I opened my eyes as quickly as I could and stood up—only to realize that I am already in a different place that is full of endless reverberating sounds everywhere, and not only that, this place had also been painted in black and red that seems to have some kind of meaning.

         Seriously… this isn’t the time to be resting.

         I need to figure out a way to get out of this place—ugh… my head… it must be because I knocked down my head on the floor when I lost my consciousness. To be honest, I didn’t know what to do there so the only thing that I could do was shout for help which failed.

         I’ll just have to resist the pain… for now, I’ll have to examine this place out.

         I walked around with every following cautious step as I saw the dark horizon accompanied by the cacophony endlessly moving slowly like scenery but broken and twisted. In a minute, the scenery changed into something nostalgically sad.

         It was the basketball gym court where in front of me were a bunch of balls everywhere and besides me was the last ball for me to take a shot at. My smiles felt weak and my eyes were just about to close, but I had to keep myself awake and smiling.

         The world of basketball is harder to grasp.

         To be honest, I’ve never understood myself when I was a kid—where-in I laughed and smiled like an energetic kid freely flying away from the path to success, but as every path goes, it always has the most difficult obstacle we would face.

         Where sometimes we could break them and mostly, we just can’t do it.

         No matter how much we try to face our obstacles, it’ll only break our wings for us to regress to our path to just try again.

         Basketball was once something I’ve always wanted to play and what I have wanted to work hard on… because it’s not the same with gambling that always had something to do with money and the use of unfair strategies… which are boring.

         A life I believe was something shaded in blue and white. It’s the sky, as I have seen, is endlessly above me, showing me the way to the rose-colored path I wanted. And just like in basketball, I wanted to reach the top of the ring—just as how I wanted to succeed in life.

         I grabbed the ball with my left hand and entered a shooting stance…

         In honesty, the world isn’t made for just anyone to live in, just like me.

         I am just a bastard of a son that has lost his reasons to become something else. I am hopeless. I am weak. I can’t do anything alone and end up relying on somebody else. Right now, of all else, there is no hope of success in getting in the world of a rose-colored life.

         But failed to shoot as I hesitated.

         “That’s right,” Atsushi said.

         A person just like me?

         Like me… what a fraud.

         “What is right?” I asked.

         “There is nothing right in this world. Not your parents. Not gambling. Not basketball and not you. We all come down wrong but have to consider it as something right, solely because we do not admit to our failure, which is also wrong.”

         Of course, with how unfair the world is… there is no knowing what is ‘right’ anymore. Not when I can’t extend my hand to the blue sky that is soothing my soul, pushing me from every situation I have with a smile.

         “This is just something I have to accept… even if I know that it is wrong.”

         “Something to accept?”

         “…”

         “When you can’t even do anything alone? When you try to rely on everything on your friend? In reality, there is nothing to accept because there was nothing for you to accept.”

         At that time when I was alone, someone was there to push me forward and whether it was my parents or my friends, I know that I would be thanking them for accepting my weakness and my failures.

         “No. I… I still have a lot of things that I can change and I can accept.”

         “Give it up already. I am you and you are me. I know what you know and I can tell that you’re just as lost as everyone. You can’t even shoot, can you?”

         I have lost my will already to take everyone’s expectations. If you are me, then I do not doubt that you can understand me, but I can’t understand you and the way you think right now, which brings me to the conclusion that the two of us are merely different people with opposite ideas.

         It’s not easy to shoot now that I have known the cruel reality of the world. Right now, all I can do is hesitate and be presented with the things I love—only for me to deny my hard work for it like a coward.

         But…

         When Shunichi Rei came at me and extended his hand, I knew that things could be different, that I would become something different by this second chance that has been given to me.

         And I understood that I was weak because I was alone… I never trusted my friends and I never relied on them. That's why I was so weak.

         That’s why I wanted to change.

         “…You are right. I know that I have some things that I can’t do and I also know that there are a lot of mistakes that I have made. I know that when something is right in front of me, I hesitate. But even then…”

         “Even then?”

         “Everyone still cheered me from what path I have taken. Even I, who ran away from my failure, have never escaped someone’s help. I knew that by accepting everyone’s help, I could change to something different.”

         “That’s why you are weak—”

         “No! This is why I am strong. Because there is always someone besides me. Because there are a lot of people that are putting their hopes in me no matter what I have done to disappoint them. Don’t underestimate me, myself! I am nothing like you and even if I am, I know that we are the same person.”

         That’s right.

         We have never been the same. We have only stood in the same place. You, as my weakness, and I, the loser.

         Atsushi closed his eyes and smiled. “I’ve never been disappointed in my life… so disappointed that I could only smile.”

         “I know… but I can’t do anything but go forward, can I?”

         “That’s for you to decide. I am only a part of you that forces you back. If this is what ‘we’ were going for, then do it… for ‘yourself’ only that is.”

         I took a serious stance in front of me and shot knowing full well that I would be able to get it inside the ring without a single effort. Thus, as this happened, the world around me was disappearing slowly, while I could feel that in front of me was a person extending his hand…

         Thanks, Shunichi, for becoming my strength.

         I then grabbed his hand.