Guarded (Sugawara x OC)

Chapter 13

Third.

She had placed third.

And while most parents would have been overjoyed at such an accomplishment, Machi knew as soon as she stepped out of  the ring, shaking and exhausted, that this wouldn't be the case for her dad. Third place was a joke, an embarrassment for a Harada. It meant barely moving on to the next level of competition, but mostly it meant failure twice over. If second place was just the first to lose, according to Reo, then there was nothing noteworthy about ever placing third.

If she knew her father, Machi could expect that she wouldn't hear the end of this for some time. He had been badgering her for months to train harder, prepare for the new level of opponents, blah, blah, blah. Machi listened to his lectures, but never really believed they were necessary. She had genuinely believed she was ready. On competition day her form was spot on, and there had been at least one judge unable to hide how impressed they had been with her weapons form. Everything was going as expected, until the final round of sparring and she found herself facing a towering red haired girl from Shiatorizawa. Unafraid, Machi had thrown herself into the fight with a fierce determination to prove her dad wrong. One thing was for sure, Machi was definitely more conditioned than her opponent; she danced around the ring, throwing quick jabs and kicks and then dancing away again before the taller girl could catch her. But the red head was larger and had more power than Machi, which eventually won out. And in the end Reo had been right; she wasn't prepared, which almost felt more crushing than her defeat. Thankfully, her father had been silent during the medal ceremony, but Machi had felt him watching her with his sharp, judgmental gaze the entire time. He may have been good at hiding it from others in the crowd, but she knew he was furious, and she'd hear about it later.

With her useless medal weighing around her neck, Machi had been greeted by a swarm of her club mates, all happily congratulating her. Kaido and Nakagawa had both pushed to the front of the crowd and offered her celebratory pats on the back, grinning widely at what they thought was a success. They had both watched her final sparring match closely, and even though she had lost, it hadn't been until the last few seconds that the match turned away from her favor. Really, it had just been bad luck that her opponent snuck in that tricky crescent kick combo that found an opening on Machi's head.

While their praise was appreciated, Machi couldn't bring herself to celebrate with them, not when she knew it wasn't a real victory. However, to keep them from worrying too much, she had plastered what she had hoped was a convincing grin on her face and laughed at Kaido's joke about the red head from "Shitty-torizawa." The only indication that something was off had been her tightly clenched fists at her sides, but thankfully it went unnoticed.

As expected, the repercussions were severe. Since she had obviously not been training enough to manage the new competition, Reo had chosen to make sure Machi caught up as soon as possible by keeping her home all week. Every morning she was awake at 5:00 sharp, and Reo drilled her on forms until her legs gave out and she collapsed onto the mats. After a break that was much too short, they picked up in the afternoon with sparring or weapons, sometimes practicing well into the evening. Machi thought she had grown used to her father's difficult training regimen, but she had never felt more sore, or exhausted, than when the week was over. By the time she had returned to classes, there were deep bags etched under her eyes, and for the first time she found herself drifting off in class. And while she was quite a frequent visitor to the nurse's office normally, Machi now found herself stopping by almost every morning. Mostly it was for ice packs or pain killers, neither of which were kept well stocked at home. But this particular morning, she wandered in looking for something to cover the lovely new cut that ran along her right cheek, courtesy of Reo's kamas slicing too close to her face. Opening the door to the office, Machi had to do a double take. There was still at least 40 minutes before the school day officially began, so she was not prepared to see someone else waiting, a wad of towels held over their bleeding nose.