From another perspective:
“Haruto-kun! Push me!” ordered a young girl sitting on a swing.“Okay, here I go!” replied a boy of similar age, sweating profoundly. He took a couple of steps back, ran forward and pushed with all his strength. The girl swung away, giggling, into the enveloping fog. The boy panicked, at her sudden disappearance, he soon found himself also lost in the mist, where did it come from? Suddenly, a strong gust blew away the gloomy mist, revealing the lost little girl. This time, sitting in a sand play-area. “Haruto-kun! Let’s build a sand-castle!” beckoned the young girl. Haruto ran forward with a smile on his face, but just as he was about to reach her, she once again disappeared. He found himself lost again. The boy was confused and scared. The only friend he had, kept disappearing and reappearing before his eyes, as if provoking him to chase her. And chased her he did. Each time the more she called for him, the faster he ran, following her shadow, seeking her form, alone in the fog but never reaching his goal. The echo of her voice was all that beckons him “Haruto……Haruto……Haruto…...”
”HARUTO!” I woke up with a jolt. Bang! Bang! Bang! The door shook with each pounding. “Stop it! I’m coming!” I shouts. The pounding on the door stopped. Still in a daze, I looked at the time, 7am. Shit, it’s already this late. I quickly threw on the discarded clothes lying on the bedroom floor and heads downstairs. “Haruto, deliver this box of squid to Yama-san’s restaurant now! You’re gonna be late!” Yelled an energetic old man in his late 40s. That’s my old man for you, loud as ever, even this early in the morning.“Huh? Which box are you talking about?”
Everywhere I look there are boxes upon boxes of seafood and fish of all kinds inside the house. There are also a few rows of ice table displaying fresh fishes such as tuna, mackerel, salmon, even fugu, you name it, we have it. That’s because our family ran a fish and seafood retail shop, probably freshest one in the neighborhood. “The one on your right, don’t forget to check what's inside, in case you got the wrong one.” I picked up the heavy box with ease due to years of doing it, I naturally achieved this crazy buffed physique. I headed out to deliver it to our customer. “Come back right away after you’re done, you got more deliveries to do!”. I sighed.
I'm Haruto, 17, during my free time, I would help the family business by delivering our goods right to our customer’s doorstep. Talk about a 5-stars fish retailing service. Not only do we sell everything at dirt-cheap, near wholesale price, but we also provides free, same day delivery service depending on the distance. The customer loves that, they really do. But we barely made it off the red every month. I told the old man a lot of times, that at this rate, it’s gonna be a hundred years until he made enough to retire, only to be met with the same old responses “As long as our fishes are fresh and our customers are happy, then that’s all we need.”
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Really, he's probably still doing this "atonement" act, out of guilt from his previous job working as a real-estate agent, selling properties at rip-off prices. But it’s me who had to run around carrying boxes like a fool when every other guys my age are out having fun during their school breaks...
“Morning, Haru. Fast service as always, hup, take these fresh vegetables as your reward” I put down the heavy box of squid packed full with ice inside Yama-san’s kitchen, and received a bag of cucumbers and green beans from him. After saying my thanks, I headed back.
As I turned the corner, something ran into me, causing my bag to fell onto the pavement, it's contents spilling out. Huh, why is this person on the floor? And they're picking up my stuff. “Um, I’m really sorry! It was my fault, I didn’t look where I was going” Apologized the person in green hoodie. Hoh, what a polite guy. Wait. I squinted at their face, a guy? I can't tell, but the voice sounds a bit on the deeper side. Anyway, don't forget to smile Haruto, smile. “It’s alright, next time don’t be too engrossed in your phone. You might cause an accident later on if it becomes a habit” I gave him one of my cool smiles. “S-sorry, please forgive me…” heh? Why are they backing away from me? You don’t happen to find me scary, right? Uh, green, green hoodie, I looked at the green soybean pods inside the bag I’m holding. “Be careful now, greenie beanies" He turned his face up and looked at me. Now that I’ve got a good look at him, my smile froze. Who is this person? Why do I feel like I’ve seen him before? While lost in thoughts a sudden realization hits me.
The girl in my dream? That was who he looked like, my childhood friend! The only girl who would play with me in the park, way back before we moved and opened the seafood store. The girl I’ve been searching for most of my elementary school years! I immediately ran back to the spot where I bumped into him. Looking around I can’t seem to find him anywhere. No it can't be, this person is a guy, there was no way that's the same girl I played with. Maybe he is related to her somehow? Argh, I gotta return home before the old man beats my ass.
After that encounter, I would occasionally ask around the neighborhood about the guy in the green hoodie. That was between 2 weeks ago. I’m pretty well liked by the ojisans in the area. I managed to find out that, that guy was seen walking passed here a couple of times. Taking the train and dropping off at a nearby station. But as I have work during the day, I was only able to search around for him in the evening. You have no idea how dangerous it is to wander alone at night around this area. To not make myself a potential target for the local delinquent groups, I wore a hoodie which hides my face while stalking investigating. I yielded no result.
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A few days later, I found the park that I used to play with the girl during my childhood. Well, back then we would only meet in this park, so I had no idea where she actually lived. My only chance of meeting her again is to hang around here after work. Hoping that she would somehow appears before me, a foolish wish. A few days later, while loitering around as usual, I was spotted by a policeman patrolling the area. I escaped, of course. He didn’t see my face but I decided to give up searching for her and possibly(?) her relative.
“Haruto-kun, be careful around here, lately there has been rumors about suspicious person hanging out in the area” I was warned by a customer during my daily delivery. “Y-yes, I’ll be cautious, thank you,” I said shamefully while avoiding eye contact. Shit, looks like I somehow made it to the evening news, definitely a good idea to stop doing this for a while. Due to suspicious person(me) appearing on the news, my old man got worried all of a sudden and gave me less work to do near closing hours.
"Hey Haruto! Wipe that stupid look off your face and deliver this tuna for me!". Tch, It's gonna be a long week.