Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Just Another Day ❯ Volume One, Chapter One: Lonely Soul ( Chapter 1 )

Lonely Soul

Nothing ever changes. A man looked up at the sky. The sun made his eyes hurt. Ten years led to this? He shouldn't be surprised. He's been alone for so long.

He couldn't hold down a job for too long. He had no home. He didn't have a family. Nothing to his name either. So far, he had been getting by. But that's all he had been doing. Now, the man wanted a place to rest.

Tokyo had billions of people. Some come and some go. They were all the same. The man looked around. They won't notice him. He's strangely okay with that.

Someone bumped into him.

“Whoa!” he shouted, nearly falling over. The man turned to see a kid about twelve staring up at him.

“Can you move?” he asked. The man backed up.

“Sorry,” he said. The little boy stared at him before walking away. The man gave him a small wave. He lowered his hand. That moment made him realize something.

“I'm lonely,” he said to himself.

Sure, he had been lonely before. But this felt different. A small void pit opened up in his soul. He had ignored it until just now. His brain couldn't process it.

The man made it to a park. He sat down on a bench. The buzzing cicadas did little to put his void at ease. But it didn't matter. Sleep welcomed him.

A group of kids play soccer in the field across from him. They had no idea of what happened in 2000. Let them be innocent. They shouldn't know the horrors of the past. They're going to lose their innocence anyway.

The man drew his eyes closed and went to sleep.

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Drip.

The man's face twitched. He turned over on the bench.

Drip.

He wiped away the water from his face. The man froze.

“Huh?” he asked. Rain began pouring down.

“Aw crap!” the man shouted. He shouted the covered his head with his arms. Night had already fallen. The man needed to get out of the rain. He leapt up and ran away from the park.

The man ended up at the glass doors of a ramen shop. The lights were still on. He knocked on the door. The man looked relived.

“Uh… welcome,” the boy said. “Welcome to our shop.”

“Can I come in?” the man asked. He started to shiver. The teenage boy blinked at first.

“Uh… okay,” he said. “Sure, sure.” He moved aside to let the man in. The woman at the counter froze and dropped her rag. The man looked up when he heard her gasp. His eyes grew to the size of moons.

“Mai-Pai?” he asked.

“Soon?” the woman asked. Time seemed to stop and rewind. Suddenly, the void inside Soon began to close.

Wandering Soul