There were a few things Aarav had chosen to forget.
The press conference.
The hashtags.
His father's silence.
He had trained himself to push memories into locked corners of his mind.
He had taught himself not to feel anything unless it came with a match result.
But some memories didn't knock.
They slipped in like light through broken blinds—
uninvited, impossible to ignore.
He was sitting by the park again, vending machine coffee in hand.
Cold this time.
The kids on the playground were shouting in Japanese—joyful, meaningless background noise.
And just like that,
he saw her again.
Not Hana.
Someone else.
It was a local ground.
A dusty match in Delhi.
Not international.
Not televised.
Just one of those summer afternoon tournaments with no rules, no limits, and too many people watching for the wrong reasons.
He was fifteen.
Already being scouted.
Already on the radar.
Pressure wasn't something he talked about back then.
He thought everyone felt it.
Like breath.
He had played well that day.
Until the final over.
They needed six runs.
He was on strike.
Two balls left.
He misjudged the slower one.
Went for the pull.
Missed.
The stumps exploded behind him.
The crowd didn't boo.
They just… shifted.
That subtle, cruel shift from awe to judgment.
His coach slapped his thigh.
His teammate threw his cap down.
His father?
Gone by the time he reached the sideline.
And that's when he saw her.
Not in the stands.
Not with the crowd.
Just beyond the fence.
Near the old banyan tree.
Sitting with a sketchbook in her lap, legs crossed, earphones in.
She had been drawing.
Not him — the field, maybe. The skyline.
But when he got out, she looked up.
Their eyes met.
She didn't flinch.
Didn't pity.
Didn't smile either.
She just saw him.
Really saw him.
In that one glance, he felt something foreign—
like failure wasn't shameful.
Just… human.
He never learned her name.
Never saw her again.
But the moment lived like dust—
invisible, soft, always there when the light hit right.
Now, in Tokyo, he blinked hard, the cold coffee pressed to his forehead.
He didn't know why that memory returned.
But he knew why it stuck.
It reminded him of Hana.
She was the only other person who looked at him like that.
Like missing wasn't the end of the world.
Like silence didn't mean weakness.
She never asked what sport he played.
Never asked why his grip was calloused.
Never asked why he watched baseball like someone who had once been watched.
She just… offered food.
And water.
And presence.
That night, he stood at her door.
He didn't knock.
Just placed a folded note under her bento cloth.
Have you ever missed on purpose?
He didn't know why he wrote it.
Maybe because it had haunted him since Delhi.
That maybe—
just maybe—
he hadn't missed by accident that day.
Maybe part of him wanted it to end.
The next day, her reply came the same way.
Folded. Quiet. Unrushed.
Missing isn't the opposite of trying. Sometimes it's the result of carrying too much.
He read it twice.
Then again.
Then once more before slipping it into his pocket and stepping out into the Tokyo air.
The batting cage felt different that day.
Not heavier.
Just more honest.
He picked up the bat.
Didn't swing.
Didn't feed the machine.
Just held it.
Then took a slow breath.
And whispered to the air,
"She saw me miss."