Dusk was falling rapidly. Miyawaki Sakura barely had enough time to take a few pictures of the room before the last beam of sunlight withdrew and the sky turned into an ambiguous greyish orange. This in-between moment of the day is what she hates most. Although it is only an interim, she feels eternal loneliness.

She gets up slowly from the tatami. Her back is killing her. She is not a morning person yet she has been working from dawn to dusk for over two weeks, and it was her own choice to push herself to the limit. After a few failed attempts to increase sales for her grandma's grocery store so that they can repay her debts, Sakura finally persuaded grandma to accept the idea that they could earn some extra income by sharing the attic, namely the second floor of their 3-storey pre-war wooden house through Airbnb. In the i-era, all she needs to do is to register an online account and get her room listed. However, cleaning up the second floor is a real pain-staking issue. Grandma has counter-proposed that they should wait until her injuries recovered, but she insisted they should not wait even though it will take them much longer time to clean up.

The house has been home for 8 generations of Miyawakis since the Tokugawa Period. According to great-grandpa, in its prime-time, there were 18 children and young adults running up and down around the house. However, the second world war nearly eliminated them all due to various reasons. Great-grandpa's survival was a miracle, as well as this house, while half of Kagoshima was destroyed during the bombing in 1945.

After the war, the then 15 year old great-grandpa, together with another survived cousin, converted the first floor of the house which has an entrance connected to the main street into a little shop which sold a few items of daily necessities. When grandpa inherited the shop, he expanded it into a grocery store.

There are two rooms on the second floor, one was occupied by Sakura’s father before he got married and moved to Kagoshima City, while the other was not inhabited after the war. It only functioned as a warehouse: a warehouse of goods to be sold as well as rubbish, and the rubbish soon extended its way to the other room after the young man moved out. If they want to make the second floor livable again, they have to clear out tons of old newspaper and books, broken (or still usable) electrical appliances, kitchen-ware, old shoes and clothes, and numerous packaging materials and empty boxes......in addition to decades of dust and dirt, not to mention Sakurajima’s ash.

But that may be a good exercise to take Sakura's mind off her agonies for a while. Three months ago, at that fatal moment during the All-Japan Rising Stars Ballet Competition, she fell due to a small miscalculation upon landing in front of an audience of hundreds of professionals. She managed to cover up and finished the last 30 seconds but everybody noticed what had happened. She soon found out that she has broken her left foot and injured her lower back, and her career seems to have ended. Her contract with her company expired soon after the competition and she has not been offered a new one. But she still has to show gratitude because they extended her last day a little bit so her operation fees could be covered by insurance.

And she was lucky to have a few friends in the company who volunteered to keep her belongings in their tiny apartments until she was well enough to take them back. Murashige Anna, her best friend since dance school days accompanied her back home. At first, Sakura insisted not to be taken home in a wheelchair, but she finally gave in when she understood how much trouble it would cause her friend during their journey, not to mention that every step hurt when she walked with crutches in the first two weeks. At the age of 23, Miyawaki Sakura ended her career as a professional ballerina in a most humiliating way.

Now all the preparation work for the Airbnb listing has finished, Sakura is finally satisfied with the pictures she took with her iPhone, just upload the picture and the process will start. Actually, she has been doing the shooting for the whole afternoon, but not until the setting sun shone through the window of the second floor did she find the mood right. 

Realizing her phone may be one of her most precious assets for a long time, she carefully tugs it in the little bag she has been carrying since her injury and slides down the stairs slowly with her .

Night falls when Sakura reached the store floor. She picked up her crutches and walked to the entrance. It is time for closing. She now walks in an easy manner on crutches and can even stand and walk for a short distance without crutches.  She could already walk outside to collect the store banners she has placed outside of the store to boost sales.

"Miss, let me help you!" A middle-aged man who just crossed the road runs to Sakura.

"Thank you so much for helping," Sakura bows lightly.

"Oh, are you closing?" The man askes.

"Yes, but is there anything I can help you?" Sakura asks politely.

"I am sorry, but can I buy some umeboshi? Are you still selling the homemade umeboshi?"

"Eh...no, but we have some...stock...maybe, if you don't mind, you can...just...take it?" Sakura says, as her heart is scolding her being a fool, she should have just answered "yes"!

"No, I will pay!" The man looks very happy. "Your homemade umeboshi is the best in Kagoshima – I have been working overseas for a few years, and your umeboshi is the food that I and my wife missed most."

"Oh, yes, it is super delicious! I eat it every day." Sakura is surprised by the enthusiasm of the man.

"Satoru, did you find it?" She then hears a woman's voice the outside.

"Yes, they have stock. Quick, Yui, they are closing." 

Yui enters the store. She bows lightly to Sakura. "Sorry to be this late. We have just got home this afternoon."

Sakura feels excited and nervous at the same time. She doesn't know what to do. She has never met customers who are so enthusiastic. "Please wait a while, I will call my grandma."

It seems a bit strange that two people in the same house have to call each other through mobile phones, but since Sakura cannot just jump to the basement and find her grandma who is cooking dinner, this is her only way.

"So you are Saa-chan!" Yui suddenly exclaims and steps forward to grab Sakura's arms. "Yo