I always knew what I wanted to do in life. My grandfather, smiling. The cards fanning out between his fingers. I watched him play, the power of his motions, the fluidity that tricked my eye. "Arata," he would say, "I can't wait to play with you."

I know I must have learned how to play karuta but I can't remember learning, the cards already familiar to the grain of my fingertips. In my eagerness to capture a card, I'd overextend myself and miss.

"A calm river hides undercurrents," my grandfather would smile, his fingers sending the card flying. Then, as he brought it back, he held the poem card up for me to read. It was more than a pattern of syllables. "The white clouds in the sky mirror the strength of the white-capped ocean waves. You'll reach Class-A before you know it."

Karuta brought us together. Chihaya, her love of the cards, Taichi, the endless competitiveness hiding a fear of losing. Not that I thought about that then; I just thought about playing, all of us playing. Time flies when you're having fun, second falling, cards cascading through nimble fingers.

When grandfather fell ill of course I had to go. Of course. "I'm sorry," I told them, and swallowed the lump in my throat around their expressions. Chihaya. Taichi. The cards still waiting on the ground, names uncalled; my grandfather, the first syllable on the tip of the reader's tongue. It was the only logical thing to do. I didn't realize I was sad until I learned how to be sadder.

I wasn't thinking about my grandfather when I won the last game. I was only thinking about the cards, the last one beneath my fingers, the flick as it sliced the air to hit the wall, the silence before the roar. Chihaya, smiling. Taichi, smiling.

Everything was glowing and I held my hands out for the certificate—Class-A like my grandfather said—and then there was heavy breathing, the rapid pounding of a heartbeat flying through the doorway, door slamming open against the wall and the words.

I can’t even remember what the person said, who they were, what they looked like. I looked down at the certificate in my hands and couldn’t feel anything at all.

My grandfather is dead. It's not about the cards, after all. Here in Tokyo, there are no cards running through my hands, skimming beneath my fingers. The white-caps on the waves are fluffy like clouds, but the strength of the water drags me under.

My hands are empty.

My mother always told me, "Taichi, don't put your time into anything where you can't be number one." Initially, I saw karuta as just another academic assignment and I knew I excelled at academics. I would study and do well and get rewards from the compliments I received. I put effort into my school work. But effort still felt like a dirty word.

I acted like I didn’t need to put in any effort to try and keep a guise of coolness around me. I wanted it to seem that everything I did flowed smoothly. I didn’t want the other kids to know the truth. For the longest time it wasn’t any issue. Memorizing the karuta poems was not a problem either, but the problem arose when I realized that Arata had done so as well and his skills far surpassed my own.

I froze and panicked in the actual match was put face to face with his talent. He was just too good. He had the natural talent that I strove for in everything I did and his talent in karuta went way above my basic efforts. I knew that I was doomed to lose. Thinking about my mom’s words and how she always expected me to be the best. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to be the perfect one. I worked so hard for this and had to win. But I knew that I couldn’t win.

My efforts felt meaningless. I fell victim to my own inner demons, and stole Arata’s glasses to try and make sure that I would win. Even when Chihaya, who had less of a knack for academics, stepped in for Arata, I still managed to lose the match.

There’s something special about karuta. Something that rushes into you! In a way, it's the same as the river in my card -- the "Chihaya" card.

My losses to both Chihaya and Arata led to the three of us forming an actual friendship and made me willing to take an active role to improve myself and get better at karuta. My efforts were not for my mother’s approval, but for the sense of accomplishment that I gained from playing with my two best friends.

We all wanted our little team to excel together and stay close, but we soon found ourselves separated. Arata had to go back to Fukui to help care for his grandfather and I would attend the prestigious Kaimesei Middle School where I would have to focus all of my efforts into my academics.

Without having either Chihaya or Arata right there in my life, there seemed to be no point to practicing karuta anymore. Throughout middle school I saw its impact on me lessen and I didn’t see any real merit to the game anymore.

I didn’t have Chihaya’s headstrong passion or Arata’s skill. Effort without a goal or a reward would have just been meaningless.

I had managed to balance karuta and my academics in elementary school, but to continue in middle school would have taken even more effort and I simply didn’t have the time or the passion. Certainly, Arata would continue karuta back in Fukui and even if I continued practicing I knew that my efforts would not have been enough to compare to him. What reason did I have to even try?

I felt the three of us growing further apart because of the distance and no karuta to connect me to them anymore. Starting high school with Chihaya initiated another change for my relationship to karuta.

I thought I put that part of my life behind me, but Chihaya’s passion and efforts to create a karuta club dragged me back to the game. It reminded me of my favorite poem, Tachiwakare, as I felt like I was coming home when Chihaya asked me for my assistance.

I slowly felt my own passions begin to awaken as I too made efforts to make this team succeed.

When the phone rang I answered it without thinking, in the quiet of the night’s dark, the ocean hidden from view. In Fukui I was surrounded by people and yet completely unconnected.

My grandfather was dead.

"I got Class-A!" Chihaya's words, stabbing sun rays through the fluffy white clouds, dragged me back into connection and I lashed out without thinking, breathless, stepping back from the curb as a lorry roared by.

"I don't play anymore." I cradled the phone against my ear, in my empty hands. The roar of the white-caps filled my head for a moment; the sound of her shocked gasp.

"Don't call me anymore." I let the phone in my hand drop to rest against the grooves of my rib cage, head leaning up as my eyes reflected the white clouds. The light changed, and I crossed the street.

I floated on the waves, beneath the white sky, rode my bicycle to work and home again, the clacks clicking to drown out the rushing water. Click, click, click they said. Your grandfather is dead.

I was on the ground before I knew it, tangled up in limbs and the hard frame of a bicycle and Chihaya's voice, emerging from the waves.

Taichi stood by, a boat floating on the water, watching us flounder, watching as Chihaya pulled out the cards.

"You know you want to play," she said, the cards fanning between her fingers, their voices whispering on the wind. My eyes darted across the faces, caught on the shrine against the wall.

My grandfather, dead.

"I don't play," I said, my voice too loud, raw with seawater. My fingers collided with hers, the cards tumbling to the ground.

Taichi, dry and safe in the boat, pulled Chihaya out of the water and sailed away as the white-caps broke over my head, dragging me down out of sight of the white clouds, the blue sky.

There in the deeps, sitting among the stones, slips of sodden paper sank down. Not cards, their voices hushed, frightened, but rather manjuu wrappers, covered in near-indecipherable scribbles, water-sodden, ink smearing.

Note to self the nearest one read, in Chihaya's crooked letters. When my fingers brushed the words, they pulled me back up to the surface again.

The train is pulling away from the tracks but I chase it down.

"I believe in you," Chihaya says, in my grandfather's voice.

Karuta ties us together. It's like a river. You know that, right?

I came back to playing for the chance to see you again, Taichi, Chihaya. We lived so far apart; the expression on your faces formed from a patchwork of phone calls and emails. When I found the calm to anchor myself so I could play, it was our year together that I held in my mind.

Because I dreamt of seeing you, I could play karuta. I could want to play. Karuta was never just something I could sacrifice to see my grandfather again, even though I wished it, even though I tried. Anything to have been there, to have said goodbye.

I'd finally given up wishing I could bring my grandfather back.

Then Kuriyama-sensei told me that seeing me play again was like seeing my grandfather one more time. I could have been pulled under the waves, it could have reminded me of everything I'd lost. It did remind me of everything I'd lost.

What I'd lost, and found again, chasing after you. The symmetry of what's ahead of us, and behind us.

Having that, I could even smile at Shinobu-chan -- you've met her by now, the Karuta Queen you'll need to defeat to take her place, Chihaya. When she told me through a polite veneer that she would never lose to me. How could a champion fail to take twenty-five cards off the field before someone weak-hearted enough to give up karuta for more than a year?

The sky full of clouds and sea's current are the gifts my grandfather left me. Without the strength to pull the oars myself, I'm nothing. I'm adrift. I know that now. My life is in my hands.

I've called you a coward, Taichi, when you wouldn't rise to the level I'd set for myself. When you stole my glasses that year we met, thinking I couldn't take cards when I couldn't see the board. When you asked me not to tell Chihaya so she wouldn't hate you. There are times when I think that you could've, perhaps you should've, thrown my words back in my face.

Chihaya, I've called you a Queen. How long has it been since I've had a dream for my life that didn't have you in it? Even though I'm the one who told you to dream for yourself.

Truthfully, you both are so much more. You're what I want to be waiting wherever I go.

What I know will be waiting.

By starting the team with Chihaya, I was no longer simply on the sidelines watching more talented people play karuta. I actually had a crucial role in this team acting as a guide and teacher to our new players who came in knowing very little about karuta as a sport.

Initially, I was a bit concerned when I took the role as President, but then I realized that there was a key way that I could support and improve this team. I knew that my best skills in karuta was in relation my work ethic, but it wouldn’t be enough to just work hard for myself. I had to be willing to put effort forward to improve the team on a whole. Not only the new players, but seasoned ones like Chihaya and Nishida. Everyone working hard together would connect us even more and lead to a sense of unity.

Karuta is both a team sport and an individual one. You need strong individuals to make a good team, but focusing everything on only one or two key players would lead to the team’s downfall. My thoughts about karuta had changed a lot since I was in elementary school. It started out as just another homework assignment then blossomed into an emotional connection between my friends, but now it serves a dual purpose in my life.

I feel obligated to prove my skills to Arata and show him how far I’ve come and also want my skills to serve as a support for my team and deepen the connection between us.

When I met you, Taichi, I felt the current’s tug; something inevitable, like heat pulling water out from snow. I knew we would be friends. And Arata, your presence drew me, too, like gravity drawing water over stones to earth. Even young and silly, I knew something important was between us. We made a promise.

I worked hard without you both. It was lonely, but I knew all along: we would meet again. I knew if I could practice enough and learn to use my gifted hearing, then my persistence would bring us together again. I kept my stubborn hope. But you both know: I have always been stubborn!

Taichi, I watched you walk away so many times. But I know you feel that current, too. I see it, I know it’s there. It sings and pines through your heart, through how you read the cards, through how you work so hard to learn them and be better. I see you, Taichi. More than saying you did this for me or for Arata or for anyone else, your passion is true, is yours.

Arata, you told me about my poem. You know the cards like friends, like you know me, like you know Taichi. We know you. We treasure you and who you are to us. You inherited karuta; it’s in your blood, like it’s in ours; the river in you meets the river in me, in Taichi. You have never needed to rely on your talent alone. You have always had us behind you.

It's perfect that the pines are red and bright, like the string wound around our fingers, like the blood in our veins. We are all so different, like trees in a forest! But what we have made together -- our promise, our team -- it’s born from that same bright place: from knowing we are meant to be friends, from wanting to be the best in the world, from karuta.

Kanade says my poem is a love story; my time with you both, that’s a love story, too. And karuta is our river, the one that flows in our hearts. Each of us, we are all the red leaves. We fell from different trees, and took different paths through the water’s eddies, but the river carries us as one.

We never met by chance. A thin red string ties all of us together.