Mirai's ghost lingered in every corner of Kaimei High.
Not in the haunted, tragic sense—but in the warm spaces she used to fill. The courts still whispered with the rhythm of her footwork. The equipment shed held her forgotten doodles and a cracked water bottle with glittery stickers peeling off.
Coach Kubo sometimes stood at the far net, eyes closed, remembering the sound of her serve. He found her videos eventually—recorded late at night, shaky camera propped on stacked cans of tennis balls. In each one, she addressed a teammate. A joke here. A strategy there. A smile that never quite reached her tired eyes. And every video ended the same way:
"Don't cry! I'm still your ace!"
At home, Aoi kept sketching her. A thousand versions of Mirai across a hundred pages—laughing, lunging, grinning with victory, crouching in defeat. The drawings never came out quite right. None of them moved.
None of them laughed.
Aoi stopped showing them to anyone. She stopped explaining who the girl was.
Because if she said her name aloud, it might break something open.
Still, Mirai's presence hummed quietly in her life—like a memory caught in warm wind. On some mornings, Aoi woke up with the echo of "One more point, partner" in her ears. Not a dream. Not exactly.
Just a rally that hadn't ended yet.
Somewhere in her closet, beneath sweaters and dust and a tightly sealed towel, her old racket waited.
Not for now.
But for someday.
And in Mirai's journal, still unread, still untouched, one final page remained:
A doodle of three hands holding a single racket—two solid, one softly fading.
Beneath it, a message:
"The best points are the ones you play for someone else."