Published: March 21, 2026
I was always weak.
Not physically, but mentally — I was very weak.
Maybe it’s easier to say I was a coward.
Relationships with people were the scariest thing in the world to me.
And I hated myself the most in the world.
I wanted to be manly every day, but lately I’d gotten used to strangers mistaking me for a woman.
A disgusting kind of familiarity, I thought.
By all rights I shouldn’t have been the kind of person I was, yet I admired someone.
Kyosuke Asahina, who’d been the ace since our first year in the kendo club and sat in the same class as me.
I first saw Asahina-kun in middle school.
When I entered, I couldn’t refuse the enthusiastic club recruitment, so despite being a beginner I joined the kendo club.
I still think this way: I hated my cowardly side and wanted to fix it.
I believed that if I took up some sport or martial art, I might gain a little confidence. At the time I truly believed that.
…As you can see, it didn’t work out.
Fortunately, the middle school kendo club wasn’t particularly strong — we were a weak school with only one girl who had started kendo in elementary school and some inexperienced members.
The training was just about something even my poor stamina could keep up with, and because our numbers were small I got to participate in an official match for the first time that autumn when I was a first-year.
I was the vice position in the team match, and in the first round I faced Asahina-kun, who had won the individual division earlier that morning after beating third-years despite being a first-year himself.
Being my first match, I’d been intimidated by the noise and voices echoing in the gym and hadn’t watched the individual rounds properly. It was only when a senior comforted me that I realized Asahina-kun was the champion.
An experienced champion versus a beginner in his first official match — the result was as clear as day. We started, and within ten seconds I had lost two points and been defeated.
I remember thinking vaguely that this must be what lightning-fast defeat looks like.
Before I knew it, I bowed and left the ring. Sitting beside a senior, I removed my men and, somehow, the match was over; I was bowing next to my senior.
It was a crushing defeat.
Our school lost the opening round without even taking a single point from the other team.
We barely had time to feel frustrated before the next match started, and while we hurriedly gathered our gear, some substitutes from Asahina-kun’s team said this.
“That was worthless. Might as well have competed against elementary schoolers; that’d be more meaningful, don’t you think?”
For the first time in my life, those words made my head go completely blank with anger.
The senior beside me was clenching his lips in frustration.
But I couldn’t say anything.
Even though I was furious, my cowardly nature put the brakes on me and I couldn’t even argue.
My poor social skills forced me to swallow it all and accept the humiliation.
Feeling worthless about myself, I looked down.
“Want to compete against elementary schoolers? Then quit the club and go practice at a nearby dojo if that’s what you want.”
Those unexpected words made me, and the seniors beside me, look up with mouths agape.
For some reason even the substitute who’d spoken looked astonished.
He hadn’t been angry — he’d simply said what he thought, looked puzzled, and stared straight at the substitute.
To honestly tell someone what you think takes courage.
I don’t know about normal people, but for me it certainly did.
Asahina-kun probably hadn’t thought much about it, but in a situation where he might risk being disliked, he looked the substitute in the eye and said what he felt. I thought that was cool.
From then on, even though we went to different schools, whenever I saw Asahina-kun at competition venues he became my idol.
They say people react two ways when someone has what they don’t: jealousy and admiration.
For me it was the latter.
I wanted to be able to speak plainly like Asahina-kun.