1 The Old Wall Clock

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The sound of the vintage wall clock punctured through the awkward silence within the room.

The hesitation of speaking was often reflected by each ticking noise the clock would make.

Yuki looked up at the clock every few seconds in anticipation of leaving this gloomy place, somewhere where no one truly wants to be.

Across from Yuki sat a woman in her mid-thirties and no later, wearing the appropriate white-collar black skirt and blazer, along with a crisp white undershirt that even the slightest stain would be seen from miles away.

The woman wasn't fond of heels, as she wanted to dress more comfortably for her own practice, so instead, she wore work-appropriate black leather flats.

Yuki tended to look at the spiral rug placed beneath the glass table that separates him from the Woman across the room. The rug had an obscure design that would indeed hypnotize even the men and women of the highest intelligence.

"You need to start going outside more, it'll convince me that you're healthy enough to stop these weekly meetings."

Yuki, still hypnotized by the daunting rug, was stuck within himself and wasn't aware that the Woman had broken the awkward silence.

Yuki tends to float away beneath his blue mesh track jacket, something he wore more often than not. Something that carried the stains of adolescence along with his dingy running shoes, it's what he was comfortable in when thoughts often accompanied by pain would arise.

"You need to start getting more sleep too. Yuki, I feel for you, your father was a good man but he would want you to get through this."

Yuki thought that his hair was more than enough to signify that he was getting too much sleep since the passing of his father.

The mentioning of him dragged Yuki out of the never-ending trance that he was sucked into from the rug underneath the glass table, which soon enough, made Yuki drift to the old wall clock, possibly looking for significance or even purpose in everything that filled the stale room.

Yuki, much like everyone else who arrives at mandatory therapeutic sessions, didn't want to be there, especially when he couldn't even mutter his name, let alone even talk about it. Yuki often sulked within his sorrows through sleep, after long days of forceful smiles and joy.

"Yeah, I know." Yuki muttered. His voice remained raspy from midnight screaming through the hollow walls within his empty home, but the Woman had assumed it to be nothing more than the growth of a young man.

"Promise me you'll at least try to go outside more."

"Sure." Yuki dismissed her offer by simply giving her what she wanted to hear, but not fully committing to her proposal.

"Alright, it looks like our time here is done, I'll meet you again next Sunday and maybe you could tell me more about your friends or classes you have now."

Yuki and "friends" are as compatible as oil and water.

Well, he did have one friend, but he didn't consider him to be of the title. His robotic companion named Trivy, Yuki viewed him as family though, since he has been with him as long as he could remember.

That is the one anomaly left in Yuki's life, an introvert is nothing more than an understatement of current Yuki's social status.

"Yeah, I'll have to ask them if they mind though." an obvious lie hissed from Yuki's mouth but received as nothing more than an honest response.

"Alright."

Yuki gets up off the sofa as the Woman opens the velvet door to her office.

Finally, the moment has arrived that Yuki thought would never arrive, the moment of departure.

The hour and fifteen minutes probably felt like an eternity as Yuki dazed into the outer limits of his mind in the hypnotization of the obscure rug underneath the glass table.

Yuki's tiresome expression didn't exactly describe the excitement within him as the Woman opened the door, waiting for Yuki's passage through it.

Awaiting him on the other side of the velvet door sits Trivy, Yuki's companion, and the last strand of hair on his family tree.

Trivy was no bigger than 2 feet and was dangling his feet off the step that was placed just outside the Woman's office. An adorable sight for the eyes of someone unaware of Trivy's existent.

"Finally, you're done Yuki, you were in there for an hour…"

"Well, you know it was an hour last time and the time before that right?"

"We're going home right?"

Kashitama, the country that was home to young Yuki, was one of the larger countries within this world. Star City is the city that Yuki currently resides, a place of tourist attraction as well as white-collar enterprise.

Kashitama is such a large country that it is split into four districts, each having their own distinct personality differentiating it from the last.

Each district is labeled by letter, and each district is applied to the title of "Block" as well. There are Blocks A, B, C, & D that span out the large country of Kashitama.

Star City takes up the majority of the A Block of Kashitama, with the rest being livable suburban areas, which also occupy a majority of the B Block.

The C & D Blocks are also populated, but more rural like areas, and more wildlife occupy these two Blocks, with the exception of blue-collar work being the main occupational category for residents within the C & D Blocks.

The D Block also contains vast farmlands, which supply produce for the country of Kashitama as well as trade with other neighboring countries.

The diversity and the unity of that diversity perfectly describe the people of Kashitama, faces from all over the world, a country that welcomes all within its borders, a country with a chameleon-esque identity.

Chameleon's only held beauty to some, as beauty is nothing more than something in the eyes of the beholder.