Shirasawa sat in his wheelchair, staring blankly at the pile of old trophies, his thoughts drifting back to his high school days.
Back then, he would run and leap wildly on the court, and everyone on the sidelines would scream with excitement at his skills.
A coach came to recruit him, patting his chest and shouting, " Shirasawa, come to our university! We're a perennial top seed in CUBA, you'll definitely become a basketball superstar if you join us!"
Another coach chimed in, " Shirasawa, don't waste your talent! Come to the provincial team, and I guarantee you'll definitely be able to play in the CBA!"
Another coach squeezed in. " Shirasawa, how about studying abroad in Europe or America? American universities are NBA talent pools, don't you want to give it a try?"
But with a bang, the door was kicked open, and his father came home from get off work.
Although his family wasn't well-off, he felt happy with his life. What he looked forward to most was his parents watching him play basketball. As long as his parents were there, he was full of energy and always performed exceptionally well.
To ensure Shirasawa's future success, his parents went to great lengths to hire a private coach and provide him with specialized training. Shirasawa was the family's hope; his extraordinary talent at such a young age attracted a multitude of scouts, and his future was dazzlingly bright!
But who knew that an accident during his senior year of high school would completely ruin everything. That day, he was practicing dribbling as usual when suddenly his hands started shaking uncontrollably. He thought he had practiced too hard and told his teacher to take a break, but the teacher immediately noticed something was wrong and notified his parents, who rushed him to the hospital.
The city hospitals couldn't find the cause and advised them to go to a major hospital in the capital. Realizing the seriousness of the situation, the family immediately went to the capital. Finally, a hospital there diagnosed Shirasawa with multiple sclerosis! Hearing the doctor's words, the whole family collapsed!
This disease is a progressive disease of the central nervous system. It causes numbness and pain throughout the body, dizziness and unsteadiness, eventually leading to paralysis in bed and even death. What's worse, this disease is incurable!
Shirasawa returned home in a daze. He didn't hear his parents crying, nor did he utter a sound. He just lowered his head, as if his soul had been ripped out.
In the past five years, the family has spent all their savings on his medical treatment. The family is constantly arguing and fighting, and the atmosphere is so oppressive that they can hardly breathe. The family fell apart after a few years, and his mother simply packed up and left.
Later, his father became increasingly irritable, got drunk every day, and was even fired from his job. The family, which was already heavily in debt, was completely ruined.
With a bang, his father kicked open the door, staggered in reeking of alcohol, and launched into a tirade of abuse. After he finished cursing, he swayed out.
Over the years, he's become so tired of talking that he doesn't want to talk anymore. At first, he didn't want to talk, but later he couldn't even speak properly and became completely mute.
A dozen minutes later, hearing his father snoring, Shirasawa reached out and struggled to reach the pen on the table. He held it between two fingers and wrote three crooked words on the paper, "I'm sorry." Then he moved his wheelchair and shuffled to the bedside.
On the small bedside table were a lamp, a bottle of medicine, and a comic book. Shirasawa took a deep breath, feeling a little panicked, but he still bent down, held the uncapped medicine bottle in his mouth, tilted his head back, and poured all the medicine into his mouth. This medicine had been sitting on the low cabinet in the living room for several years.
Thankfully, when I picked it up today, I found it hadn't expired yet.
After taking his medicine, he pulled over the manga again; it was called " Slam Dunk." He loved basketball entirely because of this manga; he loved all the characters, and he had cried many times over the story.
I randomly flipped to a page, and it happened to be the scene where Shohoku played against Miuradai. Sakuragi dunked so hard that Kengo Murasame was foaming at the mouth, and Sakuragi fouled out of the game. The Miuradai players surrounded him and started yelling, and Sakuragi shouted at the top of his lungs, "No! I really didn't mean to!"
Seeing this, Shirasawa forced a smile. Even if it was pitch black ahead, he wasn't afraid anymore. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and he closed his eyes, his mind filled with images of himself on the court: jump shots, game-winning shots, and the cheers of the crowd.
He turned around and waved vigorously to his excited parents on the sidelines. Suddenly, the scene changed; a red-haired guy ran over, stood in front of him, and grinned slyly. "Come on, let's play basketball with this genius!"
Shirasawa laughed heartily, "Great!"
Then he followed the red-haired guy and ran onto the court, which was already full of people waiting to play with him.
A gust of wind blew into his room and closed the comic book he had spread out.
Shirasawa's eyelids twitched, and he slowly opened his eyes.
"Shouldn't I be dead already? How did I come back to life?" he muttered, propping his head up with his hand.
Had his sleeping pills expired? Why did his head hurt so much? He rubbed his temples again, but after only a couple of rubs, he suddenly froze, opened his eyes wide, and looked at his hands—they weren't shaking anymore! Although a surge of joy rushed through him, the headache pulled him back to reality. He stared at the unfamiliar room in front of him and muttered, "Where am I?"
He sat on the bed, bewildered, still unable to make sense of it—he was clearly dead, so how did his soul end up in this kid's body? This kid's name was Yo Aoki, a junior high school student in Japan in the 1990s, fifteen years old, in his third year of junior high.
I glanced around. The environment wasn't exactly familiar, but it wasn't strange either. It was decorated in a typical Japanese style, but the rock posters and skull and ghost decorations on the walls seemed out of place with the overall style.
This is outrageous! He's dressed as a foreign teenager?
He shuffled off the bed and onto the floor, a long-lost feeling of control over his body washing over him, instantly bringing back memories of high school. The feeling of being able to control his own body was amazing. He silently felt the feedback from every muscle; his limbs were strong, and his balance was incredible—even smoother than before. What was going on? An Asian body, and a Japan one at that, how could it be more agile than a European's?
Although he was a little puzzled, he didn't think much of it and shook his head.
" Yo, are you awake? Come down for dinner!" A familiar yet unfamiliar female voice drifted in, and a woman immediately popped into his mind— Ryoko Aoki, Aoki Yo Aoki's mother, a full-time housewife.
He put on his clothes, took a deep breath, and nervously opened the door to the second-floor room.
As you descend the stairs, a spacious living room comes into view, where three people are: a brown-haired woman wearing an apron is setting out breakfast, that's his mother, Ryoko; a man in a white shirt and trousers is sitting at the table reading a newspaper, meticulous and serious, that's his father, Mamoru Aoki, the president of a forklift company, very rigid.
He felt inexplicably scared and angry; there was also a boy in a school uniform who looked a bit like Yo Aoki, with his head down, seemingly lost in thought. He was Ryo Aoki, a second-year student at the same school, and he felt inexplicably envious.
Yo Aoki probably accumulated too much negative energy, which is why he became this rebellious person.
" Yo, come and eat, don't just stand there!" Ryoko urged him.
"Hmph, you need someone to pay you?" Mamoru Aoki muttered. "You're always skipping school and fighting, you're a disgrace to me!"
Shirasawa walked past indifferently—he was Shirasawa now, not that Yo Aoki.
He walked to the dining table and sat down, then started eating his breakfast as if no one else was around. Yo Aoki didn't even wait for him to eat, so Mamoru Aoki glared at him and yelled, "You bastard, don't you have any manners?!"
"Honey, Yo is just hungry, don't be angry. Oh, by the way, Ryo's baseball team won the county championship!" Ryoko quickly smoothed things over.
Mamoru Aoki finally suppressed his anger and said to Ryo Aoki, "Hmm, not bad, but don't get cocky. You still need to aim for Koshien in high school." But Ryo Aoki kept his head down and only hummed in response. Mamoru Aoki frowned, " Ryo, look at me when you talk to me. Don't be as ill-mannered as your brother!"
"Ah, I understand, Father," Ryo Aoki said awkwardly.
" Ryo, is something on your mind?" Ryoko asked softly.
Ryo Aoki stammered, "After we won the county championship, we had a small celebration, but I accidentally damaged a car..."
Ryo Aoki had just hit a beautiful home run in the prefectural baseball league, and during the celebration, everyone egged him on to show off his swing. The kid was at that age where he loved to show off, so he confidently agreed. But who would have thought that he'd lose his grip on the bat, and the flying bat crashed into a parked car with a loud thud, leaving a large dent in the door.
The car owner refused to give up and demanded an exorbitant price. Finally, Ryo Aoki invoked the fact that his father, Mamoru Aoki, was the president of a large company, and the car owner relented and gave him a day to raise the money, threatening to cause trouble at Mamoru Aoki's company if he couldn't raise it.
Mamoru Aoki stared at Ryo Aoki, who was bowing his head in remorse, and said helplessly, "Did the car owner leave his contact information? Give it to me, I'll have my secretary handle it. Don't worry about it."
Upon hearing this, Ryo Aoki jumped for joy. Mamoru Aoki, seeing this, smirked, but immediately his face darkened. "Don't get so cocky next time!"
Ryo Aoki gave a clumsy military salute and shouted at the top of his lungs, "Yes, Dad! Goodbye, Mom and Brother!" Then he disappeared in a flash.
After all, Ryo Aoki was able to hit a home run at the age of 14, and his swing could create a large crater, so his hands were quite powerful.
Shirasawa abruptly stood up and said in a flat tone, "I have to go." Then he turned and rushed out.
Guided by Yo Aoki's memory, Shirasawa strolled leisurely towards the school, just passing by a convenience store. This was a store Yo Aoki frequented; besides selling snacks and drinks, it also sold magazines and comics. He had been there many times before and had a particularly deep impression of it.
He walked to the store entrance, glanced around casually, and saw a number of magazines for sale in the window, including a basketball magazine, which he couldn't help but look at a few more times.
Suddenly, Shirasawa's eyes were fixed on the magazine. His eyes widened, his mouth agape, his face filled with disbelief. The magazine cover clearly proclaimed, "National High School Interhigh League: Strong Teams Clash, Can the Strongest Sannoh Industrial High School Win Again?"
" Sannoh Industrial High School? Interhigh League? Shohoku High School? Hanamichi Sakuragi?" Only these few words swirled in Shirasawa's mind. After a long while, he suddenly shouted, "No way!" and rushed into the convenience store. He grabbed the magazine as fast as the wind, hurriedly flipped to the section on "High School Interhigh League," and squatted down to read it.
Convenience store clerk Asatani was standing at the checkout counter, explaining to an elderly woman why the toothpaste was on sale yesterday but not today. As he repeated himself for the third time, everything suddenly went black, and a dark figure darted past him. When he could see clearly, he saw a tall, blond-haired student rush to the magazine counter, grab a magazine, quickly flip through a few pages as if he'd found something he wanted, and then stand there motionless.
Asatani's heart skipped a beat. He muttered, "So rude. What if he ruins the magazine? What if he doesn't buy it?" He took a deep breath and recognized the man as a student from a nearby middle school, a troublemaker who often got into fights. The man had often come to buy comics before and had even asked if they had any other comics once.
Asatani was filled with unease. This was a legitimate store; why would they sell that kind of stuff? He glanced at the blond-haired guy standing there, then at the old woman in front of him who couldn't explain herself clearly, and felt like he had no hope for the future. He straightened his hat, suppressed his frustration, and patiently explained to the old woman for the fourth time why the toothpaste wasn't on sale today.
Ten minutes later, Asatani, with a smile that looked more like a grimace, bowed to the old lady who was cursing and complaining about how the convenience store was ripping people off, and said, "Welcome to visit again next time."
Asatani felt his patience had reached its limit. Seeing the blond-haired guy still reading the magazine, clearly not intending to buy it, he thought to himself, "What's wrong with this world? Everyone, young and old, is trying to take advantage. Why are there so few honest young people like me?" He clenched his fist, intending to go forward and kick the blond-haired guy out.