Chapter 458: The Moment He Stopped Drinking

No matter how the words are cut, framed, or replayed, Ryoma Takeda has already moved past them. The interviews, the speculation, the friction, none of it lodges where it might have once.

The belt may still feel unreal, the memory incomplete, but the past itself no longer demands an answer from him.

But the message still lands hard elsewhere.

Less than three weeks before his own title fight, Shimamura Suzuki sits alone on a sagging sofa, a new bottle of liquor resting unopened against his thigh.

The same breaking news comes up on the television in front of him, and only then does he look at it, remote idle in his grip.

Ryoma’s face fills the screen, OPBF champion. That fact alone stings more than he expects.

The report cuts between clips; Ryoma’s calm answers at Narita, the measured tone, the refusal to bite. Then the anchor pivots, smoothly, to Japan’s Lightweight Champion already speaking about a future challenge, already looking past the defense that’s right in front of him.

Shimamura scoffs under his breath. “They ignore me already…”

It isn’t just the disrespect toward him that burns, though that’s part of it. It’s the way Ryoma stands there, composed, carrying the weight of something Shimamura once thought would be his by default.

The gym. The legacy. The first belt under Nakahara’s name.

Shimamura’s jaw tightens. Part of him feels grateful for the old man. But the other part, he feels upset.

He’s trained under Nakahara since he was ten. Bled on those mats. Screamed into those bags. Heard every lecture about discipline, about patience, about not wasting talent.

And still, it was Ryoma, the prodigy boy he always underestimated, who lifted the gym, who made Nakahara’s name mean something.

His gaze drifts to the liquor bottle, unopened, waiting to be downed. In the hallway behind him, the bathroom door creaks. Steam leaks out, with a woman’s voice hums idly, unaware, careless.

Shimamura’s grip tightens around the bottle. He raises, and for a moment, he almost hurls it straight at the television, at Ryoma’s face on the screen.

But his shoulder tenses, and he stops. Not because of Ryoma, but out of respect toward Nakahara, his grandpa.

“…Damn it,” he mutters.

The bottle leaves his hand anyway, but wide. It smashes into the wall beside the TV.

PRANG!!!

Glass explodes. Liquid splashes. And the bathroom door flies open.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” the woman snaps, half-covered in foam, eyes wide.

Shimamura doesn’t answer. He looks at her, and the anger drains out of him all at once, leaving something uglier behind.

Shame. Disappointment. Anger.

He grabs her clothes from the chair and throws them toward her. “Get dressed and leave.”

She bristles. “Excuse me?”

He reaches into his pocket, pulls out cash, starts counting without looking.

“Hey, don’t just…”

Shimamura stops counting and hands over everything. And the words die in her throat. She stares at the money, then snatches it, anger shifting into something colder as she dresses quickly.

“Acting all righteous now,” she spits as she passes him. “You’re pathetic.”

The door slams behind her, and silence settles over the apartment. Shimamura curses under his breath, not at her, but at himself.

“Fuck…”

His eyes drift to the shelf near the window. A photograph sits there. He’s ten years old in it, gloves too big for his hands, grin wide and careless. Behind him stands Nakahara, holding mitts instead of wearing them, expression open and proud.

The image pulls something loose. Nakahara had crouched in front of him, adjusting the straps on those oversized gloves.

“Listen, Shimamura,” the old man had said, calm but firm. “Boxing isn’t always about hurting your opponent.”

Young Shimamura had frowned, confused.

“It’s about controlling yourself,” Nakahara continued. “When you can do that, you can control everything around you. But if you fail…” He tapped Shimamura lightly on the chest with two fingers. “…then everything else will hurt you instead.”

The words echo now, heavier than they were back then.

Beside it, another photo shows him older, mid-teens, standing between his parents on a Taiwanese coast. The sun had burned his shoulders red that day.

He remembers squinting into the light, feeling certain in a way that didn’t require explanation yet, unaware of how easy it would be to lose his way later.

That picture always pulls him back to the argument. His mother had stood in the doorway, suitcase already packed, telling him to come with her. Taiwan wasn’t a suggestion. It was a decision, a chance to reset, to live properly.

But he denied it. “I don’t want to go,” he’d said, arms crossed, stubborn even then. “My friends are here. My girlfriend too. And Oyaji.”

She’d stared at him like he was speaking nonsense. “How are you going to live by yourself here?” she asked. “You’re still a kid.”

“Oyaji will take care of me.”

His mother laughed, sharp and tired. “That old man can’t even take care of himself. All he does is waste time in that small gym, surrounded by useless boxers going nowhere.”

The words had landed hard. Shimamura remembered clenching his fists, heat rising behind his eyes.

“That’s exactly why I have to stay,” he’d said. “I’ll become a champion. I’ll make Oyaji’s gym bigger. I’ll prove it’s not useless.”

He remembers how his mother looked at him then, just quiet, like she already knew how difficult that promise would be to keep.

Now, standing alone in the house his parents left behind, Shimamura lets the memory settle. The boy in that photo had believed without hesitation, had chosen a path without understanding the cost.

His throat tightens, knowing the problem was never the choice he made. It was everything he did after.

He exhales slowly, puts his sweater on, shoes laced.

Without looking back at the television, he steps out the house, and starts to run, hard enough to burn the alcohol out of his system, hard enough to drown out everything else.

Three weeks before his title fight. This time, he won’t look away.

No more regret.

***

The next day, Shimamura arrives at Katsushika Rinkai Boxing Gym earlier than anyone expects. The shutters are already half-open, morning light spilling across the concrete floor, when the door slides aside again.

Heads turn almost immediately. Not because someone new has come in, but because of who it is.

Shimamura steps in, shirt darkened with sweat, hair still damp. There’s no sound of an engine outside, no familiar car parked along the curb. Just his steady breathing, controlled, as if he’s already finished something before the day has properly begun.

Head coach Maki Tadayuki looks up from his clipboard. He’s a lean man in his late forties, expression perpetually relaxed, the kind of coach who speaks little and notices everything.

Beside him, assistant coach Ozaki Rintaro, younger and sharper-tongued, pauses mid-wrap. He blinks, eyes flicking briefly toward the street outside.

“Shimamura… You’re early,” he says. “Did you even sleep last night? Or did you finally get kicked out of a bar for good?”

A few chuckles ripple through the gym. But Shimamura doesn’t answer. And that alone draws a second look.

Normally he’d fire something back lazyly, half-serious, like the world had all the time it wanted. Today, he walks past them without a word, shoulders loose, gaze fixed ahead.

He opens his locker, swaps shoes, tapes his hands. When he steps out again, his gloves are already on.

No stretching, no pacing, he goes straight to the heavy bag.

The first punch lands solid and clean, snapping the chain overhead. Then another. And then a rhythm settles in, consistent, without wasted movement.

The bag starts to sway, and with it, the noise in the gym slowly dies down. One by one, other boxers pause their own work. Skipping ropes slow. Pads lower. Eyes drift over.

Ten minutes pass, but Shimamura doesn’t stop.

Twenty minutes, and his breathing stays even. Sweat runs freely now, but his punches don’t lose their shape. No complaints, no glances at the clock.

Thirty minutes, Ozaki folds his arms, frowning slightly. “That’s new.”

Maki watches quietly, a faint grin tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Looks like the title fight finally reached his head,” he says, not unkindly.

The bag creaks under another sharp combination. Shimamura resets his stance and keeps going.

***

Meanwhile, Utsunomiya…

Shinichi Yanagimoto takes a break from rope work, towel draped around his neck. He reaches for his phone, and takes a seat on the bench, replaying footage from one of Shimamura’s past fights.

Shimamura moves loosely, almost sloppily. His guard is low, shoulders relaxed, head tilting at odd angles as punches slide past him by inches.

It’s effective, in a way, slips that come a half-beat late but somehow still work, feet drifting instead of setting, posture uneven like he’s off balance even when he isn’t.

The crowd noise in the footage swells with laughter and surprise. To some, it looks clever, entertaining, like a drunken master stumbling into survival.

But Yanagimoto watches without expression.

He sees the gaps immediately. No sharp snap in the counters. No real commitment in the legs. The defense relies more on timing and instinct than structure, more on feel than conditioning.

It’s slick, but lazy. A style that survives on improvisation, not discipline.

His eyes flick briefly to Shimamura’s opponent on the screen.

Slow feet. Poor distance. Telegraphing every punch.

Yanagimoto exhales through his nose. “Anyone would look good against that.”

He lets the footage run another few seconds, just long enough to confirm his impression. Then his thumb moves again.

The screen switches to a different fight. Different arena. Different posture.

Ryoma Takeda in the fifth round against Jade McConnel.

Yanagimoto straightens slightly, towel slipping from his shoulders as his attention locks in. In just few seconds, Shimamura is forgotten already.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep