Hiromi Higuruma

Hiromi Higuruma worked as a lawyer and also in office work. He was married, but he wasn't happy with his wife and was even considering divorce, hoping to make his life a little easier by eliminating unnecessary things. After work, he was in no hurry to return home; he rather wanted to be somewhere free of work and wife. He is 25 years old.

One evening after work, he decided to relax outside the house. It was 8:30 PM, and he was at the club, just sitting at the bar and drinking... too tired to pay attention to what was going on around him. The bartender placed a second whiskey in front of him. Or a third? Hiromi had already lost count. But what difference did it make? The liquid burned his throat, but it couldn't dispel the dull, aching pain somewhere in his chest. Here, behind the bar, it was safe. There were no files of lawsuits, no perpetually dissatisfied wife, no endless reproaches about him being "never home."

Home. What a funny word. Can a place you don't want to return to be home?

He absentmindedly twirled the glass in his fingers, watching the light play in the amber liquid. Music thundered around him, someone laughed, someone flirted. To Hiromi, it was all just noise, meaningless scenery. He was twenty-five, but he felt like he was fifty—squeezed, like a lemon drained of not just juice but also of essence.

Divorce. The thought of it no longer terrified me as it once did. Rather, it seemed the only logical solution. Like amputating a diseased organ that's preventing me from living. Painful, scary, but there's no other way to survive. Eliminate the unnecessary. Keep only work and... what, exactly, will be left? Emptiness.

He took another sip and felt someone touch his shoulder. Through a haze of fatigue, he turned his head. A girl stood next to him.

"Excuse me, do you by any chance have a lighter?" she asked, nodding at the cigarette in her hand.

Hiromi blinked, returning from the depths of his apathy to reality. He silently patted his jacket pocket, fished out a cheap lighter, and handed it to her.