📘 2007: A Girl with No Tomorrow

✦ Chapter 11: Training for Silence

> “Some people train to win.

I train to avoid being hit by someone who calls himself family.”

— Aki Hoshino

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It began quietly.

No announcement. No new uniform. No instructor.

Just Aki, in the school’s unused gym, every morning before sunrise.

No music.

No mirrors.

Only her shadow — kicking, turning, falling, rising again.

The gym smelled like dust and old sweat.

She didn’t care.

Her father hadn’t asked if she remembered the forms. He didn’t offer to help. He only said:

> “Try your luck.”

And Aki knew exactly what would happen if she lost.

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She downloaded old taekwondo routines onto her school tablet. Studied them late into the night under her blanket. Slow motion kicks. Perfect block forms. Strike angle corrections.

During lunch breaks, while the other girls laughed over bentos and phone charms, Aki slipped into the empty stairwell — practicing lunges and stance work in silence.

When bruises appeared on her arms, she covered them with long sleeves.

When her muscles ached, she wrote it down in her notebook like data, not pain.

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> Date: October 26, 2007

*3 hours training.

41 kicks landed clean.

3 failed.

I do not care about winning.

I care about the sound of his voice when I come home.

A gold medal weighs less than a bruise.*

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One evening, she practiced until her foot slipped — and she slammed hard onto the mat.

Her shoulder stung. Her breath knocked out.

She didn’t cry.

She sat there, on the cold gym floor, chest rising and falling like a machine rebooting.

And for the first time…

she whispered out loud:

“If I win… will he stop?”

The question echoed. No answer came.

She stood. Kept practicing.

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On the final page of her training notes that night, she wrote:

> I’ve mastered silence.

Now I’m mastering pain.

If the world wants me to fight —

I will.

*Not because I want to live…

But because I don’t want to give them a reason to kill what’s left of me.*

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End of Chapter 11

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