Brooding over yesterday’s events I waited in front of the gym for my morning boxing session. I didn’t know if K would show up, or if Fujiwara kicked me out of Yamato, nevertheless, in good faith, I did my solo morning routine in the park and mentally readied myself for whatever there was to come. As long as they let me stay, I kept repeating to myself, trying to stay positive

My angst increased when I saw K sauntering towards me with a can of coffee in her hand. She ascended the stairs slowly as if staling on each step. By the time she reached me at the top of the stairs, streams of sweat were trickling down my back.

“Ohayo,” she mumbled and made a sip, her big sunglasses covering most of the swollen cheek under her right eye.

I stared at this gloomy, skinny individual in dreaded expectation. What fate-determining words will come out of her mouth?

“Huh, Nik san, why are you staring at me like that? The training is about to start. Let’s go in,” she said, her bleak words trampling all the pathos of my heavy thoughts.

The training…is…about to start…I can go to training… which means… I’m still a fighter for Yamato Damashi!

“You coming?” she called from the inside and I rushed after her as I would on every other day.

James was in the ring finishing up an intense focus mitt workout with the coach. His proxy Yamada greeted us as soon as he saw us. Well, he greeted K with a deep bow and barely glanced in my direction. Feeling like I just dodged a bullet with Fujiwara, his condescending behaviour didn’t upset me in the slightest.

I had to admit, James was an excellent boxer. For his heavyweight class, he moved in a very light manner and was fast as hell. His punches were relaxed and his response was quick.

“He’s good, isn’t he?” said K.

I nodded, observing him.

“Well, he comes from a boxing background.”

“He does?” I asked, switching my stare at her.

“Yup. You too, right? You said you started with boxing.”

I shook my head. “Yes, but that was just a few years in the high school, can’t really say boxing is my background.”

“So what is?”

“Pfeeew….” I puffed air out of my mouth, taking time to answer “Nothing really…I’m MMA…that’s all…” I admitted, feeling at a slight disadvantage since most of MMA fighters started out with solid basics in one martial art or another.

“Good,” K surprised me.

“Is it?” I tried to read her eyes through her sunglasses.

“It is. It means you can adapt to any game, ground or stand up, more easily because you don’t rely on either.”

I shrugged, not convinced entirely. “Still, I think my boxing is pretty good…”

“James is good in boxing,” she emphasised his name as to say I wasn’t; “so Yamada san is prioritizing it. I think he should instead focus on bringing his ground game to a higher level. The mind should be flexible in a fight, but when one relies too much on one skill, the mind won’t be flexible. That’s just my opinion, though, and I’m not James’s proxy.”

Her confident demeanour, which disappeared yesterday, was back on. When she spoke like that it annoyed me as much as it impressed me. On one hand, she sounded like she knew it all, throwing around some random wisdom in a tone of an old experienced master and making me feel like an ignorant schoolboy. On the other hand, everything she said contained that simple logic, which, when I thought about it, made perfect sense, and I could not help but to agree with it.

“Yamada san is preparing him for a fight.”

My eyes grew big. “Really? When?”

“This Saturday,” she said casually.” It’s not a big event, just a first one in a series of events for new fighters.”

“New fighters? How long James’s been here?”

“Hmm…” she tilted her head sideways, her mind calculating. “A little over a year—“

“W—what? Is this his first fight?”

“As a Yamato Damashi fighter, yes.” When she saw how bewildered I looked, she pushed her sunglasses slightly down on her nose and raised her eyes to mine. “Well, what did you think? The level is high here, it takes time to prepare a fighter for a match.”

“But a year? That’s fucking long…” I muttered, wondering what that meant for me.

”It all depends on a fighter,” she added just as the timer rang the end of the round.

“Good workout, James.” I said to him as he descended from the ring. He looked at Yamada before he answered an insecure thank you, man that concealed excitement. He reflected that pre-fight mix of extreme focus and exuberance, which I knew well and which I longed for too.

It was my turn in the ring and I trained like there was no tomorrow. After a good hour of intense interval workout in a gym with no air-conditioning, my body was like a sponge squeezed dry.

“You keep dropping your hands,” was the only comment K made at the end of the training. It annoyed me that out of all the effort I put in that was the only thing she found worthy to comment on. What about my speed, what about my accuracy of punches, what about my smooth footwork? I sweated blood today in that ring… Her remark dented my self-satisfaction and I wowed that in my next training, keeping my hands up would be my utmost priority.

In the dining house, I drank so much cold tea my stomach hurt. Once my thirst was satisfied and the abdominal pain settled, the hunger came. The extent of my hunger was as big as my thirst, but even so, it was still no match for K’s appetite.

Having finished my second portion she already started on her third – a sashimi plate, specially prepared for her -- with the same eagerness as she had eaten her first dish. Once done with sashimi she asked me to get her some matcha ice cream, which she devoured with her eyes closed. Not wanting to spoil her enthusiastic relationship with the food, I patiently waited till the last spoon of ice cream disappeared in her mouth.

Her face gained some volume and the swell on her right cheek was not so prominent anymore. A sigh of satisfaction came from her lips smeared with ice cream. I passed her a napkin and while still wiping her mouth she asked: “Nik san, with everything that happened yesterday, are you okay?

“Ummm, yeah sure.

“Good.”

“What about you? Are you fine? I mean…” I touched the right side of my face, hinting at her swollen cheek.

She placed her elbows on the table and leaned her chin on her palms. “I’m fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Ok,” I said while she kept staring at me. Having it all worked out well, I wanted to avoid this topic altogether. But damn, I was also curious as hell. “I thought you’re close with Fujiwara.”

“Fujiwara sama. Please, learn to address him correctly. And yes we are close, that is why what I did was very, very wrong.”

“Well,” I shrugged. “I was there too.”

“Yes, but you are my responsibility.”

“O-kay…” I responded biting my lower lip slightly, observing her. “And Shin? How--”

“Shin is an outsider, he’s not part of Yamato Damashi. It wouldn’t be so good for him if he was found in that apartment.”

“But how did he get away?” I leaned forward over the table, eager to find out.

Her eyes rolled up. “The window in the back of the hallway. While you were busy panicking he sneaked out just before they arrived.”

“I wasn’t panicking…And we were on the second floor… he must be a ninja to escape from there…” I said half-jokingly. Shin, a ninja… a silent, pottery-making ninja...It wouldn’t be the strangest thing I’ve seen so far…

She smirked. “You know,” her hands left the table and she leaned backwards; “you’re very slow sometimes in perceiving what’s happening around you. Hope you’re faster when fighting.”

I pressed my mouth tight, before some words I would later regret came out of it.

“Yes, I must be slow,” I resumed after a thoughtful pause; “because whatever happened in that room with Fujiwara, sorry, Fujiwara sama, I still don’t get it, so I’m hoping you can explain it to me.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that unless I was drugged, the shit that went on in-there was not normal. And what happened to you… not just the slap, which was bad enough…you were completely out afterwards, barely able to walk.”

She chuckled, her eyes lowered to the table. “You were just stressed out and I…I felt bad before that, you know…one beer too many.”

“Right…” I said, looking straight at her. “What did he say to you, though? And about that albino woman?”

“Such things don’t concern you. The matter ends here.”

She’s right, I said so myself yesterday…leave it, Nik, stick to your training…leave it—

“I’d still like to know—“

“Ha!” She suddenly stood up. “I think I’m gonna get myself another ice cream.”

“Fuck, K--”

She escaped toward the counter, leaving me in full view of Yamada, who sat at the other table. Having earlier proudly displayed a correct, servile attitude by bringing dishes to my proxy, I now promptly looked away and pretended to search for something in my bag to avoid his reproachful eyes. Because, how dare I let my proxy get the food for herself, how dare I exhibit such disrespect in front of a full dining room, how dare I show such disregard for the noble Japanese codes of behaviour…

K’s quick return interrupted my cynical musings. Before I followed up with my question she surprised me with her own: “Would you like to see the tournament on Saturday, the one James will be fighting at?”

“You’re kidding me?”

“No, not at all,” she responded with serious a face, taking my question too literally. ”As a Yamato Damashi official, it’s very easy for me to arrange that.”

I stared at her with my mouth open. A blunt change of topic, but she bought me. “I’d love to.”

She shoved a full spoon of ice cream into her mouth. “Great!” A gleam of content passed through her eyes as if we struck a successful business deal. Her subsequent grin revealed her teeth green with matcha ice, and I had to laugh.