Chapter 27 : THE GATE OF HOSHIGAWA HIGH (part 2)
The brass plaque gleamed under the sconce lights: Isamu Hayashida - Principal.
Renjiro took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to steady the frantic beating of his heart.
He raised his large, calloused fist and knocked twice against the heavy wood.
"Come in," a deep, booming voice resonated from the other side.
It was a sound that carried a strange, physical weight, echoing less like a high school official and more like an old military commander who had survived a hundred battles.
Renjiro slowly pushed the heavy oak door open and stepped inside, his cheap shoes squeaking loudly against the pristine floorboards.
The office was vast, smelling heavily of rich mahogany, leather, and old, dignified ink.
But the room itself faded into background noise the moment Renjiro's eyes landed on the man standing behind the desk.
Isamu Hayashida completely shattered every single expectation Renjiro had formed about a seventy-year-old principal.
He was a literal titan.
Standing at an imposing six foot three, his massive shoulders and thick, muscular chest threatened to tear through the seams of his perfectly tailored charcoal suit.
His hair was a striking cotton-white, matching the neatly trimmed beard that outlined a sharp, battle-hardened jawline.
At seventy years old, he possessed a mere thirteen percent body fat, his physical presence radiating the raw, dangerous aura of a retired heavyweight champion who could still ground a man with a single blow.
Yet, the moment Isamu's gaze landed on the obese, nervous boy entering his sanctuary, the terrifying tension in the room vanished.
A warm, incredibly genuine smile broke across the old man's scarred face, his eyes crinkling with a deep, nostalgic gentleness.
"Ah! Come in, come in, my boy!"
Isamu's voice boomed, but it was filled with an undeniable kindness that caught Renjiro completely off guard.
"Why are you standing by the threshold like a statue?
Come, sit down.
Take a seat on this chair."
He gestured toward a large, comfortable leather armchair positioned directly in front of his massive wooden desk.
Renjiro walked over cautiously, the floor creaking slightly beneath his weight, and lowered his one-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram body into the chair.
Isamu walked over and sat down behind his desk, leaning forward and resting his thick, heavily calloused hands on the polished wood.
"So, let us begin with the basics.
Tell me your name, child."
"I am Renjiro, Sir. Renjiro Hoshino,"
he replied, his voice small and intensely respectful.
The moment the name Hoshino left Renjiro's lips, Isamu's massive chest froze.
His dark brown eyes widened in sheer, unadulterated shock.
For a few agonizing seconds, the old titan simply stared at the boy, his expression shifting from disbelief to a profound, overwhelming sense of realization.
A quiet, emotional joy washed over his rugged features.
"Hoshino..."
Isamu whispered, his voice trembling slightly.
"Are you... Kenji's grandson?"
Renjiro's head snapped up, his swollen, heavy eyes widening in complete bewilderment.
"Sir... how do you know my Grandpa's name?"
A deep, hearty laugh erupted from Isamu's chest, a sound so full of life that it seemed to shake the very walls of the office.
He leaned back in his leather chair, pointing a thick, scarred finger toward Renjiro's face.
"From your face, boy!
Your facial structure, the set of your jaw, your eyes...
You look exactly like that old fool.
It is almost uncanny.
It's like looking at a ghost from my youth."
Renjiro was utterly lost in confusion.
"But... how do you know him so well, Sir?
Did you meet him during his Sumo career?
My Grandpa was a professional wrestler in Osaka, but he passed away years ago."
Isamu's smile softened, his gaze drifting toward the large windows of his office as the memories came rushing back.
"Know him? Child,
I have known Kenji Hoshino since we were old enough to lift a bucket of water.
We walked these very same streets, studied in the exact same classrooms.
And today,
I happen to be the Principal of the very institution where your grandfather and I spent our youth."
Renjiro's breath hitched in his throat, his mind struggling to process the revelation.
"Grandpa... studied here?
At Hoshigawa High?"
"Yes," Isamu nodded, his eyes misting over with the weight of fifty years of history. "
We wore the same crest you are wearing now.
Your eyes, the shape of your nose...
they belong entirely to him.
Only your hairstyle is a bit different; Kenji always kept his hair strictly cropped."
As Isamu looked at the heavy, broken boy sitting before him—noticing the subtle bruises on his jaw and the profound, deep-seated trauma hidden behind his eyes—the mahogany walls of the office seemed to dissolve.
The old Principal was pulled backward in time, returning to an evening more than half a century ago.
(Flashback)
The sky over the old school courtyard was painted in a violent, bleeding orange as the sun dipped behind the horizon.
Sixteen-year-old Isamu Hayashida sat on a crude wooden bench, his own muscular frame already beginning to take shape.
But the boy sitting beside him was not the legendary, immovable 'Mountain' that the world of Sumo would later revere.
At sixteen, Kenji Hoshino was surprisingly thin.
His school uniform hung loosely over a frail, scrawny skeletal frame, his shoulders slouched inward as he stared intensely at the dirt ground beneath his bare feet.
"They were laughing at me again today, Isamu," young Kenji muttered, his voice cracking with a mixture of raw pain and hot frustration.
"The moment I told the class that I intended to enter the professional Sumo ring, the entire room erupted.
Sato and his group...
they called it a fake sport.
They said it's nothing more than a joke where lazy, fat men push each other around because they aren't athletic enough for real fighting.
They called me a delusional fool."
Young Isamu frowned, his jaw tightening as he reached out and placed a heavy, reassuring hand on his friend's frail shoulder.
"And why do you allow the words of cowards to weigh down your heart, Kenji?
Those idiots laugh because they don't possess a single ounce of your spirit.
They don't have a dream,
so they try to kill yours.
You must only listen to the blood inside you."
Kenji looked up, his eyes swimming with tears of humiliation, his scrawny fists clenching so tightly that his bones turned white.
"Never forget that I am standing right beside you,"
Isamu said, his voice ringing with absolute, unyielding loyalty.
"The world will tell you that you are too thin,
that you are too weak,
that you are bound for failure.
You must take their mockery and use it to forge your own strength.
Show them what a real warrior looks like, Kenji.
Prove every single one of them wrong."
Hearing his friend's fierce declaration, something fundamental shifted inside thin Kenji.
The sorrow in his eyes vanished, replaced by an intense, burning fire that seemed to illuminate his entire face.
"I will," Kenji whispered, his voice suddenly dropping into a low, masculine grit.
"I have the blood of samurai in my veins.
I will achieve every single goal I have set.
I will force them to swallow their words!
Sumo is not a game for the lazy—it is a sacred crucible for the strong."
He stood up, looking down at his own thin arms.
"So what if I am scrawny right now?
So what if I lack the weight?
I will build the mass.
I will train until my muscles tear and my bones scream, but I will make myself a mountain."
(Present Time)
The memory faded into the twilight of the past, bringing Isamu back to his quiet, warm office.
He looked at Renjiro, seeing the exact same pain, the exact same heavy burden of isolation, but beneath it all, he recognized that identical hidden spark of iron that had once defined Kenji Hoshino.
Isamu stood up from his heavy leather chair, his massive six-foot-three frame casting a comforting, protective shadow across the desk.
He walked around the mahogany wood, stopping right beside Renjiro.
With an incredibly fatherly gentleness, the old titan placed his massive, scarred hand on the boy's heavy shoulder.
The weight of that hand was immense, yet it carried no malice.
For the first time in an entire year, Renjiro felt an incredible sense of stability radiating from another human being.
"Listen to me very carefully, my child,"
Principal Isamu said, his deep voice echoing with absolute, unwavering sincerity.
"This school belongs to you now.
If anyone ever tries to push you down,
if any burden becomes too heavy to carry, or if you simply need a place to stand your ground...
my office door remains open to you at all times.
You do not have to hide here.
After all...
you are the grandson of the greatest man I ever knew."
Isamu gave Renjiro's thick shoulder a firm, reassuring squeeze, his scarred face glowing with a warm smile.
"And that means, as long as you are within these walls,
you are my grandson too."
For the first time since the devastating night his grandfather had passed away, sitting in that quiet office beneath the hand of a true giant, Renjiro felt the icy walls around his heart begin to thaw.
The suffocating weight of his own one-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram body didn't feel like a prison anymore.
For the first time in a very long time, he felt safe.
CHAPTER END