Haruka sat in the dark, the diary still warm in her hands.
"If you walk out of this house, never come back."
Her father's words hadn't stopped ringing in her ears. Not even hours later. Not even now, when the only light left in her room came from the faint glow of her phone screen.
It was 2:47 AM.
Her eyes still stung.
The ticking of the wall clock echoed in the silence. "Tick. Tick. Tick." She couldn't escape from each second falling like a drop in an ocean.
She reached under the bed and pulled out a small backpack, already half-packed. She had secretly kept clothes, a wallet, a notebook, and a small box of multi-colored pens since junior high. She didn't need much. Just the things that were really hers.
In the hallway, she could hear her father snoring faintly.
He had been furious last night. Words like "shame," "failure," and "waste" had been spat out like venom. Haruka hadn't fought back. Maybe she couldn't. Maybe she still hoped, somewhere deep down, that he'd say something else. Something that didn't hurt.
But the slap had landed. And the silence after had said more than any scream.
She zipped her bag.
Her steps were slow as she opened the front door. The Tokyo night was colder than she expected. The wind stung her skin, but she kept walking.
She didn't know where she was going. Only that she couldn't stay.
At the station, she used the cash she had to buy a ticket. Her eyes scanned the list of destinations until they landed on a name she didn't recognize. A small town in the south—Shirosato. It felt oddly familiar, like a word she'd once heard in passing, or maybe a name tucked inside an old childhood memory. She couldn't say why. Only that something in her chest stirred.
The steps away from home felt heavy, but also lighter than she imagined. Every meter she put between herself and that house gave her just enough breath to keep going.
She sat on a station bench, hugging her backpack to her chest. With cold fingers, she opened her diary again. There was still one page left, half-wet from earlier tears.
She wrote:
If you're reading this one day, and you're still alive, then you've made it. You survived, even when the world tried to crush you.
She closed the book.
And for the first time that night, she took a deep breath.
The train pulled in with a soft, almost soothing metallic sound. She boarded, found a window seat, and sat still.
Outside, the sky was no longer black. A dull gray-blue stretched over the horizon. Dawn was coming.
She didn't know what waited in that little town. She didn't know if anything would change.
But she had tried. And that was good enough.