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The task is simple: find Mayuzumi, ask him to go to Rakuzan for the graduation ceremony. If he refuses, talk to him for a while and then invite him again. Repeat the process until he agrees to attend.
Of course, simplicity doesn’t mean that what he has to do is easy, because it’s not like anyone knows much about what Mayuzumi’s up to nowadays. The most they know is the college he’s at, and that he’s living at the dorms, so Reo has spent the whole morning wandering around said dorms, trying not to look like a creep while waiting for Mayuzumi to appear, and hoping that he won’t miss him among all the students. Or, you know, that he won’t miss him because the guy barely has a presence and you have to be actively looking for him to notice him, and sometimes not even then you see him.
Reo tries not to think too much about what he’s doing, because he keeps going back to how he should have picked rock instead of paper when they decided who’d be doing this. If he’d picked rock, Nebuya would be the one getting puzzled looks from students who know he doesn’t go there.
Reo sighs and looks around, and he catches sight of Mayuzumi walking in his direction. Their eyes meet and Mayuzumi stops abruptly, his shoulders sag, and he looks like he’s died a bit inside.
That look doesn’t disappear when Mayuzumi approaches him slowly, stopping some steps away from Reo.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“How rude, Mayuzumi,” Reo says, crossing his arms and looking displeased. “Almost a whole year without seeing each other and that’s how you greet me?”
“It’s not like I was expecting to see you again.” Reo can almost hear him thinking about how he hadn’t really wanted to see any of them again.
In a way, Reo can’t blame him. Life at the basketball club became different after last year’s Winter Cup, but by then the third years had retired, and Mayuzumi hadn’t been there to find out what it was like to have Sei-chan paying attention to you for reasons unrelated to basketball.
“I don’t think any of us really expected to see you again,” Reo admits, shrugging with one shoulder. “But we got curious.”
“So you’re here to find out how I’m doing?”
“No, I’m here to ask you to go to our graduation ceremony.”
Mayuzumi had never been one for showing many emotions, but maybe that had been because too much passion makes you useless as a phantom sixth man (Fifth man, Reo corrects himself, fifth), because his eyebrows go up and for a second he doesn’t look dead inside anymore, he looks very alive, very confused, and maybe a bit terrified.
Now that’s offensive.
“Why do you want me there?” Mayuzumi asks, his expression becoming neutral again.
“Because we’re curious,” Reo says softly.
“Great speech. Really moving. I’m dying to go see everyone now,” Mayuzumi deadpans. Reo thinks he liked him better when he didn’t say much.
“Would you have believed me if I’d said that we missed you?”
Mayuzumi seems to think it over for a second.
“No, not really.”
“Then there was no reason to say it,” Reo says, matter-of-factly.
Mayuzumi shakes his head.
“Thanks for the invitation, but I’m not going.”
He walks past Reo, and Reo follows him.
“I have to convince you. The others won’t leave me alone if I go back and tell them I’ve failed.” Mayuzumi keeps walking. “Sei-chan won’t be pleased,” Reo adds, hoping Mayuzumi’s still nervous enough about him to take some pity on Reo’s situation.
No such luck.
“What, he’s curious too?” Mayuzumi asks, without turning around.
“No, I think he’s sorry.”
That makes Mayuzumi stop, and Reo almost bumps into him.
“He’s sorry?” he says, turning around, frowning.
“He’s changed a lot.”
“I know he’s changed, I was there when it happened,” he narrows his eyes at Reo, like he thinks Reo has forgotten about Mayuzumi’s involvement in the whole episode. “But why would he be sorry?”
“For how he treated you?” Reo licks his lips and continues. “For how we all treated you?”
“This is just part of your attempt to convince me to go to your graduation, isn’t it?”
“And that means it isn’t true?”
“I never belonged to the team, Mibuchi,” Mayuzumi says, and starts walking again.
Reo follows him, again.
Mayuzumi’s got a point, and the worst part of it is that it’s true: Mayuzumi hadn’t really been part of them, he’d been a guy who’d seen his chance to (not) shine and had taken it, even if most of the time it had meant being treated like they only tolerated him. Reo had always figured it was alright, since Mayuzumi always looked at them like their existence annoyed him at the core of his being. Then things had changed, and it hadn’t seemed alright anymore, but Mayuzumi had left along with the other third years, hadn’t even tried to see any of them again, and they’d been fine with it until their own upcoming graduation had led Reo, Nebuya and Kotarou to an excess of sentimentality and had sent them looking for any news about Mayuzumi.
It had been Nebuya’s idea to invite him to the graduation ceremony, and Sei-chan had heard and considered it a good idea. How was Reo supposed to say no then?
Mayuzumi’s got a point, and Reo needs to destroy it. Maybe it would have been better if they’d asked Sei-chan to invite Mayuzumi. That way he would have seen immediately everything he needed to know.
“We never got another phantom fifth man,” Reo says instead of trying to explain everything that has changed.
“Sixth,” Mayuzumi says, still walking, but not heading in the direction of the dorms. They’re going towards a small park.
“Fifth,” Reo corrects.
Mayuzumi looks at him over his shoulder.
“You want me to ask about that, don’t you?”
“It would give me a good reason to tell you what I’m thinking, yes.”
They stop next to a bench.
“Then go ahead. Tell me about why I was a fifth man and not a sixth one,” Mayuzumi says, plopping into the bench.
“You played from the start,” Reo says, raising his hands as if he’s offering something.
Mayuzumi seems to notice the offering, and he doesn’t even try to hide his disappointment.
“That’s it? That’s your logic?”
“Let me elaborate, please.” Reo sits next to Mayuzumi, crosses his legs and prepares himself. Mayuzumi likes light novels, but he also likes practical things, and Reo suspects he won’t appreciate a lame speech. “The phantom six man was someone meant to change the flow of a game. Someone they’d put it when things didn’t go their way, or when they wanted to preserve one of their players. We never did that with you, and Seirin never did that with Kuroko Tetsuya either.” Reo turns and gives his kindest smile. “In some ways, the phantom sixth man ended at Teikou. Both you and Kuroko Tetsuya became starters, key parts of the teams’ strategies. Not surprises, but support.”
Mayuzumi looks unconvinced. Reo isn’t pleased by the speech either. It sounded better in his head.
“Please don’t become a writer,” Mayuzumi says.
“That was improvised,” Reo says as way of defense.
“Still…” he looks to the front. “Don’t become a writer anyway. Play basketball instead. Annoy everyone with your three pointers. Keep Hayama under control. Deal with Akashi, you don’t seem to mind him.”
“He has changed. You should see him.”
“No thanks.”
“Why not?”
“Look, I had my time at Rakuzan, it was fun while it lasted, and now it’s over. I don’t want to remember old times, and I don’t miss them. I graduated with no regrets, blah, blah, all that. The point is that there’s a reason I didn’t give any of you my contact info. Actually, how did you find me?”
“Touou’s manager has a good information network.”
Mayuzumi seems terrified at that. Reo had been as well, when he’d found out.
“If I agree to go to the ceremony, will you leave me alone?” Mayuzumi says, sighing.
“If you don’t go, I’ll come back. And I’ll bring the others with me.” Reo points at Mayuzumi in warning.
“I guessed it’d be like that. But will you leave me alone now?” Mayuzumi sounds tired, and Reo feels sorry for him.
“Do you have anything to do?”
“It’s Friday. Nobody does anything on Fridays.”
“Then no, I won’t.” Reo leans back and watches Mayuzumi from the corner of his eye.
“And why not?”
“We did miss you, you know?”
Mayuzumi seems more convinced now.
“And why?”
“You always seemed as annoyed by Nebuya as I was. It was nice.”
Mayuzumi snorts. “You thought we had some sort of connection?”
“No, definitely not. But it was nice to have somebody else with common sense on the team.”
“What you’re saying is that you missed me, not that everyone missed me.”
“You don’t believe me if I speak for everyone. So, since I missed you, will you go to the graduation ceremony?”
“Before I answer that, what do you plan to do now, since you won’t leave me alone?”
“It’s lunchtime and I’ve been waiting for you the whole morning.” Reo turns to look at Mayuzumi, and finds him watching him with narrowed eyes, like he’s waiting for a surprise attack. “I was going to ask you to take me to have lunch.”
Mayuzumi moves slightly away from him, looking uncomfortable.
“When you say that, you don’t mean it as a date, right?”
“We aren’t even friends yet. Maybe later,” Reo says. Mayuzumi doesn’t look uncomfortable anymore. “And I don’t think that would get you to accept our invitation… It’s next month. I’ll give you the exact day if you agree.”
Mayuzumi leans back and closes his eyes.
“Fine. But if any of you is more of a jerk than usual, I’ll leave.”
Reo sighs in relief.
“So, tell me,” Mayuzumi says, still with his eyes closed, with a tone that sounds like he’s making an effort to stay focused in the moment, “what do you want to eat?”