The Reason I Put Down the Sword
The silver-haired woman who had been scolding me just moments ago blushed and instead offered me an apology. Her black cheongsam-style dress, with its daringly low neckline, revealed far too much cleavage, making it embarrassing just to look at her. When she pulled me into another hug as a gesture of apology, my heart began pounding again. Why did these strange feelings refuse to fade even after we had started dating? I quickly slipped out of her embrace. Reina wore a disappointed expression and asked me a question that made no sense to her.
I had already told her once that defense was possible, but attack was not. “Actually, I… I’ve been learning kendo since middle school…”
“What? Since middle school?”
“Yes… and I learned other forms of swordsmanship too. Not live blades like Japanese swords, but I’ve held wooden swords and bladeless practice swords.”
Of course, my kendo training had only lasted about three years. After that, I quit. Naturally, when Reina heard this, she asked why I had stopped when three years of training had already brought me to such a high level of skill—practically genius territory.
“I suddenly developed asthma.”
“What!? Asthma!? Th-then… are you okay now!?”
Reina grabbed my shoulders and shook me, her face filled with panic and worry. I quickly reassured her that I was much better now and tried to calm her down.
“Huh? Then… you could go back to kendo, right? Why didn’t you?”
“W-well… that is…”
Honestly, the reason I quit kendo wasn’t asthma. There were two other reasons, and I told her one of them. “There weren’t enough spots, so they made it co-ed… and I lost to a girl in my group. It was my first time reaching the finals, but she was last year’s champion… and I was dead last… haha…”
Because I was too interested in actual sword techniques, I couldn’t use them in kendo matches—they were banned. The gap in skill was obvious, and I lost. I had finally climbed to a high place with my own strength, only to be defeated so meaninglessly that my motivation vanished. When I told Reina this, she looked at me with pity and gently took my hand, wrapping it in both of hers.
“Yujin. Everyone tastes defeat at least once. And there’s no guarantee you’ll always win. Even I still have a lot to learn from those guys.”
She pointed at her subordinates—the very ones she had been scolding earlier—and gave a bitter smile. But then Reina frowned again and asked if that was really the only reason I had quit kendo.
Should I tell her? The thought crossed my mind. I really didn’t want to talk about this part if I could help it. “Actually… it could have killed me…”
“What!? Wh-what do you mean!? Killed you!?”
“It’s just… the truth is… asthma isn’t the only thing I have…”
It was originally genetic. We simply hadn’t found it when I was little, and only discovered it by chance in high school, so now it was classified as congenital. An unexplained respiratory disease had left my bronchial tubes weaker than normal. I even suffered from pneumothorax frequently and had undergone multiple surgeries. Because of that, my heart had also become quite weak.
“You idiot! Then it wasn’t that you quit kendo—you couldn’t do it even if you wanted to! And… dying…”
Reina immediately snatched the wooden sword I was holding and tossed it to one of her men. Then she spoke sharply. “Never pick up a sword again! That’s an order!”
“Huh?”
“No! Absolutely not! You were still trying to hold a sword even after knowing that!? I didn’t even realize… and I went and…”
She looked guilty for having suggested we spar. I tried to tell her that light sparring would have been fine, but—
“Shut up! You said you could die because of this! And you still wanted to hold a sword!? Do you want to get scolded for real!? I… I don’t want to lose you… So no! Absolutely not!”
Her red eyes trembled with genuine fear. She looked as though she might cry at any moment as she begged me never to touch a sword again. Even though she had offered just earlier to have a master craftsman make me a real Japanese sword if I was interested, that idea was now completely rejected. I felt a slight pang of disappointment, but since she was genuinely worried about me, I decided it was best to listen to her for now.
But at that very moment, a crushing pressure seized my chest. I couldn’t breathe properly. My vision wavered, and strength drained from my fingertips. I felt my body tilting forward, yet my legs refused to move. At the same time, I collapsed forward as if folding in half.
— ♠ —
Yujin looked timid and pure—almost girlish, in a way. I never imagined he could handle a sword so well. Yet behind that beloved hobby lay an unexpected devastation. Death. At first I had only thought his body was in poor condition, but the end of that road was death itself. My heart lurched violently. It felt as though he might disappear at any moment, and I couldn’t stop myself from raising my voice in anger.
In the end he seemed to give up and listened to me. But then his body suddenly folded and he started to fall. I caught him immediately. “Yujin! What’s wrong!? Yujin!?”
I called for one of my men who had medical knowledge. He looked bewildered and said it seemed like Yujin had simply fainted. “You bastard! Is that what you call an explanation!? I ordered you to check on Yujin’s condition! You’ve all gotten too relaxed—do you think I’m a joke!?”
When I snapped at him, he panicked and checked Yujin’s pulse. He said we needed to call a doctor, so I shouted for him to go fetch one right away. A short while later, a woman in a white coat arrived at the mansion. The Kurotsuki Syndicate also ran legitimate businesses, so in a sense we were part of the corporate world. The nearby university hospitals received funding from us. Yesterday it had been too late to call anyone, but now it was possible, so a university hospital doctor had come.
“There’s no threat to his life, but… it would be best if he avoided strenuous exercise as much as possible.”
“I-is his condition that bad?”
Just in case, I gave her a detailed account of Yujin’s condition. The doctor immediately requested a consultation with the university hospital where he had been diagnosed and reviewed his chart. It wasn’t simply a respiratory disease—he had several other conditions as well. Light exercise or remaining still wasn’t a problem, but any direct physical impact or shock to the body would worsen his organs and further damage his heart, she explained.
“According to the chart, his lungs are smaller than average. His heart as well.”
“……”
I had already known his heart was weak because of asthma and the respiratory disease, but the symptoms listed now were far more severe. “(shaking head) This isn’t the child’s fault. Even if he knows the details, it’s difficult for him to explain everything.”
The doctor added that he had carried these illnesses since childhood but only learned of them in high school, and it was hard for someone that age to remember every single condition. Furthermore, Yujin had already told me he might die if he continued—so perhaps he had only given a simplified version of his illnesses. After the doctor left, Reina sat holding Yujin’s hand tightly as he lay unconscious and began praying, something she had never done before.
— ♠ —
Along with the sensation of my consciousness sinking, I saw my younger self within my hazy vision. So I’m dreaming again, I thought, and watched the scene carefully. The surroundings were far too noisy. A crowd of spectators was cheering for someone—everyone was cheering for a single girl. In that situation, I wore a mask over my head. Right now I had a slight advantage. But my stamina was failing, and my breathing grew rough. My body felt so exhausted that even the wooden sword itself seemed heavy. Before the tournament, the doctor had warned me never to compete if these symptoms appeared. Yet I had somehow clawed my way to the finals, and if I simply dragged things out, I would win. When the referee signaled the restart, I raised my wooden sword and aimed for my opponent’s exposed head—
“!?”
My body suddenly stiffened and refused to move. My eyes were open, yet everything went dark. My legs hadn’t given out—something inside my body had gone wrong. I dropped the wooden sword. My body, weighed down by the protective gear, slowly began to fold forward. My opponent didn’t attack; instead, she asked if I was all right. At that moment, a siren wailed, and I was carried off to the hospital.
Slap— Inside the hospital room, a woman struck my cheek in anger. She was tall, much like Reina, and shared many similarities with her. I had promised not to overdo it. Even after being slapped, I couldn’t say anything—because she was crying. After all, she was the one who had taught me both kendo and swordsmanship. She told me never to hold a sword again, then one day she simply vanished. Even when I went to the dojo, my master’s figure was nowhere to be seen.
‘It’s all my fault… Because I tried to push myself that time… Master…’
She had felt guilty. She had taught me kendo and swordsmanship out of pity and worry when I was being bullied, yet it had only become a weakness that harmed me. Even when she slapped my cheek in the hospital room, the usually cold and blunt master had shed tears, wearing that tsundere expression. By making someone precious to me sad and shouldering undeserved blame, I had quit kendo.
‘That’s right… That’s how it was… The reason I quit kendo… was because of the sin I committed… But…’
After meeting Reina, who carried a similar atmosphere, and receiving her precious love and care, I found myself wanting to protect her without realizing it. That was why I had picked up the sword. Yet the moment I tried to strike at Reina’s opening, the same crushing pressure in my chest I had felt back then grew stronger and stronger. If I collapsed like this, it would feel as though I were once again placing blame on someone else. So I obediently lowered the wooden sword I held and raised both hands in surrender. Even so, my body could not endure. It was as if it were rejecting the very act of holding a sword. In the end, I collapsed meaninglessly once more.