RUNAWAY

The strong summer sun cast dark shadows.

The E233 train with its sky-blue stripe ran merrily along the tracks, blowing its whistle. On the Tokyo Station platforms, the Chuo Line, Yamanote Line, Super Azusa, Tokaido Line, Odoriko, Sunrise Izumo, and Narita Express trains were lined up next to one another. The E233 slid into the station with a blast of its whistle and continued right on through without stopping.

“No!” Kun, dressed in his underwear, flung down a pair of pants. The E233 chugged across the floor of the playroom, which was strewn with discarded shorts.

“How about these?” Dad suggested, holding up a pair of striped pants.

“No! I want the yellow ones!” Kun insisted, grumpily shoving them aside.

“They’re in the laundry.”

Kun crouched down and sulked. Dad took out a pair of navy-blue shorts from the drawer, but Kun looked the other way.

“I want the yellow ones.”

“They’re not dry yet.”

“No!”

“Are you going in your underwear, then?”

“Nooo!”

“Then put these on,” said Dad, seizing the opportunity to pounce on Kun and put the navy pants on him. Unable to move, Kun screamed and thrashed.

“Noooooo!”

The E233 train rolled out of the playroom, crossed an elevated track supported by cookie boxes, document trays, tissue boxes, and planters, and entered the courtyard. From there, it steadily circled up an elaborate spiral bridge made of laundry baskets, blocks, erasers, and measuring cups and arrived in the dining room.

“Woof, woof! Woof, woof!” Yukko barked a greeting, but the E233 kept on going. Wheels screeching, it chugged along an elevated rail made of milk cartons, encyclopedias, toy dinosaurs, and picture books into the living room.

“Owwww…” Mom pressed her temples as Yukko barked. She was suffering from the tail end of a headache from the previous night.

“Goo!”

Since the morning, Mirai had been crawling all around the house. She ignored the Keihin-Tohoku train arriving in the living room and looked from side to side as if searching for something she’d lost.

“Are you trying to find something?”

Mirai had learned to crawl before she turned eight months, which was much earlier than Kun. Now that she was mobile, she had to be kept under constant surveillance.

“Mirai-plane!” Mom said, scooping her up and laying her back on the ground to briskly change her out of her romper.

“Let’s get you ready!”

Just then…

“Mommy, I want my yellow pants!”

…Kun ran upstairs, clutching his shorts. Yukko followed him up, barking even more excitedly.

“Yukko, hush. My head hurts.”

“I want the yellow ones!”

“Those look nice on you.”

“No, the yellow ones! …Yukko, shh!”

Venting his frustration on the yapping dachshund, Kun chased the dog around the room in circles. In the center of the ring, Mom gritted her teeth against her throbbing headache and kept Mirai from escaping as she dressed her to go out. Mom had been looking forward to seeing how cute Mirai would look in her brand-new outfit (set aside specially for this trip), but amid all the chaos, she had no time for that. Getting Mirai into her clothes was just a chore, pulling arms through sleeves.

Suddenly, Dad stuck his head up from the bottom of the stairs, holding a mosquito net.

“Time to go!”

“I’m aware of that.”

“We need to put the bags in the car.”

“I said I know!” It came out more sharply than she had intended.

Hanging his head, Dad slunk up to the living room. He hastily picked up all four bags on the sofa and retreated toward the stairs.

“I’m very sorry. I won’t talk back again.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing,” he mumbled, hurrying downstairs to escape.

“Come on!” Why did everyone have to be like this? Mom’s irritation was growing.

“I hate my blue pants!” Kun abruptly shouted as he came to a halt. “I want the yellow ones.” He pulled down the blue pair.

“Oh no, don’t take them off!” Mom cried in a fluster, grabbing both his hand and the pants, which she tugged back up again.

“Um, we should probably, uh…,” Dad called hesitantly. Yukko scampered downstairs, barking.

“Yeah, we’re coming, we’re coming, we’re coming,” Mom said with a sigh. She picked up Mirai in her new outfit and walked down the stairs.

Kun was left all alone. The racket was suddenly gone as silence descended.

“…” Slowly, he mumbled as if to himself, “Do they really love Mirai more than me…?”

No one answered.

“…Do you?!” he shouted, stomping his foot.

“Kun, we’re leaving!” Mom called. She sounded very far away.

“I’m not going!”

“What are you gonna do, then?”

“I’m running away.”

“What? Running away to the upstairs?”

“Uh-huh! I’m never coming back!”

He turned around and ran up to the top floor. After a minute or two, Mom slowly ascended the dining room stairs.

“Kun?”

But he was already gone, and the living room was empty.

Mom sighed, closing her eyes.

“…Haah.”

Bored, Kun slammed open the door to the bathroom, climbed into the empty bathtub, and crouched down to hide. Then, he poked his head just over the brim and shouted, “Kun isn’t here anymore!”

He ducked his head and waited for someone to come looking for him.

“…”

There was no response. The whole house was silent.

“Grr!”

He climbed out of the tub, went back to the bedroom, and squirmed into the closet.

“Kun isn’t here anymore!” he shouted again before closing the door.

“…”

No response.

“Grr!”

He strode back out of the closet, pouting.

“Why isn’t anyone coming?”

He went to the living room and looked down through the rest of the house.

“Huh?”

It really was empty. Even Yukko was gone.

“…Where is everybody?”

The clear whistle of the E233 train echoed uselessly through the silent house. The apparently forgotten mosquito net was leaning against the table.

“Did they leave me?”

A terrible sadness welled up from the depths of his chest, and tears gathered in his eyes.

“Waaaaaaaah!”

They were so horrible to leave him behind! As he sobbed, he grew angrier and angrier. Snot ran from his nose.

“I hate everyone!”

He made up his mind. If that was how they were going to be, then he really would run away.

He hurried down to the dining room, grabbed an orange juice box from the refrigerator door, and shoved it in his backpack. If he got thirsty, he could drink that. He reached into the fruit basket on the dining table and snatched a banana from among the pears and kiwis. He packed those, too. If he got hungry, he could eat them.

He opened the glass door. A young swallow had strayed into the courtyard, but he didn’t have time to worry about it. He slipped on his sneakers and walked down to the courtyard. Suddenly…

“Yikes.”

…he heard an unfamiliar voice.

“Huh?” Kun said, looking toward the sound.

Before he knew it, he was standing on the platform of an unmanned train station.

“…Whuh?”

Surprised by this unexpected turn of events, he peered around him. Aside from the single track, the only thing he saw was a big leafy oak tree and an endless expanse of green rice fields. Far, far away, he could make out the silhouette of a farmhouse. He seemed to have ended up at a station at the edge of the world. Did trains really come all the way out here? The swallow he had seen in the courtyard a moment ago was flying off into the yellowing, late afternoon sky.

The voice was coming from a little waiting room on the platform.

“That attitude of yours is a problem. A real problem.”

Kun cautiously approached the waiting room and peered inside.

“…Who’s there?”

A sloppily dressed high-school-age boy was sitting on the bench with his legs straight out in front of him and his hands in his pockets.

He stared at Kun through the gap in his long bangs, explaining matter-of-factly:

“Everyone’s going camping now, right? They’re gonna catch bugs and watch fireworks and stay at Granny and Granddad’s house, right? Everyone was looking forward to this vacation. Mom and Dad worked their butts off so you could all have a good time together. You don’t hate that, do you?”

Kun was dumbfounded by the boy’s superior, accusatory tone. Why did he have to say that when they’d never even met before?

“Hey, who are you?” Kun asked again.

The high schooler rambled on without answering his question.

“Which is more important, a pair of pants or a good time with your family?”

“…”

“I think you know. If you do, go tell them you’re sorry.”

“Pants,” Kun replied, glaring at the boy.

“What?”

“I don’t not hate them.”

“Huh?”

“I don’t not hate them!” Kun shouted, determined not to cave.

“I think you don’t not not hate them!” the boy shouted back, equally stubborn.

“I don’t not not not hate them!”

“You don’t not not not not hate them!”

As they shouted at each other, a train came rolling down the lone track. It was an E233 with a sky-blue stripe, but it only had four cars. It slid up to the platform and screeched to a halt. The rusted station sign read ISOGO.

Kun stood stock-still in the entrance to the waiting room, holding his breath as he watched the train. The air cylinder whooshed as the train door opened, and Kun jumped back in surprise. The window where the destination was usually displayed was dark and empty.

Where in the world had the train come from? And if he got on, where would he go? There was no way of knowing without trying it himself.

As Kun was considering what to do, a sharp voice called out to him. “Don’t get on!”

The high schooler was reaching for him to hold him back.

“You’re not really thinking of getting on, are you?”

For some reason, when this boy told him what to do, it sparked a rebellious impulse in Kun. He made his decision and started running just as the whistle blew.

“No—wait!”

He ignored the cry and leaped toward the half-closed doors. He made it in the nick of time.

The E233 slowly rolled away from the platform.

The boy in the waiting room watched it pull out, then slumped back on the waiting room bench with a pained look on his face.

“…What a little brat.”

Except for Kun, there wasn’t a single other passenger on the train.

He slipped off his shoes and climbed on one of the seats to take in the sights outside the window. Another E233 rattled by in the opposite direction. Wait a second, Kun thought. Hadn’t the train been running on a single track before? Maybe they’d reached an area with more than one.

“…Oh!”

On the far side of a number of parallel tracks, he glimpsed a line of green and gray Taki 1000 cars.

“Tank cars!” he shouted, pitching forward until his breath clouded the window.

The sky was lit by the brilliant rays of the sun sinking in the west. No matter how far they went, all Kun could see were train tracks, wires overhead, and electrical poles holding the wires up. It was as if everything else had vanished from the surface of the Earth.

Kun wasn’t paying attention to that, however. He was watching an EF210 locomotive engine pull a freight train in front of the tank cars.

“Shipping containers!” he shouted, bouncing up and down excitedly.

The freight train was followed by E259, E233-3000, and E235 trains gliding past, one after the next.

“A Narita Express and an Ueno-Tokyo Line and a Yamanote!”

He hopped repeatedly on the seat. Just then…

Whizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

An instant later, he felt a peculiar vibration in the air. Even the glass right in front of his nose shivered in fear. What was going on? Surprised, Kun looked out the window and saw an unfamiliar train on the elevated line beyond the passing E235.

“…Oh!” he gasped.

It was a pitch-black Shinkansen bullet train. The knowledge struck him immediately. The windows were glowing red, but because it was so far off, he couldn’t make out any other details.

Whizzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

It sped by at lightning speed, leaving eerie vibrations in its wake.

How had he sensed it was a Shinkansen, even though he’d never seen one like it before? Either way, he had to be right, since it had sixteen cars and ran on an elevated track that ordinary trains didn’t use. Kun kept staring after the train for a long while, even when it was gone.

“I wonder what model it was…,” he muttered, blinking rapidly.

He had never heard of a black Shinkansen.

“A train is now approaching. Please step back.”

As the announcement rang out over the loudspeakers, the platform sign displayed the name of the station in multiple languages. The E233 with the sky-blue stripe screeched to a stop at one of the many platforms standing side by side under the high ceiling of the immense station.

The automatic doors opened all at once.

“This is Tokyo. Tokyo. Thank you for riding with us today!”

So he was in Tokyo.

Kun gaped as another announcement echoed through the train.

“This train is now going out of service. All passengers must disembark at this station.”

“Huh?”

Startled, Kun hurriedly climbed down from the seat and put on his shoes. He was so flustered, he couldn’t get them on right.

“Oh no! Wai— Ack!”

“All passengers must disembark at this station.” The announcement broadcast again, as if to hurry him along.

“Ho— Ah, ahh! Ngh!”

“The doors are now…closing.”

“W-w-wait!”

He jumped through the door just before it closed. A bell rang, and the train disappeared into the shed. Kun shook himself off and looked around at the station.

Of course, he’d been to Tokyo Station more times than he could count, and he was well acquainted with it. But the Tokyo Station he was seeing now was different from the one he knew. It was much bigger and much more traditional looking, but it also blended the functional industrial beauty of a renovation with user-friendliness. He felt like he had arrived in the airport of some unfamiliar foreign country.

The signboards attached to the soaring classical pillars displayed constantly changing information about departures and arrivals in multiple languages. The rail maps labeled with places Kun had never heard of and the detailed schedules posted below were also displayed in multiple languages. Multilingual announcements flew back and forth above his head. He took the escalator up to the next floor. From there, he could survey all the platforms for ordinary trains. How many were there? At least twenty, he thought—no, thirty. The trains sped in and out on various tracks like a movie played on fast-forward. People flooded off them, and just as many flooded on.

When he reached the top of the escalator, he gasped.

“Ah…”

A white train was slowly gathering speed on a complexly layered elevated track.

He squealed with joy. “Wow, a Shinkansen!”

On the upper elevated track, a double-decker Shinkansen that reminded him of a foreign high-speed train was pulling in. It wasn’t an E4 or an E1. He had never seen one like this before. He looked down to one of the lower tracks and saw another Shinkansen he didn’t recognize sliding into motion. It didn’t match any of the current models. Instead, the futuristic, long-nosed cars looked like F1s.

“I wonder what model that one is,” Kun mused to himself.

The unfamiliar bullet trains opened their doors to admit long lines of people before taking off at intervals of several minutes. Train fanatic that he was, Kun walked along curiously, comparing all the different specimens with an enormous smile.

Ding-dong!

The ticket barrier slammed shut.

“Ouch!”

Kun’s face plowed right into it. Pressing his hand against his nose, he stumbled backward.

The signal light was flashing. Without realizing it, he had wandered up to the Shinkansen entrance.

The ticket barrier admonished him. “You may not board. You may not board. You may not—”

“Duh. I don’t even have a ticket,” Kun grumbled, holding his nose.

The gate kept repeating itself in its emotionless voice: “You may not board. You may not board.” Having no other alternative, Kun walked away.

“I’m going home.”

Pushing against the current of people advancing toward the train, he left the ticket barrier by himself.

“But how do I get home?”

A multitude of people came and went in the enormous station amid multitudinous footsteps and other bustle in the air. The electric placards changed their multilingual postings with dizzying speed, and travelers carrying big suitcases chatted with one another in a mind-boggling array of tongues. Laughter bubbled up and died away.

Kun stood rooted to the spot.

Beyond the domed glass ceiling, the sky was tinted with evening colors. As Kun watched the passing bags and shoes and socks, a chime played on the PA system.

“This is a lost-child announcement,” a voice said.

Kun raised both hands as high as he could and hopped up and down.

“Here, here, here!”

“We have found a little boy named Daisuke from Gayagaya Ward. If you are Daisuke’s mother, please come to the silver bell to pick him up.”

Underneath an enormous silver bell suddenly dangling from the ceiling, Kun caught sight of a woman with a ponytail clasping her hands to her chest and looking around worriedly.

“Mommyyy!”

A little boy with a shaved head ran toward her, and she bent down to embrace him.

“Dai!”

Kun watched them, stunned.

“…”

He lowered his hands in disappointment. It hadn’t been Mom after all. Just then, a bell rang on the other side of the station, and the voice blared over the PA again.

“This is a lost-child announcement.”

“Here, here, here!” Kun cried again, spinning around toward the voice and jumping up and down.

“We have found a little girl named Sae from the city of Musamusa. If you are Sae’s father, please come to the cat bell.”

Suddenly, there was an enormous cat bell hanging from the ceiling, and a man with a bag over his shoulder and square glasses walked under it, restlessly scanning the crowd.

“Daddyyy!”

A similarly bespectacled little girl ran toward him, and her father squatted down to sweep her up, too.

“Sae!”

Kun watched them in a daze.

“…”

He brought down his arms. It hadn’t been Dad, either. He looked in the opposite direction, disappointed.

“…Oh!” He did a double take.

He’d glimpsed someone in the crowd with a familiar-looking back carrying a baby. That messy hair and meek posture definitely belonged to his father.

“Daddy!” he shouted as loudly as he could.

The man turned around, but he only looked like Dad from behind. In fact, it wasn’t Dad at all. The baby’s face resembled the stranger’s.

“It wasn’t him,” Kun mumbled, his shoulders sagging. “Mommy…”

His gaze shifted uneasily in another direction, and once again, he did a double take.

“…Oh!”

He saw the back of a woman with a familiar hairstyle. He was sure of it—the slightly brownish bob had to be his mother’s.

But then he realized there were seven of them, all with the same bobbed hair. To make matters worse, they were all walking side by side. What was going on?

“Mommy!”

Six of them looked back at once. Mom wasn’t any of them. Kun slumped again in disappointment. Still, the woman in the very center hadn’t turned around. Could she be the real one?

“Mommyyyyy!”

Finally, she turned.

The woman had pointy teeth, and wrinkles on her forehead, and little horns sticking out above her familiar face.

“The wicked witch!”

Kun’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he sank to the ground.

The electric signboards cycled through message after message, and the sea of people ebbed and flowed.

Kun sat down in front of a coin locker and watched them. The sun was low in the sky now, and a lazy afternoon light filtered into the corridor.

He took the carton of juice out of his backpack, peeled the straw off the side, slipped it out of the plastic, and jammed it through the hole. He sucked down the juice noisily, squeezing with both hands, and the sweet-tart flavor soothed him a little. The straw burbled with air when he pulled his mouth away.

He sighed and stared forward.

What were Mom and Dad doing now that he was gone? Were they frantically searching for him? Or were they not looking at all? Had they even noticed he was missing? Where in the world were they, and what were they up to? Kun couldn’t answer. He had no idea what to do.

Suddenly, he raised his head and noticed a picture depicting an umbrella, a bag, and a question mark in one corner of the electric signboard.

“…?”

It was the Lost and Found desk.