before in his steps. Sendoh Akira didn’t walk skippily, he trudged casually and glided smoothly. But he did /not/ walk with a gait. I was so floored that I had trouble sleeping that night, my brain refusing to decipher what all that had transpired that night meant.

I was happy that his results came out so good, which meant that he should have had nothing to worry about for his finals, approaching in a few days, and that I should only be worrying about myself to maintain my own grades, as my 3rd year approaches. Grades are far more important now since I can’t play basketball anymore. I have to focus myself into something otherwise I would just sit and wallow in depression, my mind replaying that night when my life was changed. He had helped in considerably taking away the anger and bitterness that I had been feeling inside but it still did not change the facts that I couldn’t play in the court anymore. I badly wanted to play again. My hands were itching to dribble a ball and my body was screaming for the burst of adrenaline. I didn’t even realize that these frustrations had been festering inside of me.

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