Mr. Genda was something of a celebrity in the Asteroid Gardening Club.

Not that there was any actual dirt involved. Each member kept a single rock floating in the void behind their house, adding chips here, shaving off slivers there, coaxing it into whatever shape struck their fancy. A quiet, unhurried sort of hobby.

Genda’s rock was the pride of the club. Jagged in just the right places, it looked exactly like a dog sitting up on its haunches. He’d named it Pochi, and he stroked it fondly morning and night.

“Pochi here,” he liked to say, “is the handsomest rock in the whole universe.”

His neighbor Saeki’s rock, by comparison, was barely the size of a fist — lumpy and misshapen, like a failed attempt at a sleeping cat. Even so, Saeki polished it every single day, looking strangely pleased with himself.

Every autumn, the club held a show for Biggest Rock. This was the year Genda meant to win it.

“I wouldn’t let it get too big, if I were you,” Saeki said one day, out of nowhere. “A rock that gets big enough, heavy enough, rounds itself out under its own weight before you know it. Look at the moon.”

“Nonsense. Not Pochi. Never.”

But of course.

The more chips Genda added, the fatter Pochi grew. And the fatter he grew, the softer his proud, pointed ears became, the gentler the curl of his tail. Genda carved frantically to bring the angles back — but the heavier the rock got, the faster it rounded itself out again, right behind his chisel.

“Wait. Wait, Pochi. Come back. Be a dog again.”

After a month of nonstop work, Pochi had become a perfectly smooth sphere, without a single corner left anywhere. Not one trace of dog remained.

But he was, without question, the biggest rock in the club.

On the day of the show, a committee official arrived, looked up at the sphere that used to be Pochi, and tilted his head.

“Mr. Genda. I’m afraid this isn’t a rock anymore.”

“What are you talking about? I raised this thing with my own two hands. It’s a rock.”

“Rules, I’m afraid. Once something’s this big and this perfectly round, we can’t classify it as a rock anymore. It’s a proper celestial body.” The official made a note in his ledger. “And a celestial body, by cosmic law, can’t belong to anyone.”

”…Come again?”

“Satellite Number 2,100. We’ll give it a name, log it in the registry, and the first settlers move in next month. Congratulations. That’s fine work you did there.”

Genda stood with his mouth open, watching his round little world drift off to belong to everyone’s sky at once. He had, undeniably, made the biggest thing in the club. The instant he made it, it stopped being his.

He trudged home. Out back, Saeki was polishing his fist-sized cat, same as always, grinning away — too small to ever round out, too misshapen for anyone to ever take it from him.

”…Saeki,” Genda said, quietly holding out his hand. “Mind if I hold that for a minute?”