Riku Tanaka's first swing of the day was… ordinary.
Not bad, not great—just painfully ordinary. That had been the problem for as long as he could remember. Every swing he'd taken in his sixteen years had fallen somewhere between "could've been legendary" and "forgettable." He had the talent. Everyone knew it. Coaches, teammates, even the scouts who occasionally appeared in the bleachers whispered about the boy who could hit, pitch, and run like he was born to play. But Riku himself? He'd never cared enough to make his talent mean something.
High school baseball was supposed to be a paradise for talents to bloom and prove to everyone what their youth and energy could accomplish given the opportunities. Competing with other of similar caliber and giving their all to get to Nationals and shine at the Koshien was a dream of every high school baseballer. But for Riku, it was more like a waiting room. He showed up on time, took a few swings, made a few impressive plays in the field, threw a few overwhelming pitches and then drifted into the background—joking with friends, staring at clouds, wondering why anyone bothered so much. "Tomorrow," he thought. "I'll try harder tomorrow."
That tomorrow never came.
Even half-hearted, he was brilliant. He read pitches like they were written in his mind, snagged line drives with the kind of ease that made his teammates blink, and struck out batters who swore they'd seen the ball bend around physics. By sixteen, scouts had started to circle. But every evaluation ended the same way: unmotivated, inconsistent, wasted potential.
He wasn't lazy out of arrogance. He loved baseball—Every hit he made, the duel between a better and a pitcher, every diving catch, the cheering crowds. But discipline? Endless practice? The grind that turned talent into greatness? He had never felt it necessary. Somewhere deep down, he believed there would always be time.
The memory that burned brightest in him wasn't a home run. Not even close. It was the summer regional finals, his final year. Bases loaded, two outs, his team down by three. The crowd of hundreds buzzed with expectation in the late afternoon sun at Shinjuku High School Stadium, the scoreboard ticking mercilessly toward the ninth.
The pitcher was something else entirely. Tetsuya Mori—sixteen, slender, deceptively strong, and one of the best in the region. He'd been scouted by professional youth leagues before. Everyone said he was untouchable. And yet, Riku approached the plate with a grin, a sense of confidence bordering on arrogance. He knew his swing. He knew the strike zone. He could feel the spin of the ball even before it left the pitcher's fingers.
The first pitch—a fastball—rushed toward him like a silver streak. He swung, meeting it perfectly. The crack echoed through the stadium. The ball soared high, a textbook shot. The crowd gasped. For a moment, it seemed as if he'd cleared the fence. But the wind carried it away by a hair. Foul.
Riku blinked, stunned. The next pitches were a blur. Inside ball, fastball outside, curve—he read them, swung, and missed by inches. Mori had dissected his rhythm, exploited the tiniest hesitation, and shattered Riku's confidence in the span of three pitches. Being a pitcher himself, he knew how despite being better, he had been toyed by this pitcher.
When the last out was called, Riku's team had lost. Not in a humiliating way, not embarrassingly—but the loss stung precisely because Riku had believed victory was his by mere presence. The defeat planted a seed that would grow over the next fifteen years, a gnawing awareness of what could have been.
High school ended. Any notion of baseball as a serious pursuit faded into a haze of lectures, part-time jobs, and fleeting social events. Riku graduated and drifted into office life. His commute in Tokyo—a forty-minute train ride between Shinjuku and Meguro—became a ritual of monotony. He passed the same coffee shop every morning, the barista nodding at him with the faintest recognition. He never ordered anything different, never smiled beyond polite acknowledgment. And suddenly his life became a blur, a fogged up mirror reflecting the dull office, the flickering screens, and takeout meals.
His apartment in Meguro was small, bland, filled with furniture he couldn't remember buying and books he hadn't touched. Days passed with the subtle dullness of routine. Occasionally, on the subway or walking down the street, he'd see high school kids in baseball uniforms. He'd pause, just long enough to remember the smell of the diamond, the sharp tang of leather, the vibration of bat meeting ball—but only for a heartbeat. Then the moment passed, leaving a faint ache.
Riku's twenties and early thirties were filled with quiet achievements. Promotions at the office, friends drifting in and out, a modest apartment that overlooked the neon-lit streets below. All of it should have felt satisfying. To anyone else, it would have. But to Riku, it felt empty, like a hollow bark of some tree. The only constant companion was regret.
One night, his usual departure from the office was met with an unexpected drizzle. The clock read 8:17 PM on a Wednesday in Shibuya. He didn't mind. He walked under the dim glow of streetlamps, past convenience stores, pachinko parlors, and cafés with faint jazz leaking from their doors. Water ran along the sidewalks, shimmering under neon, pooling near drain covers like tiny, restless mirrors.
Before he knew it, he had climbed the narrow stairs to the rooftop of his apartment building. He leaned against the edge, arms draped over cold concrete, feeling the city hum beneath him. Rain ran down his sleeves and into his collar, and for a moment, he let it soak him completely.
The memories came in sharp, sudden bursts. His wet unkempt black hair cascaded over his big brown eyes like a curtain, hiding the real world and immersing him completely in his thoughts.
The baseball field, smell the grass and leather, hear the cleats scuffing the basepath. He remembered the crowd, the thrill of possibility, the matches he had wasted. He thought of Mori—the undefeated pitcher he had wanted to conquer. He could almost hear the echo of that final pitch, the crack of the bat, the gasp of the crowd, and then the cruel stillness of a game lost despite everything he knew.
"You had everything," he whispered, voice barely audible over the patter of rain. "And you threw it away."
His chest tightened, heavy as the concrete beneath his legs. His pale skin turned even whiter, giving a sickly contrast to his dark hair. The backdrop of rain and his shivering figure hunched over the railings gave an eerie feel to the otherwise silent and uneventful night. Memories pressed in—faces of teammates scattered across the country, former rivals making headlines, the echoes of applause he never earned. For the first time, he understood what he had squandered.
He closed his eyes.
The rain grew louder. The city below shimmered in the wet neon light. Wind tugged at his jacket. He leaned forward slightly, bending slightly over the edge of the building, staring at the streets below.
A whisper drifted through the storm, soft, almost imagined.
"Don't waste it again."
He felt the ground tilt beneath him, or maybe it was just the wind, or the weight of his own despair. The city spun in a blur, and a sudden, strange exhilaration coursed through him. Was he falling? Sliding? Floating? He didn't know. The line between fear and release blurred, and for a heartbeat, it felt like everything—every failure, every regret—might wash away.
Then the world went silent.
No rain. No traffic. No distant voices. Just a void, empty and complete. And in that quiet, a single, stubborn thought clung to him:
If I really get another chance…
The corners of his lips twitched, a faint smile forming. Uncertain. Hesitant. But alive in a way it hadn't been for years.
And then… darkness.