I regained consciousness slowly. The pain in my stomach and the splitting headache I woke up to are both reminding me that I am still alive. Slightly opening me eyes, I noticed the sun light shining through the leaves was a brighter yellow color than the orange sun light of the afternoon that I last remembered. The cool Earth underneath me felt nice on my hot and aching body. I must have slept right where I blacked out all throughout the night. It’s laughable really. My first full day in a city I was supposed to manage and yet here I am, a few steps away from death by starvation. I have only spoken to one person here besides the Director.

If you can even call that “here”, that is. We were way above the city so I’m not really sure. I don’t really care either. All I want is some food and water. At least just enough to help with this headache.

Where am I, even? I remember yesterday I was on the path to the residential area… Did I make a wrong turn?

I lay there on the ground contemplating the situation, while trying and failing to get up and start moving again.

After a full five minutes of struggling I heard voices coming from somewhere above me.

I’m on a slope… What is up there? I was on the path last night, and if I remember correctly the old gramps at the corner store said that I might see a school… Is that where those voices are coming from?

“..ure..lu…un…ha…ou…run away…lut…”

I can’t really make out what they are saying… I wonder who it is… It’s summer right now so it couldn’t be the students…

Shortly after the I stop hearing the voices, I hear footsteps running down the slope. The rustle of leaves, and the soft whimpers of somebody tripping over things reaches my ears. The steps are getting closer and closer until:

“Iyaaaa!!”

I hear a short scream followed by the sound of what seems to be a body rolling and sliding down the incline.

Suddenly that body slides through my field of vision and stops by hitting a tree about 3 meters behind where I am laying.

………

I look down to the body which I can now see is that of a girl. She is wearing a blue school uniform that is tattered in several places from her sudden descent. She is covered in dirt, and has leaves in her disheveled hair. We both lay there for another minute. She likely got the air knocked out her and needs a moment to catch her breath.

Slowly she begins to move, rolling away from the tree to face me. She opens her eyes slowly and we make eye contact. Her eyes are red, and it looks like there are lines of tears running down her dirt covered face.

“….Hello?”

I can understand her confusion. I mean, it’s not every day you roll down a hill and find a man in a business suit laying down in the middle of the forest.

“…Hi…”

She slowly sits herself upright against the tree, and pulls a grey colored cooler out from between her body and the tree. My eyes lock onto the cooler. Never have I seen a more beautiful box. What wonders lay inside, only time would tell.

The girl is looking at me hesitantly. Well of course she is. Again, it’s not every day you find a man in a business suit laying down in the middle of the forest, staring intensely at you as if he was going to pounce on you right then and there.

She pauses for a moment and moves the box to the right. My eyes follow it. She moves it to the left. My eyes are locked on. She raises it above her head. My eyes are that of a hawk looking at its prey from afar. She moves it back behind her. No, please don’t do that. I’ll cry right here you know.

“…Do you want some?”

My stomach answers for me with a loud rumbling sound. The sound itself was impressive, but the pain it brought along with it was even more intense. I shook my head quickly, accepting her offer.

“It’s probably smashed now… are you sure?”

I weakly reach my left hand out to the side of my body. I don’t actually get any closer to her, but the meaning is clear. She opens the box and pulls out three pieces of bread in a bag, as well as a small plastic bottle with clear liquid in it.

While remaining seating in front of the tree, she lightly tosses the bag to me. I feel it brush my hand and land closer to my head. Reaching my arm up I grab the bag and… rip it to pieces. Desperately trying to get the bread out.

The first touch of my hand to the bread results in a flurry of emotion. Never has a piece of bread looked to good. Never has it felt so soft. Never have I ever been able to actually smell the grains in the bread like this before. I bring it to my mouth once dry mouth, now partially wet with saliva.

The first taste…. Unlike anything I have ever eaten before. I lay on the ground and tears come to my eyes while eating the three pieces of bread. The girl sees my reaction and gives me a concerned look.

“Do you want some of this…?”

She hold out the small plastic bottle to me.

“Yes…”

I weakly push out a response to her ever flowing kindness. An angel. An angel has fallen from heaven.

“It’s kind of special though…. It has sugar in it… that’s the way I like it…”

The young girl speaks softly to me as if she doesn’t want to give up her precious bottle, but seeing me in this state has prompted her to do so.

“I…it’s ok…”

I let out weak words of consent and she lightly tosses the bottle to me. She overshoots my body and the bottle lands above my head.

It slowly topples back down the slope towards be and nestles itself in between my shoulder and neck. I reach my right hand up this time, open the bottle, and drink.

This is heaven. This is life. This is the pinnacle of modern cuisine. Why have I never put sugar in my water. Why is this the best drink I have ever had.

No. I have never had a drink until now. Everything else was simply liquefied trash. I finish the bottle in a matter of seconds and we both remain silent for a few minutes after that. She sits with her back against the tree, looking at me who has my eyes closed.

I am slowly waiting for my head ache to subside. I feel alive again. I feel as if there is hope; a future. After what seems to be an eternity of silence she speaks to me quietly. Her voice is almost at the volume of a whisper, but the gently breeze in the forest, and the quiet serenity of nature carries her voice to my ears.

“…Did you like it?”

“It was… the best….”

I look at her and see a small smile spread across her dirty face. Good. My benefactor is happy. I am happy.

We stay in the same positions for another 30 minutes. Just listening to the sounds of the forest. Waiting for one of us to break the silence. As my head ache begins to fade away, I shift my gaze to meet her eyes. Slowly, very slowly, I roll onto my back and bring myself to a sitting position. Minding my sensitive head and body.

We don’t break eye contact the entire time. After bringing myself to a sitting position we continue to look at each other. Probing each other with our eyes in an effort to learn even a little more before we begin speaking.

My business suit is likely ruined.

Ahh… And to think I just got this too…

From laying on the forest floor all night, the entire front is moist. Dirt and the tiny insects that live there are plastered onto it. One half of my face has a thin layer crusted onto it, and im my hair are the same leaves the girl is currently wearing in her hair.

As for the girl, now that I look at her sitting up I can see her better. She is wearing a dark blue uniform that is almost black with what was once white, and is now mostly brown, trim. Her skirt goes to just above her knees. She is wearing standard black school shoes with socks that likely received the same treatment the trim on her uniform did. Her facial features are difficult to make out with the scratches, dirt, and small patches of blood mixed in, but it looks like if she was cleaned up she might actually be kind of cute. Her straight, shoulder length, dark brown hair would likely frame her face rather well if it wasn’t matted with dirt, twigs, and a few leaves. As for her womanly features, she seemed modestly endowed with a good figure. Perhaps C cup? A standard high school figure if you were to ask me. I bet she’s had her fair share of love confessions. However that just begs the question… what is she doing at the bottom of an incline densely covered in forest?

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“….Hi….”

I guess I should be the one to break the silence. If anything, I am probably the more threating person in this situation.

The girl looks back at me with far away eyes and nods her head gently.

“Well I bet you didn’t plan on this happening today…”

“un…”

Another brunt response… I could change her thoughts… but let’s just wait this out a little. And… didn’t I change everybody so that they would talk to me more readily? Did it not work?

“…You were hungry…”

“Ya… I hadn’t eaten in a little over a day and it looks like I passed out here…”

Silence…. Perpetual silence that lasted what seemed like an eternity.

I am awkward. Why, why am I so awkward!? Aghhh… what the heck! I mean, what am I supposed to say to a high school girl in this situation? Is there a book for this? A step by step guide? I don’t know! “101 Ways to Break the Ice After Meeting a Strange Business Man in the Forest” Ya, right! Like there would be a book like that!

“Oh…”

“… Are you ok from your fall?”

“I think so… the cooler ended up being a cushion between the tree and my body….”

“Well, that’s good. Isn’t it?”

“Ya…”

“So… what made you want to come into the forest in the first place?”

The girl looks down and whispers something:

“-i…-they…-threat.. I was- … -ing.. get away…”

“Sorry, what was that?”

“I just tripped and fell down here.”

It doesn’t look like whatever brought the girl down here is easy to talk about…. Then again what brought me to this place also isn’t easy to talk about.

“….Wow… that was quite a fall…”

“..un…”

“… Are you alright to move now?”

“Yes…”

Throughout our entire conversation I was looking into the girl’s eyes, and she was looking into mine. But what was reflected in her eyes… was nothing… There was nothing there. No light. No happiness. No high school girl who was going to get a confession behind the school building. Just nothing… Her dark eyes that were almost black reflected the tattered image of my current state like black ice. No emotion came from those eyes.

The girl slowly got up and began to brush her uniform off. Starting from her hair and making her way down her skirt. I followed her example and slowly stood up, careful not to fall back over from the dizziness that made the world around me swim. I slowly brushed off my suit. Not that it was going to help at all. It would have to be cared for by a real professional. Not a pair of hands that were equally as dirty as the cloth themselves.

Slowly, the girl turned around and limped her way down the slope. I followed after her. Because, what else would somebody do in that situation. She obviously knew where she was going, and I had no clue. We arrived at the old dirt road that ran alongside the even older looking paved road after a short walk down the slope. It was impressive really, that I walked as far as I did yesterday half blind and staggering like a drunk.

As soon as she got to the dirt road she turned left and started walking the direction I was heading towards yesterday.

“..W..Wait please…”

The girl turned around to me, looking at me with her eyes that showed no real interest in me or anything else in this world for that matter.

“…Yes?”

“Could you please guide me to the residential area? I was trying to get there yesterday… but I obviously lost my way…”

The girl paused for a moment.

“…Follow me.”

Without another word to each other, we walked silently along the dirt road. The sun had sunk to the position it was in yesterday, and its golden rays were shining deep into the valley the city of Haila resided in. The air was clear, the sky was blue, white clouds were spread across the sky and almost seemed to take on the golden color of the light of the sun. And the two of us were walking. Just a dirt covered high school girl, and a dirt covered man in a business suit.

Come to think of it, if anybody saw us like this the situation could seriously be misunderstood. I need the people here to ignore us as if the situation we were in was perfectly normal. That should do the trick…

We continued to walk down the abandoned dirt road, and after ten minutes or so of walking we could see houses concentrated in a small area, and as you looked out from that area the houses became more spread apart, with even some apartment complexes visible in some locations. There wasn’t anything too fancy. Just traditional housing with a max height of two stories. Electric lines stretched above the streets like the strands young spiders use to float to new locations.

The dirt road ended as we neared what I presumed was the residential area, and we began walking on the street. Normally it would be unsafe to walk there. However, I guess this city isn’t really the kind to see much traffic, as we didn’t see a single car the entire way.

“That’s the residential area.”

The girl stopped for the first time since we began walking, and she looked back at me to tell me we had arrived.

“If you follow this street you’ll go right through the entire thing. I don’t know where you’re going, but it should be really easy to find seeing as there really isn’t much here to begin with.”

I made up the short distance the girl and I had slowly built up over the walk and spoke to her from about 2 meters away.

“I see… thank you for taking me here. Also, thank you for sharing your food with me. I don’t know what I would have done if we hadn’t met like that…”

“..un…”

I look at the girl’s eyes one last time as I pass her by. This shouldn’t be the last time we meet considering I am supposed to be managing the city. But a good manager always divides up their time wisely, thus I can’t spend too much time on just one citizen. I have to maximize my effective range of services to maximize my results!

Or at least that’s what I learned in university…

I walk another two steps and hear a familiar noise. The sound of a stomach crying out in pain. I should know this sound well by now. I have heard it enough the past few days. Except it’s not my stomach that is crying out. Of course, I am still hungry. Man cannot survive on bread and sugar water alone!

If it isn’t me…

I turn around and look at the girl. She looks at me with emotionless black eyes. I ate her lunch. Which means all she has left in the box she’s carrying is an empty bag, and an empty water bottle.

Ahhh…. This is not good… I am supposed to be the one providing a better life for the people of this city. “To grow the city” was my goal, wasn’t it? This poor girl is going to be in the same situation I was because of my selfish actions….

I look down the street quickly and notice a small stall on the roadside right after you enter the residential district.

“….Follow me.”

Without another word I leave the girl behind.

Ahh… Of course she’s not going to follow you! What high school girl would follow a dirt guy in a suit they just met!?!?

I hear small footsteps behind me and realize she is walking behind me. We quickly walk to the small stall with a light on. It’s a very simple set up. A wood counter with a stove top behind in. An old lady behind that stove top smiling obliviously at two people who should never be seen together looking like one just finished struggling against the other on the ground of a dense forest.

She is selling Taiyaki. A cheap, quick snack. Definitely not to be used in place of a meal for every other responsibly functioning human being, however for us, it seemed like a meal for kings. I look over to the girl and see her swallowing the saliva accumulating in her mouth after smelling the unique scent of the food stall.

I have no money to my name.

In fact, I don’t even know how I am supposed to get paid….. That’s something I am going to have to go back to the office and talk about… Ah… that was so dumb of me… I got so excited over getting a job I didn’t even ask what the pay was… or even worse… DO I EVEN GET PAID?!

The panic begins to set in as I wonder where my livelihood is going to come from.

Okay… calm down… If I can control the hearts and thoughts of people… then can I…

“Could I get an order to two taiyaki filled with chocolate please, grandma?”

“Ei, ei… coming right!”

Two suspense filled minutes passed as I waited for the grandma to fill my order. I was about to just cancel the order, when the grandma handed me the taiyaki.

“Here you go, careful when you eat it! Come again!”

It worked… Oh my goodness….. I JUST GOT FOOD FOR FREE!

I handed the extra taiyaki to the girl and she looked at me with a confused look that said:

“Aren’t you going to pay?”

I ignored it and just continued to walk down the road, trying desperately to hide the excitement inside of me because of the realization that I wouldn’t be starving anymore.

Small footsteps echoed on the street behind me as we walked down the road into the setting sun. Silence continued to blanket the atmosphere we created between us, with only the occasional crumpling of the paper the taiyaki came in as the girl slowly ate it all. Eventually I heard her open her box up again to ever so neatly store the wrapping paper. As I turned around I noticed her glance at the taiyaki I hadn’t touched yet due to trying to contain my excitement. Her black emotionless eyes locked onto the snack in my hands.

“Take it, it’s yours.”

She hesitated at first, but then walked closer to me to grab it. Our bodies were only a meter apart as she took the taiyaki delicately from my hands. Almost as if I had just presented a precious jewel to her.

“…Thank you.”

“…un..”

This time it was my turn to be curt. I REALLY had wanted that taiyaki. But seeing her face just then, and remembering when she gave me her lunch compelled me to give up my meal to her.

We walked for another ten minutes straight until we walked right out of the residential district. There were still houses scattered around the area. Farmers houses, likely. With plenty of land in between each of them. Slightly farther down the road stood an old abandoned apartment building. Looking as if the minor development of the town had made people completely forget about it.

I could still hear the small footsteps behind me, and I hadn’t heard her finish the second taiyaki yet, so I continued to walk.

As I continued down the road I was surrounded by crop fields on the left side, and the apartment building coming up on the right. Getting closer allowed me to really get a good look at it. It was a two-story building with four rooms on each floor. A few of the windows were broken through and some of the doors were never going to shut completely again. The entire building looked as if the paint had been bleached by countless years of sun, then subsequently exposed to rainfall for another ten years. The weeds in front of the building looked almost as if they were going to overtake the first floor rooms at any time. There were pieces of trash laying around the property, and traces of old spray paint could be seen on various places of the building.

As I was walking past the building the small footsteps behind me stopped.

Did she finish her taiyaki already?

I turned around to look at the girl. She still has her taiyaki safely tucked into the store sourced wrapping paper, held by her slender white hands.

“…Thank you… for the taiyaki…”

“Ya… thank you for sharing your lunch with me. It seriously saved me.”

“un… I’m glad… If you don’t mind me asking… what is your name?”

“Ahh… Tatsuo Kei, but everyone just calls me Kei. Also, sorry for dragging you all the way out here with me. I just kept walking and you were only following me to be kind. I really am grateful for that. Could I get your name by chance? Also, do you need me to walk you home? It’s getting kind of late… It will be dark soon…”

“Kei… un… I will remember that… Its ok I don’t need to be walked home.”

“Are you sure? It’s really no trouble to me at all. You’ve already done so much for me today.”

“ nnn… No, Kei… You asked me for my name so I’ll give it to you. My name is Nakamura Akira…”

She takes one slender white hand off of her precious treasure and points to the run down apartment building with a single finger.

“…and this is where I live.”