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Prologue
When I came to, everything was white.
No, wait.
Let me start from the beginning.
My name is So Tamano.
I got hooked on billiards at twenty-two. That was eight years ago.
I played almost every day and stayed stuck in B class the whole time: a thirty-year-old guy whose effort never paid off.
And — I was a virgin.
My thirtieth birthday. Midnight. A friend was ribbing me: “Dude, you’re about to turn into a wizard, aren’t you?”
And sure enough, something did happen.
I just didn’t become a wizard.
When I came to, I was lying on a pool table. Round, white, 57.2 mm across.
I had become the cue ball.
“Huh?”
No sound came out.
Of course not.
I’m a ball.
Chapter One: First “Contact”
The view from the table looked like the one I had stared at for eight years, and nothing like it at all.
The green of the cloth was strangely vivid, and the lights were blinding.
And above all — it was huge.
A pool table seen from human eye level and a pool table seen from a ball’s eye level are on completely different scales.
“Was this table always this big…”
While I lay there stunned, a cue came closing in from far away.
THWACK.
The impact hit.
I — no, the cue ball that was me — went flying.
I ran at a terrific speed, charging straight at the red object ball ahead.
And then.
The instant we collided, I knew.
Chapter Two: The Truth About the Separation Angle
What happened to my body (a sphere) at the moment of contact?
The contact with the object ball was, in theory, a single point. (Strictly speaking, both balls deform ever so slightly at the instant of impact, but there’s no need to get into that now.
Right now, I’m a ball.)
From that one point, the force passed through.
And in that instant I lost my line and was flung off at an angle.
“What is this… Why am I flying this way?”
Then, all at once, eight years of billiards knowledge came flooding into my confused head.
So that’s it.
This is the separation angle.
When the cue ball hits the object ball at an angle, the directions of the two balls at the moment they part are about 90 degrees apart. This is called the “separation angle.”
(If I still had spin left after that, friction with the cloth would bend my path. But never mind that for now either. Right now, I’m a ball.)
“I knew it as a fact. But feeling it with your body is something else entirely…”
Chapter Three: The Day the Old Guy Played Me
I was lying at the edge of the table in a daze when a big round belly drifted into view.
One of the regulars. An old guy.
Sixties, maybe.
His bridge was sloppy, and his cue tilted a little upward.
“Uh-oh —”
WHAM.
No mercy.
A dead-full hit.
He hit me so hard that I barely picked up any roll; I was still sliding when I slammed into the object ball.
Almost all of my energy was driven into the object ball, and I was left right where I was.
The object ball shot off with tremendous force and was swallowed by the pocket.
“…It went in. Sure, it went in. But I haven’t moved at all.”
When the cue ball hits dead full with no spin, it stops almost on the spot.
Because nearly all of its forward momentum passes into the object ball.
The old guy said “All right” and started lining up the next ball.
I wasn’t even on his radar.
“Could he be any rougher with me…”
Chapter Four: The Day the Young Woman Played Me
The next game, the air changed.
The one who came to the table, cue in hand, was a young woman, in her twenties, maybe.
Her slim-fit trousers suited her well.
She formed her bridge with care, held the cue level, and slowly settled her breathing.
“Oh. This one can really play.”
In my experience — no, from memory, back when I was a B-class player — a shot from someone like this is different.
Sss…
A quiet impact.
Thin, and delicate.
Just grazing the very edge of the object ball.
The object ball took only a little of my energy and rolled slowly away.
And I — at nearly 90 degrees to the object ball’s path — kept running, barely losing any speed at all.
“So this… is a thin cut.”
On a thin cut, I keep almost all of my energy myself.
The object ball takes only a little.
But the angle at the moment we part is the same, about 90 degrees.
Only the share of energy changes. The law of the parting angle does not.
She had worked out where I would go.
To send me to the ideal position for the next ball.
“…I was just used, perfectly, as a tool.”
How do I put it.
A little galling. And yet, a little bit nice.
Chapter Five: Where I Hit Decides My Fate
From those two experiences, the old guy and the young woman, I came to understand one truth.
First, the dead-full hit: when I strike head-on, that’s another story.
If I slide into it with no spin, nearly all of my forward momentum passes to the object ball, and I stop where I am.
The object ball flies straight on, in the direction I was heading.
In this case, the very idea of “parting” doesn’t even apply.
The law of the roughly 90-degree separation angle holds only when the hit comes at an angle.
A thin cut, a half-ball hit — in other words, only when I strike the object ball at an angle does this law come to life.
When the hit comes at an angle, the directions of the cue ball and the object ball at the moment they part are always about 90 degrees apart.
This is fixed by the laws of physics.
(And I can only travel straight along that 90-degree line if I hit with no spin.)
So within that “about 90 degrees,” what changes?
The answer: how the energy is shared.
Thin cut (her style) — the object ball takes only a little energy, and I keep running at nearly my original pace.
The object ball moves slowly.
Half-ball hit, half the ball covered (somewhere in between) — the center line joining my center and the object ball’s center sits at about 30 degrees.
“At first glance, half and half, so you’d think we’d split 45 degrees each, right…”
But no.
The object ball travels along the center line, at about 30 degrees.
And I head off at 90 degrees to the object ball’s path — about 60 degrees, in other words.
“Your intuition from the contact point and the actual physics are different things. Hit half the ball, and the angle still isn’t half.”
…Wait, why do I know all these little details?
I was B class for eight years.
Apparently reincarnation makes you weirdly good at physics.
What a nuisance.
“So… when I hit at an angle, the moment we part is always about 90 degrees. A full hit is a different story. And how fast I fly off is decided by where I hit (that is, the angle of the center line joining my center and the object ball’s).”
Exactly.
Back in my B-class days, all I ever thought about was pocketing the object ball.
But really, where I, the cue ball, go after the object ball drops is what billiards is truly about.
“Eight years, and what was I even looking at…”
Coming quietly to rest at the edge of the table, I understood.
Sinking the object ball is not the goal.
It’s the starting point for the next ball.
The old guy thought about getting the ball in the pocket. The young woman thought about where I would go after it went in.
That difference was the depth of billiards.
Epilogue
For a while, I went on being knocked around in a corner of the table.
Eight years in B class.
I had played every single day, and still there were things I only learned once I became the cue ball.
All along, I had only ever been looking at the object ball.
The next shot, the next layout, where the cue ball goes — I knew those things as “knowledge,” but I never had them as “feel.”
If someday I get to be human again (can I?), my billiards will surely be different.
…Well, first there’s the question of whether I can get back at all.
Before I knew it, closing time at the pool hall was drawing near.
The lights went down.
One by one, the customers headed home.
The old guy went home.
The young woman went home.
Left on the table was only me.
“…Thirty years old and reincarnated as a cue ball. Still a virgin. Still B class.”
In the darkened pool hall, I just — stayed still.
No one plays me.
I can’t move on my own.
Without a cue, without someone, I can’t go anywhere. That’s what I am.
In the middle of that wide table, I let that sink in, quietly.
A cue ball is something that can move only when energy comes from outside.
…Which, somehow, sounds a lot like the old me.
— Will my story go on? Or won’t it?
That may depend… on all of you.
Next time (if there is one): Spin has been put on my body. Top, bottom, right, left — how will each spin change my path?
The reincarnated life of So Tamano, cue ball, goes on... maybe.
Partly revised and expanded on October 3, 2026.
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