I Am Nina — Chapter 5 — Azuma
Four years in Azuma, the longest stop of Nina's life. And the one that marked her most.
Nina was rich, then poor on purpose, then rich again. And neither of the boys knows.
We spent four years in Azuma. It was the longest stop (I tell the guys about it years later, main story, ch. 9).
Azuma is far. Another language, another food, another way of looking at foreigners. And my dad traveling even more than before, weeks away, his consulting eating up the whole calendar.
I was twelve when we arrived and sixteen when we left. I basically grew up there.
It was in Azuma that fighting became routine.
Not the gym — the street. A foreign girl, alone, no older brother, no crew. That's a target anywhere in the world. About twice a month there was someone testing whether I'd let it slide.
I stopped letting it slide around the third month.
There was this one time three girls cornered me outside a market over nothing — one of them thought I'd given her a look. I broke the first one's nose before the other two understood this wasn't going to be easy. They left. Nobody from that group ever messed with me again.
I didn't feel proud. I felt relief. It's different.
There were others. Never a fight I started.
An older boy who'd wait for me on the corner by the building to ask for money I didn't have, every single day, until the day I got tired of it and stood up to him. He was the only one who really fought back. I walked away with a split lip and he walked away limping, and neither of us ever brought it up again.