Part XVII - Binji + Layla

26 2 0
                                    

I used to have a normal life, just like every other kid.

I was 8 years old climbing the monkey bars, playing tag, putting thumbtacks in my teacher's seat, and being an average kid.

I always excelled in my education, which isn't really saying much because it was either I got an A+ on every report card or my father would scream at me for hours on end.

On my 9th birthday, that lifestyle completely changed. My father left my mother behind and took me and my sister to Japan, despite us not knowing any Japanese.

We were born in India. Our names aren't even Binji and Layla Rikaoramoe, we were originally Balaram and Karishma Dharma before our father changed our names to hide our true identities.

Binji and Layla Rikaoramoe just sounded Japanese to my father, but I've never met anybody with the last name Rikaoramoe or the first name Layla.

My father is the stuck up, bossy figure I'm describing him as. His name is Ramakant but he changed it to Andrey when he took us here.

I don't even remember my mother's name, to be honest. I can't even recall how she looks, it's all a blur with a smile.

My father couldn't make ends meet for the first few years, and he still barely manages to, so he forced me and Layla into boxing in the hopes that we'd one day be successful enough to provide for him.

He based our styles off another Indian boxer, King Naseem Hamed. My Father watched all the tapes and the training videos so that he could train us in this way.

Personally, I only see it as another way to get quick money. King Naseem Hamed had a flashy style that wow'd the people, so he was a huge success even before he was champion. It only makes sense that my Dad, the man willing to sell his kids into a fighting sport to make money for himself, would choose the style that would guarantee the most money.

He put me into training at 12 and a half years old, and he threw me into the Quirk Amateur ring just a few months later.

My first fight went well, considering I was up against a homeless man.

Me and Layla were thrown into fights constantly. Sometimes our sparring partners were replaced by amateur matches when we couldn't afford to pay for them.

I had 68 fights in the span of 4 months, and then I entered the Golden Gloves right after I hit 13. My father immediately sold the belts and the rings me and Layla won from it.

After that, our fights began to slow because there wasn't as much competition around. Me and Layla had around 2-4 fights per month, and by the time we won our 3rd Golden Gloves, we were both 126-0 with 115 knockouts to me and 118 knockouts to Layla.

My most recent matchup was a few days ago against a hard hitting beast named Lotfi Allah. I was genuinely afraid of him after watching tapes of his fights.

I was too tense to step out of my locker room that day. I only went out and put on a show because my father told me we need the money.

We don't even make money from these fights, these are amateur boxing matches so you don't earn any money from them. I guess he meant in the longterm, the better my amateur career turns out equals the better my professional career will turn out.

I've heard old people talk about me, telling eachother that I'm a "disgrace to the sport" and I "don't have any sort of respect".

They're right, I don't have any respect.

Layla loves boxing, but I don't. I hate it. My father forced me into boxing after he threw my mother to the gutter, I hate boxing just as much as I hate my father.

Anybody Can Be a Hero (My Hero Academia x Male Reader)Where stories live. Discover now