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In her wildest dreams—
Pen scratched paper, and paper took on words of frustration, as an enigma of a story seeped onto it, existing as Ayumu’s wildest dreams bearing fruit within the reality she created in her own mind.
In actual reality—
Fingers reached down to tap the prosthetic leg. At the same time, Ayumu worried slightly, perplexed by the unsteadiness with which she’d progressed towards becoming able to run again, to reach her Olympic dreams.
“She rather deserved it, didn’t she?”
In Ayumu’s fraught mind, the individual was simply someone disliking the amount of boasting she did about heading to the Olympics, how she’d be hafu representation at the Olympics for Japan, ignoring the frustration of her classmates when they asked her if she honestly thought she’d get the position on the track and field team because she was rep, to which she shouted accusations of racism, and nationalism, and not believing in her.
“But you’re not our team captain,” one of her fellow middle school students repeated. “Meaning you’re not actually the best at our school, yet you’re expecting to get a spot ahead of ninety-five percent of the population. How is that fair to everyone else? Or the hafu who actually earned their spot at the Olympics?”
“You just don’t believe in me,” Ayumu said, before going into her rant, accusing them of not believing her, as they disliked foreigners. And in her mind, that was why they were saying she deserved what happened to her.
It wasn’t because she’d done something stupid over the summer break, sneaking into a construction site late at night, the one her father worked at, that resulted in the loss of her leg, and that — that was why some of her classmates questioned whether she deserved it, if her loss of her leg was some kind of mystic karma brought on by her bravado at believing herself far more capable than she was in reality.
And thus—
Their literature teacher assigned them Japan Sinks by Sakyo Komatsu. With such a boring protagonist in Ayaumu’s mind — because he was male, she wrote herself into the hero lead, with her entire track team being tossed like rag dolls, to which she ended up the only one escaping alive, with absolutely no self-awareness that the classic literature the teacher assigned them involved science as understood then.
And then she killed off her dad in her series, because he tried reasoning her about how it was okay to give up on a dream, so he died digging yams in a minefield, and on and on the revenge went, such as getting revenge on Ms. Miura for getting close to Ayumu’s crush, Haruo-kun, not understanding she worked with Haruo-kun on his physical therapy for his own sports injury so he might be able to return to track and field.
She even almost killed off her annoying twat of a brother for daring to read the story she’s written, but saved him by having the arrow go through his Game Boy, because Go actually liked her story, even got her to include an online influencer he liked in the story, working it in between things already written as a solution to problems she’d been unable to think of a solution for.
Her classmates — not so pleased.
More specifically—
Ayumu made the mistake of bringing her story to school, planning on sharing it with her coach, who’d always been encouraging, and was the one who told her self-insert she could get on the boat because Japan deemed Ayumu a national treasure in need of saving, she was just that great of an Olympic hopeful.
Only for her teammates to say something choice about how they died off, while opening discussing the fact Ayumu would be starting high school next year, and Haruo would be heading off to college, to which her teacher found out and set her down, saying something about her behavior, and being more realistic about—
“Well, it is kind of weird you have a crush on Haruo-nii,” Go said.
“He played with us when we were younger,” Ayumu said.
“Because his mum was asked to watch us, and he helped?”
And for a moment, she wanted to kill off Go again.
But decided not to, as her school life was hell, and Go listened to all her frustrations about wanting to return after her injury to beat out her rivals, but nobody was listening or helping her get to that point.
“Ayumu, I think we need to have a talk.”
Ayumu, of course, didn’t want to talk, since her parents simply didn’t get her.
“I get the idea of having to nix the Olympic dream isn’t…”
“What would you know?” Ayumu snapped, and then—
She noticed the bag her mother carried, her mother sharing about her heart issue since she felt Ayumu was old enough.
“Wait? So you didn’t give up on your Olympic dreams because Dad, uh…”
“Of course not! He helped me through not being able to pursue my dream anymore,” her mother said. “But Ayumu? If you really want to make the Olympics, that’s fine. However, you also need to be realistic. A backup plan is always a good idea, because…” And her mother looked at her leg. “Well, you don’t know what will happen, right?”
“Right?” Ayumu said, unsure.
“And maybe the reason your classmates…”
“But they’re so mean!” Ayumu said. “They said I don’t stand a chance of getting into the Olympics because I’m hafu, and now I’m disabled.”
“Did they, or was that you putting words in their mouths to try to make an excuse for yourself on why you weren’t getting the results you wanted. And now to get the results you want, it’s actually going to be a harder journey. You have to put in the work, not just rely on your mother not being Japanese to carry you through to the Olympic level. Start by trying to match lower records, rebuilding your stamina, and giving the captain of your team a run for her money.”
“In other words, show them they were wrong?”
“Well, no.” Her mother smiled. “Because they aren’t wrong. It’s not fair to get a position on a team, particularly at the Olympic level, without working for it or earning it.”
“Then what? What am I proving?”
“You’re proving to them that you’ve changed, and you’re actually going to take track seriously enough to actually be a rival to these girls. Got it?”
“I think so,” Ayumu said.
“I know it’s a lot of pressure, but you’ll find it is well worth it in the end, that you may even not be so upset when you don’t come in first, if you know you put in your best.”
“Sounds backwards, and old timer stuff.”
“Well, your mom’s been around and seen a lot of stuff, and you’re obviously not wanting to talk to your dad about this, so ya’ stuck with me, right?”
“Right,” Ayumu said, her mother getting up and leaving the room. She looked down at the story, all the tragedy, with the ever-hopeful story of getting to the Olympics and being the representative, with Go being a gamer there as well. “Maybe? Maybe I wasn’t being realistic about this?”
Fingers tapped her leg.
“After all,” she’d been writing the silly little story, and crushing over an older guy that her classmates knew was no go, even before—
She’d made the mistake of confessing to Haruo, which resulted in her killing off his character in the story as well, mostly because of the look he gave her, as if the idea of her crushing on him did honestly bother him, while he admitted she was like a sister, but she gave him a heroic death, even though—
At the end of the day, she’d slowly come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t happening. Letting out a sigh, Ayumu got up, stretching as she did so. “Okay. No more stupid stinks, and just going as far as I need to be able to walk again. I need to actually work for this.
Because, at the end of the day, Ayumu did love running, being super fast, and that seemed like a much healthier pastime than wishing ill will on people through her stories who didn’t even know she was upset with them.
She turned and headed out of the room, taking one small step at a time, feeling hopeful for once, and deciding she could perhaps rebuild some burnt bridges in the process.
“I can do this.”