There's no chance of missed nuance in that blunt statement, nothing that might have passed Reo by that could change its meaning to anything less horrifying. He tries to resist it, but he can't; he knows exactly what she said, he knows she means every word, and he never has been any good at lying to himself.
What he doesn't know is how to respond to any of it, or at least any of the parts she clearly thinks are most important. His mind seizes instead on the part she dismisses, the part that she doesn't understand any better than he understands most of what has happened in the last five minutes.
"Watashi wa watashi no gēmudesu," he blurts out.
. . . no. Wrong language. He takes a breath, flips the language switch in his head, tries again.
"I am my game," he says, quietly this time, because it's true. He wouldn't be here, in America, playing on a scholarship he could have gotten from any number of Japanese universities, if basketball weren't a fundamental cornerstone of who he is. If it hadn't been that way for almost as long as he can remember.
Please forgive my Google Translate Japanese. At least I can promise the pronoun is right?
What he doesn't know is how to respond to any of it, or at least any of the parts she clearly thinks are most important. His mind seizes instead on the part she dismisses, the part that she doesn't understand any better than he understands most of what has happened in the last five minutes.
"Watashi wa watashi no gēmudesu," he blurts out.
. . . no. Wrong language. He takes a breath, flips the language switch in his head, tries again.
"I am my game," he says, quietly this time, because it's true. He wouldn't be here, in America, playing on a scholarship he could have gotten from any number of Japanese universities, if basketball weren't a fundamental cornerstone of who he is. If it hadn't been that way for almost as long as he can remember.