Chapter Text
"I'm going to ask you one last time. Are you sure you're really going to leave?"
The early morning breeze blows over the railway station.
The sun rises over the village as a figure who I had once called "brother" stands before me.
“I've made up my mind. I'm finding a life of my own out there, and I'm not returning here. Not now, and hopefully not ever."
"...I see."
The train will take me on a three-hour ride out from this town and into Tokyo.
After that, I'm completely by myself.
This place is the closest I have to a home, and I will be abandoning it.
It would be strange if I said I don't feel a tinge of sadness from departing, but I have no regrets choosing this path.
It’s something I must do if I want to move forward.
“Then, please take this. I’m going to feel bad if I don’t give you a gift as well.”
From his pocket, he takes out a small box and puts it in my hand.
"This is…"
“You're going to Kitazawa, right? You're going to need this more than I do. Now go, Yuri, the train is waiting for you."
"...! I understand. I'll try to keep in touch after I get there."
"Farewell, Kenji."
My name is Asahina Yuri, a first year high school student.
Growing up, I never knew who my parents were.
I lived most of my life in an orphanage located deep in the countryside, barely going to the cities if ever.
Life here isn't so interesting as it is uneventful.
Every day was like the other, following a set schedule day in and day out.
We only had each other to take care of ourselves, the old leading the young, and the young leading the younger.
Waiting for an adoptive parent who will never come, nobody amongst us became too close with one another.
It was a constant stagnancy, and that life wasn't for me.
I've been making the necessary preparations to leave all the way since middle school, and today will be the culmination of all my efforts these past three years.
Next week I will be enrolling in a high school in Setagaya, and I will be leaving this place.
"This is it, there's no turning back now," I said to myself.
I grip my luggage tight and walk into the train.
The door closes itself as the train starts moving.
I sit myself on a seat closest to the exit.
From the windows, the village I once lived in already seems so small, like a distant memory of the past.
Not long after, the village is already too far from view, and uninhabited farmlands overtake the view.
A new life awaits me in the city, and I will take that life for myself.
"Thank you for waiting. The next stop is———"