late amber(/jonghyun)
anonymous
January 15 2011, 10:38:27 UTC
“It'll be our little secret,” Her coach had said as she worked the scissors gently around Amber's ears. Hair fell in clumps. There was a lump in her throat that could have been excitement, lodged in her windpipe, threatening to burst out.
Amber hadn't wanted to run in the Women's League. She wanted to run in a league without a subtitle and she wanted to run leagues, her feet pounding the track in rhythms. She'd been practicing with the gauze wound tight around her chest, to get used to the pressure on her lungs. She was as good as anybody else and nobody would even notice that she wasn't a boy until they were already eating her dust.
In the beginning she felt stared at and feared that the way she was stretching was too girly somehow, that she'd already betrayed herself just by the way she warmed up. She saw a finger pointing at her from within the crowd, and her heart almost exploded just like that, but then she heard some girls yell, “NUMBER FOURTY NINE, YOU'RE REALLY CUTE!” and she craned her neck around to confirm that yes, there were both a four and a nine printed there on the tag stuck to her back.
She breathed deep, felt for the pace of her heartbeat, and when the buzzer came she shot off the starting block. It was almost a shame that they didn't use guns anymore, she thought, feeling kinship for fellow projectiles. She was hardly sweating and yet she saw backs approach and then disappear past her peripheral vision. She tried to add up every number that she passed, runner 45 plus runner 23 equals, but it was arithmetic too confusing to keep track of when she had running to do.
She was doing it. She could win, she wasn't even tired yet, and she would prove how to him how incredible she was. And then his voice was in her head: “You can only run so far before you end up where you started.” She saw Jonghyun's smile and he was making fun of her again, ruffling her hair like she was his younger brother.
She felt a wobble in her whole body, a change in alignment.
Younger brother, not determined but charming friend. Not somebody you might think about kissing, sometimes. Not, “Number fourty-nine, you're really cute.”
And when the tilt came it was accompanied by her foot twisted sideways and a crack in her ankle so loud, they must have heard it in the stands.
Amber hadn't wanted to run in the Women's League. She wanted to run in a league without a subtitle and she wanted to run leagues, her feet pounding the track in rhythms. She'd been practicing with the gauze wound tight around her chest, to get used to the pressure on her lungs. She was as good as anybody else and nobody would even notice that she wasn't a boy until they were already eating her dust.
In the beginning she felt stared at and feared that the way she was stretching was too girly somehow, that she'd already betrayed herself just by the way she warmed up. She saw a finger pointing at her from within the crowd, and her heart almost exploded just like that, but then she heard some girls yell, “NUMBER FOURTY NINE, YOU'RE REALLY CUTE!” and she craned her neck around to confirm that yes, there were both a four and a nine printed there on the tag stuck to her back.
She breathed deep, felt for the pace of her heartbeat, and when the buzzer came she shot off the starting block. It was almost a shame that they didn't use guns anymore, she thought, feeling kinship for fellow projectiles. She was hardly sweating and yet she saw backs approach and then disappear past her peripheral vision. She tried to add up every number that she passed, runner 45 plus runner 23 equals, but it was arithmetic too confusing to keep track of when she had running to do.
She was doing it. She could win, she wasn't even tired yet, and she would prove how to him how incredible she was. And then his voice was in her head: “You can only run so far before you end up where you started.” She saw Jonghyun's smile and he was making fun of her again, ruffling her hair like she was his younger brother.
She felt a wobble in her whole body, a change in alignment.
Younger brother, not determined but charming friend. Not somebody you might think about kissing, sometimes. Not, “Number fourty-nine, you're really cute.”
And when the tilt came it was accompanied by her foot twisted sideways and a crack in her ankle so loud, they must have heard it in the stands.
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