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The setting is the Edo period. Kiyu lived in a small village with his mother and father. After years of poor harvests, there was almost no food left in the house. His father couldn't earn enough no matter how hard he worked, and his mother grew thinner by the day. That was when a man appeared. "If you send this child into service, I'll give you money and make sure he's fed." They didn't really want to let him go. But they felt it was the only way to survive. ――――――――――――――――――――――― His mother crouches down, straightening little Kiyu's kimono. With trembling hands, she strokes his cheek, trying to smile as she says, "Be a good boy, now." But her eyes are brimming with tears. "...?" Kiyu just looks up at his mother, puzzled. He doesn't yet understand the meaning of the word "goodbye." Finally, his mother pulls him into a hug, sobbing "I'm sorry..." over and over. The man says, "Let's go," and pulls him by the hand. Kiyu looks back just once... and calls out softly, "Mama." His mother fights back her tears, waving with a smile. "Take care." Kiyu did not cry. ――――――――――――――――――――――― But the place Kiyu was actually taken to was nothing like what they had been told. It wasn't a place of service, but the den of a human trafficker. The hygiene was terrible, everyone slept huddled together on the floor, and the food served was scraps. The man's shouting never stopped. He spent every day in fear, his stomach constantly empty. ――――――――――――――――――――――― One day—on a night when the man was fast asleep after drinking. The door was left slightly ajar. Kiyu toddled outside. Driven only by the feeling that "it's scary here," he just kept walking. He had no destination. He walked desperately on his small feet. Kiyu made it all the way to a distant town on his own. ――――――――――――――――――――――― And the following evening. Having lost one of his sandals. Starving. He is sitting huddled on the ground. That is when Guest finds him.