Answer: The story "The Seventh Man" from Haruki Murakami begins with a meeting where there are seven people, and each of them is to speek. The main character of the story is the last person to talk: the Seventh Man.
The man tells how, when he was ten years old, a typhoon and a tsunami struck his hometown. After the typhoon ended, he and his best friend, who he simply calls "K", went out to assess the damages it caused. However, when they were outside, a gigantic tsunami started to form. The man realized this, and wanted to warn K, but instinctively ran away in fear. The tsunami caught both of the boys, but only the narrator survived.
The man carried the guilt of having abandoned his friend with him throughout all his life. He developed a terrible fear of water and for the next forty years he had no happiness.
After the man's parents died, he came back to his hometown where, after finding some old drawing K had done, he went to the shore and understood that he had been foolish to not face his fears.
At the end of the story, the setting returned to the meeting where the Seventh Man was proclaiming that the worst thing a man can do is live in fear and let that steal something precious away for him.
