Prologue
SITTING ALONE IN THE PARK, a teenage girl gazed up at the night sky. The
lights of the town mostly obscured the stars, but she still saw a few here
and there. Her breaths were white vapor and her cheeks and ears were
turning red from the cold. Yet she continued to sit there, staring upward.
She'd pulled a coat on over her school uniform, as well as a pair of
gloves, although she'd worn holes through the fingers of those. There was
also a hole in her coat's right pocket, and since it always reopened
however many times she mended it, she'd given up and simply stopped
putting things in there.
It definitely hadn't been this cold back when she began her habit of
sitting on this park bench to pick out stars in the sky. It wasn't that she
particularly liked stargazing. For her, it was simply a way to escape reality.
On the bench beside her were her schoolbag and a reusable
shopping bag full of items she'd bought at a grocery store.
"I should be getting home," she murmured.
Having finished school and her shift at her part-time job, all that
remained was to return home, but the girl—Akui Kanami—had begun
killing time in this park recently out of a desire to avoid going straight
there at night.
As Kanami stood up, her long black hair swayed behind her. By no
means was it properly cared for, but someone had once told her it looked
good on her, so she hesitated to cut it short. Her friends envied her slender
build, saying she looked like a model, but she was only thin because she
was so busy working and studying that she lost weight without even
trying. In fact, she was almost gaunt. She'd inherited her mother's good
looks, though, so she was popular at school despite how exhausted she
appeared every day. Her sharp eyes made her seem strong-willed, and she
was always listless in class, but boys seemed to like that. Of course,
Kanami had no time to enjoy her youth, so it made no difference to her
how boys felt about her.
With a small sigh, Kanami trudged home. Arriving at a run-down
apartment building with cheap rent, she climbed a rusty staircase and
finally stood before her door. A light was on inside, and she could faintly
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hear the TV. Her "roommate" was home, same as always.
"Nothing ever changes," Kanami said, wishing she could expel all
her negative feelings with her sighs.
Taking out her key, she fought the door a little to get it to creak
open. She was used to this routine, yet she couldn't help but feel like
reality was thrust in her face anew every time she opened this door.
"I'm home," she said curtly, taking off her coat and hanging it up.
There was no response, so she peered into the apartment and saw
her mother asleep, the TV still on. Kanami frowned, staring down at the
woman. She was a sorry sight, using the kotatsu for a nap. Her hair was
dry and greying, she was getting wrinkles, and she was pudgy from a lack
of exercise. She looked older than other women her age.
Empty snack food packaging was scattered on the table in front of
her. Clearing it away, Kanami shot her mother another sharp glare. "You
really don't change."
Kanami was forced to work part-time, but her mother spent every
day at home like this instead of working herself. Once, Kanami's mother
had been thin and beautiful, and she'd been livelier and more active, as
well. Kanami recalled her wearing fashionable clothes, and they'd often
gone out together on days off. Now, however, no trace of that woman was
left.
Once, the two of them had been happy. No, the three of them.
Kanami headed to the kitchen, took the marked-down side dishes
she'd bought out of her grocery bag, and began preparing dinner.
Hearing noise in the kitchen, her mother woke. Her face, which bore
little resemblance to that of the mother in Kanami's memories, lit up.
"You're home!"
"Yes," Kanami said, her back turned to her mother. "Dinner will be
ready soon."
"Never mind that!" her mother screeched, though Kanami was busy
preparing food. "You got paid today, right? How much did you make?"
Kanami's hands stopped moving. With a deep sigh, she took out her
wallet. Inside was a little more than fifty thousand yen. Removing twenty
thousand, she slammed the money down on the kotatsu table.
"There! Are you happy?"
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Her mother pounced on the bills, but when she realized they only
totaled twenty thousand, she looked up at Kanami in surprise. "This is it?
How are we supposed to live on this?" she protested.
Kanami felt a weight settling heavily in her chest. She couldn't bear
to look at her mother, so she responded with her back turned. "You
shouldn't expect much from a student's part-time job. This is your fault
anyway, isn't it, Mom? They took us off welfare because you—"
"It's not my fault!" her mother interrupted, looking away and
scowling. "I just wanted to earn some spending money so I could buy you
things, Kanami."
When she heard those excuses, Kanami raised her voice. "You mean
you wanted to buy things for yourself! Besides, I told you not to!"
Her mother buried her face in the kotatsu blanket and began to cry.
"Why do these things always happen to me? It didn't used to be like this. I
want things to go back to the way they were..."
She's avoiding reality again, Kanami thought as her mother
reminisced about the past, weeping. This always happens when anyone
blames her for something. Kanami was disgusted. But then, with a start,
she realized that she'd been doing the same thing on the bench in the park.
I'm just like her. I can't accept reality any better than she can. It wasn't
just her mother who wanted to return to happier times. Kanami wanted the
same thing.
She couldn't stand watching her mother cry any longer, so she
dropped the subject. "I'll make dinner." She'd just eat, do her homework,
and go to bed.
As she resigned herself to the routine, her mother raised her head
and made a suggestion. "Kanami, do you want a job that would make you
a little more money?"
What's that supposed to mean? Kanami turned and looked at her
mother, surprised to see her serious expression. "I have school, too,
remember?" She wanted to at least graduate.
"You won't get into college, so it doesn't matter if you graduate
high school, does it?" her mother persisted. "You should just get a job you
don't need a degree for. You're pretty, like I was, so you can make a lot of
money now, while you're still young."
"Wh-what are you saying?" Kanami was getting a bad feeling about
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this. She wanted to trust her mother, but...
"There's nighttime work, isn't there? You'd be popular in no time as
long as you lied about your age, Kanami."
Kanami was disgusted by her mother's unabashed smile. "No way!"
she yelled, rejecting her mother's suggestion out of hand. "Why don't you
work? How can you sit there doing nothing while your daughter supports
you?! Go make your own money!"
Her fervent pleas didn't faze her mother. "Don't be ridiculous! I got
married right out of college. I have no work experience! Besides, every
time I try working part-time, I get fired right away."
Her mother had worked a few jobs, but she'd quit each one after
putting in hardly any time at all. It was always for a stupid reason, too: a
younger worker chewing her out, or getting in trouble for ignoring a task
she'd been given. Kanami never wanted to believe those stories. Each time
she heard one, it reminded her anew how pathetic her mother was.
Acting like the heroine in some terrible tragedy, her mother
continued, "I'd be too embarrassed to work part-time at my age. Hourly
wages are so low, too. I couldn't take it. What did I even do to deserve this
in the first place?"
Kanami thought her mother's complaint was ridiculous. What did
you do? You ruined everything! You...and me...
"This is all your fault!" Kanami shouted, her fists clenched. "You
betrayed Dad, and we lost everything because of it! And Dad... You
brought this all on yourself!"
Their happy family had fallen apart after her mother's betrayal of
her father. Before they knew it, they'd found themselves living in this run-
down apartment.
"You said you liked your new papa better, too, Kanami!" her mother
retorted.
There was nothing Kanami could say to defend herself when her
mother threw the words Kanami had said to her father back at her. Before
she even realized what she was doing, she'd run out of the apartment.
***
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Kanami fled back to the park where she killed time after work every
evening. No one was around, which made the area a little creepy, but she
didn't care about that right now. All that mattered was staying away from
her mother. Seated on her bench, Kanami hung her head, just wanting to
be alone.
"I'm tired...Dad..."
She recalled her happy childhood. She'd had a beautiful mother...
and a kind father. He worked hard, and when he came home, he always
played with Kanami. Whenever she acted out, he scolded her gently, a
troubled smile on his face. He could be harsh at times, but he definitely
loved them. Kanami still remembered the feeling of her father's hand
gently stroking her long hair. Her memories of him were warm and sweet.
But Kanami had betrayed him.
"Dad...I'm sorry... I'm really sorry. I was so stupid..." Kanami's
tears dropped to the ground as she thought of her father, whom she would
never see again. "If I hadn't said I preferred Papa...would Dad not have
died?"
Kanami still regretted those words.
Back then, her mother had been having an affair, and the man she
was cheating on Kanami's father with bought Kanami anything she wanted
whenever they met. That was all it had taken to win over Kanami, who
was just a child at the time. She'd compared the man to her father, who
sometimes scolded her, and started to wish that this other man was her dad
instead. That was why she'd been innocently happy when her mother told
her, "This man is your real father." From that day on, she'd called the man
"Papa" and adored him.
If she could go back to that time now, she would beat the crap out of
her younger self.
After that, her parents had divorced, and Kanami told her father she
preferred her papa. She couldn't forgive herself now for feeling no
remorse upon seeing her father's heartbroken expression at her words.
Shortly after, her new papa had abandoned her and her mother.
Apparently, he hadn't loved them after all. It took her a long time, but
Kanami finally realized that it was her dad who'd truly loved her, even if
he wasn't her biological father. By then, however, she'd lost everything,
and her dad had already died. When she realized she'd never be able to see
him again, much less apologize, she fell into deep despair.
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"This must be punishment for betraying Dad. If it is, I guess all I can
do is accept it."
She deserved this for turning her back on her father. She went
beyond merely accepting her punishment—she wanted to be punished.
"Maybe quitting school and working instead wouldn't be so bad. I
could live on my own, too... Huh?"
Kanami had been gazing up at the night sky, and was suddenly
surprised by light coming from beneath her. She shot up from the bench,
looked down, and saw something like a magic circle below her.
"What's going—"
Before she could finish, she vanished from the park.
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