Since you've been gone, the world has become terribly quiet.

When morning comes, light leaks through the gaps in the curtains, and when dusk falls, the city lights turn on. The seasons turn as if nothing happened, and the world continues today as a matter of course.

But my time alone has remained stopped since that day. The mug left sitting there. The photos we took together. The gentle voice I can never hear again.

Everything is certainly there, but you, the most important part, are nowhere to be found.

Even if I call your name, there is no answer. What were you trying to tell me that day? No matter how many times I replay our last words, I can't find the answer. If only I had said something different then. If only we could have stayed together just a little longer. Only those impossible 'what ifs' melt into the silence of the night. That night, I made my way to the hill we often visited together. Looking up at the sky, countless stars were twinkling. —I wonder if you are looking at these stars from somewhere, too.

The moment I thought that. From afar, I heard a whistle. I turned around. In the starlight, a train wrapped in white steam was running quietly. On top of a hill where there shouldn't be any tracks, as if racing through the night sky itself. A faint light glowed in the train windows.

The train stopped quietly right in front of me. The door opened. A warm light spilled out from inside. And what I heard from there was—