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Resetting your life when you’re seven and moving for the third time in two years to another island is one thing. You leave behind the shared bedroom that never felt like your own. You wave goodbye to friends who promise to write although you know they never will. You don’t look behind you from the rear window of Mom’s beat-up Subaru that’s gonna break down before the next time you move. You lose another teddy bear and don’t cry too long or too loud this time.
Resetting in a video game is another thing. You do a hard reset and you lose all the electrical signals that make up your own version of the world in the game. You die and the game will take you back to a restore point. You soft reset while you curse out the latest boss for pulling a move like that out of his pre-programmed ass. You explain the soft reset to your boyfriend when he gets curious as to the target of your latest swears and he will tell you it sounds an awful lot like cheating. You tell him it’s not fucking cheating and consider throwing the controller at him. You don’t throw the controller because you know your boyfriend won’t pull his punches.
Resetting your life partly, when you’re 26 and in a fairly stable long-term relationship with said non-punch-pulling boyfriend, is nearly impossible if it’s even a thing at all. Shougo’s not convinced that it is. It’s not like he can return to those times and places and undo the things he regrets or the things he’s trying to avoid. Pieces of his past are gonna cling to him like bird shit clung to that old Subaru. And there are too many things in his life that he’d like to keep.
“People change,” Shuuzou says.
Then he flicks the remote. He keeps pressing the button and the channel changes too quickly for Shougo to register what he sees. Shuuzou finally settles on one of those American drama shows of his. He says he likes to watch them because he needs to be able to talk to his siblings in the language they know best. Earlier in his life Shougo would have muttered something about failing all his high school English classes. He doesn’t. And it’s not because he’s avoiding another one of Shuuzou’s lectures about manners. Shuuzou wouldn’t do that now anyway, but he might have done it half Shougo’s lifetime ago. Half Shougo’s lifetime ago Shuuzou wouldn’t be that frank about his family, either. And Shougo wouldn’t have respected that and would have talked back twice as loud if he’d known there was no punch or hair-pull coming.
People do change. But Shougo isn’t sure if he’s changed enough.
He doesn’t play basketball as often as he used to. He does play it about as often as he’d like to, though. It’s not this thing he needs to leave behind completely but he finds he cares about it less as he grows older. There’s a lot to be said for not having to play so he can scrounge up enough money for a fast-food dinner on nights when Mom’s out and she took all her bank cards.
And basketball was never his. His game was always based on what other people wanted. He could use what they would show him on their terms. It’s not that the moves he stole belong to the people he stole them from. They never did. They don’t belong to no one. But like so much else once he’s touched them no one else has a use for them anymore. He doesn’t want them but can’t get rid of them. No one had ever asked him what he wanted so he’d taken what he could get. And what he got was secondhand and whichever ways he changed them they weren’t all his own. And he can’t shake off those moves or unlearn them now. You can’t reload the last saved file to your body. So Shougo takes that lost-and-found collection back to the streets every week. A pile of hacks might not get him very far in the national circuit, but it’ll do fine against the losers who hang out on these courts on weekdays.
Today’s enemy don’t have a chance. Shougo takes the tipoff with a jump he stole off some guy second year of high school. Shougo lands lighter than that guy did but with the ball pressed to his palm. He already knows he’s gonna score. Using a swift dribble he’d picked up off a cocky forward the year ahead of him in Teikou, he streaks across the court and leaves his opponent in the dust. He lays it up sort of like he’d seen the old guy at the rec center do when he was a kid first learning the rules of the game. The other guy’s just made it to the three-point line when the ball clatters through the hoop. Shougo lets it bounce and roll over to the fence before he goes to pick it up.
The problem is not who these moves belong to. They’re his now if they’re anyone’s and Shougo does not feel guilty. He wouldn’t return them if he could. The problem is that he remembers everything about each one. One of those girls he used to sleep with would definitely be cooing over that shit. She always did say every memory was a precious little jewel. These ain’t jewels. Whatever the hell they actually are needs to be left in the past. There’s nothing precious about none of it.
Feinting left and right with motions like the ones he’d observed on some kid on a different court at a street tournament, Shougo guards. The other man frowns and sweat drips down his long nose. Shougo lunges and knows he’s gonna catch himself before he falls if he needs to. The chubby girl with soft hands did when he passed her practicing on his walk to school that day in eighth grade. Shougo doesn’t have to because he’s quicker. He grabs the ball and twists his body into shooting position almost the same as a much-older kid he’d played against in the park used to.
“Tough luck,” he says.
The man rears and spits at him. Shougo’s already executed a knock-off of the snappy three made almost famous by the last starting shooting guard at Teikou before Midorima Shintarou.
He wins. It sucks.
He’s glad Shuuzou’s at work when he gets home. He takes a long shower that’ll knock out the hot water in the building for the next few hours. He doesn’t feel bad since his neighbors haven’t done nothing for him. The mirror is fogged up when he towels off. He scrubs away the condensation with his elbow and stares into the face in the glass. His eyes trace over the too-small forehead and twice-broken nose. He’s up to five gold rings in each ear now and they jump out from the dull tones of his hair and skin. He’s never been much of a looker. And that’s not the point. It’s not easy things like this that are ever the real points or problems. It’s that it’s him.
The ladies who occupy Shuuzou’s television dramas always give the same advice: “Forgive yourself.”
Nothing must be forgiven. This time he’s not in the wrong.
This man in the mirror cannot be reset. The pitted acne scars won’t disappear. If he takes out the earrings the holes will stay behind. And there’s his hair, too. He’s tired of the dull black braids. He’s sick of keeping rubber bands tied at the ends. He’s so done relying on his barber to re-dye and re-braid it all every month. If he takes it out it’ll frizz and look stupid as fuck. If he wants to change this he doesn’t have much of a choice.
Swinging his reflection out of sight on its hinges, Shougo opens the medicine cabinet. The electric clippers he uses to shave his face lies on the third shelf. This is fucking stupid. He knows it’s fucking stupid. Resetting his hair ain’t gonna do shit when it comes to his life. It’ll look dumb. But it’ll grow out, and Shuuzou can’t tease him much worse about this than he does about the cornrows.
He takes out a small pair of scissors instead. He’s not about to mess up the thing that keeps a scratchy gray beard from forming on his face. He slams the medicine cabinet shut and starts to hack away.
He can’t tear through the hair at first. He pulls at the scissors and a few strands will break off but the blades won’t come close to meeting. It’s fucking ridiculous. He’s trying to get them through whole braids’ worth of hair at once when the delicate blades are better suited to trimming nails. Or thin hair. He wedges the lower blade in the side of the top most braid and closes the other blade down on it with a quick snap. There. It’s not gonna be efficient but it’ll have to do now.
He’s snipped off two braids when his arm starts to hurt. He can’t fucking stop now with it looking like it does and he’s not a fucking sissy or nothing. It’s started so he’s gonna see it through. It was a stupid decision and a rash one.
Hair clippings coat Shougo’s shoulders. The skin is dry but the hair sticks. He should have covered his torso with an extra towel or a shirt or something but it’s no use now. He’s gonna need to sweep the floor, too. He puts the scissors on the sink and swings his arms a few times. His reflection does the same. Free of the braids, two thirds of his hair sticks up at varying lengths. The rest is tied down to his head as it was this morning. Fuck. This alone must have taken him a few hours. His boyfriend’s probably not home yet. He hasn’t barged in to see what Shougo’s up to. Shougo scratches his head and when he takes away his hand it’s coated in hair clippings that hadn’t fallen. For fuck’s sake. His hair ain’t getting shorter on its own.
When the last braid is finally detached, Shougo glares at his reflection. It would be a welcome break to stop here and leave it at this. But it looks worse than the cornrows now.
The clippers are light in Shougo’s hand. It’s not like it matters. His arms are long since past the point when they’ll be sore as fuck all tomorrow. He snaps on the never-used guard and plugs them in. He’s built this up like a fucking coronation. It’s taken too long already. He switches them on.
After a few passes down one side of his head, the door opens.
“Jesus, Shougo! What do you think you’re doing?”
“What the fuck does it look like I’m doing?” he snaps.
Shuuzou steps around him and sits down on the toilet. “You know you’re gonna have to sweep that?”
“I know. Shut up and let me concentrate.”
“You mean you thought about it,” says Shuuzou.
Shougo ignores him. He makes an extra few passes down the back where he can’t see. The hair is falling away and his head is getting lighter. He could tell Shuuzou to get the fuck out of the bathroom. He could yell at him to stop staring like that. He could hope Shuuzou gets the hint and stays quiet. He starts the other side.
“I’ve been wanting to do this for a while. I’m sick of the cornrows and it’s too much trouble to get it straight again.”
“So you finally agree they were ugly as sin?” Shuuzou leans forward.
Shougo snarls. “Shut up. Bastard.”
“You watch your tongue,” Shuuzou says.
He stands up to flick Shougo in the forehead, hard. He hasn’t used that much force since fucking middle school!
And then Shuuzou kisses the top of his head. “You should grow it out a bit, though. I always liked the gray.”
Shougo doesn’t make a move to punch the sink and shatter his hand. He doesn’t yell after Shuuzou, either. It the last word is gonna be as embarrassing as that he’s not sure he wants it.
Other people look at him differently now that he’s got a neat little buzz cut. Strangers don’t go out of their ways to pay him courtesy but they don’t stare at him in terror. People don’t give him half a meter of leeway on the sidewalk. On the court they don’t treat him like as much of a punk kid. He receives a few compliments at work for turning over a new leaf.
Nothing’s changed all that much. He hasn’t dropped backward. He doesn’t die and respawn. He is very much Haizaki Shougo with a lot less hair. Nothing is missing and nothing has been undone. He might not remember if it had.
Shuuzou shoots hoops with him a few times. He’s a step or so slower than he was at fourteen but that’s his price for all those extra centimeters of height. And Shougo’s no match for him at this speed anyway. Velocity hardly matters against Shuuzou’s power and relentlessness.
It’s hard to remember where all your steps and dribbles came from when you’re being beaten this badly. They start their game over with the score at nothing-nothing several times. The results are the same in each match. Shougo’s muscles scream.
And they remember the motions on their own. When his mind is too exhausted his muscles twitch into repeated patterns on their own. Nothing is partitioned into a square on some calendar in his brain. It all runs together from a messy pool of movement. His body pulls from so many sources he can’t even count them let alone figure out which ones they were. Shuuzou keeps on winning almost every battle for the ball. Shougo can only take a few shots from bad positions and most of them fall short of the hoop or veer to the side and miss the backboard.
He’s not mad. He’s defeated and he’s exhausted. There’s no disconnect between the moves and his mind but Shougo is too tired to examine this or even think about it right now.
He returns to his barber once his hair’s grown a couple of centimeters.
“You’ll have to come back about as often as you’ve been coming to get it trimmed,” the barber says.
“Don’t matter,” says Shougo.
It’s different, though. The touchup takes a hell of a lot less time. It don’t cost as much. He can run his hand through his hair. It’s Shuuzou that plays with his hair more often, actually. It’s nice when your boyfriend likes how you look. That’s not why he did it. But it’s nice. He looks in the mirror and his reflection is easier to deal with. He doesn’t find the color as repulsive as he’d found it when he was fourteen. He’s not particularly handsome but he’s nearer to respectable than he’d ever thought he would be. Respectable ain’t so bad.
Forced or otherwise, a reset isn’t always the right answer. It isn’t always possible. There’s other types of change.
He quits worrying about basketball. Everyone else steals their moves, too. They’re sloppy about it and leave some of each with the person they took it from. They cobble finishing blows together from idols on TV and teachers and instructional videos. Some steals are piss-poor and others are done with artistry. Shougo has an easier time of studying it than most others is all. That’s how it is and how it’s gonna be. It’s easier to forget how he got all these moves when he gets messy about it and everything mixes and jumbles together. And it’s not especially important. Basketball isn’t Serious Business anymore. It shouldn’t have been like that to begin with but he’s done with trying to erase the past. The only thing to do is just let it be. God, that is some hippie shit right there. He might tell it to Shuuzou anyway. See what he thinks.