Soul Wanderer

The morning sun shone brightly as I wake up to greet the day. Upon waking up, I then heard my daughter calling me from downstairs, telling me to get down for breakfast.

The first thing I did was tidy up my futon by rolling it up and leaving it outside to dry to prevent it from getting dirty. And once I was finished, I then proceed to walk down the stairs but while I was walking down the stairs, I smelled a familiar scent from the kitchen. A smell that was very pleasing to the nose and made the hairs on my body stand upright because of its freshness.

And when I reached the kitchen table, I was then served with a plate of curry with soup on the side, and there I saw my beautiful wife Kasumi with her kitchen apron holding up the curry cooking she have prepared and when her eyes meet with mine, I smile brightly to her and she would be red to her face like a fresh tomato

"I'll never get tired of your cooking, Kasumi"

Once she heard that, she tried to hide her embarrassment but no avail, even our daughter Naoko-chan would ask why her face was red. And thus after eating breakfast, I then prepare to go to work, by taking a bath, and working on my personal hygiene and when those were done, I then put on my shoes and prepare to leave through the front door.

But because my wife wants the best for me, she always gets the right time to fix my tie properly then gives me a kiss on the cheek before I leave, heck even my daughter always wants me to come home early.

"Come home early more, dad! Have a great day!"

She then hugs me and as I leave through the door, I see them waving behind me and waved back signalling "I'll be back soon".

The way to work was not that far in all honesty but because I walk and ride the train to get there, I mostly try to get to work 1 hour before it starts.

The way to work was pretty much bustling with people with their business suits, people who go to school, the guards and police patrolling the place, the people waiting on trains to get wherever they want to be. It had a loud but busy quite of an atmosphere and it was fine for me because this makes the place alive.

After walking and getting on the train, I find old and young people alike on their phones, some sleeping and some reading manga. Its like they don't need to worry about the world because its going to be just fine, and honestly when they think like that, I kinda get jealous too.

Once the train has stopped at the station, It was time to leave. The train doors opened and many people went out like they were in a hurry but I was able to squeeze through because of my thin physique and got out unscathed.

When I checked my wristwatch, It was already 10:40 am and almost late for work, I then decided to sprint towards the office to not get yelled at by my superior.

And so after making a sprint, I had finally reached work with 5 minutes to spare. I then made my way to my cubicle only for my superior to see me

"Yo, Kumagai-san! You were almost late, glad you could make it!"

My superior Ryuu Asano walked by to greet me with a pat on my back.

"Feeling energetic today, huh, Asano-jocho?"

I asked because this side of him only shows when he got lucky on a draw or got a income boost and it was usually the latter of him winning the lottery.

"Of course! I'm feeling a bit energetic today because I found out there would be a major event happening today, and it will benefit all the big corporate leaders in the world!"

Corporate leaders huh? is what I thought in my head, the working people are basically getting minimum wage in these corporate establishments and the government decides to appeal more to them? how unfair it is.

Hearing the corporate leaders come out from my superior's mouth left me in a bad mood and decided to sit down to do my work.

"But Kumagai, because of this major event, I want to show you something, something that would make our country's technology be more advanced than our competitors!"

Something? Technology? What is he talking about? I decided to ignore it and just gave a shallow yes to him in order for me to focus on the task at hand.

While I was heading my way to the printing room, I suddenly heard a conversation by the hallway

- Asano-jocho is a little too energetic, don't you think? -

- yeah, i mean what made him so energetic today -

- I bet its that experiment they were doing with the president -

- Huh?! what experiment? I never heard of this -

- Shhh, its a company secret, they don't want any details of that said project they are doing from leaking out -

- then how do you know this? it might just be any false rumor -

- trust me, i heard other employees talk about this too -

- that's not really a credible source -

- trust me on this! -

Hearing that conversation made me curious but I still decided to ignore it and focus on my work. Once my work was finished, It was already time to leave, but when I walked to the other cubicles, I saw some opened documents and thought to myself, "why would they leave such important documents just for anyone to see" but when I got closer, I felt a hand touch my shoulder and panicked

"You. What are you doing here?"

When I heard its voice, I tried to turn my head to it but the fear was actually making me stop.

"Tell me. What are you doing here?"

"I was curious of this opened document and tried to take a little peek but turns out, I made a big mistake"

I said in a quivering tone, the voice of the shadowy silhouette fell quiet.

I ran, scared out of my wits, made way to my cubicle, took my briefcase and mosey-out the glass door and into the elevator, scared of going down the staircase.

The elevator finally reached the ground floor and I decided to run all the way to the train station.

I didn't care about what would be chasing me or people who would look at me, I was genuinely scared.

When I finally reached home, my wife and daughter all were worried about me, asking if I was okay, or asking me what happened, I wasn't able to answer. My daughter was incredibly worried, hugging me tightly and I had no idea what to do than hug her back.

After dinner, I then head to my room, looking at my wife and daughter's family picture just a year ago, I then smiled at it and went to sleep.

Little did I know, that tomorrow was the last day I was going to be able to spend time with them.

To be continued.