Record #420

World 420

User: Yamamoto Kenji

2009

Tokyo, Japan

The arena was bursting with people on the edges of their seats. The competitors were so evenly matched, it was difficult to figure out who would win. With every hit, the tides would turn to the others favor.

Suddenly the audience roared. The man at the left pinned the other down with a grip so strong, it bruised. There was a startled pause before the commentator announced the winner. 

Yamamoto Kenji walked out of the ring with confident strides. They faltered, however, when he exited the passivity zone. The area was filled with reporters who did not hesitate to swarm over to him. Bringing their microphone up to his face, they asked questions after questions.

"What happened in the match?" "Why did you lose?" "Were you ill?"

Questions after questions after questions. All of them hit his weak parts, worsening his already bruised ego. 

"No comment," he snapped, and pushed his away among the hounds. Some of the cheeky ones tried to follow him but he managed to lose them when he turned around the corner and away from the main street. 

Huff. They truly were like hounds after their prey. Thank the gods that the prey was faster than the predator, else he would have been dead meat. Or, at least, his pride would have. 

After what felt like ages but was in actuality just some minutes, Kenji reached the training center. Coach Nakamura had strictly said that he was to go there if he lost. And he did so. Badly. 

The center was devoid of its usual strepitous. No sounds of beaten flesh, no screams, no yells of the Coach could be heard. It was to be expected. After all it was well after the 22nd hour, one hour after the place closed.

Kenji stumbled into the locker rooms. His back ache was more painful than anything he had felt before. Never had he lost a fight against anyone and this match had taken a huge toll in his body. The wrestler cursed Takahashi Hinata in his head. If only that man were slightly weaker then he would not have faced this humiliation and pain. He ignored the voice that condemned him and mocked that he was the weak one. 

With shaky hands, he punched his combination in. 9629. It was a code that seemed like a jumble of random numbers and it was exactly that, but it was done on purpose. On their first try many would guess 0000 but then if that did not work, they would move on to 1234, then 1111, 2222 and so on. 9629 never even crossed people's minds and that was why he chose this random sequence of digits.

His locker was a total mess. Papers and equipment were scattered haphazardly everywhere, but the wrestler could not bring himself to care.

He took off his sweat drenched shirt and stuffed it inside his duffel bag. With ease, he lifted his 10 kilogram bag and tossed it in the locker. It fell with a crash, nearly crumbling a lone book. Kenji felt pity for it and pulled it out from beneath the bag of rocks. 

The book was something he had not seen in his possession before. Its cover was unnatural, that is, it was blank white! To Yamamoto Kenji, it seemed like the work of a lazy man, someone he despised more than anyone else. 

But what was this book?

He flipped to the first page and stopped. There, written in scrawly letters, were the words: Use this book if you lose, Yamamoto. You will improve greatly- Coach.

Thunk!

The book, that was previously in his hands, now laid on the ground, in a crumpled mess. A few yards away, the wrestler was panting heavily, his eyes burning like flames. 

Above Coach Nakamura's writing, was the title of the book. SO YOU WANT TO START WRESTLING.

***

Yamamoto Kenji sat at the learning room's table for who knew how many hours. 

He folded the paper in front of him in half and then unfolded it again. This process continued for a while. There was no change no matter how many times he did so. 

The poem? was akin to a riddle and the poet? had cleverly twisted words around, but it was not difficult to figure out what it was asking for. 

His hand shook as he picked up a nearby pen. It was okay, he assured himself. This paper was only like a anger management technique of sorts. Most likely it was what Coach Nakamura meant when he wrote 'use this book if you lose'. He was not referring to the book, rather the parchment. 

When he was a wee little kid, he was known as a firecracker among his parents. He used to always think that as a good word until he accidently had broken another boy's arms. 

He had been expelled from the school and the teachers and headmaster scolded him, telling him that he would never do anything good in his life. His mother, too rebuked him, but after that she told him about the concept of anger management. 

"Every time you get angry at someone, write their name in a paper and crumple it. However, remember, Kenji," she warned, "never write the name of someone close to you for that means that you wish to cut ties with them and you do not want that, do you."

His opponent was just a stranger. Kenji had no idea who he was and what he did other than wrestling. He had no idea if the other had financial problems, had a family or if he was living the luxury life on his own. 

No tie would be broken because there was none to begin with. 

With his mother's advice in mind and his brain's reassurance, the wrestler wrote in painstakingly clear letters, Takahashi Hinata, before crumpling it in his hands and tossing it in the trash can.

"Score!" He exclaimed, feeling lighter than he had this entire dratted day. 

***

The next morning he woke up feeling worse than before. At first he assumed it was muscle strain as an after effect of yesterday, but it not take an amateur to figure out that it was more than that. 

His entire body burned. From one hand to another, from head to toe, it hurt more than anything ever before. It felt as if he had been stabbed a million times. Was it the way he slept?

Sometime in the middle of the night, Kenji had fallen asleep by the table. The chair was not comfortable at all, but he was so tired that he let himself fall to Tsukuyomi's arms anyway. 

The wrestler tried to push himself up, but found that he could not. No matter how much he tried, his arms refused to cooperate. Frustrated, he raised his head to look at them and gaped in horror. In place of his arms, he had nothing but bloody stumps. 

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Question:

Have you ever been so jealous of someone that you wished they never existed?