Chapter Text
Mom's black van traveled down the gravel road, away from the town I was born and raised in. Everything, all my friends, my memories -- poof -- gone. Now, I had to start all over again in a huge city.
"Come on, you could at least look a little enthusiastic," Mom complained, glancing at me in the rearview mirror. The thing was, I wasn't happy about this at all. Did she realize how hard it is to start over as a teenager? I can't just walk up to someone and ask if they wanted to be friends like I did in primary school. It took social skills and I really didn't have much of that. I always had the same friends from when I was a child.
"You want me to pretend? I can do that." I cleared my throat and mocked her. "Oh, I am so happy to start my life completely over. I absolutely can't wait, mom!"
She let out an exasperated sigh. "Okay, fine -- forget I said anything." She adjusted her glasses and glanced at me again. "You can't stay mad at me forever, you know. I am only doing what's best for the both of us."
You scoffed, "I can try."
"You know what? I don't deserve this. Ever since Dad died, you have been nothing but rude to me. I have been working my tail off to earn this promotion and get us a better house to live in," She huffed and relaxed, "I know this is difficult for you, but taking it out on me isn't right. This is hard for me too."
I felt guilty. She was right. I was just mad that I had to start all over again and that dad couldn't be here either to start this new life with us. Mom didn't deserve my bratty remarks.
"I'm sorry." I laid my head on the window, looking out at the trees that darted past. After that, it was a silent trip to the city.
By what mom was describing, the house was in a suburban neighborhood, just a train ride away from the school I'll be attending. It was different from my old school, which I would walk to.
I flipped through the images of the house on my phone, trying to get an idea of what it looked like. The house was two-story, and the top floor was practically an attic, containing a bathroom and bedroom to which I called dibs on. Mom didn't really care though. She probably didn't want to hear me complaining any more than I was.
Now the school is the one I was most curious about. Luckily, my grades got me into a nice school, a big, fancy one to be exact. The school had multiple floors and was huge, way bigger than my old one. The high school's backyard was a huge forest that was gated off. I bet that I would hear rumors about how scary the forest was, something teachers would start so students wouldn't try to disobey and climb the fence.
After a long drive, we rolled into the neighborhood. It was too suburban for my liking. The houses were packed close together, but overall, the neighborhood was nice. Our old house was more in the country, the only things you could hear were the cicadas and the rain that would fall often. However, I was in Kichijōji now -- named the most desirable place to live according to Google.
Finally, Mom stopped the van in front of our new house. The pictures I found online painted a lovely home, but when we saw it in real life, it needed a paint job desperately and looked like no one had lived there for years. Maintained to look decent, but not enough apparently.
"Damn, Photoshop," Mom grunted and hopped out of the van.
"You didn't come in person to look at it?" I asked, hopping out too.
Mom shrugged and chuckled, "Yeah, I was in a hurry so..." She then clapped her hands together, cheerfully. "But that's okay! I'll talk to the landlord."
I shook my head and went to the back of the van. I lifted the door, peering at the boxes labeled with my name. It was going to be a pain to bring them all in with just my mom and myself. The van was packed with boxes. She should've hired some movers, that way we could've taken our furniture too.
We left everything except for the small things: mom's kitchen set she got for her birthday one year, my collection of animal glass figures I got from dad, and everything else we needed or valued. Mom said the house came with furniture, so we left it behind.
Mom came around and put her hands on her hips, looking at all of the boxes. "Wow, we have that much stuff? Maybe I should've hired some hands..."
"You think?" I said, crawling into the van and pulling some boxes forward.
"I'll go unlock the door. Keep doing what you're doing." Mom left and jogged over to the house, leaving me alone.
I kept pulling boxes forward, trying to make it easier to grab and carry into the house. I wanted to go explore the house, but I guessed that would have to wait.
A loud noise came from my back pocket, making me jump out of my skin. It was my phone. I quickly grabbed my phone, trying to make the loud noise stop. It was an alert for a missing person. These alerts scared me every time they came on, but mom made me download the app since the idea of moving into the city was mentioned. It alerted me of anything dangerous like wanted criminals, severe weather, and the locations. It also did things like show missing person's so I could help look out for them and post my location to a nearby police station. Mom told me it could come in handy since we were going to live in an unfamiliar city.
I clicked the OK button and the sound stopped. With a sigh of relief, I looked at the information on the screen.
MISSING PERSON:
NAME: Yui Tanaka
AGE: 17
HAIR COLOR: Black
EYE COLOR: Brown
HEIGHT: 162 cm
RACE: Japanese Asian
SCHOOL: Central High Private School
LAST SEEN: At a 7/11 convenience store near *** around 6 p.m. on March 27th, 20**.
Her picture was right next to the details, it looked to be her yearbook photo. She looked happy, so maybe she wasn't a runaway. She also went missing two days ago.
I closed the app and typed the high school name into Google.
It was a private school, a couple of miles away from my high school. The konbini she went missing at was near there too. As bad as it seemed, I was glad it wasn't too close to here.
"(Y/N)?" I jumped, dropping my phone, and it fell underneath the mountain of boxes. That will be a pain to find.
Mom laughed. "Did I scare you? I'm sorry."
"Geez, yes you did! What were you doing sneaking up on me?" I exclaimed, climbing out of the van.
"You didn't hear me? I walked up behind you. I don't think I was that quiet." She explained, pushing her glasses up.
I sighed, putting my hands on my hips. "I guess not. I was too busy reading a missing person thing on that app. Now my phone is buried underneath all of those boxes."
"That's scary. We just moved here too."
"Yeah. So, are you ready to bring these in?" I changed the subject. I just want to hurry up and explore the house. The thought of someone around my age going missing was a bit unsettling to think about.
***
It was around six o'clock when my mom left, leaving me in the empty house alone.
"I have a meeting so I won't be here for dinner. Why don't you go to the konbini that's down the street and get some food? Just grab some money out of my purse."
So, here I was. I had enough money to get myself dinner as well as some extra things for the fridge. I wasn't ready to go yet, so I was in my room, unpacking my stuff. Plus, I wanted to explore this big house.
My bedroom was a decent size, and so were the closet and bathroom. As much as I was upset about moving, I was ecstatic to have a larger bedroom. I have the entire top floor, to myself. It felt like a blessing.
I dragged my bag full of clothes to my closet, tearing away at the plastic. Since I kept them on the hangers, all I had to do was hang them up. I turned on the light and was about to hang them up when I noticed something.
------ was here!
It was carved into the wall, but whoever's name was there was scratched out. But it wasn't only that, there were more carvings. Some stick figures, animals, and incoherent words. It looked like a kid did all of this -- a kid who spent too much time in here.
"Creepy," I muttered, hanging up my clothes.