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. a
“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.. e…”
“…”
“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.
Everyone longs for an existence different from their own.
To become something other than what they are, to possess what they don't have.
Different appearance, different character, different environment.
The righteous are jealous of villains, and villains are jealous of the righteous.
That's humanity for you—we'll even covet unhappiness, if it belongs to someone else.
Yes.
Now that Numachi was gone.
Having gathered up the collection she'd assembled, I finally realized.
Right. I hadn't hated her.
“I—envied her.”
With that recognition, I felt like I'd graduated.
From something.