This place has become a ruin, a neighborhood so rotten you could call it hopeless. A place so dark you'd mistake it for being pitch black, as if all color had faded. Others say the world just flows on silently and it only looks dark because my own life has hit rock bottom, but I am not a broad-minded person, so I cannot accept that. I firmly believe that my life is falling like this because it is pitch black and I can see nothing.......

Today was a day when the sky was exceptionally clearer than other days. Seeing the white things called clouds here, I wondered if my life was finally clearing up too. The sky couldn't be bluer, the leaves and trees glowed light green... Seeing others smiling and chatting on the street made my stomach churn. It was a morning where I thought of those people's words again, wondering if the world I was seeing was truly the real world. I entered a random building with an open rooftop door and climbed the stairs one by one. The sounds that were smaller than ants seemed to drone loudly.

I pushed open the double doors to the rooftop. The sky, which had shown only gloominess with its blend of gray and black, was shining brilliantly in blue. The morning breeze on the rooftop wasn't that stuffy. My shoes clicked against the floor as I headed toward the railing. The warmth of the railing in my hand was cold enough to be chilling, yet it felt warm. The sound of birds chirping, the feeling of the sharp sunlight hitting my skin, and my long hair fluttering violently in the wind obscured my vision. Standing here now, I felt anew that the world could be this bright.

I felt a presence rustling beside me. Only then did I realize someone was there and flinched. The stranger was rolling up his sleeves as if it were nothing. A butterfly, appearing from nowhere, landed lightly on his shoulder. Is that a cig...arette in his mouth? Feeling the sensation of the world blurring again, I took my hands off the railing and backed away. The stranger seemed to be quietly admiring the scenery before turning his head toward me. His face seemed to blur and distort for a moment before a clear expression emerged. He was... smiling. His light brown hair was fluttering straight just like mine. It wasn't a cigarette; it was just a sweet grape-flavored lollipop. I told myself that the failing world had made me prejudiced. The stranger—no, he—spoke a word with the candy still in his mouth. The warmth of the words carried through the air was not cold.

"Isn't the weather really nice today?"