Three Years Ago.
~The 5th of July, 2022.
~Seiko Gymnasium.
He felt like he was standing on a minefield. He was surrounded by enemy troops flanking all escape routes. Young efforts come from vanity. Young efforts come from vanity.
The metallic clang of constantly hitting the rim....for the last three minutes.
The Pale skinned boy who stood on the free-throw line: He was holding a basketball, and the weight of it was an oppressive thing. It felt to him like he was like holding onto an anvil with a rope tied around his neck. Beads of sweat ran down his corpse-like temples and fell like water drops onto the floor for which he stood.. Anxiety
The middle school gym wasn't even half-full, just a handful of parents scattered across the bleachers. Even less were the students and teachers.
But to the Pale skinned boy who stood at the free throw line, it felt like the entire world was watching him miss.
The Voice of the Coach screeched into his ear, "Toru, Any day now!" Coach Matsuda. He really hated that coach. He really hated everyone around him. He really hated everyone here.
He could feel the pity. From other parents, thanking god their own child was decent at basketball and not this terrible. From the bench, the pale boy could hear boys laughing and saying even they could do better.
The Pale Boy could hear all of it. Feel all of it.
He bounced the ball once. Then once more. His hands were too big for his thirteen-year-old body, large knuckles and long bony fingers. The Pale Boy was already 6'1", taller than most of his puny teammates, taller than half the teachers at Seiko Middle School. People looked at the pale boy and saw a basketball player, one with good potential.
But they were so so wrong.
And so the Pale boy collected himself and planted his feet. He swung the ball up in the air and he Shot. The ball sailed in this tragic arc and hit the front of the rim with a hollow clang. The sound of that hollow Clang vibrated there in his bones. Shaking what was already unsteady.
The ball bounced to the left. And it kept bouncing away.
*Even the ball wants to get away from me*
"For god sakes,Toru." Loathed Matsuda wasn't even angry anymore. He sounded fed up. "You're 6'1" and you shoot like you're throwing a grenade. How is that even possible?"
The other players snickered. The Pale Boy heard a familiar voice whisper something to another. And When The Pale Boy turned he saw Kentaro and Daichi, both laughing. Their giggles rattled their way under his skin. It was deeply embarrassing. And he thought he'd cry. But the Pale Boy had learned to never show emotion to it. As his father had advised him.
"Run it again," Matsuda said like he himself was the one suffering.
But In truth, Ari couldn't run it again. He could not do any of it again. The missed layups, the turnovers, the way his body seemed to revolt against every basketball fundamental ever invented. He was tall and he loved basketball with a religious passion but his body just wasn't made for basketball... Or really much else in this life
After practice, he stayed later in the gym, and worked on his form in the dark like some kind of basketball ghost. But it never helped. His shot never went in without luck. He couldn't control his own body nor the ball. He was a tall statue with the coordination of a newborn .... utterly helpless..... utterly weak. His knees hurt when he moved too hard. He just....
Ari Toru just .....SUCKED.
Two months later, and the Pale Boy quit.
Loathed Coach Matsuda had a smile on his face. It wasn't even hidden, that smile of relief. And Ari could not help but have that scene burnt into his memory, without his consent.
It's Present Day ~ 22nd March, 2025.
~ Agano City
~ Niigata prefecture
The time is 5:47AM.
Jazz music. Soothing Jazz music.
It was a Jazz instrumental playing from a phone. A long pale thing of an arm, bony and emaciated looking came from within black sheets. This limb searched to and fro till it found this phone and pressed that button to turn off the music. Why? Jazz was one of the only things that made him not want to throw his phone against the wall.
So he lay. Lay there for thirty seconds as he stared at the ceiling. To prepare for another day... of being wholly average. Mundane and annoying life truly was. Dissatisfied with the absence of passion. Passion of all sorts.
At sixteen, he'd grown another five inches to 6'6". It made AriToru feel like a poorly constructed tower...made using genetic material of the C grade.
His body was still slender despite his mother's best efforts to fatten him up. Around 78 kilograms stretched thin. Like you took a regular teenage boy and ran him through a taffy-puller.
His face was determinedly unremarkable: straight nose, full girly lips, thick brows that made him look like he wasn't Japanese, uncontrollable baby hair, a gap in his front tooth, high cheekbones that weren't quite high enough to be interesting.
Except for the eyes.
Ari had his ancestors eyes, and his father's eyes. Bestial and shaped like a cat...or maybe a kitsune mask. While his iris itself was an Onyx void of the all black. Like ink. Or the night sky. And under certain light or certain emotion, they would change colour to a bright gray.
The look itself was a problem.
Girls would complain to teachers when he just happened to cross eyes with them. People called him a creep. Most people used his eyes as the excuse to say he was a bad apple that needed to be avoided.
*But who cares about any of them*
In that span of 3 years, though Ari stopped playing basketball it did not mean he stopped watching it. He would analyse games, players. Like a strategist when other kids were out living and being normal.
It was an obsessive dedication that would have made him a genius if he could actually just play the fucking sport.
But
He couldn't
So instead, he'd become a genius elsewhere. He put most of that mental strength into academics.
His room reflected this pivot: His room was now riddled with achievement certificates. A small bookshelf was crammed with textbooks and study guides and more text books. His old basketball was deflated and sat in the corner. For it was gathering dust like a relic from a past life. A loser life.
The Pale One pulled himself out of bed, his black hair fell across his forehead in a mop-top chaos. Thick and even darker than his eyes. He'd need a haircut soon, but haircuts required caring about your appearance, and Ari had allocated exactly zero mental energy to that particular concern.
Downstairs, his parents were already awake.
Toru Hideaki was sitting on the kitchen table reading the morning paper with a peculiar fixity. A man who clearly still believed in print journalism. *Who even reads newspapers in 2025*.. At times, He did wonder how those still existed.
Regardless Ari wouldn't bother to ask where his father even got them. Hideaki was 36, with zero silver treading through his black hair and he always had reading glasses perched on his pointy nose. He was the one Ari had to thank for the thick chaotic black thing he called his hair. True, Balding was something Ari would never have to worry about.
They both had an abnormally close hairline for Japanese males. Especially Ari who wouldn't care to at least trim his mosaic of baby hair.
Hideaki worked as a mid-level accountant at a manufacturing firm. It was reliable but utterly unmemorable work that paid the bills and kept the family comfortable.
"Morning, Ari," he said without looking up from the article.
Hideaki's wife, Toru Michiko and Ari's mother was at the stove. 34 years old, a beautiful woman. Making tamagoyaki. Muscle memory tamagoyaki. She'd of course had time to master the breakfast for the 16 years she'd been married. His parents were already betrothed when he was born but they hadn't actually gotten married.
She was smaller than her husband, but softer with smile lines around her eyes. Those came from years of finding joy in mundane things. Her hair was a beautiful pixie cut of brown that revealed her eye catching expressive face. She worked part-time at a local library, which suited her perfectly. Michiko loved order, loved books, and loved the contentment of a well-organized life. And now her tummy was swollen large (4 months) expecting what Ari hoped would be a baby sister. A baby brother would be nice but he preferred a sister. The age gap was already high. He'd be 17 when his sibling would be just one year.
The span was long because Toru Michiko had been unfortunate to have two miscarriages... But it was the time it took for her to heal mentally that was the cause of that span.
Ari's parents were both young when they had him. And that always made it easier for them to talk. Though even Ari noticed both his parents seemed like people who were forced to grow up very fast. They were a lot more mature than their age or appearance would lead you to believe.
"Ari! The eggs are almost ready. Did you check your email last night?" What a lovely frequency her voice was.
"Not yet." Ari poured himself a glass of water. His height made him duck slightly under the kitchen light fixture.
"Check it now." His father finally looked up from the paper. There was something almost excited about his expression. "There should be something important."
Ari pulled out his phone, thumbing through his emails. Mild interest. He expected nothing but spam and school announcements. He saw_
Subject: ACCEPTANCE – Yoshimura High School Scholarship Program
His thumb hovered over the email for three full seconds before he opened it.
"Dear Toru Ari,
Congratulations! After careful review of your academic records and entrance examination scores, we are pleased to offer you a full scholarship to Yoshimura High School for the upcoming academic year...
Ari read the email two times. Then a third.
Yoshimura High School.
Yoshimura High School.
It was one of the most prestigious boarding schools in Japan, a private academy that consistently sent students to Tokyo University, Kyoto University, all the top-tier institutions and beyond. And that was all a regular occurrence.
Students who graduated from Yoshimura were bound for success in life both in Japan and abroad. Especially abroad. It was a globally renowned school..
It was also, Ari knew with a sinking feeling in his core, home to one of the best high school basketball programs in the entire world.
"Well?" His mother had turned from the stove, her voluptuous body moved gently towards him. She had a wooden spatula still in hand, her face was bright and excited. "Did you see?"
"Yes", He forced a smile, "I got in."
"YOU GOT IN!" Michiko practically launched herself across the kitchen, pulling Ari into a hug that his height made awkward but his mother's enthusiasm made inescapable. Pressing him against her soft comforting body.
"I knew it! I knew your scores would be good enough! My brilliant boy!"
"It's a significant opportunity." His father had stood up now and folded the newspaper carefully. "Yoshimura's academic reputation is exceptional. The connections alone would be very useful for university applications."
"And it's a full scholarship!" His mother was still clutching his arm. "Room, board, everything! Do you know how much that saves? This is incredible, Ari. This is incredible."
They were happy. Unreservedly happy.
But in the Pale One's inner self, AriToru felt like he had swallowed a stone.
He spent the morning in daze, auto piloting through his routine at Seiko. It was a perfectly average public institution where he was a perfectly average student. An average student who just so happened to be very tall and very intelligent. His friends (the few he had) congratulated him with little interest. It was the reaction we give for things that don't directly affect us. His teachers nodded approvingly, as if his acceptance validated their own teaching somehow.
It didn't.
Most of Ari's academic success came from his parents' homeschooling and his own personal studies. He was even known to miss school entirely on some days so his parents would prepare him themselves for the exams.
And yet Ari could not shake the dread pooling in his gut.
He knew about Yoshimura. Everyone who followed high school basketball knew about Yoshimura. Three national championships in seven years. Their gym was state-of-the-art. The coach was an NBA champion.
At Yoshimura, basketball players were gods. The school's culture revolved around the team.
And then there would be Ari: 6'6", the exact physical profile of a power forward, and completely, hopelessly talentless.
He'd be a walking target. The tall kid who couldn't play. In a school where basketball was everything, he'd be a disappointment. A waste of good height.
That afternoon, after school, Ari walked through the small park near his house, hands shoved in his pockets. He was trying to figure out how to tell his parents he didn't want to go. They were so happy. His mother had already started planning, talking about what he'd need for the dorms, about visiting during breaks. His father had even smiled.
How could he tell them he'd rather stay at his mediocre Seiko than go to Yoshimura?
Each step he took he became more sunken in thought....then just at the edge of his vision was a basketball court in an empty court. From here he could hear the chains sway from the breeze of spring. Ari stopped and he stared at it. Some kids had left a ball behind. It sat in the middle of the court like an invitation. Or a trap? Was god taunting him?
Ari walked onto the court and he picked up the ball. It felt foreign in his hands now. It had been three years since he'd seriously held one. He dribbled with it and he was still terrible. He could see it in his mind's eye, all the mistakes: no balance at all.
He knew everything about basketball. He just couldn't do any of it.
AriToru raised the ball up and shot it....
It hit the backboard and bounced away. Beyond his reach. Beyond AriToru.
"Of course," he muttered to himself. AriToru missed now and he has been missing his entire life.
He left the ball where it may and walked away.
But little did the Pale One know.... What blessings were about to come his way.