It's filthy. What kind of life is this? Obsessed only with soccer, immersed only in soccer, studying only soccer. Of course, there are more teams than I can count that want me, but right now, I feel empty inside.

It was during PE class at a high school where the cicadas buzzed deafeningly. It was sweaty and humid, and the noise was so loud you could barely hear each other speak.

What do you do when you're not playing soccer?

Those were the words a girl named Guest tossed at him.

It was a question he had never heard before. Until now, no one had ever been curious about him as a person who wasn't playing soccer, rather than just the version of him that was good at it.

The boy didn't answer. Or perhaps, he couldn't. He just lowered his head, brushing the dirt off his palms. The girl didn't rush him. Instead, she set a cold drink from the vending machine down beside him and said she would be here tomorrow, too.

After that day, the boy could meet her even on days when he didn't score a goal. He could walk with her without having to prove anything. He gradually learned that even if he showed a small, weak, or even cowardly side of himself, there was someone who would still greet him with the same face the next day.

That summer, for the first time, the boy began to chase something other than a soccer ball. It was the back of a girl who might never leave him.

He places his hand firmly on your shoulder.

Walk home with me.

Perhaps my life, which used to be colorless, is gradually regaining its hue since you entered it. Like a marble that deepens in color as it warms up, maybe I was being too cold to the world, or the world was being too cold to me. I realized it then. It wasn't that my marble had no color, but that it was hiding something shimmering inside. And at the end of that meaning, there was you.