✦ CHAPTER 21 — THE FAILED DREAM ✦
The dismissal unsettled me more than an answer would have.
Leon's hand had already turned away from me, his attention shifting down the corridor ahead, as if what I felt no longer required acknowledgment. That absence—clean, deliberate—pressed harder than any threat.
It wasn't rejection.
It was worse than that.
It felt like being categorized — sorted into a place where my reaction no longer altered the outcome. Like the decision tree had already branched without me.
Before I could follow him, before I could force words out of my throat, something else surged up.
Sharp. Immediate. Panic without shape.
"Oh my god," I said suddenly. "I need to leave."
The words burst out of me, uncontrolled.
Pain answered instantly.
Not sharp—deep.
My legs trembled, muscles protesting as if the idea itself offended the structure holding me together. My chest tightened, breath catching halfway in, like my lungs refused to cooperate with panic anymore.
"Today was my competition."
The words carried everything I hadn't said.
Years of early mornings. Chlorine-stung eyes. Lungs burning through sets I refused to quit.
It wasn't just a race.
It was proof that my life still belonged to me.
The sentence came out too fast, too desperate—edges fraying even as I spoke.
Yuna didn't look at me right away.
She turned her head just enough that I noticed.
That small movement scared me more than if she'd argued.
Leon exhaled.
Quiet. Controlled.
The kind of breath someone takes before delivering bad news they already know will break something.
"…Kaien," he said gently. "You've been unconscious for three days."
The words entered the room.
They did not enter me.
Three days.
They slid past my ears like sound underwater—present, distorted, meaningless.
"…What?"
"Three days."
Long enough for the world to move on.
Long enough for absence to become explanation.
Long enough for someone else to touch the wall first.
The number finally connected.
Not emotionally.
Logically.
"No," I said immediately, shaking my head. "No. That's not possible."
My voice rose despite myself—brittle, sharp, cracking at the edges.
"I don't believe this," I snapped. "That's impossible. Nationals were today. I was supposed to—"
Leon raised one hand.
Not commanding.
Not threatening.
The room responded anyway.
The air thinned.
Not violently—subtly, precisely, like the space itself had leaned closer to hear what came next. A faint pressure brushed against my skin, not enough to hurt, just enough to remind me where I was.
Not free.
Light bloomed.
A holographic screen unfolded between us.
Blue-white layers resolved into something so familiar it stole the breath from my lungs.
A swimming pool.
The national arena.
My heart stuttered.
The smell came back first.
Chlorine. Rubber. Clean water and tension.
MEN'S 100M FREESTYLE — NATIONAL FINALS
The letters burned.
I knew that font.
I knew that placement.
I had imagined seeing my name beneath it a thousand times.
A name flashed there.
Not mine.
My rival.
The buzzer sounded.
I watched, frozen, as he exploded off the blocks.
Perfect launch. Perfect angle.
His body cut into the water like it belonged there—like the lane had been waiting for him instead. Each stroke was ruthless, efficient, practiced beyond doubt.
46.57 seconds.
Gold.
The crowd erupted.
The sound hit me like a physical blow—delayed, distorted, too loud.
My ears rang.
The feed shifted.
Poolside.
I saw them.
Toma gripping the railing, knuckles white, leaning so far forward it looked like he might fall in—eyes scanning the water again and again, as if I might still surface somewhere I shouldn't.
Mika standing on her toes, hands clasped tight, eyes darting toward the entrance between heats.
Ryo pretending not to look—but looking anyway. Jaw tight. Arms folded too stiff. That posture he took when he didn't know how to help.
Coach Morita.
Arms crossed.
Jaw clenched.
Waiting.
They were waiting for me.
I had promised I wouldn't be late.
The announcer's voice echoed faintly through the projection:
"—a remarkable performance, though some may wonder about the absence of Kaien—"
The camera cut away.
The last image stayed.
Coach Morita turning his back to the pool.
His shoulders slumped.
I had never seen him like that.
Not once.
He'd never turned away from a pool before.
Not after losses.
Not after injuries.
Not after disqualifications.
That was how I knew — not that I'd failed to race…
But that I'd failed to arrive.
Breathing stopped feeling automatic.
My fists clenched until my nails bit into my palms—grounding me through pain because it was the only thing still real.
"…I was supposed to be there," I whispered.
That moment.
That race.
That future.
I had trained my entire life for it.
Years of waking before dawn.
Of cold water and burning lungs.
Of measuring myself in tenths of seconds.
And the world hadn't waited.
Three days—
Not training.
Not choosing.
Three days where my body existed without me.
Where decisions were made, wounds were closed, systems recalibrated — all while I wasn't there to agree or refuse.
I didn't know what I'd gained in that time.
Strength? Maybe.
Survival? Definitely.
But I knew what I'd lost.
Time that would never ask for me again.
A future that didn't pause.
And the right to pretend that effort alone decided outcomes.
Whatever those three days gave me — they took something I couldn't train back.
Leon let the projection dissolve.
Light folded back into nothing.
Silence rushed in to replace it.
I lowered my head.
"I failed them," I said quietly. "I failed everyone."
My shoulders shook once.
Then again.
I didn't cry.
I just stood there, hollow, staring at the floor like it might show me where my life had gone.
Swimming had always been honest.
Brutal—but honest.
I trained.
I failed.
I trained again.
The rules never changed just because I suffered.
Pain was measurable.
Progress was visible.
If I touched the wall first, I won.
If I didn't, I went back to work.
This place didn't feel like that.
Here, surviving didn't mean succeeding.
Strength didn't mean control.
Effort didn't guarantee anything.
I had survived something that should have killed me.
And in doing so, I'd crossed a line I didn't remember agreeing to.
I could feel it — not in my body, but in the way the room reacted to me. In the way Galactors seemed to register my presence like an unfinished calculation.
Not wrong.
Not broken.
Just unresolved — and therefore dangerous to ignore.
The question wasn't whether I could go back to the life I'd lost.
Wanting something didn't mean I was still allowed to reach for it.
Wanting didn't stop consequences.
And wanting didn't make the world rewind just because I wasn't ready to let go.
It was whether the version of me who wanted to still existed.
When Leon spoke again, I already knew it wouldn't be about what I'd missed.
It would be about what I was becoming.
This—
This was something else.
I felt Renya move beside me.
I looked down.
He was watching my face.
Small hands clutching the fabric of my clothes, eyes wide—not frightened.
Concerned.
That look hurt more than anything I'd seen.
At least you're here.
The thought came unbidden.
Heavy. Fragile.
True.
Leon observed the exchange carefully.
"What will you do now?" he asked.
The question wasn't cruel.
It was worse.
It was honest.
I shook my head.
"I don't know," I admitted. "I almost lost everything."
My voice dropped.
"My family. My future. The one thing I was certain about."
Leon folded his hands behind his back.
His posture relaxed.
Unreachable.
"…Then allow me," he said, "to ask you to do something only someone like you can."
The room felt heavier.
Not with force.
With implication.
I looked up.
And for the first time since I woke—
I understood.
My dream hadn't failed.
It had been replaced.
✦ END OF CHAPTER 21 — THE FAILED DREAM ✦