Yumiko had wanted to get away from home since early on, to get away where evil could not get her. But she couldn't resist, because where would she go? To her father, who lives in another city, and occasionally comes to see her? Not a fact, since Yumiko had a talent for learning. Tokyo teaches better than any other city. Since the first grade, she went to the same school, which was one of the big ones in the city. It made no sense to move to her father's place, since there would be no strong teachers and tutors in his city, which is the capital. Yumiko shut herself up in her room for days, as in her own world, which embodied her fantasies. She tried to believe in a fiction where she had a full and happy family. Quitting school, she insisted, was pointless - it was the only door that could open a passageway to ordinary life. Seeing her mother drinking alcohol and staring mindlessly at the television once when she was younger, the scene soon began to repeat itself throughout her nine years, each time worsening the girl's desire to have a better family. Her face grew cold and indifferent until Yumiko finally withdrew into herself.

There was always one scene going on in her house, from her childhood to her present period. At one point, a furious and drunken mother slapped her in the face, asking her why Yumiko didn't pick up the phone. At another time, the girl felt the same pain from the slap, but her mother complained that she hadn't made breakfast. The third time, the same slap sounded, followed by a shout: "Take out the trash, dumbass!"

Outside the door in her room, the girl could constantly hear the screams and grunts of her mother, whose mental situation was getting worse every year because of alcohol. Lying on her bed, she wondered to herself why she didn't have a regular, loving family. Sitting outside the door, questions came to her mind as to why she could not have an ordinary life. The maiden dreamed of being an ordinary girl with an ordinary character and ordinary friends. For her, these thoughts became reveries. She lived her whole life without her mother's support, in incessant agony.

As a child, she had promised herself that she would run away from home, and she repeated this promise every time she was sad, thereby motivating herself to move on. Thus the promise has been kept for nine years, and she has not stopped repeating it, lying on her bed with her cheek reddened by another slap. In the afternoon, when she was at home doing her schoolwork on her subjects, she glanced at her pen and wondered wistfully when she would move to the university, where she would live alone, without the presence of her hated mother. Meanwhile, the date of August 28 of last year was marked on the calendar.

Akiko and Tomoyuki stood in the open area by the fountain in the same square. The girl could not find common ground with him, for she did not know what Tomoyuki might be thinking, or what was always going on in his head. To her, this young man's desires were alienated from this world.

"Listen, what do you do in your leisure time?" swung her legs at Akiko sitting on the bench, looking bored at the standing Tomoyuki.

"I'm making plans for the near future. Truth be told, I haven't been very good at thinking about things to come lately," the boy chuckled frustratedly, and taking his backpack off his back, started rummaging through it with his hand.

"Do you repent of the things you've done?"

"Like what?" he didn't pay attention, continuing to search for something.

"For example, your conscience took its toll, and you walked around with a guilty head, pondering your rightness."

"Judging by that kind of detail, you certainly had to. And I..." half-spoken, the young man finally took the long thing out of his bag. Akiko saw him stick out a bubble wand.

"I'm not doing anything outrageous," Blue-eyed youth agreed, spreading a welcoming smile.

"Are you really going to blow bubbles out of that stick?"

"How else?"

"Isn't that childish?" smirked Akiko, crossing her legs. "Or is that how you soothe yourself? The girl's been gone a long time, apparently."

Separating the product from the lid, Tomoyuki blew into a soap stick, small bubbles popping out of its holes at first, but large bubbles followed. Taking a deep breath, Tomoyuki raised the stick to the sky and blew again. Three times as many bubbles appeared, and they flew around the guy at a low pace. One bubble flew up to the face of a puzzled Akiko, and bumped against her little nose and exploded unnoticed.

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"What's the point?" wondered Akiko in confusion, and she discerned a slight, meek smile on the satisfied Tomoyuki's face. The bubbles continued to appear until the guy stopped exhaling the last of the air from his lungs. "What are you happy about?"

"I'm content with the little things. It would seem, how can ordinary bubbles make a man happy...I'm lucky to have such everyday things in my life."

"Do you enjoy spending time with the guys at the club? What about your contempt?"

Tomoyuki turned to face the girl. Then she saw his wry smile and kind blue eyes, which reeked of bright sincerity.

In the light of day, during a school routine, Ryou and Tomoyuki randomly met and sat alone in the club room.

With each new day, the November sun grew pale with the cold and the arrival of intermittent clouds. When the time came for the thick clouds to cover the blue sky, citizens would realize that true autumn had arrived. For now, everyone was content with bright sunshine.

"What a meanness!" swung Tomoyuki pompously. "Before we can straighten up, it's already New Year's Eve. It's only three months!"

"Indeed..." said Ryou quietly, wiggling his chin sideways. "And not long ago, summer was nurturing."

"Listen, Ryou-kun, how are you going to spend your winter vacation? With your family?"

"Oh... I don't even know. Probably here."

"Aren't you visiting?" Tomoyuki leaned his head on his arm. "I thought you said you decided to finish your last year of school in Tokyo."

"Yes, I used to live in Kyoto."

"So you moved here with your parents? Or did they stay for work?"

"No... Actually, my parents moved to Osaka."

Tomoyuki's eyes flashed in confusion. After thinking briefly, the boy asked:

"So you want to spend New Year's Eve in Tokyo? Do you have relatives here?"

"I live with my older sister."

"How cool!" gleamed Tomoyuki with his black hair and blue eyes. "We can celebrate the New Year with the whole literary circle. Are you excited about that, Ryou-kun?"

"Ah... of course," Ryou squeezed out a friendly but dull smile. "We'll celebrate the New Year together."

"And how's your older sister? Maybe she can join in, too?"

"No, she can't. She'll be busy working in the New Year, too."

The blue-eyed guy hushed and lowered his temper. Pensive, he inquired of Ryou:

"How are things with you and her?"

"She and I are thick as thieves," Ryou replied modestly, causing his friend to raise his shoulders. "Like a single organism. Sometimes I'm surprised myself when she helps me. It's like she knows what I'm going to do from the beginning. But I'm not bad either! We are inseparable."

"Wow… I guess you two have a lot in common?"

Ryou subsided, following up by stroking his chin. He remembered the words Megumi kept telling him on a lucky occasion when they were sitting under their favorite tree. Her gentle words, overflowing her younger brother's caressing ears, voiced a story she had told many times before:

"There is a deep, green forest at one point in the world. It is said that people who entered the very forest soon came out with happy faces. This forest, they said, fulfilled all their longed-for wishes."

Turning to her younger brother, her long hair fluttered. She added:

"We'll definitely go there, the two of us. That's our promise."

Ryou fondly recalled these carefree times.

"I love the Forest," quoted Ryou to Tomoyuki cheerfully.