Joe's steps staggered a little when he stepped out of the ring, but he was calm inside. There was pain, but he was getting used to it. The air in the gym didn't seem as foreign to him as it used to. At the end of sparring Daisuke approached him, not saying anything, just holding out his fist. Joe had responded in kind.
Earning respect was as valuable as winning.
When practice was over that day, Joe sat at ringside for a while and watched Kimura. The old man was correcting one boy's foot position, then teaching another to keep guard. He was patient. Strangely... fatherly.
Joe sighed. If he'd thought of his mother, he'd have kept quiet. But sometimes pain didn't come in words. It seeps in with a look, a shadow, a memory.
When he returned home that night, the apartment was dark. The electricity was cut off again. When he went up to the flat on the third floor, he was greeted by a cold air inside. There was only a tin can on the table, unopened. The water pipe had burst in the morning and still hadn't been repaired. But Joe was used to it.
He lay down on his bed. His back still ached. His fists throbbed. But he kept his eyes open for a long time. Then he opened the little box on his bedside table. He took out a folded photograph.
They were with his mother. That tired but warm smile on his mother's face... Joe was only eleven years old. His hair was dishevelled and his eyes had the innocence of a child.
He looked at the photograph and whispered softly:
"They knocked me down today, Mum... But I got up. I got back up."
At that moment he looked out of the window. The city was dark, but there was a single star in the sky. Small, pale, but there it was.
It was like that star, Joe.
In the middle of the darkness... maybe small, maybe pale, but not lost.
And he made a promise to himself that night:
No matter what, he would get out of here.
With his fists, with his heart, with his strength.
If he'd been through hell... he'd deserve heaven.