Easter break had vanished like a breath, leaving me with deep shadows under my eyes, aching fingers, and a fire inside that burned fiercer than ever.
The qualifiers for the Osu! World Cup had begun: a virtual meat grinder that would whittle thousands of players from every corner of the planet down to just 32—the ones destined to step onto the glittering stage in Tokyo.
I, Christian, a fourteen-year-old with a graphics tablet bought on sale and a dream bigger than myself, was among them. Or at least, I hoped with every fiber of my being.
The tournament was a ruthless machine, designed to separate the amateurs from the prodigies.
The preliminary phase was a cruel funnel: thousands of entrants, but only 32 would snag the ticket to Japan, with the world title within reach.
The first hurdle was ten matches against random opponents—a filter to weed out the button-mashers from the competitive predators ready to devour you at the slightest mistake.
The goal was brutally simple: win as many matches as possible.
A perfect 10-0 guaranteed direct entry to the next round, an arena of best-of-three clashes where one wrong step could cost you everything.
Anyone finishing 9-1 got one last shot: the repechage bracket. A win there catapulted you in with the perfects, but a loss was the end. No safety net, no "try again." Just one clean shot, and you were out.
Losing more than one match meant game over, no appeals.
For the top players, those first ten matches were little more than a warm-up.
The tournament was open to everyone, which meant facing a flood of casual fans who joined just to say "I gave it a shot".
You could spot them right away: combos breaking after a few seconds, reaction times like a sloth's, shaky cursors clinging to the center circles out of fear, unable to chase the ones on the edges.
It was almost funny to watch, but I couldn't let my guard down. One slip, even against a newbie, could send me home.
Luckily, I had had no trouble. Ten opponents, ten wins.
I hadn't dropped a single round, crushing every rival with a precision that surprised even me.
Every click was an adrenaline burst, every circle hit a small triumph that made me grip the stylus tighter.
The harsh truth was that the real tournament started now.
The more players who went 10-0, the more grueling the next round became.
I was second in the Italian rankings and 187th worldwide, and I felt the weight of expectations—mine and my community's—pressing on my shoulders like a boulder.
The past month had been hell. I had trained like a maniac, pushing body and mind past every limit.
My room had turned into a bunker: tangled cables on the floor, energy drink cans stacked like trophies.
My Wacom tablet—that black rectangle bought with donation money—had become an extension of my body.
Every evening, after a rushed dinner, I would barricade myself in there, headphones blasting the frantic tracks of Osu! maps.
The seven-star maps that had seemed like an insurmountable wall a month ago, I was now clearing with 95% accuracy. But it wasn't enough.
For Tokyo, I had to master eight-star maps, and do it with a consistency that left no room for error.
Streaming had become my lifeline, a bridge to the outside world.
In Italy, Osu! was niche, and that had given me an unexpected edge.
Hardly anyone streamed the game consistently, and the few who did didn't have my mix of skill and, apparently, charisma.
Italian Osu! fans inevitably ended up on my channel, and my audience had exploded.
From 800 followers, I had shot up to 2000 in just a few weeks—a number that made my head spin.
Every evening, when I went live, the chat lit up with people ready to cheer me on: Pego_pro, China's online name; Zenchidori, Mathew's nickname; and a flood of other viewers, from community veterans to newcomers drawn in by my combos.
Their words, their encouragement, gave me the strength to push on even when my fingers were screaming in pain and my eyes burned from exhaustion.
The donations were modest, but they were changing everything.
With the 200 euros a month I was scraping together, I had completely overhauled my setup.
My first purchase had been a microphone, the Elgato Wave 3, for 150 euros: nowhere near the 400-plus euros of the pro models, but it still delivered excellent quality.
I also bought a new webcam, the Elgato Facecam MK.2: another 150 euros, and it offered great quality even though it wasn't a mirrorless.
It wasn't enough to live off streaming—not yet—but every small upgrade was a step closer to the dream.
Every purchase, paid for with money I had earned myself, reminded me that I was building something real.
Still, it wasn't all smooth sailing. The pressure grew as the numbers climbed.
Every stream was a tightrope act: I had to stay competitive while keeping it fun, win without coming across as arrogant, chat with the viewers without losing my rhythm.
Then there was my dad.
Every so often, when the clatter of the keyboard echoed late into the night, his voice would boom through the door: "Christian, turn that thing off and go to bed! You can't spend your whole life in front of a screen!"
I didn't answer anymore. He didn't get it, and maybe he never would, but I couldn't stop. Not now.
The day of reckoning for the next round had finally arrived.
I sat in the dim glow of my room, staring at the monitor as it cast a cold glow across my face. The OBS cursor pulsed like a heartbeat.
My heart was hammering, a raw mix of nerves and excitement—the same rush I had felt that night of the raid, when hundreds of strangers had flooded my channel.
At 3:00 p.m. I went live, same as always.
I didn't want to dive straight into the highest-star maps; I needed to warm up, get into the flow.
I loaded Freedom Dive, the six-star version.
My fingers danced across the tablet, the stylus gliding with a precision that had become second nature.
The chat, already buzzing with around fifty viewers, lit up instantly:
«Let's go Iori! Crush it today!» wrote Zenchidori.
My friends loved calling me by my last name: Iori.
For privacy reasons, I had asked them not to use it in stream chat.
They had promised they would respect that, but they were so used to calling me that every day that it was too hard for them to stop, and in the end I let it slide.
«Show them who's boss!» added Pego_pro, always the first to hype me up.
«Go Pantera, you're a beast on this map!» wrote RhythmSlayer99, a regular who popped up in my streams a lot.
«Keep it up and Tokyo's yours!» chimed in PixelPanda, a newer viewer who had started following after the raid.
I smiled, trying to keep the tremor out of my voice. "Guys, today's the big one," I said. "World Cup qualifiers. No clue who I'll get matched with, but I promise you this: I'm giving it everything."
The chat exploded with emojis—flames, swords, screaming faces—and for a moment the pressure eased, like a knot finally coming undone.
«Bet you full combo Freedom Dive!» wrote StarClicker7, another chat regular.
«Tokyo or bust, let's go!» added NeonBeat, with a storm of rocket emojis.
As the viewer count kept climbing, though, China couldn't handle moderating the chat on his own anymore.
Luck was on my side. Mathew and John, my classmates, had volunteered to mod whenever they had free time.
"You don't have to pay us, Iori," Mathew had said. "We're doing it to see how far you get."
I accepted without a second thought, grateful for their support.
Before the tournament kicked off, I decided to give myself a little breather with some Just Chatting—something that would've made me roll my eyes a year ago.
At the start, streaming had just been about showing my plays, proving how good I was, but over the past month I had realized people wanted more.
They weren't just there for perfect combos or impossible flicks: they wanted me. They wanted to know the kid behind the screen, what drove him to spend hours chasing circles.
So I had started opening up, sharing pieces of my life: the arguments with my dad, the nights my eyes burned with exhaustion, the small wins—like buying the tablet with my own money.
The chat responded, and those conversations had become the heart of my streams.
"Okay, guys, question of the day," I said, leaning back in my chair.
"If you could go to Tokyo, what would you do? I'd probably hit up a maid café, just to see how cringe it really is."
The chat filled with virtual laughter.
«All-you-can-eat sushi!» wrote Zenchidori.
«I'd go to Shibuya and stream from there!» suggested KawaiiClicker, the user who loved spamming anime emojis.
«You win the World Cup in Tokyo!» added Pego_pro.
«Maid café? Nah, Asakusa temple and ramen!» wrote DriftNote, another regular.
I was about to reply to KawaiiClicker when the tournament software updated. A new notification flashed at the top.
My first opponent's name had appeared.
Lifeline.
The nickname sent a shiver down my spine, like a cold draft brushing the back of my neck.
I opened his profile, and my heart jumped into my throat: 8th in the world, first in Indonesia.
He wasn't some random—he was a titan, a player who had humiliated the world number 4 just days earlier in a stream that had blown up across the community.
My face went pale, the blood draining away.
The chat fell silent, a heavy quiet that said everything: everyone watching knew. I was screwed.
«Oh no, Lifeline? GG, bro…» wrote RhythmSlayer99, with a skull emoji.
«Stay calm, you got this—you're a beast!» Fireblaze encouraged me.
«Destroy him, Iori—we believe in you!» added Pego_pro.
Then a message appeared in the in-game chat, written in English with an icy edge that froze me: «You're good… but not good enough for Tokyo. I'll destroy you.»
Lifeline's words landed like a direct hit, a gauntlet thrown down—dare to answer or fold.
«Don't let him rattle you—teach him a lesson!» wrote StarClicker7.
This wasn't the moment to back down.
I couldn't let the chat down, or prove my dad right—he already thought my dream was crazy.
I replied in English: «We'll see who comes out on top.»
I settled into my chair, heart racing, every beat like a war drum.
I took a deep breath, gripped the tablet stylus with a resolve I didn't know I had, and clicked "Ready".
The screen went dark for a second, then the map loaded, the pounding beat filling the room, circles pouring down like bullets on a virtual battlefield.
It was time to show who I was—not just to the chat, not just to Lifeline, but to myself.
The road to Tokyo had started, and I wasn't going to stop.