Volume 4 Chapter 50 Sports Day (Middle Class) ②
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
Two of the three children bolted at the sharp crack of the starter pistol, executing a flawless start. One was Jun, who had frozen up the previous year after a false start, and the other was Makoto, who had been too terrified by the noise to move during the last event. Now, Jun—unquestionably the fastest runner in the Intermediate Class—surged into the lead, with Makoto hot on her heels.
The only one left trailing—or rather, the one whose third-place spot was cemented by his rivals’ perfect starts—was Hiromasa. He had been so desperate to finally beat Jun today that he’d overextended himself, tensing up at the worst possible moment. Grimacing at his own blunder, he dug in, chasing the two with powerful, heavy strides.
Until this year, Hiromasa had been the undisputed king of the track. With his naturally sturdy frame, he’d never known defeat as long as he ran with reckless abandon. But ever since moving up to the Intermediate Class, the top spot had remained frustratingly out of reach.
’Two insurmountable walls stood in his path.’
The first was obvious: Jun, the self-proclaimed King. Having spent her days sprinting through the mountains and being honed by “Special Training” sessions with her older brothers, she was currently peerless in her age group. Even if a challenger existed, they were in a different heat; her title as King was no exaggeration. Her speed was a constant topic of gossip among the neighborhood moms. Hiromasa had viewed her as his ultimate rival since their days in the Junior Class, but unfortunately for him, Jun’s eyes were on a different rival entirely, leaving Hiromasa’s competitive fire as a strictly one-sided affair.
But then, a second person had crashed into the rivalry: Makoto, the one they now called “Boss.” At four years and ten months old, Makoto’s build was remarkably average. In fact, compared to the rest of the grade, he was actually on the smaller side. He was nearly ten centimeters shorter than Jun and a staggering fifteen centimeters shorter than Hiromasa. To Hiromasa, who was large enough to trade blows with the Senior Class kids, Makoto was “just a shrimp.”
Yet, Hiromasa had lost to that “shrimp” in the one thing he was best at: running. To make matters worse, he couldn’t beat Makoto in the classroom either. For Hiromasa, a kid who had been enrolled in elite cram schools since before he could walk and was a regular recipient of gold star stickers, this was a bitter pill to swallow.
It was a legendary tale among the teachers how Makoto had effectively knocked the wind out of Hiromasa’s sails. For a long time, the gap between the two boys seemed unbridgeable, but the conflict was eventually smoothed over thanks to Makoto’s surprisingly mature handling of the situation. Now, they were “Dorokei¹” buddies. When they teamed up as the police, their peers viewed them with a mix of awe and terror. Hiromasa flourished as the Ace of the Force, and their friendship had grown in direct proportion to their shared victories on the playground.
In the ten-meter dash toward the first obstacle, Hiromasa pulled neck-and-neck with Makoto. In reality, the era of Makoto beating Hiromasa in a raw footrace had ended back in early spring. Hiromasa was faster now. If they raced ten times, Hiromasa would win all ten. He was a natural powerhouse; once his running form was polished, his speed skyrocketed. Ironically, it was Makoto who had given him the advice on how to fix that form. (Giving your rival the tools to beat you… talk about a twist of fate.)
From Makoto’s perspective, he was simply guiding a friend who wanted to improve. That’s just what a grown-up does.
As Hiromasa pulled level, Makoto saw Jun pulling further away. In a mere ten meters, a gap had opened that no amount of effort could close in a single stride. But Makoto had seen this coming during practice. He didn’t panic. If anything, he considered the start a success—at least he hadn’t flinched at the gun this time.
The math was simple: Makoto lacked raw power. The physical gap was overwhelming, and his stride was objectively shorter. The only reason he could even stay in the lead group was his obsession with “Kinetic Efficiency” and “Stamina Management.” He was bringing cold, hard strategy to a kindergarten obstacle course. When you’ve spent every day of your life as a playmate for a childhood friend eight months older than you, you learn to adapt or get left behind.
Determined to show the fruits of his labor, Makoto—along with Jun and Hiromasa—hit the first obstacle: The Vaulting Box Stairs. Three lanes, three sets of toddler-sized vaulting boxes blocked their path. The goal was simple: climb up and leap off. Teachers stood by on high alert, surrounding the area with safety mats.
Jun and Hiromasa both checked their speed, stutter-stepping to time their climb. Makoto, however, had adjusted his stride three meters back. He hit the boxes at a full tilt without slowing down a fraction, launching himself off the top and sticking the landing at the very edge of the mat. In that heartbeat, he was shoulder-to-shoulder with Jun.
Then came the “Caterpillar Zone.” The three hopped into burlap sacks, jumping frantically. To the parents, it was a precious, heartwarming sight. To the kids, it was war. Here, muscle mass was the only thing that mattered. Jun and Hiromasa were powerhouses; by the time the sacks were tossed aside, Makoto had slipped back to third.
Next up: The “Hop-Scotch Zone,” a gauntlet of hula hoops. While Jun and Hiromasa bounded through with high arcs, Makoto focused on “Minimum Vertical Displacement,” keeping his jumps as low to the ground as possible to save time. Jun still held the lead. Hiromasa was second. But Makoto was right there, ghosting beside Hiromasa. Hiromasa’s eyes widened, visibly rattled by the shrimp that refused to disappear from his peripheral vision.
In a straight sprint, Makoto would have had zero chance. But this was an obstacle course. Every time Jun and Hiromasa had to slow down to navigate a hurdle, Makoto’s efficiency allowed him to claw back the distance. But staying close wasn’t enough. To win, he had to make a move. And his only window was the next zone.
The “Tunnel Zone”—four consecutive lattices laid flat like a fallen ladder. To get through, you had to crawl. Here, speed was irrelevant, and a large frame was a liability. This was the obstacle Jun and Hiromasa hated most. And for the small-framed Makoto, it was his playground. As the two giants dropped to their hands and knees to crawl, Makoto hit the mat, tucked his chin, and threw his weight forward.
A collective gasp swept through the spectator stands. The Junior kids who were cheering for their Boss stood up, and even the parents who had been bored by the previous heats leaned forward in shock. There, rolling through the two-foot square frames like a ball, was Makoto.
A somersault.
This was his ace in the hole. He had practiced this endlessly at home using a toy jungle gym—a secret technique revealed to the world for the first time today. He was good at forward rolls in gym class, but doing them at speed was a different beast. He’d tripped. He’d tangled his legs. He’d had Akari or Mio film him so he could analyze the footage and correct his center of gravity. He’d gotten dizzy until his brain finally adapted to the spin.
Thanks to that “Special Training” with Suzuki, Makoto emerged from the tunnels in first place. There was no one in front of him. Even the normally stoic Makoto felt a rush of adrenaline at the sight of the open finish line.
Jun, who had led the entire race, stared in disbelief. There was someone ahead of her? And it was Makoto—the boy who had never even come close in practice? For the King, this was a nightmare scenario. Shaken and desperate to reclaim her dignity, she rushed the next obstacle—the “Net Zone” crawl—only to get her shoulder snagged in the mesh. In a heartbeat, she plummeted to third.
They cleared the final hurdle—a thirty-centimeter bar—and hit the final twenty-meter straightaway. Makoto was in the lead. Hiromasa and Jun were three paces behind, hunting him down.
”Go for it!”
”Boss! Keep going!” said the children.
”Leader! Don’t lose!”
The Junior class kids were screaming themselves hoarse. This was the upset of the century.
”Makoto-kun, hold on! Just a little further!”
”Jun-chan, show some heart! Dig deep!”
”See? I told you! In a straight sprint, it’s Jun, but in the obstacles, Makoto is the man!”
”Dammit, I should have backed Makoto-kun…”
”I guess the rumors were true after all!”
”There! Close the gap! Now! NOW!”
The parents were losing their minds. Squeezing out the last of their strength, the three children sprinted for the tape. Makoto was desperate to hold them off, but his average legs were no match for the raw speed of the two behind him. Hiromasa was closing the gap, inch by inch. And Jun, recovering from her stumble, was charging like a freight train, determined to prove her kingship.
If the final straight had been ten meters instead of twenty, the story would have ended there. But at the ten-meter mark, the tide turned. Hiromasa pulled level with Makoto. The friend he knew he could beat was to his left. The rival he’d never beaten was behind him. Victory was inches away, but Hiromasa’s face was a mask of pure agony. His stamina was gone. He had burned everything in the obstacles.
To an adult, a child’s energy seems bottomless. But the truth is, their muscles just recover fast—their actual burst capacity is short. Even for the elite kids of Hinomori Kindergarten, sixty meters of full-intensity sprinting is a brutal ask. Hiromasa had hit his limit. He could match Makoto’s pace, but he couldn’t find that extra gear to pass him.
In contrast, Makoto’s stamina management was perfect. His face was as calm as it had been at the starting line. But his top speed was hit. He had the energy, but not the stride. He couldn’t shake Hiromasa off.
The two leaders were dead even, less than five meters from the tape. And that was when Jun finally caught up. It was a three-way dead heat.
But Jun, the one who called herself the Champion, was built different. She had treated Mt. Hiou¹ as her personal backyard since she could walk, and having spent her life chasing after brothers ten years her senior, she wasn’t just some kid playing dress-up. She was the real deal.
The three were neck-and-neck for a heartbeat—then she vanished. In the next breath, she had surged past both boys.
”HELL YEAAAHHHH!!”
Jun tore through the finish line with every ounce of her being. Even though she’d been stuck in the final obstacle’s net and dumped into dead last, she’d put her explosive speed on display and snatched a massive, come-from-behind victory.
Riding the wave of her own momentum, she looked ready to pull another lap while letting out a primal victory roar, but a Teacher hurriedly intercepted her before she could bolt.
”Dammit… so close…” Hiromasa groaned.
”Huff… huff… you’ve got to be kidding me…” Makoto panted.
Hiromasa collapsed spread-eagle on the grass and stared at the sky, while Makoto braced his hands on his knees, trying to get his lungs back in order. In the end, the two of them had run side-by-side in a dead heat until the very last inch. They had crossed the goal line at the exact same moment.
However, a tie was a problem for the adults. To be specific, the ones in trouble weren’t the parents in the stands, but the Hinomori Kindergarten Teachers. Things were getting messy in the spectator section too, but that didn’t matter right now.
The children were required to line up behind flags indicating their rank. Once everyone finished, they were supposed to exit in a three-column formation. That meant second and third place had to be decided here and now.
There was a lingering sentiment to just praise their hard work and let them both share the silver, but unfortunately, the world isn’t that lukewarm. Life doesn’t hand out participation trophies.
Society runs on the rewards earned through victory and defeat—the clear distinction between the best and the rest. Because that hierarchy matters, effort has value. Effort becomes a necessity. Any adult living in this cutthroat world knows this in their bones. Effort is just a means to an end. Whatever you ‘gain’ along the way is usually just a consolation prize—a line of bullshit to make you feel better about losing. You can’t look away from the truth.
(Don’t get it twisted, though—praising a kid’s effort isn’t a mistake.)
Precisely because children are shielded by their parents and haven’t yet felt the cold reality of their own results, they need to be praised. You praise them so that when the time comes to actually put in the work, they know how to push.
A massive round of applause erupted from the stands.
But that was that, and this was this. Praising a child and spoiling them are two very different things. At Hinomori Kindergarten, they praise the effort but respect the reality. There is no better fuel for a kid than the sting of a loss, especially when it’s something they love.
Besides, the ones who wanted a winner more than anyone were the Youngsters themselves.
”Which one of us won?” Hiromasa asked, snapping at the nearest Teacher. Even Makoto was leaning in, his usual calm replaced by a rare, competitive edge.
”I think you both hit the line at the same time,” the Teacher replied.
”What!?”
This wasn’t the school’s first rodeo. If you run a Sports Day every year, this happens. They’d seen it in practice, and they had a solution ready. It was the one “thing” everyone in the country knows.
It was a first for Hiromasa and Makoto, but at the Teacher’s prompting, the battle for second place began.
(Statistically, the first move is usually Rock or Paper. He’s hyped up right now, which means his hand will naturally stay tense. Therefore, the move I need to make is…)
”Rock, Paper, Scissors!!”
”Shaa! Victory!” Hiromasa cheered.
”Oh…” Makoto sighed.
Reality wasn’t so kind.
Maybe it was a stroke of luck that the popular Makoto—the kid everyone looked up to as the Boss—took third. It served as a bit of a safety net for the other Youngsters who had finished in the back of the pack. If the Boss could lose, it was okay for them, too.
But compared to Jun and Hiromasa, Makoto was noticeably shorter and at a physical disadvantage. The fact that he’d fought that hard—his refusal to quit and his tactical mind—wasn’t lost on his friends or the adults watching.
Unsurprisingly, during the obstacle courses that followed, a wave of kids tried to copy Makoto by somersaulting through the tunnel zone. But even for Makoto, that move took hours of practice. It wasn’t something you just ‘did.’
To clear a two-meter tunnel with frames every fifty centimeters, you have to rotate at least four times. Trying to keep a straight line while your vision is a blurry mess is harder than it looks. Doing it faster than a crawl is next to impossible. The parents’ opinion of Makoto quietly shot through the roof as they watched the other kids fail miserably at his signature move.
And then there was one other child who rolled gallantly through the dark.
Naturally, it was Suzuki, who had been training side-by-side with Makoto. Running in the first heat of the Sheep Group, she grabbed the lead the moment the whistle blew. She cleared every obstacle without a hitch. She actually had so much momentum in the tunnel that she did an extra rotation, but she still hit the finish line with ease, looking back over her shoulder with a smirk.
She’d done it. She’d taken first place right in front of Mio and the younger sisters who would be dissecting the home video later.
—
Summary:
The Intermediate Class obstacle course reaches its peak as Makoto, Jun, and Hiromasa battle for first place. Makoto uses a surprising somersault technique to bypass the Tunnel Zone and take the lead. The chapter ends on a cliffhanger with a three-way dead heat in the final five meters.
Jun wins the obstacle course with an incredible comeback after getting stuck in a net. Hiromasa and Makoto tie for second, leading to a Rock-Paper-Scissors tiebreaker that Hiromasa wins. The chapter concludes with Suzuki showcasing her skills and winning her own heat.
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Trivia:
- Makoto previously lost or froze up during the previous year’s sports day.
- Jun’s training involves mountain running and older brothers.
- Hiromasa is academically smart but frustrated by Makoto’s superiority.
- Makoto’s ‘Special Training’ involved filming himself to analyze his form.
- Suzuki is a key training partner for Makoto’s secret techniques.
- Makoto is shorter than his rivals.
- Jun has brothers more than 10 years older than her.
- Hinomori Kindergarten has a strict merit-based philosophy.
- Suzuki and Makoto practiced their tunnel somersault technique together
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Character Insight:
Makoto demonstrates his ‘adult’ maturity by helping his rival Hiromasa improve his form, even though it makes winning harder for himself. Hiromasa shows incredible grit, pushing his preschooler body to its absolute limits.
Makoto shows his tactical nature even during a simple game of Rock-Paper-Scissors, while Jun demonstrates sheer physical dominance born from her upbringing.
—
Lore And Worldbuilding Context:
The ‘somersault’ (dengurigaeshi) is a common basic gymnastics move in Japanese kindergartens, but Makoto weaponizes it for speed.
The author uses the kindergarten setting to provide a cynical commentary on the value of effort versus results in adulthood.
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Glossary:
Notes:
• Makoto – Four‑year‑old Rose‑class student, 93 cm, 13 kg, in a white shirt, blue vest and cap—actually a 30‑year‑old salaryman reborn. Calm “Boss” who hands out hand cream, mediates fights, protects Suu‑chan, earns respect. Dry narrator in the Rabbit Group, uses logic and coin tricks. Known as Akari’s son, nicknamed Maa‑kun, popular Middle Kids student; target of Suzuki’s affection and Mitsuhisa’s teasing. Reincarnated adult mind in a child’s body, also handler for Jun.
• Jun – A tanned, hyperactive preschooler known as the King and Champion of her class, she’s the fastest runner in the Intermediate Class with a massive appetite and straightforward, loud personality. Wearing a track suit, she leads peers with wild enthusiasm but tires quickly and turns moody when games stall. Mistaken for a boy, she trains weekends on Mt. Hiou, idolizes her mother, and leaks secrets—clashing with her calm brother Makoto, who manages her chaos while she fiercely admires him. Member of the Rabbit Group, her energy and appetite define her, even as she struggles to match his quiet restraint.
• Hiromasa – A large‑framed, energetic boy nicknamed Taisho, called ‘The Commander’/’The General’, wears a Rabbit Group placard. Once a rowdy problem child, he now stays calm after bonding with Makoto in Cops‑and‑Robbers and dreams of the future. He rivals Jun, refuses to admit fatigue, defies teachers, and bickers with Himeno. A former foot‑race dominant, he’s a Rabbit Group student and relay member for Districts 3‑5.
• Hiro – Rose Red, a boy in the Rose Class and leader of the Rose Rangers, gets bored easily, runs around the classroom, and accidentally breaks Suu’s paper.
• Akari – Makoto’s mother—her name means “light”—is a 28‑year‑old single parent to Makoto and newborn Maa‑kun. She has long dark‑brown hair, subtle makeup, and a poised, observant demeanor. Estranged from her parents, she’s loving yet strict, balancing full‑time IT work, quiet mornings, and meticulous health checks. She drives a black light‑compact car, lives beside friend Mio, mentors Suzuki with candid photos, and navigates parent circles with bank‑service finesse. Outwardly shy but secretly a shogi player with a mischievous streak, she’s now more prepared for Sports Day after switching jobs for stability. Calm and modest, she’s affectionate and enjoys teasing Makoto.
• Mio – Mio, postpartum and stylish in gray, baby-faced with a G-cup silhouette, is mother to Suzuki and twins Fuuka and Kyouka, as well as an older kindergarten child; she’s Mitsuhisa’s wife, Akari’s childhood friend and neighbor, and Totsuka council chair. Playful yet grounded, she bakes with the kids, films and teases them, cooks, manages the household, mentors Maa-kun in UV-protected hair-drying, encourages Shiho, and confides in Akari—publicly affectionate with Mitsuhisa at the grill, though intensely dislikes crowds and keeps a quiet, close-knit presence at home.
• Suzuki – Suu‑chan, a doll‑like five‑year‑old with dark braided pigtails, a topknot, sleepy sparkling eyes and pink rain boots, is the eldest Totsuka daughter (Mio & Mitsuhisa). Model student, uncanny intuition, calls herself Makoto’s photo‑record editor, reads clocks for his arrival, clutches a pink candy tin, clings to his arm as his ‘girlfriend.’ Shy with strangers, fiercely devoted, jealous. In the Sheep Group she somersaulted with Makoto, won his heat, sees race results as next‑year class placement, calls herself his ‘Official Wife’ candidate, craving physical ‘recharge’ with him.
• Jun-chan – Daughter of Imai Sanae. Plays roughly with blocks and is often mistaken for a boy due to her tomboyish energy.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
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