These basketball practices were a charade.

Akira would likely spend the season benched and cold-shouldered out of the team, but he didn’t really mind. Not when he was once again toe-dipping distance from the paint, without any stitches or bruises hampering him. He never thought he’d get a second chance like this.

The court was like the underbelly of a city. The squeak of shoes tearing up the polished wood, the calls that rang overhead, and the collision of bodies. A hip check, a foot tripping, and a swing of an elbow into an opponent’s gut were expected. Just as long as the referee had plausible deniability.

“Malay?” A voice dragged his attention away from the game, and he blinked up at Masami.

Heat crawled up his neck when he realised he’d been caught getting sidelined. He was a late addition to the team, whose starters were all his seniors. When he’d been ordered to sit aside, he’d determined that was safer than being stubborn.

“Are you injured?” Masami crouched in front of him, which drew some attention from the players, but he was too focused on checking Akira’s leg to notice. “You’re not injured. You’re not even sweating. How long have you been sitting here?”

He gave a little shrug. “I’m just getting my bearings. I’ll practice with them next week.”

“I didn’t recruit you to be ignored.” Masami spoke through gritted teeth. He straightened to his full height, buttoning his blazer like it was armour. “Well, I’ll just have to speak to the coach again and remind him of our deal. Again.”

He didn’t really know how to make friends, and he didn’t have much hope about learning, but he knew this would kill all his chances. He was a startling combination of divine and ugly, and he made people quite tired. That was why it always felt like everybody liked everybody more than they liked him, and he really couldn’t blame them.

He was a chronic mess, with all his corners untucked. It was hard to get close to him. Harder still to stay.

He lurched forward to catch Masami’s sleeve. “We weren’t expecting it to be easy,” he rambled, feeling embarrassed by all this fuss. “I’ll play with them next week. I’m sure the coach will let me.”

Masami met his eye, looking incredibly understanding, right until he stabbed Akira in the back by pointing at the coach in outrage. A muscle ticked in the coach’s jaw as he bravely approached them.

“With all due respect,” Masami started, and when it came to him, he meant to give none. He started to verbally berate the coach, while Akira tried to dissolve into the floor.

“Alright, alright, quit chewing my ear off,” the coach snapped. He reluctantly cast an eye over Akira. “Sub in for Dassin. For ten minutes, like we agreed.”

Akira was standing on the court in a matter of seconds, his whole body vibrating with joy. He was so excited that he barely paid any of the circling giants his attention. He just wanted to play. He always wanted to play.

He scored points until he was double-marked, and even then, he encroached on the basket. When he sprung into the air, Otsuka appeared like a wave in front of him, effortlessly surging between him and the basket.

The ball still sunk perfectly through the hoop. An instant before he caught Otsuka’s elbow in his cheek, and crashed to the ground.

His hunger for more had him on his feet in an instant, though his vision was swimming. He was numb to his stinging cheek, numb to Masami’s worried shout – he just wanted to continue playing, but he was only allowed his measly ten minutes, and it was over before he realised.

He slumped onto the bench with too much energy and no outlet for any of it. He tried not to think too much. He didn’t want to register the ringing in his head or feel his bones protesting at the violent play. He didn’t want to think at all anymore, about his life and whether he was wasting it here on a fool’s dream, because then he could hold on a little longer.

Because he wanted it to get better. It had to get better one day.

The whistle startled Akira out of his head, and he lingered in the periphery of the team as they were debriefed. The players finished stretching and went to shower, while Akira grabbed the mop and bucket.

“Malay, I didn’t ask you to clean up,” the coach sighed, rubbing his stubble with his palm. “Look, I haven’t had any complaints about how you’ve been leaving the gym, so I don’t mind leaving you to lock up, but don’t stay too long. Registering as late as you have, you haven’t been assigned a dorm, so don’t miss the last bus.”

Akira nodded, holding his tongue so the coach didn’t change his mind and kick him out. There were a number of CCTVs here, which meant he wasn’t strictly unsupervised, but he also had no reason to vandalise the place or throw a party. All the people he could invite would rather bend someone else over a table than play basketball with him.

“I’m letting this slide because I don’t think you deserved what happened to you,” the coach continued, “but I’m not going to tear apart my team just to make space for you.”

He didn’t have to go out of his way to remind Akira. There was no way Akira didn’t already know that.

“I won’t make any more trouble,” Akira promised, ignoring the way his throat tightened and the lump that formed there. “Masami has laid out the ground rules of being on the team. I won’t ask for more.”

What he didn’t say was what he never said aloud anyway. That he wasn’t at fault for what happened with Keisuke and his old basketball team. That years had passed, yet he lived with this constant fear that he’d been too much or not enough and he’d brought it all upon himself. The scars and hatred. The loneliness.

That he lived with the shame of resenting Keisuke for destroying what little good he had, and felt guilty about pursuing his own happiness here at Kaoru when he wasn’t wanted. He didn’t pry his mouth apart to pour out his grief, because nothing ever came of it.

He let all of it slide, telling himself that it didn’t matter when it really did.

He used to enjoy practicing late at Hanseol High, when it kept him out of the house, but now he loved it for what it was. He liked to work until his limbs ached and he was short of breath. And here, there was insulation and hot water.

If he had to complain about one thing, it’d be the campus buses. They were supposed to run until late, but rarely did, and today was no different. There was not one bus in sight as he crossed the main road, settling down on the icy bench all bundled up in his jacket.

The parking lot became busier as parents fetched their kids from soccer practice. Cars hummed to life, the light of their headlamps swinging over him.

His hope that a bus would soon arrive died at exactly midnight. He’d brought a spare change of clothes, so as long as he could shower at the gym tomorrow after running the track, no one would notice his rough living situation.

He’d dropped out of Hanseol six months before graduation. His basketball career in shreds after the accident. His mind constantly replaying every conversation he’d ever had with Keisuke, wishing he’d said something different. He’d buried his dreams of playing, and tried to stifle his heartbreak and forgive someone who’d never apologised.

Then Masami appeared, dressed smartly in his suit. He’d hounded Akira every day at work, going so far as to bribe Akira’s colleagues with doughbuts and coffee. Promising some sort of future to Akira. He was there when Akira was barely holding it together, and he'd dragged him all the way here to Kaoru.

This was Akira’s last chance to play. He didn’t really have a future with basketball, but here they were, pretending he did. That was why he was freezing his ass off every night, waiting for a bus that rarely came.

He needed those ten minutes on the court, because he had nothing else.

Well, nothing else but an insatiable urge to see Surya again, even at a distance. It wasn’t like Surya knew who he was or remembered their first and only conversation, but he was special because they were alike.

They knew that their lives could shatter on any random day, that the world wouldn’t stop to let them pick up the pieces, and that everybody would be none the wiser.

He’d stuck in Akira’s mind throughout these hellish years, because when he’d arrived at the shop, it already felt like he was leaving. He’d cried on the floor, holding Akira’s hand, yet never met his eyes again – not out of shame, but because that was how insignificant Akira was.

Surya struck him as someone who, at the slightest hint of hostility and withdrawal, would try to outdo him. It didn’t matter that he was the most beautiful man Akira had ever seen, he was someone so far out of reach that it was almost devastating. He was an idea, a memory, that Akira kept clinging to.

It was kind of embarrassing, actually. When the wanting showed. When he couldn’t even pretend that he wasn’t waiting for something else – someone else. He just hoped he could have one decent conversation with Surya, when he didn’t stumble over himself or flush bright red.