The Race Within My Heart Chapter 9

"Don't tell me," Braxton said. "As long as the house doesn't collapse, the landlord won't come to inspect it."

The bathroom is located at the innermost side of the main house, and there is a large washing machine in the dressing room. There is a piece of paper pinned to the wall with a thumbtack. It says, "Please finish laundry before 10pm. Underwear needs to be washed by hand before putting it in." The font is majestic, just like the calligraphy and painting hanging in the alcove of the hotel. Because the gap between the handwriting and the content was so big, Grayson was fascinated for a moment when someone suddenly opened the door and walked out of the dark bathroom.

A black man came to the changing room, steaming all over. This series of emergencies made Grayson so frightened that he stepped back and bumped into the washing machine behind him. The black man looked at Grayson and the others in confusion. While wiping his body with a towel, he greeted Braxton in Japanese with no foreign accent at all.

"Good night, Brother Hui. Who is this?"

"He is the new tenant Grayson. He is the international student Zane Kamala. He currently lives in Room 203 and is a second-year student at the Polytechnic."

"Azai, please give me some advice."

Musa was naked and stretched out her hand gracefully. Azai, who was not used to shaking hands with others, held Musa's hand slightly stiffly.

Musa was about the same height as Grayson, and his eyes showed calmness and foresight. After experiencing the mental bombardment from the noisy tenants before, Grayson couldn't help but feel a little relieved when he finally met a normal and calm person. However, something still made him feel strange.

"Why didn't you turn on the light when you took a shower?"

When Ah Zou asked, Musa responded with a hearty smile.

"For self-training," Musa said, "When people go into the water in the dark, they often feel a lot of uneasiness in their hearts. However, I think this is a good way to reflect on yourself. Go, you might as well try it. "

Musa's Japanese is very standard, a bit stiff for spoken language, but it feels very strange.

"I'll give it a try."

He said this, but in his heart, Grayson was thinking of another weirdo.

When Braxton and Musa walked out of the changing room, Grayson finally let out a sigh of relief as he was finally alone.

He took off his clothes, turned on the bathroom light, and scrubbed himself in the shower area. It's been a while since I had money to go to a bathhouse, and Grayson hasn't had a good bath in a long time. After washing his body, he decided to try turning off the light.

Musa was right, taking a bath in the dark would indeed make people uneasy, not to mention it was Grayson's first time visiting this bathroom. In the darkness, he couldn't tell the difference between east, west and north and accidentally bumped into the steps inside the bathtub. This must have been specially designed for the landlord and his elderly family to use as a stepping platform.

Grayson stretched out his hands and groped around carefully and sat down, stretching his feet in the gradually warming bath water. In the darkness, even the water becomes heavy. I don't know if it was out of care, but Grayson felt that every time he moved his body, the sound of water echoing in the bathroom sounded particularly loud.

Grayson closed his eyes. The fear and uneasiness of facing a new life are now suspended in the water with Azou. "We will remit money to you regularly, and you can do whatever you like." He thought of his parents' disappointed faces and almost resigned tone; he thought of the rows of rows that caught his eye when he kept running on the oval track every day. house; he thought of the vicious insults his teammates had given him, and the sound of their lockers slamming shut. Fragments like this came to mind all at once. Grayson let himself sink gradually until the water covered his nose.

Breathing became more and more difficult, but Grayson still didn't ventilate, just counting his heartbeats out of habit. He had experienced many more painful experiences while running; it was very common for him to have congestion in his lungs and the smell of blood in his throat. Still, he kept running. Why? Because he finds joy in running? Or does he not want to lose to anyone, not himself?

The heart began to beat violently, making its position extremely clear; even if I covered my ears with wet hands, I still couldn't hide the loud thumping sound that echoed in my body. Grayson finally poked his head out of the water, took a sudden breath of fresh air, and opened his closed eyes at the same time.

Looking out from the dark bathroom window, the Zhuqing Village next door to the main house dimly came into Grayson's sight. There were a few more brightly lit windows than before, and the light poured softly into the dark courtyard, marking the outline of the windows.

He couldn't help thinking that maybe Musa didn't like bathing in the dark, but liked looking at the scenery in the process.

When Grayson returned to the dormitory he had just been assigned to at Zhuqingzhuang, Braxton's blanket was already there.

There were creaking sounds everywhere in the room, especially around the ceiling; the sound like breaking dead branches could be heard without stopping for a moment.

From now on, this is my place.

Grayson lay down and covered himself with a blanket, the smell of tatami brushing his nose. Although the crunching sound still lingers in my ears, I feel much more at ease than when I was sleeping outside in the open air.

As soon as he closed his eyes, Grayson immediately fell asleep.

Zane said goodbye to Braxton at the entrance of Zhuqingzhuang and walked up to the second floor to go back to her room.

When he first moved in last spring, this wooden house made him feel quite uneasy, even walking on the corridor with trepidation. Musa's hometown is a colonial-style stone bungalow; before, he never imagined that he would live in a house with walls so thin that he could hear the tenants next door and corridors so narrow that it would be difficult for two people to cross each other.

But now Musa is deeply in love with the building of Zhuqingzhuang and the group of tenants of similar ages living in it.

Musa thought of Grayson, whom he had just met in the bathroom of the main house, and secretly hoped to get along well with him. Musa's mind flashed to Aki's athletic agility, as well as the slightly confused but firm-willed look in his eyes when he looked at him. Maybe--maybe, Grayson will get used to this place soon, Musa thought to himself.

The door to the room in front of Msa's room, room 202 in the middle of the three rooms on the left side of the corridor, was open a crack. When Musa passed by, he took a look inside and saw that the tenant of that room------Yohei Sakaguchi, a fourth-year student from the School of Social Sciences---was a third-year student from the Business School who lived in room 205 across from Musa. Senior student Takashi Sugiyama watches TV together.