Chapter Text
It’s already dark when Fujima steps out of the izakaya into the darkened alleyway. The wind is cold and strong against his bare face. He glances at his watch. It’s almost midnight. The watch face gleams for a moment in the streetlight, then disappears again into the shadows.
“Hey, Fujima,” a voice calls. He turns to see his manager and their latest client supporting each other, swaying drunkenly at the door. “We’re leaving now. See ya on Monday.”
Fujima’s hair ruffles in an unexpected gust. The approach of Tokyo’s winter has brought with it a frost that Fujima still hasn’t gotten used to, even after so many years. He tightens the scarf around his neck and digs his hands into his coat pockets, bowing goodbye to his manager and their clients as they laughingly find their way towards the main road. The heat packs in his pockets have long gone cold, but he curls his fingers around them anyway.
The street is full of groups like theirs: businessmen with their hair slicked back, bundled in coats and scarves, drunk and loud. A rowdy cheer rises from the other end of the alley, up into the night. It’s a Friday night, and the weekend looms ahead of him with chores and errands and bills to pay. Overtime, again, too.
This week has been hell for Fujima: the project he was assigned to was full of complications, and he’s been overnighting at the office for way too long. He can barely recall the last time he saw his apartment. Was it last week, or only a few days ago? His head and body are set with a bone-deep exhaustion that he can’t seem to sleep away. He exhales slowly, watching his hot breath turn to mist in the freezing air as he tries to light a cigarette. The lighter sparks loudly in his empty corner of the alley, and the wind eats away the tiny flame before he can get the cigarette alight. Frustrated, he tosses it into a drain. He shoves the pack roughly back into his pocket.
He heads in the opposite direction his manager took, towards the bus-stop at the other end of the alley. Bundled up in his coat and scarf, suitcase in hand, he cuts a lonely figure in the night. The wind flows over his alcohol-warm cheeks, and he drags his feet, stalling the moments till he arrives back at the empty, silent company apartment.
He’s still waiting for the bus when he spots Maki across the street, like an apparition from the past. Maki is dressed like everyone else, in coat and scarf, laptop bag in hand, and his hair has been messed up by the wind. If he were with other people, Fujima’s sure he would tower over everyone else, but he too is alone. In the half-light of the streetlamps, he looks exactly as he did so many years ago, exactly as he does in Fujima’s memory. Maki is on his phone, walking slowly, and if not for the steady sound of his footsteps, Fujima might have thought he was dreaming.
An unknown feeling builds in his chest as he watches Maki stop at the pedestrian crossing. He looks… good . He looks well. Something burns at the back of his eyes and Fujima blinks it away.
The crushing weight of his job suddenly feels like too much to bear. The mistakes at work– the lethargy– the overwhelming feeling of isolation that doesn’t go away, no matter how many people he’s surrounded by. A part of him doesn't want to return to the company apartment in the cold and dark. A part of him wants, hopelessly, to return to the golden days of his youth when he was coveted and valuable.
Maki crosses to where Fujima is frozen, lost in memory, at the bus stop. He walks with the same purpose and confidence Fujima remembers on the court, striding through puddles of streetlight. His phone screen casts a bright glow on his face and on his hair like a halo.
He wants to wait for Maki to notice him, but Fujima calls out before he can stop himself. He only feels a little bit smug when Maki is caught off-guard.
But that tinge of smugness leaves as fast as it arrived when Maki’s expression turns awkward. “I’m sorry,” Maki murmurs, and Fujima tries to focus on the relief he feels that Maki sounds just as he remembers. The stab of disappointment isn’t any less sharp. “Do I know you?”
Fujima laughs, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. Wind bites at his cheeks. “You don’t remember me?” His voice comes out smaller than he thought it would.
“I’m sorry,” Maki says again, this time with a small, awkward laugh. “Where did we..?”
“It’s Fujima. Fujima Kenji. Shoyo High.” Fujima bites out the name, feeling inexplicably self-conscious. At thirty, high school is already so far away.
“Fujima…” Maki pauses for a moment. “Basketball?”
Without meaning to, Fujima tenses up. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Yeah. Basketball.”
“You look so different now.” Maki laughs, properly this time, and Fujima can’t help but shoot him a small smile. He suddenly realises that he hasn’t smiled like this in a long time.
“And you look exactly the same as you did in high school.”
They settle into a rhythm of conversation, the kind they never had back then, and Fujima finds himself relaxing as Maki tells him about how he quit basketball, too, after that last year of high school. Looking back, it’s funny how desperately they all struggled for the Nationals. It felt like all they had, back then.
He learns that Maki works at the Tokyo headquarters of a major publishing company.
Fujima always thought he would see Maki again in varsity basketball, or that they’d both be invited to play for one of the top universities, as Akagi was. He was even looking forward to playing on the same team as Maki one day. Naively, he waited through the Winter Games, and Shoyo’s graduation ceremony, and the University Entrance Exams, but the invitation never came for Fujima.
As Maki explains what he does for a living, Fujima wonders if Maki received any university offers. It’s petty, but Maki has always inspired a flame of competitiveness in Fujima. Maki works in the editorial department for sports magazines. He’s the editor for a number of magazines, including a few that cover basketball. Fujima tries not to think about how he’s stuck in the shitty sales team of some shitty random electronics company. “Did you know,” Maki’s voice cuts through Fujima’s foggy thoughts, “Sakuragi Hanamichi is playing in the Japan League now?”
“Sakuragi?” Fujima echoes numbly.
A car zooms past them, leaving a gust of freezing air in its wake.
“Yeah.” Maki’s voice takes on a nostalgic kind of fondness. “He got injured two games into the Nationals, but he recovered pretty quickly. They won against Sannoh.” A small, reminiscing sigh. “You should have seen the way they played.”
The Nationals . Fujima wasn’t bitter immediately after their defeat in Kanagawa’s regionals, but he was when Shohoku failed to show up at the Winter tournament. He doesn’t know what to make of this news now.
“You remember him, don’t you, Fujima? He dyed his hair red, even though it was so short.”
“I remember,” Fujima says. He’s surprised how calm his voice sounds, ringing in his ears. “How could I forget?”
“He’s a real basketball player now.” There’s a smile in Maki’s voice and Fujima suddenly doesn’t want to see it anymore.
In that moment, Fujima’s bus turns the corner in their direction. He stands abruptly, relieved for the interruption. “It was nice seeing you again,” he starts, but Maki interrupts him by passing his phone to Fujima with the screen on his numberpad.
“Let’s exchange contacts,” Maki says, smiling like it’s nothing. Fujima can’t find it in him to say no. He keys in his phone number and a moment later, his phone rings in his pocket.
“Call me when you’re in the area again,” Maki calls as Fujima boards the bus. “It’s been a long time – we should catch up.” Fujima nods at Maki’s disappearing figure, the bus pulling rapidly away from the brightly lit bus stop. It feels almost like a dream. He stares at the missed call on his phone screen and debates on whether he should save Maki’s contact. A part of him doesn’t want to.
That night, Fujima digs out the years-old team photo he has of Shoyo in his final year, preserved as clear and glossy as it was when he first received it. A thin snow falls silently over Tokyo as he watches through his tiny window. Someone outside shouts, “It’s snowing!”, and peals of laughter follow in response.
Fujima does eventually save Maki’s number, though he never does contact Maki. Work snows him under in a matter of days, and their encounter fades quickly into memory.