Mareo clanks open the door to a one-room apartment. Taking off his shoes, he walks in, pulls open the curtains and opens the window to the room, the walls of which are filled with vibrantly coloured pictures of sceneries, extremely detailed still-life sketches featuring pens, pencils, crockeries, painting equipment that are laying in the room and in the middle of it all, a canvas with the monochrome portrait of a long-haired girl brushing her hair behind her ear, kept erect on an easel, facing the bed.

Taking his bag off his right shoulder, he rests it next to his bed as he sits down in front of the easel with the newspaper under it rustling. Bringing out some brushes and other tools from it, Mareo begins filling in the empty backdrop of the portrait. “I wonder when Hanae’s coming. This portrait of hers is probably going to be done today. I wanted to give it to her as a gift. But she’s got a competition coming up. Would this distract her from concentrating on her swimming practice? I’ll just finish this up and wait.”

Time passes by as Mareo, now sitting in the reddish afternoon sunlight, continues working on the portrait. “How long has it been? Where’s my phone, did I miss any calls or messages from Isamu or Hanae?”As he hurriedly brings out his phone from the bag, it starts ringing. “Is it Hanae? I should’ve called to check if she’s fine.”

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Fidgeting as she walks through the hallway of the apartment complex, Hanae, coiling her hair on her right index finger, keeps checking her phone with the other hand. “ I haven’t come over to Fujii-kun’s place in a while. Ahh…it’s making me nervous to see how the portrait turned out. Oh, it’s a message from Akira. Did she find that stalker? I’ll call her a bit later.”

As she approaches and stands in front of the room 3-D, she hears a loud thud and a loud voice coming from inside, “ No, mom! I’m not coming home now.”