Entering an unfamiliar environment was always nerve-wracking, and no matter how many times she experienced it, it never got easier. There were more ways to adapt to a new environment, but the fatigue that frequent changes brought was something a young child couldn’t easily handle.
Such was the case for the girl. Even before starting elementary school, she often had to move due to her parents’ business trips, and each time, she had to change kindergartens. Even after entering elementary school, the situation didn’t improve much.
At some point, the girl realized that no matter how many friends she made, she would soon have to part ways with them. She didn’t believe her parents when they said this would be the last time. The word “last” was never truly the last.
“Starting today, Siera will be studying with us.”
At the homeroom teacher’s words, she bowed her head and greeted her new classmates, but Siera didn’t particularly feel like getting close to anyone. After all, it was obvious that she would leave this place in a few months.
After being guided to an empty seat, Siera sat there blankly before noticing the seat next to her was unoccupied. It was a seat that someone had recently used, but whether they hadn’t arrived yet or were simply absent, the seat remained empty even as the morning assembly began.
With a blank expression, she looked at the empty seat beside her before turning her gaze forward.
The seat next to her remained empty until school ended. It almost seemed as if she had been deliberately placed next to the empty seat, and no one had mentioned anything about it.
Siera didn’t ask about the empty seat either. She was going to move somewhere else soon anyway, so there was no reason to get close to whoever might sit there.
When she returned home, she was greeted by an empty house. Her parents were already at work, and coming home to an empty house was a familiar situation for Siera.
She threw her bag in her room on the second floor and sat by the window, looking outside. The streets were lined with numerous houses, and here and there, she could see children returning home from school.
She watched the children playing in the spacious yard, but she didn’t feel envious or want to join them.
“Huh?”
While looking out the window, Siera noticed something a bit out of place. On the street, there was a boy.
While the other children were wearing clothes suitable for playing, the boy’s outfit went beyond practicality—it was something one could call carefree.
He was wearing shorts, which was nothing unusual for a hot day, but that was all he had on. The boy wasn’t wearing anything else besides the shorts, and his hair was sticking out like a bird’s nest.
At a glance, he might have looked like a homeless person, but he wasn’t dirty, nor did he seem like someone wandering without a home.
As Siera curiously watched the boy whose identity she couldn’t discern, their eyes met. The boy, who had been looking around here and there, noticed Siera watching him through the window and waved his arm.
“Me?”
Pointing at herself with her hand, Siera asked, and the boy nodded after seeing her mouth move.
Though startled, her curiosity was piqued, and Siera left her room, heading down to the first floor.
As she was about to open the door, she wondered what she would do if the boy turned out to be strange. After all, a boy wandering around shirtless, wearing only shorts, was already strange in itself.
But in this unfamiliar environment, the boy’s even more peculiar appearance sparked Siera’s curiosity, and she slowly opened the door.
However, there was no one outside. Whether he had disappeared in that short moment or she had simply misseen him, the boy who had been on the street earlier was nowhere to be seen.
“Whoa!”
“Ahh!”
Just as she was about to close the door, someone appeared from behind it, grabbing it as she tried to close it. Startled, Siera instinctively swung her fist, sending the boy flying.
“Ugh!”
Hearing the sound of the boy being hit and falling, Siera quickly realized who he was—the shirtless boy she had seen outside the yard earlier.
“Sorry. Are you okay?”
“No, I don’t think I’m okay.”
She quickly checked on the fallen boy, who rubbed the cheek that had been hit by her fist as he got up.
Facing this unfamiliar boy, Siera took a step back, scrutinizing him, whose identity remained a mystery.
“You’re the kid who moved here yesterday, right?”
“Yeah.”
The boy smiled brightly at Siera, showing interest in her.
“I live over there.”
He pointed to a house in the distance. It was a house located one block away, and Siera nodded silently after looking at the house he pointed to.
“Okay. But why did you say hi to me?”
“If someone new moves into the neighborhood, I should befriend them.”
To Siera, this was an incomprehensible notion. She had moved around a lot and seen many children, but none of them had tried to befriend her after she moved in.
“But how did you get in? The yard gate’s locked.”
“I climbed over the fence.”
The boy said it as if it were no big deal, leaving Siera at a loss for words. Climbing over the fence meant he had trespassed, but the boy seemed to take pride in having climbed over the fence.
“It’s a secret from my mom and dad. I’ve been kicked out before, and if they find out I climbed the fence again, I might really get kicked out for good this time.”
“Kicked out?”
“Yeah. I just got kicked out of the house.”
Siera looked the boy up and down. He was wearing sneakers that were barely tied, shorts, and no shirt. His disheveled hair stuck out like a bird’s nest above his bright, sharp eyes.
“Since I got kicked out, I thought I’d hang out with my friends, but then I remembered the house that just moved in yesterday, so I came here.”
“But why did you get kicked out?”
“I forgot to go to school because I was playing at my hideout.”
The boy spoke matter-of-factly about having forgotten to go to school because he was playing, and Siera instinctively felt that she shouldn’t get too close to him.
“Want to play with me?”
“No, I’m fine.”
She had intended to go back inside before things got any more complicated, but the boy didn’t seem to care about her answer.
“Let’s go.”
“Huh?!”
Grabbing Siera’s arm, he ran straight outside. Caught off guard by the boy’s sudden action, Siera didn’t even think about breaking free.
“I’m A. And you?”
“Siera.”
A and Siera’s first meeting was sudden and startling. It was a situation where one might feel reluctant, but Siera couldn’t bring herself to shake off A’s hand as he smiled brightly and ran with her hand in his.
Still holding Siera’s hand, A ran to a park located on one side of the neighborhood. It wasn’t far from Siera’s house, and children were gathered there, playing.
“Hey!”
A shouted loudly at the park entrance while holding Siera’s hand, and the children’s attention turned to them. Feeling the gazes on both A and herself, Siera swallowed nervously.
“What’s up, A? Did you get kicked out again today?”
“What do you mean ‘again’? I only got kicked out three times last week.”
It seemed A getting kicked out was a common occurrence, as the children weren’t surprised. Already used to it, the children didn’t even bat an eye at A’s lack of a shirt and approached him, noticing Siera.
“Who’s that?”
“The kid who just moved in.”
“The house that moved in yesterday?”
“Yeah. Her name’s Siera. Age… how old are you?”
A, who was introducing Siera on her behalf, realized he didn’t know anything else about her besides her name and looked at her, asking.
Siera, who hadn’t planned on getting along well with the kids nearby, was just flustered by the situation and felt nervous under the children’s curious gazes, breaking into a cold sweat.
“Siera?”
“Huh? What?”
“How old are you?”
“Me? 9.”
“9? We’re the same age!”
Seemingly happy about this, A raised his voice with excitement. The other girls at the park, noticing that the new kid was a girl, started to approach Siera with interest.
“We’re gonna play hide-and-seek now. Who wants to join?”
As more children gathered, A shouted loudly, and the excited kids raised their hands, saying they’d join.
“Then A’s ‘it’! Count to 100 and start looking!”
“Why am I ‘it’?!”
As one child took the lead, the others quickly scattered, leaving A to shout in protest, but the excited kids ignored him.
“You’re all dead.”
Determined to catch everyone, A looked at Siera, who was standing quietly beside him.
“Siera, hide too.”
“Oh…”
He let go of her hand, covering his eyes with his hands.
“One. Two…”
As he slowly started counting, Siera looked around and ran off to find a hiding spot.
Once A finished counting, he shouted, “Ready or not, here I come!”
Soon, voices of “Found you!” and groans of disappointment could be heard from various spots. Hidden in a corner, Siera sat quietly, feeling the tension of possibly being found at any moment.
With so many kids playing, it took A quite a while to find everyone. Feeling like she would be found soon, Siera suddenly wondered why she was even doing this.
Everything had happened so quickly that she hadn’t had time to think. And now, here she was, in the middle of a group of playing kids. But since she hadn’t planned on getting close to any of them, she began to wonder if she should continue.
It wasn’t that Siera didn’t want to make friends. She wanted to play outside and make friends like other kids her age, but the uncertainty of when she might move again held her back.
Having already experienced parting ways with friends she had made several times, making new friends felt like preparing for an inevitable goodbye.
‘I should just go home.’
If they were going to part ways again anyway, she concluded it was better not to get close. Just as she was about to get up to go home—
“Found you.”
A voice beside her startled her, and she turned her head. A, still shirtless, grinned with a sense of accomplishment at having found her.
“Got them all!”
With Siera being the last, A had found all the hidden kids, and Siera missed her chance to escape.
“Um… I…”
Just as Siera was about to say something, A grabbed her hand.
“Let’s go.”
And he ran back toward the group of kids.
From then on, things remained just as chaotic. A tirelessly found things to play with, gathering the kids each time, and introducing Siera to the newcomers.
Whenever she thought about going home after one game, A would somehow manage to find her. By the time the sun had set, the playtime finally ended, and a drained Siera walked out of the park alongside A, heading home.
“So? Did you have fun?”
“Yeah.”
In the end, Siera was still a young girl who enjoyed playing, and though she occasionally thought about going home, she had fun during the playtime.
However, she felt that if she kept playing with them, they’d grow closer, and that would only make it harder for her.
“Let’s play again tomorrow.”
Looking at A, who was smiling brightly, she couldn’t bring herself to say no. But since it felt awkward to reply, Siera simply nodded silently.
As Siera opened the gate and entered the yard, A waved and greeted her before heading toward his own house. Siera stood silently for a while, watching A run off under the sunset-drenched sky.
The next day at school.
Siera pondered what she should do today, and her adjacent seat remained empty.
One by one, the children arrived at school, and even as the homeroom teacher entered and the morning assembly began, the seat next to her was still empty.
“Good morning!”
“…A!”
Amid the morning assembly, someone burst through the door, and the homeroom teacher shouted as soon as she saw the boy—A.
“Why weren’t you here yesterday?”
“I forgot about school because I was playing!”
A declared proudly, and the homeroom teacher was left speechless. The children burst into laughter, and the classroom filled with the sound of giggles.
“First, take your seat. After the assembly, come to the staff room.”
“No! If I go to the staff room, I’ll get scolded.”
“Then you should have come to school!”
Bouncing like a rubber ball, A strode over to his seat and sat down, smiling at Siera, who was sitting next to him, watching him.
“Hi.”
At that moment, Siera realized that as long as she lived in this neighborhood, it was impossible to escape A’s reach.
