1999, Julian was 15 years old.
There's not much to say about winter in London—
the Underground's damp, uniforms are wrinkled, and shoes start fraying at the edges after five minutes of walking.
Julian lived in Crouch End.
Three mornings a week, he had to catch the 7:12 bus to Finsbury Park, then change to the Northern Line, and finally hop on the Victoria Line into the city.
No one cared what time he left home.
Sometimes his mother didn't even make breakfast.
Just a bowl of overnight cornflakes, soggy like old newspaper.
He didn't mind.
Breakfast had been deleted from his life.
The state school he attended was—at best—"mid-to-upper tier."
Old building, but not chaotic.
A few students made it to Oxbridge every year.
Most went to city colleges or vocational tracks.
Didn't matter.
Winter hit everyone the same:
Cold.
Heating in Crouch End didn't come on every night.
They rented a red-brick semi from the 1970s.
Wind slid through the window seals.
The heater was one of those ancient gas fires. Not broken—but not quite warm, either.
Julian's bedroom was upstairs. The corners were always damp.
Every time he opened his workbook, his fingers would be so cold they'd seize up.
He had to rub them three times just to grip a pen.
There was no electric blanket in the house.
The bathroom had no floor heating—just a single portable space heater that could only be plugged into the socket between the kitchen and the hallway.
After dinner, he and his mother would take turns warming their hands.
Fifteen minutes each. Timed with the kitchen timer.
After his turn, he'd return upstairs, layered in his long-sleeved PE kit and double socks, sitting down to study.
A faded blue scarf, bought at a Christmas sale years ago, was looped around his neck.
It said "Leicester."
He wasn't a fan—just couldn't beat the price.
On weekends, he went to the library.
Not because it was great.
But because it had central heating.
Haringey Public Library was always quiet.
The librarian never spoke.
She'd just glance up at him, then bury her hands into her scarf again.
Julian sat by the window, with a battered North Face backpack on the chair beside him.
The seams had split—he'd stapled it twice.
Inside: three workbooks, an old laptop with no battery, and two Tesco Value oat bars.
He wasn't there to "study."
He was there to redo his mistakes.
He redid every question he got wrong the previous week—three times—
and noted the reason for each.
• "Wrote log(3x) instead of log(x³)"
• "Tried to estimate too fast—careless"
• "Lost context. Should've read stem structure before going back"
He wrote in blue ballpoint, eight lines per page.
Every page looked like it could be entered into evidence.
To him, postmortems were the gentlest form of combat.
Sometimes, he'd hear boys playing football outside—
the students from St. Aloysius, the nearby private school,
neatly dressed in blue-and-black tartan uniforms,
shouting "fucking freezing" as they hurled snowballs at each other.
Their uniforms were custom-tailored.
Julian glanced at his own jacket zipper—
bent like it was calling for help.
He didn't speak.
Didn't complain.
His mother sometimes cooked stew after work.
The lamb was usually overcooked, the broth slightly sour.
She didn't use rosemary—just some supermarket-brand spice mix.
Julian ate slowly.
Chewed one piece of potato five times.
Sometimes, she'd say:
"Julian, don't overwork yourself."
He'd reply:
"I'm not."
Then flip his workbook to the next page.
He wasn't the smartest in school.
Not a problem child.
Not a teacher's favorite.
He was just the kind of student who was always there when you took attendance,
turned in the test first,
never sought the spotlight—
but never got it wrong.
That winter's mock exam,
he got Year Top 1 in maths for the first time.
Paper was marked out of 100.
He scored 98.
The one mistake?
A shaky hand mislabeling the axis unit.
The teacher's comment read:
"Very stable performance, bordering on brilliant."
Julian copied it onto the first page of his notebook, drew a thick black line underneath.
Not out of pride.
As a reminder:
Stability wasn't talent.
It was cost.
He wasn't one of those kids with a tutor,
or a father overseeing UCAS applications.
From where he stood,
Top 1 was the only way to get into the A-Levels he needed.
And if you didn't get an A in Maths,
forget about applying to LSE.
He knew how other kids lived.
One classmate lived in Belsize Park.
Went home to private tutors.
Had an older sister from Oxford to revise his personal statement.
Julian had none of that.
His route was drawn on cheap paper,
in permanent ink.
You want to beat the game?
Then score what they're too scared to aim for.
Be so consistent, they think you were born that way.
A week before Christmas, Julian received a letter.
Grey envelope, watermarked paper, postmarked from Tokyo.
A commemorative sakura stamp in the corner, half peeling off.
The recipient field said:
Julian Watanabe
—each letter printed like it came straight from a litigation template.
His mother glanced at the stamp and said,
"Ah. Must be your dad."
He opened the envelope with his house key.
Inside was a single A5 sheet, 120gsm, watermarked.
Centered in 12-point Times New Roman was a single sentence:
"Hope you're keeping warm. – Dad"
No cash.
No greeting.
No handwritten signature.
Just that—typeset with such surgical alignment
it looked like it was center-justified on a government form.
Julian read it three times.
Not because it moved him.
But because every word—Hope, you're, keeping warm—
felt like it came from someone speaking through soundproof glass.
Polite.
And miles away.
No scent. No fingerprints.
He touched the ink lightly.
The paper was cold—like a notice freshly spat out from a printer.
He folded it, put it in a drawer.
Same drawer that held last year's tax slips, an expired library card,
and a postcard he was never going to send.
Outside, it was snowing—real snow, the kind London rarely saw.
The heater hadn't kicked in fully.
The room corners were still cold.
His glass of water fogged at the rim.
The carpet was curled at one edge.
When he stepped back, his ankle clipped the chair leg with a dull thud.
He didn't cry out.
Just tucked his feet back under the chair.
From the kitchen came the sound of his mother rummaging in the fridge—
not looking for something in particular,
just trying to see what could be scraped together for a meal.
Plastic bags rustled.
Glass jars clinked softly.
It almost sounded like festive music.
Except there were no lights, no smell of food.
Just the wall calendar with a sketch of dogtooth violets reminding him:
It was already December.
Julian looked down at the card.
Then back at the wind sneaking through the window gap.
"Hope you're keeping warm."
He folded the letter backwards, lined it with tape,
and slipped it behind the expired library card.