"Ahhh… I'm so happy for him. He got his chance to play at Nationals with the Ace number on his back. He worked so hard for it." I said with a weak, husky voice.
I finally turned the last page of my favourite manga 'Ace of Diamond'. The only piece of happiness in my life.
I looked up to the ceiling of my hospital room, the dull, grey patterns on it made me frown. 'So fucking boring!' I thought.
I closed my eyes and started to reminisce about the whole journey of my favourite MC 'Sawamura Eijun', from starting as a complete no-name mediocre pitcher to become the Ace of the powerhouse school of Seido.
All the struggles he had to face, the friends he made, the rivals he played against.
My eyes start watering when all the details come to my mind. 'Good for him. He deserved the recognition he got with all the effort he put in.' I smiled weakly, my lips slightly trembling. 'If only I had gotten that chance.'
*COUGH COUGH*
'GODDAMMIT!' I curled forward. Retching into my hand with a hoarsed throat. The pain of the scratchy coughs was like being stabbed in the throat with hundreds of pins all at once.
'This fucking disease!' I thought with tears running down my face. I lifted my head from my hand and looked at the small pool of blood left on my palm. 'There's more this time.'
I stared at my palm for a while with a defeated look on my face. 'How long did they say a have left? A couple of days?' I sighed, despite the difficulty of the action.
'What I life I've lived.' Everything was perfect at the start of my life, I had loving parents and a great older brother, a brother I looked up to my whole life.
He was the one who got me started on baseball.
As soon as I threw my first baseball I was hooked.
My whole childhood was revolved around the sport, little league and middle school was my highlights, I dominated the mound as I threw strike after strike.
But the best thing for me was when I looked up into the stands and saw my family cheering me on. Cheering and waving their own makeshift banners.
It always brought me strength and determination to do better when I saw their encouragement. But all that changed in my first year of high school.
My parents had flown over to see my brother play in one of his college baseball games.
I really wanted to go as well but I couldn't because I was taking an exam during the week they were there. I didn't mind too much though because they would fly back with my brother after the game for the holidays.
But that's when it happened.
There was a knock on the door on the night they were meant to get back. I thought it must've been them playing a prank on me so I rushed to the door and flung it open with a bright smile on my face, a smile that would instantly change when I saw police officers standing there.
Then my face turned into one of distraught as I heard the news, the plane that my family had taken back home had crashed, all of them died.
Just like that, my whole family were gone.
As if they had just disappeared from existence.
I was left alone in the world.
After that I was never the same, no smile on my face, no happy thoughts.
I pushed my friends away; I just couldn't handle their words of pity and sympathetic looks whenever they saw me.
It was just a constant reminder of what I had lost.
So, I isolated myself from the rest of the world.
I even quit baseball. I tried to use it as a pillar to hold me up through my depression at the start, but whenever I looked into the crowd and saw the empty spaces where my family would've have been, my heart always ached, and tears would fall down my face.
I was one of the most promising pitchers in middle school and had a great path set for me when I joined high school.
When people heard about me quitting baseball, people were majorly disappointed. They said things like 'The Uncrowned Ace' or 'The Ace that never was' but I never responded to those words.
I lived life like it wasn't mine for 2 years, I didn't clean the house, I hardly ate, I hardly slept because of nightmares. My life turned into one of depression and self-loathing.
In my third year of high school, I got sick, lung cancer.
The kind of sickness I couldn't recover from.
I dropped out of school.
Spending the next year in my new home, the hospital.
The same hospital I'm in today.
My eyes were streaming with tears as I looked back on my life.
The horrors and trauma creeping back to me.
I just kept weeping with husky breaths for a while.
I looked back to the dull grey ceiling again.
Only this time I was looking beyond that, towards the sky high above. "What did I do to make you so angry?" I asked. "Did I do something so unforgivable that you made my life like this? Because if not, then why? Why did you take everything from me so mercilessly?" Of course I got no answer.
*COUGH COUGH*
'Ahhh I really hate this life.' I thought, spluttering into my hand.
*COUGH COUGH COUGH*
'Fuck! It's really hurting!'
*COUGH COUGH COUGH*
I looked down at the manga that was sitting on my lap.
That determined face of Sawamura, halfway through his windup before throwing a perfect strike, the big number 1 on his back.
'I wish I could've lived a life like yours, Sawamura. That would've been the best.' I weakly put my hand on the manga, my fingertips touching the Ace number on Sawamura's back.
*COUGH COUGH COUGH COUGH*
'Shit! I can't breathe!'
"Nurs-"
*COUGH COUGH COUGH*
I start to feel weak, choking on the blood blocking my throat. 'Is this it? Is it my time now?' I thought as I gradually felt weaker. I looked back to the manga on my lap. 'Thank you for letting me finish the manga before I went.' I thought as I turned to look at the sky beyond the ceiling again.
*COUGH COUGH COUGH*
''The Ace that never was' huh? I guess so.'
*COUGH COUGH*
My consciousness started to slowly fade into darkness.
'If there's a next life, please let me play baseball again. I want to play. I want to train. I want to have teammates and rivals. I want to be an Ace.'
*COUGH*
"If only I had another chance…" I murmured, letting out my last breath.