The event that happened to Kenji in the gallery setting left behind a residual element of awful reality.
The Akari that Akari had to survive meant more than concealment; it meant a performative skill, a role enactment to the extent that that characteristic of predatory Kenjis of society could never find a weak point in the marathon. In order to protect the friendship with Yui and to find the way in this ridiculous new world, it became crucial to understand how to control the body betraying my soul.
The next day I stood in front of the mirror in my room, naked with the most intimate clothes. It was not a praise of lines that I was engaged in, but a systematic survey of alien land. The mushy roundness of my hips, the slimness of my shoulders, the total lack of the solid muscles that used to be my measure of self respect this made the body a gorgeous cage.
The initial stanza of reclaiming the self had to possess a physical aspect. The gym had long been a place where Akihiro had exercised his dominance over his surrounding it was something I needed to use to exercise control over myself.
I wore a couple of sporting pants and a tight top. As they were comfortable, the way they fitted themselves in my physique had an undertone of exhibitionism. I used to wear baggy shorts and dull shirts before, this was a statement.
I even woke up early and avoided my parents and went not to the gym of the university where Hiroto and all my previous life were tied but a small and privacy focused fitness studio a few blocks away.
In that room the air was opiate, sweet, and gave more to flow than violence. I tried to do a series of pushups and failed instantly. My chest the chest of Akari was a handicap of which I had not previously taken notice, and the absence of the strength of core and upper body was dramatic. I would have lifted a refrigerator as Akihiro and now I could barely get myself up. This was a weakness that was humiliating.
I was just frustrated and was drawn to the mats to do some basic yoga like movements which Akihiro had dismissed as old people stretching.
I found something new as I continued with the progression and that was grace.
The body of Akari was weak, as compared with my old ideas of strength, but very flexible and perfectly balanced. I flowed into the Warrior and the Tree is posed with a naturalness and effortless grace that was natural to this frame. I was not developing brute power but learning to gain control. I was learning the geometry of my newly made physique.
The internal dissonance became less intense, the first time since the metamorphosis. There was no longer a conflict of the physical motion with the body; rather it was a cooperative one.
Halfway through a difficult balance position another person, whom I recognized, came in the studio door. It was a girl I vaguely knew in the social circle of Yui: Sora, with her disciplined acetic silence.
Sora looked up at me, and her eyes fixed on my face, and on my form. Her look was not predatory as was the case with the boys, but evaluative.
Akari Tanaka? she asked, her voice accurate.
I spoke up, my cheeks turning flushed with some slight embarrassment at being caught thus in the act of struggle. "Yes. Good morning, Sorachan."
You are awfully well grounded, I notice, walking to your mat, Sora remarked. Majority of girls just count on flexibility. But your core is grounded."
Grounded. This was the Akihiro foundation- years of baseball training which now appears in the feminine shape. The power of men had not disappeared; it had merely been reallocated and made to look like women.
I had been a hard trainee, I confessed, with the bareest of kernels of truth which was not falsehood.
Sora bobbed her head, with some show of respect. Always keep up the line, never lose the line. Your body is a very fine instrument, you only have to learn how to play it once more.
These words of hers were the much-needed boost of encouragement I badly needed. She had not seen beauty, she saw potential. I was not only doing Akari, I was reengineering her.
At the end of my session, I was tired and revitalized. The physical deficiency still remained, but now it seemed a challenge and not a failure.
I found myself able to walk back to my temporary home and realised that I had found a new and secret sanctuary: the search of physical control. So, in case I should learn this body, I might learn to act like Akari, and, in doing so, save this delicate, vital friendship I have developed with Yui. The fight was not merely in my head anymore, but it was being fought, silently and obstinately, bit by bit, and muscle by muscle, which was muscle to me.