As Dara is doing his warm-up before his race, a feeling of nervousness always encompass him. He remembers that his coach once said that this nervousness is going to go away after enough races, yet this never happens to him. He especially hates it when the races is split into 2 groups, 1 start first and the other start after the first finish, this makes the feeling stays even longer.
On the starting line, Dara is ready.
"Get, set"
"Toot!" The sound of airhorn could be heard by everyone in the sport ground.
Dara starts running, for this race, his aim is to break his school's record 10 minute 2 seconds, he knows he need to run 3 minute 20 seconds per kilometer.
For the first 2 kilometers it was all fine, but on the last kilometer, Dara is tired and eventually, he starts slowing down.
After being the first running through the finish line, Dara walk across the railing on the floor to leave the tracks. He kneel down in heavy breathing and raised his head to see the timer. '10:30' he knows that he failed again. He sit down and suddenly he notice Minna is next to him.
"I got you some energy drink!"
"Oh thanks- I will drink- it after I am- not catching my breath." Dara smiled.
"I think it is time for me to go back to the- Oh! I think my legs just gave up on me, looks like I am not going anywhere" Dara smirked. "You said you have a dream right? I was thinking about what you said the other day, I don't have one, how do you come to have it?"
"What is your dream job when you are in primary school?"
"I wanted to be an astronaut then, but now that I think of it, it is kind of silly."
"Why so?"
"Being an astronaut come with a lot of risk, maybe my rocket blow up mid air."
"My own dream also changed since I was in primary school. It is just who you want to be, but of course it is best that what you want to be is also what you excel at, so that you can actually make a living off of it."
"But how do you know what you are good at?"
"Sometimes you just have to trust yourself to know yourself well, it is a bit of a gamble, maybe you misjudge your strengths and you figure you are not good at what you do when you are 40, but life is full of risks anyway. You got anything that you think you are good at? Running?"
"I might be able to win on sports day, but in the inter-school races, I usually rank second to last or last." Dara put up a wry grin. "I don't know what my strengths are right now."
"Well I promise I am gonna help you find it, but when you find it-" Minna holding his hand, fold into a fist, "hold it tight and don't let go."
Dara quickly pulled his hand away, yet he feel strange with a feeling of warmth going through him.
Trying to break the silence, Minna said, "You free later? Want to go to the mall?"
Dara, feeling a bit apologetic, said yes to her request.
ns 15.158.61.20da2
