“Ryosuke, you will stay with us from now on. Your school and every of your needs will be taken care. Just tell us if you need something.”

A memory from the past resurfaced.

“Thank you, Shida-san.”

Eight years ago, when I was in the last year of junior high school, my mother who was also my only family passed away, leaving me all alone. My mother’s employer, Shida Masaru suddenly came and offered to take me in. That time, I had two choices: first, to stay with Shida-san, or, second, living in an orphanage under government program just like how an underage person without any relatives usually live. I chose the first because I thought it was the better choice.

“Your house is so huge, Shida-san.”

I remembered being so excited the first time I saw the house. It was more like a mansion; a luxurious mansion. Another surprise came when I saw someone playing piano.

“She is my only daughter. Her name is Mirai.”

That was the first time I met her. Mirai. The girl at my age who spent all her time on a wheelchair, the only daughter of Shida family.

“Can you help me, Ryosuke? Can you be her friend? Because she is lonely.”

I also remembered how I nodded, sincerely agreed to the request. And ever since that day, I started living with Shida family.

“Yamada-kun, how is highschool felt like?”

One day she asked me. I understood how she felt. Mirai was homeschooled. She never knew how the feeling to be a student in a common school because her father did not allow her to attend one. She was an obedient child, so she did as her father told. She said that Shida-san was the only family left, so she did not want to make him worry. She lost her mother when she was eight because of an accident. The accident also paralized her permanently that she would never be able to walk anymore.

“It’s noisy. Students running in the coridor, boys fighting, teachers yelling. It’s like that.”

I recalled my answer and how she looked amused listening to me. She always listened attentively to every of my story no matter how silly it was. She always laughed at my jokes no matter how lame it was. She was aloof most of the time in the beginning, but as the time went on, she always smiled whenever she was with me. Our friendship deepened.

“Can I call you Ryosuke from now on?”

It was still vivid in my mind how she initiated the change in our way to call each other. So, Yamada-kun soon changed to be Ryosuke, and Shida-chan substituted by Mirai-chan.

Days passed quickly. Highschool time eventually ended.

“Congratulation, Ryosuke! I knew you would make it!”

She cheerfully said that when we read the entrance exams result and found out that I was accepted in my favourite university. We celebrated it by eating ice cream together. It was that moment when I started being conscious that all this time most of my time was spent with her only. During highschool, I barely attended club activities because I always rushed to go home when school already finished. I knew Mirai always waited for me to return from school, and I felt obligated not to disappoint her. Now that I looked back at that highschool graduation time, I thought that it might be the start of me doing the things I would regret later.

It was about the time my university life started when something happened, triggering a conflict between me and Mirai’s father. She never knew what happened, but she noticed the colder interaction. That might be the reason that when I asked for Shida-san’s permission to stay in my university dormitory, reasoning that the distance from the house to the university was far and that I went to the university by winning a scholarship, thus I had to maintain my good grades, and living in dormitory would enable me to focus, Mirai insisted in persuading her father to let me. I believed Shida-san knew my real intention, thus he was hesitated to make decision, but he could never say no to his daughter’s request and ended up allowing me to go.

“Good luck with your study. If you have time, don’t forget to call me, okay?”

I only responded her with a small smile that time she sent me off in front of her house. In my heart, as I stepped away from the house, I kept apologizing. I had decided that the moment my feet was out of Shida’s residence, I would never step in again. I wanted to cut all the tie with Shida family.

Entering university, I looked like I just found out a real life. I made many new friends. I entered a circle that love to do trips. I always loved to see new places and I felt comfortable with the friends I met in that circle. In the first months, I still made effort to call Mirai and told her about the friends and the trips I did with them. After all, she was still a friend I sincerely treasured.

However, it all changed in the second year of my college. I met my first crush, Kawaguchi Haruna. She was a year younger than me, and was a new member of my circle. She was smart and pretty, and the most important was that she confessed to me and asked me to go out with her. Having the girl I like liked me back made me so happy... too happy that I forgot everything else. I was carried away in my own life. I stopped calling Mirai. I rarely replied her messages that eventually she stopped texting me. In short, the tie I had with Shida family was completely severed.

Years passed until I graduated from college and got a job in a packaging company as a co-controller. It was quite fantastic for a fresh graduate to directly get an important position, almost in the same level as bussiness unit manager. A year later Haruna also got a job as a junior auditor in a public accounting firm.

Having a pretty and smart girlfriend, a good job with good payment, friends to hang out with, and a carefree life, it could not be more perfect, could it? However, as perfect as my life could be, I always felt something was missing. There was unexplainable emptiness I felt inside that sometimes when the pressures got heavy, it ignited a quarrel between me and Haruna. She complained that I did not love her wel