“Akira! Where do you think you’re going?!”
I blew off my mom as she tried to stop me and just barged right out the front door. My footsteps thumped against the metal steps as I ran down the external staircase of our apartment building. I was totally pissed. Ready to never come back again, or better yet—do something stupid and reckless, just because I knew it would piss them off.
It was eight o’clock at night. Already dark outside. When I made it down onto the pavement, I just turned and started heading down the sidewalk. I didn’t care where I was going. All I knew was that if I didn’t keep walking right now, I’d probably break down.
God, I can’t stand them.
I wouldn’t even care about my mom yelling at me usually. And I could put up with my stupid-ass dad treating me like crap. But the one thing I just couldn’t handle was my mom taking his side when I’d only been trying to stick up for her. Why the hell would she get mad at me for blowing up at him? He was the one always treating her like a goddamn slave. How dare she slap me over it. Wasn’t she sick and tired of that stupid prick walking all over her too? Did she really care more about that dickwad than me?
What the hell, man…? What’s her problem?
As I walked down the road, I rubbed my cheek. My skin was still stinging slightly where my mother had slapped it. Everything still felt so raw, and the more I thought about it, the more I could feel simmering heat welling up from behind my eyes.
No. Don’t you dare cry right now. If you cry, they win. Be angry, damn it.
“Stupid assholes…”
I kicked a nearby lamppost as hard as I could, but it didn’t make me feel better one bit. If anything, it only made me feel embarrassed when passersby started rubbernecking like I was some sort of crazy person. And then I realized that I was still wearing my school uniform. I’d crashed hard and taken a nap the moment I got home this afternoon. Then I got woken up for dinner, and I was planning to take a bath after—but then all the family drama went down, and I ran out of the house without ever changing clothes. Luckily, I was still sane enough to throw my baseball jacket on before I left, but I didn’t think to grab my wallet. The only thing I had on me right now was my phone.
I didn’t know what to do now.
I had no place to go, no friends who’d let me stay at their place for the night. But the one thing I knew I definitely didn’t want to do was go back home with my tail between my legs and have to deal with that whole situation, so I started walking in the direction of Hakodate Station. Right now, I just wanted to be someplace where there’d be a lot of people around. Maybe that would help distract me from all these negative emotions.
A sudden gust of wind from the bay came whistling in, throwing my hair into a disheveled mess. Ugh. This was exactly why I hated living near the ocean. The salt in the air made your skin all sticky, and if I never had to smell the scent of seawater again for the rest of my life, it would still be too soon. I hated everything about this place, though, to be fair—acting like it was some big, important city when it was really just a backwater hick town in disguise, way out in the middle of nowhere. And not only that, but since it was right at the southern tip of Hokkaido, it was just far enough away from legit cities like Aomori and Sapporo that it still cost a bunch of time and money to go to either. Sure, we had some foods and other stuff we were famous for, but I didn’t even like squid all that much.
I just wanted to get the hell out of here—go somewhere far, far away.
The big city would be nice. Somewhere with actual stuff to do and see, to help fill the void of angst and emptiness I knew I’d never escape as long as I was stuck living in a place like this. But even though Sapporo seemed nice and all, I’d rather pick somewhere that would let me get off this island altogether. Like Tokyo, for example. Someplace warmer, where there’d always be a lot more going on.
With all these thoughts of the big city’s hustle and bustle running through my head, I wandered around the general vicinity of Hakodate Station for a while, where there was nothing going on and nothing to do. But of course there wasn’t—what was I expecting?
Eventually, I got tired of walking and took a seat on a bench in the station plaza. I didn’t have any money on me, so I couldn’t go anywhere to actually do or buy anything. Once again, I really wished I’d had the foresight to bring my wallet with me.
I shoved my hands in my coat pockets and tried to figure out where the hell my life was gonna go from here. But thinking about it realistically only made me feel more and more depressed as my anger slowly gave way to anxiety. It felt like my mind was just trapped in a pessimistic spiral, and I had no idea where to go or what to do.
Thankfully, it wasn’t all that cold out tonight, at least for late October. But my heart still felt pretty frozen over as I checked my phone for the zillionth time and saw that it was past ten o’clock. Late enough that a high schooler like me would probably get escorted home if she were caught walking around town by anyone with authority. And there were a lot of people passing through the plaza still. Maybe it would be smart to find a more secluded spot to post up for a while. Not that I had anywhere else in mind, but—
“Hey, you,” a voice called out. “What are you doing over there?”
I looked up to see a middle-aged man in a tattered old suit gazing over at me. For a split second, I thought he might be a teacher from my high school, and my defensive instincts kicked in. But after a moment’s thought, I realized I’d never seen his face before, and his tone didn’t sound hostile, so I assumed he wasn’t trying to get me in trouble.
“Nothing much…” I said dismissively.
“You waiting to meet up with someone, or what?” said the man. “Been sitting there for a while now.”
Oh, great. So this guy’s been watching me, huh?
“Yeah, so what? It’s none of your business.”
“You’re still in high school, aren’t you? You shouldn’t be out wandering around this late. Better head home soon. Or is there a reason you don’t want to head home?”
He hit the nail on the head, but I didn’t respond. Didn’t want to give this guy any room to keep prying further. So instead, all I did was sharpen my gaze and keep staring at him in an unconcerned but threatening way as if to say: Don’t mess with me, pal.
“Hey, hey. Come on, now—no need to glare at me like that. It’s not like I’m gonna bite you or anything,” he said with an awkward laugh. “Say, I know—I was just on my way to grab myself a bite for dinner. Why don’t you come with me?”
“…Not hungry,” I said tersely.
“Well, how about a little treat, then? I know an izakaya nearby that makes some great desserts. If you don’t have anywhere else to go, you might as well join me for some free food and conversation. I don’t mind listening, assuming you want to talk about it.”
This dude was being awfully pushy—but he didn’t strike me as a bad guy, at least. Seemed to have a reasonable head on his shoulders, especially since all he’d said at first was that I should probably head on home. And it wasn’t like he was inviting me back to his house or anything weird like that. If all he wanted to do was hear me out and give me some free food because he felt weirdly sorry for me or whatever, I supposed I didn’t mind taking him up on the offer. Gave me an excuse to stay out a little longer too.
And so I nodded.
“Great, then let’s go,” said the man. “It’s just right up around the corner here.”
I followed him. I wasn’t even looking for petty sympathy or anything like that. I just wanted something—anything—to distract me from how utterly hopeless I felt right now, if only for a little while. I could think about what to do next while we ate.
After walking down the sidewalk for about ten minutes, we arrived at an izakaya right in the heart of downtown, where we were quickly seated at a table way in the back of the restaurant. As the host led us back there, I caught a few of the other customers casting curious and judgmental glances in my direction, but no one actually said anything.
The man ordered a beer along with some sashimi and tempura, and I asked for this castella sponge cake kinda deal topped with fresh whipped cream. When they brought our food out to the table, and the man reached up to take his from the waitress, I noticed a wedding ring on his left hand. After the waitress left, he noticed me staring at it.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, twisting the ring around his finger. “So the thing is, my wife and I had a pretty big disagreement the other day. Now things just feel awkward whenever I’m at home—like I can’t do anything right—so I’ve been staying out as late as possible.”
“…You don’t say,” I replied, uninterested but amused by the coincidence.