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Prologue
Morning came again.
In the light slanting into the dark pool hall, I — So Tamano (30, virgin, forever B class, currently a cue ball) — lay motionless on the table.
There’s something I’ve noticed since I was reincarnated.
My whole surface works like one big nerve. The feel of the cloth, the pressure the instant the cue touches me, the direction and strength of friction — I can sense it all, down to the micron.
I mentioned it in Episode 1: apparently reincarnation makes you weirdly good at physics.
And my senses have sharpened, too.
What a nuisance.
Yesterday, I learned something.
On a dead-full hit, nearly all my forward momentum passes to the object ball, and I stop where I am.
Hit it at an angle, and the object ball and I part at about 90 degrees.
But — carrying on along that 90-degree line only happens if I hit it with no spin.
That “but” was the whole of today.
Chapter One: A Tyranny Called Spin
The first to show up was the old guy, one of the regulars.
“All right. Today it’s follow and draw practice.”
He struck me high.
Rolling forward, my body headed for the object ball.
The instant I hit it — we parted at about 90 degrees.
So far, just like Episode 1.
But.
“Wait… am I curving?”
After we parted, my path was bending forward, little by little.
The topspin I still carried was pulling me forward, through friction with the cloth.
At the moment of contact, 90 degrees.
But after that, spin and friction with the cloth bend the path.
“So going straight off at 90 degrees, back in Episode 1, assumed no spin… Eight years I’d been using it, more or less, and I never understood it at all.”
Next, the old guy struck me low.
With backspin on, I went to the object ball — at the instant of contact we parted at about 90 degrees again, but this time I curved back, pulled the way I’d come.
On a straight-in draw shot, I’d come straight back.
But with the hit even slightly off full, I came back at a slant.
“The momentum of parting, and the backspin pulling me back… both working on my body at once? Which way I roll depends on the mix, so now even I can’t tell.”
Oblivious to all of this, the old guy went “All right, all right,” looking very pleased with himself.
Chapter Two: The Day the Baseline Crumbled
Next to show up was the young woman.
Today, high-waisted jeans, and they suited her.
“Stylish as ever,” I thought.
Forgetting, for a moment, that I was a ball.
I’d have liked to gaze a little longer, but she sent me rolling without mercy.
Tock.
It was simple.
With no English, coming in slowly, the angle in and the angle out are nearly equal.
I came off at almost the same angle I went in.
(Strictly speaking, speed and spin shift it a little.)
That’s the baseline.
“…Beautiful.”
After feeling the complications of combined spin earlier, this simplicity was dazzling.
But on the next shot, that simplicity crumbled.
This time she put side spin on me and sent me rolling toward the cushion.
Tock.
“Huh?”
The rebound was different from before.
I should have gone in at the same angle, but I came off in a different direction.
The side spin, through friction with the cushion, was changing the direction of the rebound.
With running English, the rebound opens up, toward the line of the rail; with reverse English, it closes, toward the perpendicular.
“Angle in equals angle out assumes no English… one touch of English, and the baseline falls apart.”
She had my path completely worked out.
Right down to where I’d go after the cushion, all of it exactly as intended.
“I knew it. She can really play.”
Half dazed, I rolled off to the edge of the table.
Chapter Three: The Truth About Forever B Class
Around noon, a regular I’d never seen before came in.
A clean white shirt.
Hair that looked careless and was perfect anyway.
Tall, with an easy smile, and — how do I put it — that type.
The type women don’t leave alone.
“Hey.”
It was her voice.
“Oh, you’re here,” the young guy said.
So they knew each other.
And they stood close.
“Let’s play a few racks,” she said.
“Sure,” he said, just like that.
In that moment, at the edge of the table, I quietly rolled.
“…What is this feeling?”
I’d forgotten I was a ball.
No — it’s precisely because I’m a ball that there’s nothing I can do about it.
He got down on his cue.
His stance was beautiful.
Simple, without waste, as if he wasn’t thinking about anything extra at all.
With side spin on me, he played a dead-full hit.
“Ah, then the object ball should go dead straight. It’s full, so the forward momentum passes along the center line, straight into the object ball —”
But the object ball drifted sideways.
“…Why?”
At the instant of contact, my side spin was creating friction between me and the object ball.
That friction had pushed the object ball off to the side.
Struck on the left, I spin clockwise, seen from above.
At the single point where I touch the object ball, my surface moves to the right.
Rubbed by that surface, the object ball goes right — what’s called “throw.”
Struck on the right, I spin counterclockwise, and the object ball goes left.
My spin was pushing the object ball out to the side opposite the English.
And he had taken his aim with that throw already worked out.
“Ah… so this is what that good player meant, way back, when he said, ‘If you use English, shift your aim.’ It made no sense to me then, but he was correcting for throw!”
He did it as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
An A-class player, and well up in it.
“Classic you,” she said with a laugh.
I watched the scene from the edge of the table.
And in that moment, eight years of memories flashed back.
“Why did I miss?” “Why didn’t I get position?” —
“I… was using way too much English, for nothing.”
Trying to make hard shots look cool, I’d been adding spin I didn’t need.
So throw crept in, the cushion angles went wrong, and I didn’t get position.
The one making it hard was me.
Simple is best.
The beauty I’d felt off the cushion seemed to shine, now.
Spin isn’t magic.
It’s a tool that only means something once you fully understand simple motion.
“Eight years… and what was I even doing?”
She and the young guy went on playing, enjoying themselves.
Epilogue
Closing time came again.
The lights went down.
One by one, the customers headed home.
The old guy went home.
The young woman went home.
The young guy went home.
Once again, I was the only one left on the table.
Today, I learned a lot.
Follow, draw, English, throw — laws of physics I’d understood from inside my own body were racing through my head.
But.
“Simple is best… that’s the hardest thing of all.”
The more I knew the beauty of no spin, the more I understood how hard it is to achieve it perfectly.
Simplicity lies on the far side of understanding everything.
And above all — I can’t move on my own.
I can’t test what I’ve realized, or confirm it, unless someone strikes me.
“Thirty years old and reincarnated as a cue ball. Still a virgin. Still B class. And today, too, waiting for someone.”
In the darkened pool hall, I just — stayed still.
— Will my story go on? Or won’t it?
That may depend… on all of you.
Next time (if there is one): This green carpet I roll on — friction with the cloth rules everything about me. The reincarnated life of So Tamano, cue ball, goes on... maybe.
Partly revised and expanded on October 3, 2026.
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