Seventeen years is a long time to live a life if every day brings a new sadness. Just like how people say that time moves faster when you enjoy what you are doing, perhaps time moves slower when things just aren’t worth enjoying. When thinking about the impact that things leave on our lives though, perhaps the people that become accustomed to depravity and an unfortunate way of life are the luckiest. Because unlike the people that are exposed to kindness every day and think nothing of it, one small act of kindness from somebody else can change an entire world for somebody who rarely experiences it.

My life seemed to be full of long moments. Times when I would lay and just wait for the day to pass by. I was used to the things that I did to cause me pain. Going outside, interacting with the neighbors, making friends… Those were things that every person should enjoy doing normally, but for me, it was different.

I never had a father. I didn’t even have the idea of one. From a young age I just came to accept that I only had a mother. At a certain point, of course I knew that I had to have some sort of father to be born, but an existence like that was just never in my life. Maybe that is one of the things that distanced me from the people around me? From the beginning I can remember people staring. Speaking behind my back, thinking I wasn’t listening.

“Uahh.. That’s her.. The one…-“

“Ya… I heard… mother…”

My early memories in this valley were filled with memories like that. People from school that I would meet would be nice to me one day, then stop speaking to me altogether the next. At first it hurt. It hurt to be alone. I wanted so badly to be able to play with everybody else. To have somebody to call a friend. But it never happened. I turned to my mother for answers. Why were people like this? Was it me? Was I the problem?

“Ehh? Akire? Wait- Akira… Isn’t it just you? All the other kids have friends. Go on and move away from me, you smell and I don’t want to get dirty before tonight.”

Comments like that were the only thing I can remember from my mother during the time she was with me at our apartment.

Our apartment was special… Not because of the people that lived there, but for the location it was in. I could see the sun setting over the valley, and watch the light shine off the river, twinkling like a million stars. I wished that I could look like that. Then maybe I could make friends. Maybe if I could be as captivating as the river twinkling under the setting sun, my mother would love me.

I remember looking in a piece of mirror I found one day laying on the ground. I desperately hoped the sun’s setting rays would illuminate the image I saw just like it did with the river… But by that time, it was too late. What I saw in the mirror was a girl with the deepest, darkest eyes I had ever seen in a human. Eyes that formed pools of black that didn’t seem to have a bottom to them.

Ah… these eyes of mine… maybe they are another reason my life is like this?

I continued through many years of pointless schooling. I was never going to leave this valley, why did I need to know any of these things. I could easily make enough to live here by working in one of the surrounding fields. Surprisingly though I didn’t hate it. I made decent grades, but I was never good enough to ever deserve any merit. What was the point of it anyways for somebody like me?

The only thing I ever actively tried to avoid becoming was… my mother. As I grew older, I came to know how she made her money. Why the women of the town I lived in looked at me as an enemy. And why the men, as I grew older, only seemed to look at me when they thought I wasn’t looking.

I was sleeping one night in my eighth year of education. I awoke to the door opening and I could hear my mother coming inside. I knew where she had been. What she had been doing. But never before this night had she ever brought her… work… home with her. I pretended to be sleeping in the corner of the room. I could hear whispers coming from the other side of the small room, my mom was lightly laughing and joking with whoever else was there. I heard her refer to me and then a silence filled the air. I thought that they had decided to leave it at that until I felt a hand touch my arm. One much larger than what I was used to. One that I was sure was not my mother’s.

I quickly got up and pushed the man away from me. I ran outside with tears falling down my face. Replaying the sound of laughter coming from my drunk mother and the man she brought home as he fell over. I sat by the river crying and watching the moonlight hit the water. The reflected light was shining again like the stars in the sky.

I waited until morning to go back home, a few hours after the sun rose. I returned and met my mother laying with her back against the wall still drunk, her clothes and hair were a mess.

“Ehh.. Akira huh…”

I looked at her in disgust. Asking her with my eyes why. Why would she let that happen. Why would she laugh like that. Why… when I was her daughter…

“Ahh don’t look at me like that. It was your own fault for being here while I was working to keep a roof over your head. You should have let him play a little, we could have gotten some extra cash off him.”

That was the last time I ever wanted to speak with my mother. I would never want to be around her from that day forward. Over the next few years we really didn’t see each other much. She was never at the house anymore. It was fine with me. I was fine with being alone. And with each passing day of being alone, my already dark eyes felt like they only got darker.

It was the summer of my second year when I went to summer school for the first time. I was never a bad student, so I never had a reason to be forced to attend. The past semester however, ended with my final paper being stolen by a classmate. In the end I found that they never even turned it in to get credit for it. They just tore it up and threw it into the forest. But that was why I was here. I had to take remedial classes or I wouldn’t move on.

This was fine for me except for that the people who normally were responsible for the things that happened in my life all seemed to be concentrated in one class. Not a big problem. Or rather… that’s what I thought. The girls in my class called me out to the back of the school during lunch one day. More precisely, they called me out because they stole my lunch.

I may be a lot of things, but I am definitely not one to waste food. So I went to meet them to take back the remainder of my food for the next few days. By this time I had experienced this routine multiple times before. I go, they do what they feel like is the worst thing they can do to me, and in the end I get my lunch back. Rarely does the food ever end up as the victim in these scenarios.

I went to the back of the school and saw three girls there. They were the ones that sat themselves around me in class, likely to be in close proximity to their target.

I don’t care, as long as the food isn’t hurt. They laugh and sneer at me.

“Ah, look! She actually came!”

“Ha! Hilarious!”

“Hey Akira! You want your food back, right?”

I nod my head and they throw my small grey cooler to me.

Strange… NO! The food inside!

I quickly check the contents of the box. All food is accounted for and undamaged. Which isn’t much really, just a few slices of bread and water with some sugar in it for taste.

But then… what are they going to do now? They gave me back my reason for coming here… Isn’t this backwards?

“OK! She’s here!”

It was then that I understood what was happening. Four of the boy students from the remedial classes came out from behind a corner and from the forest. They were all third year students.

“Nehhh..! We helped you get her here, now give us our reward!”

“Ya, ya, here’s the money we promised you.”

One of the boys gave some money to the leader of the girl trio.

“Thank you for your business! Enjoy!”

The girl trio walked away while laughing.

“Now then… Let’s see… Akira, you have such a nice body despite being from such a dirty mother. Maybe you know some tricks from her?”

“Ya! Maybe you could show them to us? Hmm?”

The boys start surrounding me and backing me up to the wall of the school. The teacher won’t hear me if I scream, and the girls are likely giving their friends here time….

I see hands reaching out to me… I remember that night long ago… Tears start flowing down my face.

“Come on! Don’t be like that! Give us a smile! It will feel better soon!”

No… no no no no no please no… I want to cry for help but there is nobody… Nobody… If only there was somebody, just one person I could call for help, maybe my life wouldn’t be this way. Maybe it wouldn’t always turn out like this.

Tears are rolling down my face as I hold my cooler to my chest. I close my eyes and kick off the back of the building with everything I have. I keep my eyes closed tightly so I don’t have to see them. So I don’t have to see their hands reaching towards me. I run without stopping as fast as I can until I feel the ground fall away beneath me.

Ah. come to think of it this school was at the top of a slope. At least I didn’t let them touch me...

And with that thought I began to roll my way down the slope, letting out small screams as I hit various things on the way down. My foot caught on something and it ended up slowing me down considerably. I slid over leaves and dirt and see a tree right in my path. I quickly put my slightly soft cooler in between myself and the tree before I hit it.

Uhhhgg…. Ahh… I’m alive I guess.

It takes some time to become fully aware of my surroundings. But when I do finally catch my breath and get a look around, I notice something that does not belong in this forest.

A man in a business suit, a very dirty business suit, is currently laying in front of me. I have been in many forests before considering this city is in the middle of a valley. But this is the first time I have ever met a man in a business suit laying in one of the forests.

“…Hello?”

I look at him, and he looks at me. It is hard to tell who is more confused. The one seeing a man in a business suit laying on the forest floor, or the one who just saw a high school girl slide into a tree.

“…Hi…”

Oh! My food!

I move the cooler out from behind me and immediately the man looks at me intently. Or rather, not at me, but at the cooler.

Between a man in a business suit laying on the forest floor, or a high school girl laying against a tree, it is hard to tell who is the least fortunate between the two of us.

I move the cooler around a bit and his eyes continually follow it.

Ah… I have been in his place before… In that case…

I gave him some of my food and special water.

He really seemed to enjoy it. At a certain point it almost looked as if he was crying as he ate my meal for the next few days. That is good. It seems I made the right decision. He appreciated it more than I would have.

We both work on standing up and cleaning ourselves off, and he asks to be shown where the residential area of the city is.

I lead him to where he wants to go, and he looks at me hesitantly.

Oi, I don’t have any more food you know.

He tells me to wait for a moment and he leaves to go do something. When he comes back he has a small bag in his hand. From the smell I already know what it is. It is the old grandma’s taiyaki filled with chocolate. She’s made them on this street for years. I never have the money to buy one, and even if I did, the grandma always gives me bad looks so I am hesitant to speak with her.

The man looks hesitantly at the bag, then back to me.

Ah… he wants them. I guess he should have them then.

But the man instead gave me the bag and all of its contents. I looked inside and saw two chocolate filled taiyaki.

He let me eat both of them and walked with me all the way back home.

While this may sound rather pathetic, this was the first time in my life somebody had given me something that could have benefited them. The first time in my life that somebody had thought of me before themselves. Even if it was repayment for the bread and water I gave him earlier, I could tell he wanted it initially. Yet he gave them both to me.

Tatsuo Kei... Kei… The name of the first person to put me before their self…

Thinking back on it all… Ah… I don’t know… Perhaps, if you were to compare my life to somebody in a different situation, you could say that I have truly lived an unfortunate life. But maybe, just maybe, you could say I have lived the most fortunate life of all. Because nobody who has even grown accustomed to love and kindness will ever be able to taste simple chocolate filled taiyaki as delicious as the two that were given to me that day…