Slam Dunk: Sakuragi learned from Kawamura Eiki's experience

June 3, 1991, Saturday.

The Kanagawa Prefecture Junior High School Basketball Tournament has officially begun.

At the same time on the other side of the world, the NBA Finals in the United States are about to begin, with the Bulls vs. the Lakers, and Jordan embarking on his journey to win his first championship.

Before dawn, Sakuragi Hanamichi sprang out of bed. An excitement welled up from his very bones.

Today, at the county-level competition, he officially stepped onto the competition field for the first time.

After washing up and getting dressed, I packed my sports bag and tightened my shoes. They were the school's standard sports canvas shoes, with white canvas uppers and rubber soles. After tightening the laces, I could feel the thin layer of fabric on the front of my toes.

They feel light and flimsy on the feet, offering little support.

As a poor man, he didn't know that there was such a thing as basketball shoes, let alone that a good pair of basketball shoes could make a person jump higher, run faster, and land more stably.

It was already broad daylight when I went out.

On a morning in early June, the air still carried a lingering chill from the night, but as soon as the sun came out, that chill vanished like a punctured balloon.

When Sakuragi arrived at school, the bus was already parked at the school gate. Mr. Takeda stood by the door, holding a list in his hand and a whistle around his neck.

"Sakuragi! You're the first one here." Takeda glanced at his watch, a smile playing on his lips.

"Of course!" Sakuragi ran over, still breathless, a smile already blooming on his face. "Geniuses are early risers!"

Takeda smiled and nodded, then ticked the list.

The team members arrived one after another. When Oda Ryusei walked over carrying his gym bag, his eyes met Sakuragi's.

Neither of them spoke, they nodded to each other, and then got into their respective cars.

Sakuragi chose a seat by the window, put his backpack on his lap, and cracked the window open. The breeze from outside blew in, carrying the scent of early summer.

The bus started moving. The school building slowly receded outside the window, the playground, cherry blossom trees, and school gate flashing by one by one.

At the same time, on the other side of the city.

Yuri Yanai stood in front of the wardrobe, spending three times longer than usual choosing clothes.

The light blue dress was hanging there. She glanced at it, took it down, held it up against herself, and then hung it back up.

Jeans with a white T-shirt? Too ordinary. Black mini skirt? Too deliberate.

Finally, I chose a light gray pleated skirt, paired with a white short-sleeved shirt and white canvas shoes.

She looked at herself in the mirror twice, then picked up a comb and combed her hair a couple of times. After putting the comb down, she took a small bottle from the dressing table and lightly sprayed it on the inside of her wrist.

She looked at herself in the mirror and a slight smile appeared on her lips.

Outside the villa, a black Mercedes was parked on the side of the road, its paint shining like a mirror in the sunlight.

Kato Rena leaned against the car door, her short hair framing two rows of silver earrings, wearing black cargo pants, her hands in her pockets, her whole demeanor radiating impatience.

She sighed when she saw Yanai come out of the building.

"Sorry to keep you waiting!" Yanai opened the car door and got into the back seat.

Kato got in, slammed the car door shut with a dull thud.

Mr. Yamada, the driver, glanced in the rearview mirror and then smoothly drove the car onto the street.

Outside the car window, the street scene slowly glides past.

Kato yawned, patted his mouth with the back of his hand, and tilted his head to look at Yanai.

"Didn't you never like watching sports or anything like that?"

Kato's voice still lingered with a yawn, "Basketball, baseball, soccer—you always say they're incredibly boring. Why did you specifically drag me to watch a game with you today?"

Yanai's gaze remained fixed on the view outside the window, without turning back.

"Junior high school will end in six months."

Her tone was flat, as if she were talking about something trivial: "What's wrong with going to watch your school's team game when you're bored on the weekend?"

Kato glanced at her.

That glance conveyed two words: disbelief.

But Kato didn't press the matter. She had been hanging out with Yanai for two years and knew this young lady's temperament all too well; if she didn't want to talk about something, no amount of questioning would get her to reveal it.

She also noticed that Yanai was wearing perfume today.

It's rarer for Yuri Yanai to wear perfume than for the sun to rise in the west.

Kato swallowed his question, yawned again, leaned back in the back seat, and closed his eyes for a while.

We've arrived at the stadium.

Through the car window, you could see a line already formed at the entrance. School uniforms of various colors were mixed together; some were holding small flags, some were holding support signs, and a few boys were dribbling basketballs and showing off at the entrance.

Yanai and Kato got out of the car and walked towards the door.

"So many people." Kato frowned; she didn't like crowded places.

Yanai didn't speak, but her gaze had already pierced through the glass door, peering inside.

On the other side of the stadium entrance, a small scooter was slowly approaching.

It was a Honda scooter, and the exhaust pipe sounded like someone coughing. There were four people crammed into it.

Yohei sat at the front, gripping the handlebars, his expression as calm as if he were driving a tank.

Behind him was Dainan, and behind Dainan was Noma. The two bodies were stacked together, like a string of meatballs.

The most tragic one was Takamiya Momo.

He huddled on the footrest, his legs curled up, with only a small space under his buttocks. He looked like a ball of cotton stuffed into a cardboard box, and his expression said, "I want to die."

The scooter slowly drove to the parking lot in front of the stadium and turned off. A puff of black smoke came out of the exhaust pipe.

The four people got off the vehicle, their movements resembling acrobatics. First, Da Nan slid off from behind, then Noma, and finally, Takamiya Nozomi was kicked off the footboard by Yohei.

"Yohei," Takamiya said, rubbing his leg in pain, "couldn't you have gotten a bigger car?"

The four of them walked towards the entrance of the gymnasium. More and more people gathered, school uniforms of various colors flashed in front of them, and the noise was as loud as a vegetable market.

Takamiya's eyes began to dart around; it was an instinct—the first thing he did wherever he went was to scan his surroundings for beautiful women.

Then his eyes froze.

"Hey!" He stopped, his mouth slightly open.

Da Nan followed his gaze and asked, "What's wrong?"

"Over there." Takamiya gestured with his chin in one direction. "See for yourself."

All four of them looked in that direction at the same time.

Two girls were walking towards the entrance of the gymnasium.

One of them was very tall, towering over the crowd. Her light gray pleated skirt shimmered slightly in the sunlight, and her white short-sleeved shirt was neat and tidy. Her long legs were straight and long, and she walked with a leisurely pace, like she was walking on a catwalk.

She was accompanied by a short-haired girl in black overalls, but everyone's attention was drawn to the girl in front of her.

"It's so tall," Da Nan said.

"Your legs are so long," Noma said.

"His face is pretty too," Takamiya said.

Yohei glanced at it twice, didn't say anything, but the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.

The four people exchanged glances.

Then they started pushing and shoving each other.

"you go."

"Go ahead, go ahead."

"I didn't wash my hair yesterday."

"What does this have to do with whether you wash your hair or not?"

"Rock-paper-scissors," Yohei declared, deciding the game.

Four hands are extended at the same time.

Takamiya chose paper, while the other three all chose scissors.

Gao Gong's face instantly fell. He looked at his own palm as if he were looking at a traitor.

"A bet's a bet." Yohei patted him on the shoulder, but the meaning was clear: go on, stop dawdling.

Gao Gong took a deep breath, straightened his collar, ran his fingers through his hair, puffed out his chest, and strode over with what he thought was a very handsome gait.

Yuri Yanai and Rena Kato were walking side by side in the open space in front of the stadium.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a short, stout man with a round face walking towards her. His gait was stiff, and his expression was tense, like a duck being herded onto a shelf.

Kato saw it too, and nudged Yanai lightly with his elbow; the two exchanged a glance.

The meaning in his eyes was clear: another one who doesn't know what's good for him.

"Hello!"

Takamiya walked up to Yanai, his voice a half-tone higher than he had expected, "You're here to watch the game, right? Which school are you from?"

Yanai glanced at him, her expression indifferent, without a trace of a smile.

"From Hongye Junior High School," Kato answered for her, his tone neither cold nor warm.

"Hongye Junior High School!"

Gao Gong got excited and started gesturing unconsciously. "You guys came to the right place today! I have a good brother who's playing today too! He's amazing! Dunking! Bang bang bang! Have you ever seen a dunk?"

Da Nan and Noma joined in at some point, and the four of them surrounded Yanai and Kato, like four satellites orbiting two stars.

"Yes, yes, that guy of ours is 1.86 meters tall!"

Da Nan gestured with his hand to indicate the height of his head, then raised his hand significantly higher. "This high!"

"Red hair!" Noma added, "If you see a red-haired guy on the field, that's him!"

"He can jump incredibly high!" Gao Gong added. "Last time in PE class, he dunked! Boom! The whole class was stunned!"

The four of them took turns speaking, like a stand-up comedy routine, their voices overlapping and rising and falling.

Yuri Yanai's ears caught a word.

Red hair.

His face showed no change in expression, and he even deliberately shifted his gaze away from Takamiya, as if looking at some distant scenery.

But her ears were more perked up than ever before, and she didn't miss a single word.

Kato Rena noticed that Yanai didn't walk away as usual.

Given Yanai's personality, when faced with someone trying to pick her up like this, she would either give them a look and make them back off on their own, or simply say "excuse me" and walk away without looking back.

She wasn't there today. She stood there, listening to the four boys chattering about their "red-haired best buddy."

"Let's go inside and find a seat," Yanai finally spoke, his tone as calm as usual.

She strode into the gymnasium, with Kato following behind.

The four members of Gao Gong shamelessly followed them, since they could sit anywhere and following along wouldn't hurt them.

The stadium was ten times more lively than the outside. Countless students who had come to watch the game were whispering among themselves.

Yanai found a seat with a good view and sat down. Kato sat next to her, while Takamiya and the other three squeezed into the row next to them.

"Why are you sitting so close together?" Kato frowned.

"We're all here to watch the game, so what difference does it make where we sit?" Gao Gong said with a grin, his skin as thick as a city wall.

In the locker room.

Sakuragi sat on the bench, tied his shoelaces twice, and then tightened them again.

He tucked the hem of his jersey into his waistband, then pulled it out, then tucked it in again.

Coach Takeda stood in the middle of the locker room, his gaze sweeping over every face. Behind him, on the wall, was a handwritten tactical board with a few simple running arrows drawn in marker.

"Hongye Junior High School is our first opponent. Their inside game is relatively weak, and their overall strength is below average. Just play normally, relax, and bring out what you've practiced."

He glanced at Oda, then at Sakuragi.

"Sakuragi, Oda, it's the first game today, let's see how your practice goes."

The team members stood up, patted each other on the shoulder, and walked towards the door.

Sakuragi walked at the back of the group, his heart beating much faster than usual, thumping and pounding against his chest as if something was about to burst out.

Then he followed his teammates out of the locker room.

The passageway wasn't long, only about twenty or thirty meters from the locker room to the stadium entrance, and the lights at the exit were getting brighter and brighter.

The footsteps are getting closer.

The moment I stepped out of the passage, all the sounds rushed towards me.

The voices, screams, and applause of hundreds of people in the audience blended together, like a wall of sound slapping directly in your face.

Light poured down from overhead, blindingly white, illuminating the green floor. The floor reflected the light, making the entire venue seem like another world.

Sakuragi stood by the court, momentarily lost in thought.

He had experienced that scene before.

I've seen it in my dreams.

The huge stadium, the bright lights, the densely packed stands—it was exactly like in my dream.

The NBA arena in my dream was bigger, with more spectators and brighter lights.

But the feeling is the same, that feeling of "standing here".

He stood there, his gaze sweeping from one end of the stadium to the other, from the bottom to the top of the stands, his breathing unconsciously quickening slightly.

Then a familiar howl came from the stands.

"Hanamichi——!!! Hanamichi——!!!"

The sound was so loud that the entire stadium could hear it, so loud that the audience members next to him covered their ears, and so loud that Sakuragi didn't even need to look up to know who it was.

He looked up and headed in the direction from which the sound came.

In the first row of the stands, four familiar figures were waving frantically at him.

Takamiya stood on the chair, his hands cupped around his mouth, his face flushed red. Ooku jumped around beside him like a monkey whose tail had been stepped on. Noma held up a cardboard sign he'd somehow gotten his hands on, with the word "Sakuragi" scrawled crookedly on it. Yohei stood at the very edge, looking over with a mischievous grin.

Seeing these four guys come to cheer him on, Sakuragi breathed a sigh of relief.

Then his gaze shifted to the side.

stopped.

Next to Gao Gong and the others sat two girls. One was wearing black overalls, had short hair, and had sparkly earrings.

The other one wore a light gray pleated skirt and a white short-sleeved shirt.

Tall.

so cute.

Super cute.

Sakuragi's pupils suddenly contracted.

Yanai.

What is she doing here?