.

II

The Switch

The series of lights stretched over the wide, empty hallways of the junior building were flickering; not the dreamy, hypnotic type of glaring and dimming characterized in perfect synchronization with a clock's ticking – one tick second, on…one tick second, off – but it was an erratic type of flickering variedly sectioned by millisecond pauses, like someone doing a horridly practiced Morse code with a flashlight. And in the stillness, one could vividly hear a soft kzzz-kzz sound of static electricity underneath one of the parallel lights as all the fluorescents sputter radiance.

The freshmen's hallway – located two floors up the ground area of the student bike stand and admin car park – would generally pass for a look of a muddled back yard. On the left wing from the main staircase, old and damaged lockers had been opened and books were hurled out from inside. Papers marked with the teacher's red ink (definitely exam results) were strewn all over the floor, with some already browned at the edges as if it were touched by flame. On the right wing, and on the wall across the students' lockers, flanked the full-size memorabilia glass display exclusive to the high school sports committee. Inside, what the students usually call "the spike" and human-figured trophies had toppled over on the second shelf – three of which had fallen a ledge lower, and more of which were left suspending, looking like gold and copper stalactites as these were jammed between the glass panel and the ledge's rim. The single grand trophy cup on the top shelf remained tall for surviving the havoc, but the huge portrait of the entire Shohoku Basketball Team beside it seemed close to splitting in half. Many of the plaques, glass-plated Certificates of Recognition, and figurines of popular sports pioneers – Pelĕ, McGwire, Williams, and Jordan – all lie on the floor as well, not to mention the 12-inch wooden statuette of a softball player losing his head and throwing arm.

Shards of broken window glass speckled the smooth, marble-white floor. Its shiny bits and pieces glimmered beautifully under the sputtering light of the hall like crystal river water…and for a brief moment, the parallel fluorescents held their radiance and static humming before finally dying down all together.

Subsequently, muted footsteps of someone beginning to run upstairs towards the rooftop from the floor landing were heard. Then a muted sound of a metal door being yanked open, and a muted sound of it being slammed shut.

Darkness now encased the hallway in a peaceful gloom. Icy strokes of moonlight gleamed through the open window easily and now colored the shards of glass a pale white. Undefined shadows – which used to be opened locker doors, strewn books and papers, memorabilia trophies and toppled figurines on the floor – seemed to protrude every corner and every side against the mild luminescence coming from the window.

Alas. Hours of daylight had indeed passed.

"Hey…"

Haruko heard a female voice so far away echo deep within her mind, its familiar tune jerking her slightly back to her senses from flashback scenes – typical scenes one would hardly consider significant in their lives, like seeing people cross the street during a green light, or seeing a dog piddle on the nearest fire hydrant. But in this case, the scenes she saw took place at the school grounds, the freshmen's hallway, the cafeteria, and the basketball court…even at her own bedroom.

Before she could equally make anything out of these accounts and start questioning (more importantly, realize how a single, proverbial word from an ethereal voice had found its way to her, and had freed her from the deepest part of her sleeping state), different faces of various expressions had also been swarming in her mind like a horde of locusts, overlapping one after the other and quickly passing before her, then trailing off like stray, colored headlights in a big city street. Visions of them were hardly clear to see, but somehow she could accurately tell one face from another as each image came by successively: okasan, otosan, oniichan…Rukawa…the girls – Matsui and Fuji, Ono-sensei (her English teacher), Yohei and the gundan…Rukawa…Ayako and Anzai-sensei, Sakuragi…Rukawa…

She felt a soothing, tingling sensation coming from the base of her head as the locusts started to disperse, and then it came crawling down her body until she was beginning to feel her hands, her back and her legs, like someone coming out of a painful cramp. Haruko felt that she is finally taking physical form, since during the flashbacks, she felt that – given the feeling of extreme weightlessness – she was mainly composed of eyes.

"Hey…"

Her left index finger twitched. A sudden waking reaction. And at that, Haruko instantly found herself in a dark open space where no images of any sort crossed before her. There were no traces of locusts anywhere, and at that, she knew she was already awake. It's a fact she can't refute. Though her eyes remained closed, she could tell, since she can feel her left cheek pressed on something solid, but didn't have the faintest idea where she really is.

As far as she can recall, she was there on the rooftop, alone with Kaede Rukawa. (After class, she went up there and tried her luck, for the umpteenth time, of finding him asleep.) They talked a little, but not like any of her pleasant encounters with party acquaintances. She remembered she was begging, pleading for reasonability, and he being defiant. He had been defiant from the start. Then she remembered him pushing her aside, and her grabbing him by the arm. From that point onwards, she simply couldn't remember.

She knew she fainted – it's another fact she would not dare contest. She fainted holding Rukawa's arm.

That would be embarrassing, the deeper part of her said suddenly. That would be the most embarrassing thing that can happen between you and Rukawa. I mean…surely it didn't happen that way – of course not! – because if it did happen, believe me, I can hardly imagine him doing something good about the scenario…or doing something good to you.

What if it did happen? Haruko thought. What if he felt her tugging at his arm a little when she lost consciousness? Would Rukawa catch her from falling on concrete? Would Rukawa cup a hand on her cold face, study her wan features and then realize that something is wrong with her? Would he slid his arms beneath her and carry her safely to the clinic for treatment? Or would he simply keep her under his protective embrace until she finally awakens?

Would he do that? Would he really, really do that?

Would he even care? the voice returned.

"Hey…Akagi…"

But the echo she kept hearing was not even Rukawa's if she really is in his arms waking her up. For all she knew, it could be her own conscience waking her if he simply decided to leave her there…but it's obvious to her that that assessment doesn't make any sense. A person's conscience is as unconscious as they are when they faint, she reminded herself. If this isn't Rukawa, it should come from someone else. It must come from someone else. A picture of an old woman seated in her rocker looking out the patio one fine spring morning suddenly took frame in her mind. Then she thought otherwise: Could this only be a dream?

Oba~a~san? she felt her mouth drawling the word but nothing came out. Her eyes slowly opened, only to see nothing but pitch black. Then the darkness started to simmer down, making her see something gradually taking forming – a vague figure – something waving swiftly across her face, something like…a hand splayed open.

Obasan? I- Is that you?

She felt someone shook her. And again.

"Hey!"

The echo, which now registered a clear voice, sounded a little sullen and relatively impatient. She just realized that the calls didn't come from the old woman – her grandmother – in her rocker, or any of her dear relatives who passed away, but rather it came from someone looking over her and is staring at her right in the face.

She got up, moaned in pain and fell back instantly at the sudden pang of a terrible headache. Her body still felt a little heavy – oddly heavier than she remembered – and all shaky. She successfully predicted her collapse before; now it looks like she's going to have a fever.

"Are you all right?"

Slowly, she opened her eyes again and saw a silhouette next to her. She blinked once or twice for her vision to clear.

"Ru…Rukawa-kun…" now she heard a bland, low-pitched tone come out of her vocal chords, "…is that…you…?"

Her eyes widened when she found herself staring at cold blue eyes…

…HER big and round blue eyes.

She blinked again, and then violently shook her head. It was like those times when Haruko would doubt herself from seeing something hardly believable, that there is a need for her to shake her head, probably to call upon a second opinion on a fresh eye and a fresh mind. Am I still dreaming?

That girl, Haruko Akagi, the person kneeling next to her – looking physically real than a mirror reflection, her real-life double frowning at her – met her horror-struck gaze when she looked into those eyes once more.

"Yes. It's me." Her double answered her previous question, and she spoke with a tone so flat and indifferent anyone would recognize it right away as belonging to Kaede Rukawa – regardless of whoever said it.

She began to scream…but the scream came out incredibly and undeniably mannish – not the usual sharp, penetrating shrill she remembered belting out back at her junior high school days when the class joker played a prank on her and showed her a disgusting toy of a sewer rat. The ghastly sound of her tone promptly made her cover her mouth with both hands. In a snap, she was up her feet, immediately scurried off then poised herself as far away from that girl – or whoever it is doing that sick impersonation of her – as she could possibly go.

Now she found herself staring at that girl again, feeling her eyes widening and bulging more from its sockets the longer she stared.

Her double wore an impassive face as she crudely stared back without even reacting at her sudden escape. She noticed a tint of pink on the right cheek, and the girl's bloodshot eyes were firmly locked onto her like a target shooter to a big, red bull's-eye.

Haruko's horror made her look down at her big, clammy palms…her unsteady feet. She was wearing a wide, size-11 black leather shoes and a boy's sterling blue uniform.

"M-Ma…Masaka…!"

She felt a sudden charge of shudder rapidly making it's way up to her shoulders. At that instance, she had literally gone cold, and her mouth gone dry. Slowly, ever so reluctantly, she reached up and touched her features. The way the contours felt on her fingertips as she steadily ran both hands across her features – a wider forehead, thick brows, perfectly bridged nose, a prominent jaw line…a face a little elongated than she remembered having – suggests that what she is feeling is, without doubt, not hers. She began to pat-stroke her hair that ran short from the nape. No. Kami-sama. NO. She felt her strong arms, her flat chest, her lean lower back, her…

"Hey," her glaring double said suddenly, "stop touching me."

Haruko sagged a little, not knowing what to react. For some reason, she began to feel the familiar, warm prickles stinging her eyes again. No. Kami-sama. NO. She felt a heavy lump blocking her throat, but somehow she managed to the spill the words out in painful, forced croaks: "W-W-What…are you…saying?"

Her double finally stood from her kneeling position and faced her. "You heard me clearly, Haruko, I know. And I know what you're thinking…so don't make me tell it to you twice," the girl half-raised her arms at the sides and looked down at her small feet, heels together – examining her form as a girl would examine herself in a new dress – "As you can see for yourself, you are not where you're supposed to be…"

Haruko's mind went numb, and the cold feeling came haunting back.

She – the girl inside Kaede Rukawa – screamed once more.

"Stop screaming, do'ahou! You sound disgusting!" Haruko Akagi snapped, covering her ears at the sudden outburst of his terrible howling.

Submissively, and just instantly, Rukawa clipped his lips to close. Then he started to sob quietly, his shoulders jerking up and down, as he fought hard to keeping back tears.

An awkward silence fell between them.

Haruko eyed the tall man from foot to head. His stiff body was quivering uncontrollably, fists clenched at the sides, knuckles white. Again, she didn't have to guess what was going on in his head. Confusion, fear, and distress were already clearly written on his face.

Unable to contain his emotions any longer, Rukawa fell on his knees, his hands cupped on each side of his head, and wept.

Haruko remained where she stood, her face still bearing the air of stoic calmness, doing nothing, thinking nothing. She raised her head up, fought the urge to close her eyes while basking into the moon's chancy radiance, and merely stared at it blankly.

The moon was in its last quarter, but it shone brightly more than any sky-rise building she knew of in the big city of Kanagawa – or even Tokyo – that is now at rest from the hectic morning under the cloak of darkness of this extremely peculiar night.

Haruko took a deep breath, leveled her head back and began to stride towards Kaede. She looked down on that man, looming over him, watched him literally quiver at her feet, now hugging himself to still his body's irrepressible trembling. He, the man inside her, had never seen himself this…this…(he hated to admit it) pitiful before.

"Enough already. You've almost drained every tear gland in my eyes." She scoffed in a Rukawa-like tone when she noticed a small puddle of tears forming on the concrete.

"It's no use crying, you hear me? Whatever that has happened here is hardly our concern anymore." She paused, thinking of something more sensible to say that would probably spring up hope some from Rukawa. And, of course, to make him quit crying. "There's nothing we can do about it…for now. This is only temporary…so stop that now. Okay?"

Rukawa didn't make any effort to answer back. Rather, he kept on shaking his head as if forcing himself to wake up from this nightmare they're both into.

Haruko cursed herself silently. She remembered overhearing how her aunts from the mother side would brutally cow at her father, telling him that man's age-old curse was the inability to hush a woman from crying, when her parents, at that time, where in the middle of a little quarrel – eventually making her mother cry – and her father can't do a thing to comfort her. Her father begged, even went down on both his knees, but still, he was forced to spend the night alone in his tatami at the garden. The kneeling and begging scene was a hilarious site to a child, but right now – in probably the most difficult part of her life, next to exceeding Sendoh's basketball abilities – she was not even in the mood to smile.

Did she ever?

"Listen…Akagi," she bent over, attempting to touch him on the shoulder, her inner voice resisted – defiantly – then quickly withdrew her hand and stood up straight, forgoing the attempt, "Listen, Akagi, this is not as bad as you think it is. Be glad we're still alive after almost being struck by lightning."

He just cried.

Haruko knelt – still not touching him – searched for something in her right pocket and handed a clean hanky to Rukawa. "Here. You're a tidy girl so I know you carry one of these." She held it forward. "Now wipe that thing off your face before it gets all smudgy and sticky."

Rukawa's crying grew annoyingly loud.

"Shut up! I told you to stop it already! You're not helping anyone with your useless whining!"

This time, he looked up, glared with those swelling blue eyes, and slapped her hand away from his face. Insane as Haruko would find it, but somehow she expected him to mutter a little "Do'ahou!" under his breath but no curses came – just quick, erratic sobs.

Then again, why did she expect it to come, in the first place? She knew he couldn't possibly say that, to her (most especially to her) or to any one else. He's not the same old Kaede Rukawa which everyone regarded as an ice block, isn't he? (Oh yes, she's fully aware of that.) He's not the same old Kaede Rukawa the Shohoku High Basketball Team had been looking up as an ace, isn't he? He's not the same old Kaede Rukawa that dared match Kanagawa's top seed to date by the name of Akira Sendoh, isn't he? Nor is he the same old Kaede Rukawa this annoying girl fancied, isn't he?

…And neither is she the same old annoying girl who fancies a certain Kaede Rukawa.

Haruko should know these truths by heart, and un-der-stand more than ever – more than this despicable man before her, more than any practical, sensible and God-gifted creature in this crazy, dreadful world – as long as she lives.

"Tch." Haruko got up and darted back, her chin up. "Suit yourself." She sidestepped pass him and headed for the door.

Rukawa eyed her dejectedly as she reached for the metal latch.

Haruko stopped and gradually glanced back. "I'm off to your place…." she now said softly, as if answering Kaede's inquiring look as to where she is going. "I'm not gonna be miserable like you, you hear me?"

She saw it. And what glinted deep into Rukawa's blue eyes was unmistakable anger.

"If you want to keep whining all night about what happened, that's fine with me. If you feel sorry for yourself, you can stay here 'till morning and rot. I don't really care. But I won't punish myself for going home late…in a different body. You hear me. I never wanted it, never even imagined it to happen. Neither do you…"

Haruko faced front. She saw herself staring at a pretty face reflected on the small, cracked door window. Her fists clenched; she bowed her head.

"Fate is playing a game here, don't you see? I'm just deciding to play along." For countless times that night, she had been trailing off, naturally lost for words, but the way she conferred what she had just said spoke of obvious indifference though with equally obvious finality. Of all the decisions she had made in her life before, this has been her best one yet: "I would go on everyday in my life from now on as Haruko Akagi, until I find a way to get us back to our normal selves. If this is a game, I won't lose. I promised myself not to…not in any game. And this is not a damn exception."

Her head snapped back up and stared at her reflection on the cracked door window once again, "If you're sobered, I advise you to do the same, but if you think otherwise…mind you that a mother and a sister are waiting for Kaede Rukawa to come back home from school. In your case – I mean, Haruko's case – having parents and a gorilla-of-a-brother doesn't make any difference." She tugged the latch and pulled the door open, making a load metallic creak like saw cutting on metal.

"I chose to move on, Rukawa. And in my decision, I want to make it clear that who I am, is still who I am. I may be you in their eyes, but I'd like to keep my real self intact. No pretenses, no masks. Now decide what's best for you. For both of us." At that, Haruko Akagi stepped into pitch-black darkness, which she now considered her new life.

Tsuzute (to be continued)

+++ Slam Dunk is a copyright property of Mr. Inoue Takehiko and IT Planning, Co. +++

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