by Nisioisin
Either way, I didn’t have the right words to convince Numachi to pass on─I had no message for her.
No words to send her on her way.
All I could do was let my game speak for me.
I gently bounced the ball as I walked at a deliberate pace towards Numachi, who stood on the free-throw line once again.
Every step felt like it took me further and further past the point of no return, but I couldn’t turn back now.
I crouched down in the ready position facing Numachi and held the ball in front of my chest.
“You know, it’s funny, Kanbaru. Back in middle school, people always said we were archrivals. But this is the first time we’ve played a real game against each other.”
“Is it? I feel like I remember playing against each other a million times.”
“We had scrimmages and joint practices, but we never faced off in a regular season game. I played against Higasa’s team─any number of times in fact… But fate is really something, isn’t it. Even playing in the same tournaments, our teams never faced off.”
“I can’t believe it… I somehow felt like we’d spent all of middle school competing… We must have sensed something in each other, and not just because our playing styles were diametrically opposed.”
“But once you graduated, you forgot all about me, didn’t you? You only had eyes for Senjogahara.”
“I definitely forgot. All about you,” I said firmly.
As harshly as I could.
Yet I added firmly, so as to stamp out my massive reservations, to do away with any last hesitation:
“But then I remembered.”
“…”
“I’ll forget all about today as well, and then remember it again somewhere down the line─hey, Numachi. What do you think about the saying, ‘It’s better to regret doing something than to regret not doing it’?”
“That’s just the whining of a whipped dog,” she declared. “Regretting not doing something is obviously better.”
“Right. I think so too. Only some irresponsible third party who hasn’t tasted the remorse of ‘having gone and done it’ would suggest otherwise.”
And yet, I said, my eyes locked on Numachi’s.
“And yet─what’s best is to do something and not regret it.”
Tup.
And with those words─I sprang into action.
To be precise, I tried to spring into action.
Because Numachi was all over me in an instant, covering me with more than enough pressure to keep me hemmed in─I’d barely twitched, but she recognized instantly that play had begun.
I was facing Numachi, no mistake.
At the same time, I felt keenly what a joke our one-on-one the other day had been─it had been child’s play, nothing but an extension of our old scrimmages and joint practices.
This was the big game.
No, it was more than that.
She was giving her devilish power free rein─this was Roka Numachi’s real-deal Quagmire Defense.
A diabolical defense.
“Ugk…”
I hadn’t been taking her lightly, by any means, but this was so overwhelming that all I could do was groan.
Yes.
Numachi wasn’t going to let me get away with anything.
I became keenly aware that the nickname Can’t-Jump Swamp only captured half the truth─it wasn’t just about jumping, she wasn’t going to let me do anything but groan.
She wasn’t going to let me dribble, or shoot.
She was covering me closer than a faceguard, stuck to me so tightly that she reminded me of nothing so much as a sticker.
A particularly sticky sticker stuck onto my bare skin─that might take a piece of me with it, if I could peel it off at all.
Numachi didn’t say a word.
Which was only natural. Nothing to say in the middle of a game─she was playing for keeps, too. With all the tenacity of someone who’s come back from the dead.
Everything she was, everything she had was riding on that defense, while I had nothing to lose, just an itch to scratch─no, scratch that!
I did have something to lose.
If I didn’t beat her, I’d lose─lose sight of what it truly meant to be me.
I refuse─to let you or anyone else manipulate my life.
Besides my momentary groan, we didn’t say a word to each other, but nevertheless we were deep in conversation.
When all is said and done, I guess Numachi and I were both athletes to the core─God, how I do love basketball.
To be able to engage so deeply─with literally anyone.
With someone I can’t stand, with someone I can’t understand, even with someone who’s dead.
“Fhh…”
Exhaling the oxygen from my body, I took two steps away from the basket─however immobilized I may have been, it was only in terms of forward motion. No one can mount a perfect 360-degree defense all by themselves, and in retreating I gave Numachi the slip.
Though it’s probably more accurate to say that she let it slide─and simply didn’t dog me.
At that distance, a basket was no sure thing. I wasn’t a complete novice when it came to three-pointers, but my chances of sinking the shot were drastically reduced.
And I wasn’t about to win on some desperate gamble.
That would be like winning a coin toss─who the hell could be proud of that?!
This was a showdown!
With my old archrival─no!
My current archrival!
And her eyes were asking me─what have you got up your sleeve?
Having taken two steps with the ball, I couldn’t move any further. It’s the first rule that anyone learns in basketball─traveling.
My opponent was an aberration who’d been roving the highways and byways of the entire nation, but traveling would be an unbearable way for our contest to be decided.
In other words, if I wanted to settle things with Numachi once and for all, I had no choice but to break through her defense and drive to the basket.
Yet I’d experienced firsthand the fearsome difficulty level of doing so. To put it plainly, it wasn’t humanly possible to get past Numachi with the ball in your hands. That said, I had no intention of praying to God─much less imploring the Devil─for help.
Forget relying on them.
I have someone else I can rely on right here.
Numachi.
You’re strong.
I’ve never been exposed to such a fierce defense, even at the nationals when I was a freshman.
Sure, you’re borrowing the power of a devil right now─but even without that, you’d probably be among the greatest players in Japan.
The despair you must have felt when you broke your leg─your despair at the enormity of your loss. But I bet it wasn’t the injury itself that you were so broken up about.
You’d probably deny it if I came out and said it.
Either way, it’s difficult to penetrate that Quagmire Defense─with my power alone, that is.
Never forget.
You can’t play basketball by yourself.
“Fhh─”
Though there wasn’t actually a timekeeper, just before the five-second rule was up, I threw the ball.
A Hail Mary buzzer-beater?
No. I wouldn’t stoop to that.
It was a pass.
A chest pass.
It was impossible to get past the Poison Swamp with the ball in your hands. But it was another story entirely if someone else was holding it─
But who? Who would catch my pass?
Who did I pass the ball to─isn’t it obvious? In a one-on-one matchup it’s one against one, so there’s only one other person on the court to whom I could pass the ball.
Yup.
Roka Numachi.
“─?!”
Be you human or devil, your arms react instinctively when a ball comes hurtling towards you.
You catch the damn thing.
I was
off at rocket speed before I even knew for sure that Numachi had hold of the ball─I was counting on her to catch my pass.
Sometimes your archrival is more dependable than any teammate.
We were closer than teammates.
That’s what it means to be archrivals.
I disliked her.
I hated her.
But I knew what she was capable of.
I blew past Numachi with every ounce of speed I had─and naturally, I stripped the ball from her hands as I did so.
A steal.
And because this time she was the one holding the ball, Numachi’s movements were dull─I flew past her and took the ball like it was a synchronized dance routine we had worked out.
And then I planted my foot and took off─the ball, which I had only dribbled once, firmly gripped in both hands.
I leapt toward the rim, with only one thing in mind.
I didn’t want to win a contest based on probability.
I wanted a decisive victory.
So forget probability.
I would properly propel the ball through the hoop─with my own two hands!
“Wha-?!”
But in that moment, a cry of consternation escaped my lips─because something occurred that was completely outside any pattern of events that I’d envisioned.
A hand interposed itself between me and the hoop.
Numachi’s hand.
Even as I’d slipped past her, she’d pivoted─and instantly regrouped to get back to defending.
And she blocked me.
But─it was unthinkable! She was the Can’t-Jump Swamp!
Her sluggish movements were her ace in the hole─sounds good, right? But that same lack of agility was also her Achilles heel. It was why Numachi, who excelled so thoroughly at defense, was a mediocre offensive player─she lacked the requisite split-second judgment.
That aspect of her character was also the source, I think, of her patience to put off a problem until it was neutralized─which is why I figured she’d be flustered longer than the average person by my scheme to pass the ball to my opponent.
And I had been right, or should have been, but she rallied instantaneously─how was that even possible?
Was it because she had so much of the devil in her body?
Did that arm and leg enable a drive that was otherwise unfeasible?
That had to be it.
Or maybe not.
Because the hand that Numachi slipped in between the ball and the hoop wasn’t her left hand, it was her right─
“I don’t want─”
She can’t have actually said it out loud. There was no way she had the leeway to speak.
So I couldn’t have heard it.
I must have felt it.
“─to lose!”
“Neither do I!”
At that point it wasn’t a question of skill or strategy.
I shoved the ball through the hoop by brute force─wrapping in Numachi’s right hand.
Our intertwined bodies fell to the court in a tangled heap at just about the same moment the ball hit the floor.
I very nearly landed right on top of Numachi, but at the last instant I was able to thrust out my arms like the poles of a tent and avoid disaster.
This put us in a position that was the exact inverse of when she’d lain atop me─as though this time I’d been the one to push her over.
Perhaps we were even closer to each other now. Yes, at least our faces were.
Listening to the sound of the ball bouncing on the surface of the court, Numachi and I stared into each other’s eyes, our faces separated by only a couple of inches.
Stared into each other’s eyes.
“…keh.”
“Heh.”
“Haha─hahaha.”
“Heheh─hey, hey.”
Numachi lay there chuckling─I was laughing too─and neither of us moved a muscle.
“Didn’t I win the second I had the ball?”
“You didn’t have control of it, so it was still in play.”
“I had control of it.”
“Are you sure? If you did, you wouldn’t have come after me… I was surprised you could.”
“You said dunking felt like cheating.”
“This was do-or-die, I absolutely had to win.”
“Even my own teammates never really passed the ball to me. To get a pass from my opponent…”
“…”
“It feels good, doesn’t it? I guess I’d forgotten. No, I never figured it out in the first place. Basketball really is a team sport─”
I stopped playing. Without ever understanding that─Numachi said and closed her eyes.
I thought maybe she wanted me to kiss her, but well, that couldn’t be it. If we stayed in that position forever though, it was going to get awkward, so I heaved myself up on my arms and then stood.
I hopped to make sure I wasn’t injured from the fall. I’d forced myself into an unnatural position to get the ball into the hoop, so a little bruising was probably inevitable.
“Ahhh.”
Lying there with her legs and arms splayed wide, Numachi sighed deeply.
She looked like she was at peace.
I’m one to talk─it’s an almost embarrassingly fitting metaphor to use here─but she looked like someone who’d been freed from demonic possession.
Wow.
She was─this cute?
I kind of wished I’d kissed her.
“So this is losing. Somehow it feels like the first time I’ve been able to lose properly.”
“Properly?”
“I never understood my life in terms of what the heck I lost to─damn. Forget about exam prep, Kanbaru, and get your ass back on the court. With your talent, you could make it anywhere, not just in some high school club. What are you standing around for? No, in your case─I guess you’re lying down on the job. Life doesn’t have any timeouts, you know.”
“If I’ve gotta hear that from you, I’m doomed,” I said, looking up at the gym ceiling.
Not that there was anything I wanted to look at up there; it was just a simple stretch to make sure my neck didn’t hurt.
“But it doesn’t piss me off so much if I think of it as valuable advice from Lord Devil herself.” I looked back over at Numachi. “Should I come up with some cool parting line too? Hey─”
There was no one there to look at.
No one, but not nothing.
In the spot where Numachi had lain face-up, desiccated body parts that resembled the mummified pieces of a monkey were arrayed like specimens on a dissection table.
Neatly, in a humanoid shape.
“Tsk. For such a slowpoke, she always beats such a hasty retreat─”
I was neither saddened nor surprised.
I simply accepted it─there it was, then.
In the end, did she disappear without ever realizing she was dead─without ever knowing what she was?
I never understood my life.
Those words were suffused with the truth of her experience.
Never understanding her life in terms of what the heck she lost to─but at the very end, she was finally able to lose properly.
I’d helped her lose.
“For my part, though…I don’t really feel like I won properly.”
With Numachi gone, hordes of club members were about to start pouring in (late) to the gym.
I expeditiously packed into a vinyl bag I’d brought the mummy displayed on the court. I’m sure a collector like Numachi would object to the rough handling, but I wasn’t about to pay any mind to some connoisseur’s fastidious bellyaching.
“I guess you aspired to be a team player…but speaking as an expert team player, I aspired to play like you, taking on five opponents all by yourself.”
To be like you: to act freely, regardless of anyone’s opinion, undaunted by their stares.