Real People Fiction
The single factor in approving Rukawa’s choice of girlfriend (or boyfriend, for that matter) was, to his legions of fans, that they were as good-looking as Rukawa himself. While no one was fool enough to put themself forward as a potential candidate (after all, why risk the wrath of one’s known-to-be-many-and-maniacal comrades), many fans nominated quite a large number as possible boyfriends (potential girlfriends, it seemed, were few and far between).
Among the few female nominees: the current number one, two, and three female pop singers in Japan (all in their twenties); the current national high school girl’s basketball MVP; the current national junior high girl’s basketball MVP; a porn actress, aged nineteen; a movie star, aged seventeen.
Among the much more numerous male nominees: Mitsui Hisashi (one of the top candidates), Miyagi Ryota (despite the fact that it was fairly well known that he had eyes only for Ayako), Kogure Kiminobu, and Yasuda Yasuharu (for reasons many did not quite understand but felt made him worthy) from Shohoku (Sakuragi Hanamichi was omitted for the sole reason that he had so often beaten up their idol, although the same idol had returned each blow in kind*); Sendoh Akira (another top candidate) and Koshino Hiroaki of Ryonan; Fujima Kenji of Shoyo (because, everyone decided, the rest of the Shoyo team simply paled in comparison to their captain); Maki Shinichi and Jin Soichiro of Kainan (though, some said, if not Jin, then perhaps Kiyota Nobunaga, for the simple reason that although he challenged Rukawa about as often as Sakuragi, he didn’t beat him up); Sawakita Eiji of Sannoh (the third top candidate).
*nevertheless, there were an astonishingly great number of Rukawa fans that fancied a frisson between the two, and secretly whispered of the twain to themselves, but never to those who simply disliked the redhead.
Of the six candidates, equally male and female, it could be said that only one girl stood above the three male candidates (who themselves stood at an equal number of supporters, or approximately enough as to make no difference*), with the other two girls a distant fifth and sixth.
*well, if you had made a serious count of Mitsui supporters versus Sendoh supporters versus Sawakita supporters, and included Sakuragi supporters as well, the ranking would have been something like Mitsui-Sendoh (with a small difference of less than five supporters- perhaps, depending on the mood of the mercurial supporters, even one, or less than one), Sakuragi (about ten to fifteen behind) and Sawakita (lagging behind with a difference of about fifty supporters from Sakuragi).
This girl, however, being the national high school girl’s basketball MVP, and due to graduate from her school to go on to university by the time the school year was out, had a fairly low probability of ever coming into contact with Rukawa*, and though she was the one most people chose to Photoshop in with pictures of Rukawa, was not the focus of anyone’s attention beyond photos.
*to be completely honest, this was the main reason why so many supported her over the five others.
Still, it was a fashionable pastime of Rukawa fans to speculate on the course that love would take should Rukawa become romantically attracted to any of these people.
Hence it was that when one of the many hundreds of Rukawa fans, also an otaku of foreign television shows, entered the foreign, English-speaking fandom of a particular TV show and discovered real people fiction, it was inevitable that this new concept would attain great popularity amidst this gigantic group.
The main fansite dedicated to Rukawa (which, since he never surfed the Internet and indeed had little idea how to use a computer at all, he naturally had no inkling of) immediately spawned a section dedicated to Rukawa-based fiction. Within a matter of weeks, it was already teeming with fiction dedicated to (a) stories concerning Rukawa’s personal life, which was completely inscrutable to everyone; (b) stories concerning Rukawa’s supposed romance with any of the previously mentioned nominees; (c) stories concerning Rukawa’s completely imaginary romance with an invented character tailor-made for him (or, at least, the type of girl or boy they thought he would like or want); (d) stories that speculated on the reasons for aspects of Rukawa’s behavior (the difference from (a) being that (d) was completely dedicated to humour).
Within months, the factions of Rukawa fans became more pronounced. It became hard for friends to gush about Rukawa without the beginnings of a fight appearing when a particularly fine tale about Rukawa and Mitsui, or Rukawa and Sawakita, or even (most shockingly) Rukawa and Sakuragi. The subjects of these stories were themselves oblivious to the attention being weighed upon them (although some did notice a slight increase in the number of people coming to watch their games*).
*however, they put this down to their team’s increasing popularity and not their own.
There were already many fine writers that were upheld by the factions. Some used their real names*, but many used pennames, and hence it was not uncommon to overhear, in a conversation between Rukawa fans, “Have you read the new Nami no Ka fic yet? I think she’s really done a great job with this one!” or “I simply love Chojutsuka no Keimei’s stories! They’re really sexy, it’s like you’re actually watching Rukawa-sama and Sakuragi in action!”
*and therefore subjected themselves to abuse from rival factions, including harassment at school and outside their home.
Increasingly, Rukawa fans in Shohoku took to giggling behind their hands or spurting blood from their noses upon seeing Rukawa in proximity of a few hundred meters to any one of his teammates. Similarly, the male nominees in other schools also found that their popularity had mysteriously risen.
However, it was only with the emergence of a new writer in the Rukawa fandom that these factions found themselves soothed. This new writer wrote with style and sensuality, and had no qualms writing Rukawa with almost anyone that was asked for. In what seemed to be no time at all, he sat at the top of the writers*. His one fault (so it seemed to those who supported Sendoh or Koshino getting together with Rukawa) was that he would not write about these two boys. At all. Nothing. Not a word about either’s chances with Rukawa.
*the only objection that ‘serious’ readers and writers had to him was that he wrote more sex scenes than plot, but it bothered no one else and besides, his non-sex scenes were just as amazing.
Some explained it away as ‘Pacchiri probably needs time to work out the dynamic between Sendoh and Rukawa!’ or ‘Pacchiri must be writing a really long story about Koshino and Rukawa which he won’t post until it’s finished!’ Whatever the reason, people lost no time in bombarding Pacchiri’s email inbox with requests for fics concerning the two from Ryonan.
At last, Pacchiri responded with a fic that, yes, contained both Ryonan lads.
Unfortunately, it lacked Rukawa himself, and was simply about Sendoh and Koshino becoming lovers.
The outcry was immediate, and lasted what seemed a long time in the minds of teenagers. However, it also opened up new avenues to the Rukawa fans. Sakuragi with Rukawa, and Mitsui being left out? Give him Kogure! Sawakita and Rukawa? Let Sakuragi and Maki become a secondary couple!
The end result was that the ‘Rukawa fiction’ section of the Rukawa fansite was expanded to include anyone that Rukawa had ever been paired with.
Meanwhile, in an apartment in Ryonan town, Sendoh Akira, alias Pacchiri, sat in front of his computer reading through the many emails thanking him for opening their eyes, and laughed and laughed and laughed.
Now if he could only get Koshino to like him in the way he’d written him…
Author's Notes: I’d just like to say that I had to stop typing every few lines just to giggle over the images before I felt calm enough to type them out.
By the by, about the abnormal number of footnotes: if I didn’t have them, I’d clog up the sentences way too much, not to mention having parenthetical notes within parenthetical notes.