Adachi to Shimamura - Volume 11 - Chapter 4.1

Chapter 4:

Ever15

THE BOUNCE of a basketball was a perfect match for my uncontained impatience. I liked the way its heavy thud, thud seemed to reverberate in my heart.

Evidently, the cicadas weren’t used to waking up early, because there weren’t many chirping at dawn. I walked across town with what felt like a curtain of faded heat affixed over my eyes. Only the bounce of the ball seemed to have the power to tear through summer’s breath. When I left the house, it was the only thing I took with me—spurred by something that had been smoldering in my gut since well before school shut down. The humidity was out in full force, but at least I was spared from the brunt of the sunlight. 

Several minutes after I left the house, I began to wonder if my parents would yell at me for leaving without telling them, and my stomach clenched. But I didn’t have the energy to go all the way back to talk to them, or even to look them in the eye. I was aware that I was mired in the world’s most unsubtle rebellious phase, but it kept me bogged down, and I couldn’t climb out of the feeling.

Having traveled a considerable distance from my house, I crossed a big, long bridge. Well, maybe not big, but definitely tall. At the bottom of the concrete spiral was a grimy bench and a basketball court, neither of which anyone ever bothered to clean. Dribbling the ball against the hexagonal tile, I checked to see if anyone else was around. Nope. This early in the morning, the place was deserted, save for maybe the occasional dog walker. 

Slowly, I approached the hoop, and once I was within range, I casually took a shot. With a loud clang, the ball hit the edge of the ring and fell. I recovered the ball on the first bounce, then aimed my second shot, this time with proper positioning. The hoop here was a little different from the ones at my school, so I needed to make small adjustments. 

Shooting drills were the one part of practice I actually made time for. Why? Because they were the most fun. I used to like dribbling because I could measure my improvement, but once my teammates started getting mad at me for “hogging the ball,” I lost interest. More accurately, my heart still raced every time the ball hit the floor, but I was less invested in overtaking my opponents. Thus my enjoyment of basketball was relegated to shooting drills. 

The simple action of throwing the ball offered immediate results. This, I suspect, was why I stayed with it for as long as I did. I was a kid who wanted everything within eyeshot, and because of that, I agonized needlessly over the hazy uncertainty of my own future. Ironic, isn’t it? A girl who could only ever see five feet in front of her, yet she was focused on the distant horizon.

But while I knew it was precisely this contradiction that was stressing me out, there was nothing I could do. I was powerless to change the source of my turmoil. I couldn’t stop my social circle from dwindling. 

I jumped, I shot, I fetched. As I repeated the steps between ball and hoop over and over, I grew tired, but more importantly, my mind stopped wandering. If I had to guess, it was in pursuit of that very escapism that I loved sleeping so much. 

Despite all my dutiful shooting drills, however, I never got the chance to make a single winning shot in all three years of junior high. After I got into an argument with the coach, I was benched—permanently. But I didn’t regret it much. Looking back, it was the right call. After all, I simply never developed a desire to achieve something as part of a team. But now I had a gradually improving skill with nowhere to put it to use. 

“Ooh, it went in.” 

Just then, perhaps owing to a brief lapse in roadway noise at just the right time, I heard someone mutter under their breath. I stopped dead in my tracks and whirled around to find that, out of the blue, someone was sitting on that grimy bench—a woman who was clearly older than me, dressed in a kimono. Our eyes locked. 

She was wearing clothes I never encountered in my day-to-day life, and her facial features made my vision pitch sideways. But she showed no alarm at our eye contact; she simply offered a friendly gesture in the form of a smile. 

To be clear, she was a total stranger. Her vibe was unlike anyone I’d ever passed on the street. It felt like I was looking at an ice sculpture—maybe that was the best way to describe her refinement. To be blunt, she was a city girl in a hick town. 

But what exactly was this woman doing here? Even if she just wanted to spectate, frankly, I was deeply uncomfortable with being watched. I had no reason to strike up a conversation with her, either. So I went and retrieved my ball. As I was picking it up, I casually glanced over my shoulder. Naturally, she was still there.

She kept watching me, her smile never wavering. Awkward. Surely, she could tell from my glare that I didn’t want her there, but she seemed immune to it—almost like she wasn’t really seeing me at all. For that matter, how could she bring herself to sit on that dirty old bench without batting a lash? Her kimono looked expensive, yet she showed no interest in taking proper care of it. 

I had shown up at the butt-crack of dawn at least partially in order to be alone. Seriously, what was she doing here? I could feel her gaze pinned to my back, and no amount of dribbling could cut through my unease. Trying but failing to focus, I attempted another shot.

But when I jumped, my upper and lower halves of my body were completely out of sync, and I knew before I even took the shot that I wouldn’t make it in. The ball slipped impotently out of my grasp and barely managed to hit the corner of the backboard. I jogged after it as it rolled, then rubbed my palm against its surface like I was trying to distract myself with its texture.

“How cool.” 

I nearly leapt out of my skin. The voice was so close, it practically stroked my hair. Twisting my body away in recoil, I turned to find the kimono lady standing directly behind me. Intimidated by the height difference, I took another step back.

“Good morning!”

“…Good…morning…?” I replied, on the off chance she was in fact someone I forgot I already met. But I was confident she wasn’t. Even a space cadet like me would surely remember someone who looked like her, and not just because of her exotic fashion.

Her light brown hair fell to her shoulders. Glossy lips sparkled atop skin so pale, I didn’t dare imagine touching it, lest I tarnish it somehow. Her gentle smile disintegrated my glare on contact, and her scent was soft and unobtrusive, possibly floral. But most of all, I was drawn to those pale olive eyes—so beautiful, they threatened to whisk me away to a distant land. 

“You’re in junior high, right?”

“…Yes…?”

She smirked at the confirmation. She seemed placid at first blush, but when she smiled, it became obvious just how much she was enjoying herself. “Third year?”

“…Wh…? And who are you?” 

I wasn’t even wearing the one thing that functioned like a business card for kids our age: my uniform. With each correct guess, it felt like she was tugging on my loose threads, trying to unravel me, and it wasn’t pleasant.

“Oh, I’m just a college student.”

“…Right.” With those clothes, and those eyes, I already knew she wasn’t “just” anything. I could feel it as I craned my neck up at her full, grown-up height.

“Woke up early for basketball practice? I see someone’s starting the day off right.”

“Yeah…” 

I still had no answer for my most pressing question: why was she talking to me? When she held out her hand, I paused for a moment, then set my basketball on her palm. A stunning beauty…playing basketball…in a kimono. Wait, no, her beauty has nothing to do with it. Who the heck would wear formal Japanese attire in a backwater town like ours, anyway? Was she part of the family who lived in that bougie mansion?

“I can’t even remember the last time I touched a basketball.” 

As if following my lead, she dribbled the ball with an untrained hand for a few bounces, then got into position. When she raised her arms, I watched idly as the sleeves of her kimono hitched on her elbows as they slid down, exposing her biceps. 

“Imagine you’re on a date, and you see a ball lying forgotten at a basketball court. You pick it up…and casually make a three-pointer mid-conversation.”

“What?”

She threw the ball in a straight line; it slammed into the backboard and bounced back. Hastily, she crouched and caught it right in front of her face. Then, without moving a muscle, she smiled. “Wouldn’t it be so cool?”

“…If you were trying to be cool just now, you failed.” 

Honestly, if this chick wanted attention, all she had to do was walk around town holding the ball. Her smallest gestures gave shape to something worth watching, and in a world as shallow as ours, I suspected she could get whatever she wanted purely by virtue of being pretty. 

“Haaah…”

“What are you sighing about?” And why are you looking at me?

“Oh, just lamenting the fact that friendship is the most I can offer a junior high schooler.”

“…What’s that supposed to mean…?”

“But hey, friendship’s not so bad, right?” She tossed the ball back to me, and her newly vacated hands spread wide like her smile. “Next time we meet, I want you to teach me to play basketball so I can be cool.”

She gave me a modest wave—a mature gesture, yet shockingly adorable at the same time—and oddly enough, my first thought was: I didn’t know you could be both at once. With that, she strolled off briskly, with flawless posture and light steps, as if she couldn’t even feel summer’s curtain. Dazedly, I watched her go.

Well, that was weird. Am I supposed to stop her…? No, I’m sure it’s fine…right? Who even is she, anyway? 

Looking at it logically, there wasn’t going to be a “next time.” I didn’t come here every day, nor did I always show up at the same time. Even if she staked the place out, I could simply decide never to return. Without at least one of us making a conscious effort, there would be no second coincidence. And yet she left such a deep impression on me that I found myself suspecting it might just happen. 

We hadn’t spoken for long, but the words she said packed a punch. And in addition to her good looks, her flowery scent seemed to be toying with my brain, filling my skull with imaginary petals. I glanced at the empty bench. Would she come back?

Her clothes, her eyes, her smile—she was full of treasures I would never have.