The day of departure arrived, and Vesper Ash felt nothing. No joy, no sorrow. Only the faint tug of nostalgia leaving behind walls that had never been home, only a place she was meant to outgrow. What she carried with her wasn't luggage, but a hope: perhaps somewhere ahead she might finally belong. A path, however temporary.
Why worry about a hundred years from now, she thought, when even the next moment is uncertain? Better to live in the present. Yet even as she told herself this, she wondered if she truly lived in the moment… or only in her own head.
The train station was crowded, but she drifted through it like a ghost, ticket in hand, until she found an empty cabin. She slid inside, sank into the worn seat, and pulled a book from her bag "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai. What better way to escape time than to vanish into someone else's words?
The train shuddered, wheels grinding against iron. Vesper had barely turned a page when the cabin door opened. Another passenger stepped inside and settled opposite her.
The cabin door slid open with a soft click. A girl stepped inside, her posture steady despite the heavy bag slung over her shoulder. She looked Vesper's age, maybe younger, with dark hair pulled back loosely and eyes that carried a calmness Vesper envied.
"Mind if I sit here?" she asked, her voice carrying the faintest trace of an accent.
Vesper shook her head. The girl settled opposite her, exhaling as though the journey had already been long before she'd even boarded. For a moment, silence held, filled only by the rolling thrum of the train.
"I'm Annaya," she said at last, offering a small smile. "Just got a scholarship abroad. Still doesn't feel real."
"Vesper," she replied, closing her book halfway.
Annaya's gaze dropped to the cover in Vesper's hands. Her smile shifted, thoughtful. "No Longer Human… by Dazai." She paused, studying her as if she were a puzzle piece that almost fit. "It's strange. It almost feels like I know you already. Like I've seen you before. Even… reading that exact book."
Vesper looked away, unsettled. Annaya's words left a faint echo in her chest, as though something unspoken lingered in the air between them.
She felt strange but warmth.warmthm
As Anaya spoke, her fingers absently touched the necklace at her throat , a delicate chain with a small, weathered pendant. "My grandmother's," she said when she noticed Vesper glance at it. "I never take it off."
Something about the way Annaya's thumb pressed against the pendant made Vesper's chest tighten not recognition, exactly, but the echo of something just out of reach.