The beginning of the new academic cycle found Haruki in a different stage. I was not in charge of
no course, he did not direct programs, nor did he attend constant meetings. But it was still present. Era
that kind of presence that doesn't need to be on the agenda to be noticed.
The faculty had offered him a symbolic space: a baptized reading and conversation room
with his name. But he had modified it. He removed the formal furniture, brought in cushions, balls,
fabric, white notebooks. He hung on a wall the phrase that marked his entire career:
"Passing the ball is also believing in the other."
It was not a tribute. It was a starting point.
Every week, new and old students passed by. Some to talk, some to talk
Sit quietly. Haruki took note of single phrases, gestures, questions on the air. Your new
The task was not to teach.
It was to hold the space where others could discover.
And that, he thought, was the longest pass he could give.
One afternoon, while Haruki was arranging the books in the living room, a young woman arrived with a curious
expression.
She introduced herself as Mei. I was studying design, but I had heard about the movement for a
a friend who had attended the meetings of the "Muro de Passes".
"I wanted to know if I can also participate," he asked.
"Of course," Haruki replied. Credentials are not asked for here. Just a desire to create something as a team.
Mei came back again and again. He didn't talk much, but he took notes, observed, and drew
constantly. One day he showed Haruki a series of sketches: they depicted scenes of play,
but from unusual perspectives. Hands that stretched out, feet that doubted, eyes that
Expected.
"I'm designing a visual narrative," he explained. So that those who cannot read, also feel
what happens.
Haruki looked at her, moved.
"That's emotional pedagogy," he said.
Thus a new line of movement was born: narrative inclusion. Stories without words that
they would transmit the essence of the game, of confidence, of passing.
With the help of Mei and other students, they organized an interactive exhibition. Each season
he proposed an experience: touching, listening, drawing, moving. There were no explanations, only signs
Open.
The visitors came out different. Some in silence, others laughing, others with discreet tears.
And everyone, without exception, wanted to return.
Following the exhibition, a cultural center in another city invited Mei's team to replicate it in a
educational fair. She eagerly accepted, but asked for something special: that it not be just a
show, but an itinerant experience.
"I want every person who walks in to feel part of the circle, no matter where they come from," he said.
Haruki accompanied the first edition as an observer. There he saw children drawing their own version
of the pass, to fathers and mothers telling their childhood games, to young people creating new dynamics
that no one had taught. Everything came naturally, as if the game only needed permission
to appear.
That night, Mei approached Haruki with a new notebook.
-Can I write something in your notebooks?
"Now they are yours," he answered.
Mei wrote, "Chapter 12.5: When Design Is Also a Way to Pass."
Haruki looked at her with a smile. I didn't need to say more. He understood that the movement was not only
educational, not sporting, not narrative. He was human.
Days later, he received a letter from a European network of universities proposing to create a
international chair inspired by his work. Not with its name, but with its spirit: spaces of
training based on play, trust and horizontality.
Haruki hesitated.
-What if it becomes bureaucratic? He asked Ami.
"Only if you allow it," he answered.
He accepted on one condition: that the coordination be in young hands.
-I just want to tell you how it started. Whatever comes next is yours.
The new chair attracted students from different corners of the world. Some came for the
prestige, others out of curiosity, and many with personal stories crossed by the game. Every
one brought a different perspective, and that made the classes more circles of dialogue than
formal lessons.
During one of the first encounters, a young man named Lamine, originally from Senegal,
Shared:
-In my neighborhood, we played without a field, without lines, without a referee. But we knew when someone
was doing
cheating, and we knew when someone needed a second chance. We learned justice without
know the word.
The room fell silent. Then came applause. Haruki, from a corner, noted:
"Chapter 12.6: When Play Teaches Unintentionally."
As the weeks went by, spontaneous proposals emerged. A medical student organized
workshops on play and physical recovery. Another, a philosophy student, designed a collective essay
where the pass was analyzed as an ethical act.
Mei, on the other hand, led an illustration laboratory where the participants told
experiences with a single image. That corner of the faculty was filled with murals that did not
they explained, but they made you feel.
The energy was inexhaustible. And Haruki, though he didn't speak much, was always there. Like a root
that is not seen but holds the tree.
In one of the final sessions of the semester, the students proposed something to him: to make a mural
collaborative on the university court. Not with faces or dates, but with words that synthesize
what I have experienced.
They chose a hundred.
And in the center, only one:
"Present."
Months later, the mural became a meeting point. Every time someone passed in front of
to him, he found a different word that spoke directly to him. "Listen." "Trust." "Start."
Mei designed an app with augmented reality that when scanning each word offered a story
Linked. The project was adopted by other universities.
A visiting professor asked Haruki:
-How did you think about it?
"We don't think so," he said. We played it.
Meanwhile, the Movement continued to grow. Some initiatives began to dialogue with
fields as diverse as ecology, architecture, artificial intelligence and urban art. One
student programmed an AI that generated new game dynamics based on emotions
registered by the participants. Another designed modular public spaces inspired by logic
of the pass.
The question was no longer what to teach, but how to invite.
One day, during a solitary walk around campus, Haruki overheard a group of children playing. One
He said aloud:
"Do as the teacher's book says!"
Haruki smiled. He did not approach. He just stood there, under a tree, listening to the echo of his
history was already part of the landscape.
That night he wrote:
"Chapter 12.9: When You Stop Being an Author to Be Part of the Myth."
With the arrival of the new academic year, the Movement proposed a global action: the Day of the Pass
Invisible. On that day, in different parts of the world, children, young people and adults would carry out activities
symbolic without the ball. The slogan was simple: to pass something that is not seen but that changes the other.
"It can be a word, a gesture, an idea," Mei explained in the promotional videos.
The initiative was an unexpected success. Schools in rural areas used painted stones. Enterprises
applied dynamics in their meetings. Family groups improvised games around the table.
On social networks, thousands shared phrases and drawings with the hashtag #Pasalo.
Haruki, that day, did not appear in public. He walked through the park, greeted strangers, and in every gesture
simple felt that the pass was still flowing.
On returning home, she found an envelope with no return address in her mailbox. Inside, a folded sheet of paper
with a letter
childish:
"Thank you for inventing something we can all do."
Haruki placed it between the pages of his first notebook. He closed his eyes. And he let that phrase make him
Accompany.
Days later, he received a proposal to turn his entire experience into an animated series for
educational platforms. Hesitated. But he asked that the script not talk about him, but about the characters that
Mei, Kaori, Lamine, Itsuki, Riku, Ami, Souta had emerged along the way.
"They are history," he said. I was only the first pass.
The series was titled "The Game Starts Here." Each episode told stories inspired by
real events, dramatized with sensitivity and humor. One narrated how a child had
transformed their classroom into a symbolic court. Another showed a grandmother who
He taught his granddaughter to play with stones because they could not buy a ball.
The episodes were translated into more than ten languages. Some were used in
therapy, others in inclusion programs in emergency contexts.
Haruki watched each chapter only once. Not out of detachment, but because I believed that the true
The impact was not in reviewing them, but in allowing them to continue on their way.
One afternoon, while organizing her notes, she found a message from Mei:
-There is something you have to see.
He invited her to a school on the outskirts of the city. There, the children had built their own room
of the pass. They had used cardboard, old fabrics, donated books and a ball made from socks. In the
entrance, a sign read:
"This space was made with enthusiasm."
Haruki was speechless.
-Did you plan it? -Asked.
"No," Mei replied. You inspired him. But they dreamed it.
Haruki sat down with the children. He listened to their games, their stories, their invented rules. In the end
One asked him:
-Do you also play?
Haruki smiled.
-I play every day. Even if sometimes I just look.
Over the years, Haruki adopted a new habit: visiting schools anonymously.
He walked like another observer, listened to conversations, sat at recess,
he wrote down phrases in his unnamed notebook. He never said who he was. It was not necessary.
On one of those visits, he witnessed an argument between two children. One felt excluded from a game
and threatened to leave crying. The other stopped him, put his hand on his shoulder and said:
-If you don't play, it's not the same anymore.
That phrase struck his heart like no statistic.
When he returned, he wrote in his notebook:
"Chapter 12.11: When the Pass Becomes Language Without School."
Some time later, the movement proposed a new global slogan: "The Endless Circle". It was a question of
to build a collective history with the participants. Each country, city, or group would write one
part, and then send it to another to continue it.
History traveled through trains, emails, scanned drawings, audios, and murals. When
It arrived back at headquarters, it was more than 400 pages long and had no end. Only one space in
white.
Haruki took that notebook and wrote:
"Thank you for keeping coming through."
Then he closed it and placed it in a display case open to the public, with a plaque that read:
"Don't touch. Keep going."
One night, on the old court of the institute, Haruki was invited to a night of
Alumni. The gymnasium, renovated by later generations, retained the echo of the old ones
steps, but now it was covered in phrases and drawings that told stories. No one talked about
Matches won. They all shared moments of transformation.
Souta, Riku, and Ami were there. Also Kaori, Mei, Itsuki and dozens of other names that are now
they guided their own projects. Haruki was not the center. He didn't even speak. I was just walking between
conversations, as if collecting echoes.
At the end of the match, an eight-year-old girl took him by the hand and led him to the center of the field.
-Are you the one who started this?
Haruki bent down to be at his height.
-I didn't start it. I only passed the ball to the first one who wanted to play.
She smiled, handed him a small notebook and ran back to play.
Haruki opened it. On the first page it said:
"Chapter 0: Because I Want to Pass Too."
He didn't write anything else that night.
He just sat on a bench and looked up at the ceiling of the gym.
I knew I had arrived.
Not at the end.
But to the exact point where others begin.
A month later, a university in the south of the continent organized a forum entitled "Playing as
form of citizenship". Haruki was invited as a closing speaker, but he proposed something different: a
open circle where everyone could talk.
"I don't want to give a lecture," he said. I want to hear how it's played out there.
The proposal was accepted. The event brought together community leaders, rural teachers, educators
urban people, young people from marginalized neighborhoods and artists. They all shared games, ideas,
silences,
wounds and proposals.
One of the participants said:
-I come from a place where we were taught not to trust. But I passed a ball, and somebody passed it to me
Returned.
Haruki didn't take notes. He only kept the gesture.
At the end, there was no speech. Just a collective mural made with words. Each attendee chose one.
Haruki wrote his in a low voice:
-Root.
Days later, a compilation with all the phrases was published. In the introduction, the editors
Wrote:
"This document has no authors. It has origin."
And on the last page:
"The game does not belong to anyone. But we all belong to him."
In his senior year on campus, Haruki decided to donate all of his notebooks. Each one was delivered
to a different person, with a personal note. He gave Mei the white notebook. To Kaori, the red one. To
Itsuki, the one with the green cap. To Ami, a new one, still blank.
"Fill it as you like," he said.
He also left one in the campus library, with a sign that read, "If you're lost, open a
random page."
On the day he packed his things, there was no ceremony. Just hugs. And a handwritten sheet that
Someone left on his desk:
"Thank you for not teaching with answers, but with spaces."
Haruki moved to a small house near the sea. From there he continued to receive letters, videos,
Messages. But not all of them answered. Just a few. Only those who needed to hear something else
what words.
One afternoon, walking along the shore, he found a group of teenagers playing with stones in the
sand. There were no clear rules, but there were shared laughs. One of them stumbled, and they all stumble.
stopped to help.
Haruki looked at the sky, then at the sea. He thought of all the people who had touched the ball without
Know.
That night, he lit a small lamp, opened his last notebook, and wrote:
"Chapter 13: When You No Longer Write to Teach, but to Let Others Keep Playing."
And he closed the notebook with a smile.
Over time, some of his former students began writing their own books. One
I talked about play in contexts of mourning, another about dynamics for community reconstruction.
Several cited Haruki, but others did not. And that made him even happier.
"It means they don't need me to start with anymore," he told Souta one day.
-They never needed you. They just needed permission.
A publishing house brought together several authors of the movement and proposed a collection under the same
imprint.
Haruki was invited to write the foreword. He accepted, but instead of talking about himself, he told a
history:
"The first time I passed the ball, I didn't know what I was doing. I just wanted to share. Years later,
I understood that sharing is planting. And that each pass was a seed. These pages are the forest."
That text was translated into more than twenty languages. An illustrator from Thailand turned it into a book
album. A team of refugees in Europe read it aloud as they began their training. One
A boy in a village wrote his own version by hand and mailed it in.
Haruki no longer needed to travel. What he had thrown had gone farther than any train.
Years later, in a corner of a rural school, a boy found a forgotten notebook in the
library. It had no cover, just a sentence written in marker:
"Chapter 1: When teaching is passing without waiting for it to come back."
The boy flipped through the pages. Some were blank, some had pictures, some just words
loose: "trust", "care", "team".
He sat down on the floor, took out a pencil and wrote on the last page:
"Chapter 99: When No One Tells You How to Play, But Everyone Invites You."
I didn't know who had written it before. But something in that notebook made him feel part of something
elder.
He put it back on the shelf, without marking it, without signing it.
That same week, he began to gather his classmates to create a game club. There was no
adults. Only one wish: to share.
And so, without anyone planning it, the pass circulated again.
Because as long as there is someone who welcomes with desire,
The game never ends.
Just start again.
One autumn night, Haruki returned to the high school gym for the last time. No one expected it.
He had only one thing with him: a ball.
He walked silently, turned on the lights, and walked to the center of the court. There, he placed it with
Be careful on the ground, like someone who leaves a message.
He sat down on the old wooden bench, took a deep breath, and looked around.
He remembered Sora, Junpei, Kanzaki. To the silences, to the mistakes, to the hugs. The first time
that he believed that perhaps he did have something to give.
He opened his notebook. He wrote one last line:
"Infinite chapter: Because the pass does not end when it arrives. It ends when it is returned."
He turned off the lights.
And he left without looking back.
The echo of the ball, still in the center of the field, seemed to be waiting for him.
But he knew that someone else would soon get it rolling again.