I

Yuri sat in the seat nearest the doors. The comfort of being near an escape route, the feeling of her past slipping behind her in the blurring landscape that ran past her, made her relax slightly.
Her flight through the city streets made her feel like a spy, sneaking by with her secrets closely held in her chest. However, unlike a spy, she had no informant, no one to divulge her secrets too.
She carried on looking forward, aware of a singular presence in the carriage with her, aside from the ticket collector and the driver.
A youngish man sat in the far corner, his body sprawled out over the seat, his head resting against the window frame. He was not asleep, or so it appeared to Yuri, nor did he look drunk, hungover or ill. He sat, his olive coloured overcoat wrapped around him, the pale grey trousers creasing as he rested his powerful leg on the knee of his other, the fabric stretching, revealing the strong muscle of the leg underneath, the toes ending in pointed, elf-like black shoes. She was fascinated by this loner, a man simply travelling it seemed, without any obvious purpose. He had no briefcase, no tell-tale signs of addiction or being embroiled in some misdeed. In fact, he looked the most normal, most casual individual Yuri had spied in a while. But, much like everyone else around her, he seemed to not pay attention. Sometimes the man would move, shifting his weight, or twirling his foot and stretching his leg out. It must have been painful and dulling for his legs to remain in that position for so long, but his blank, steely face did not tell Yuri if he was suffering any discomfort.
She, of course, had been wary of the man at first. In Tokyo, and other cities, girls had to be careful on the subway. “The nasty men will grab you if you’re not careful!” Her father used to say. However, the longer she sat watching the man out the corner of her eyes, the more she felt at ease. The man was serene. A central point, a core of calmness. He was the most human of the humans she had met so far in her bizarre travels.
The man got off at the transfer station.
With not even a glance, he walked off the train as the doors slid open and remained open, like a gaping maw spitting the passengers in the carriage out; vomiting holiday makers, salary men, and the lost and weary, like her and the man. Yuri stood up, ensuring that the youngish man was out of sight, and that her suitcase was close by. She stepped onto the platform, looking up and down the open expanse. The rail-house was further down the way, in the centre of the platform, while the empty and unused trains remained parked up at the offshoots of other platforms, much like the vein-like roads of Tokyo, pumping vehicular life through the busy ways.
She had lost sight of the man, and wondered if this was his final stop, or if he would appear on the other train, heading to Hokkaido. In fact, in some small way, she wished that he would. To be in his gravitational pull of calm, careless, or for a better term, carefree nature was a feeling Yuri wished to remain in. She smiled as she approached the next train. It would be leaving in 20 minutes. As she approached the other side of the platform, a cheery old man popped out from the conductor’s station, a wrinkled beam of happiness bathing Yuri with a toothy grin.
“Well hello young miss!” He said.
Yuri froze a moment.
Was this a set up? Did someone try and track her down?

She bowed slightly, stuttering some polite utterances and looked back over to the platform, the train, coiled and ready to strike to Hokkaido soon. The old conductor bowed back.
“Keep warm! These nights are getting cold, and these mornings! Oh! My old bones are creaking from the cold! What train are you getting?”
“Hokkaido.” She replied quietly.
“Hokkaido! Well, you will want to wrap up warm! Seeing some family?”
Yuri simply nodded, bowing her head again, keeping herself quiet. She wanted to get away from the overly pleasant old conductor. His overbearing joy and glee made her feel infantile, feeling as if she had regressed several years backwards, to a younger version of herself.
She scuttled off quietly while the old man grunted in confusion at his odd encounter. She heard him mumbling to himself, about how the youth of today have no manners, or how spoilt they are.
She made her way to a quiet end of the carriage, for the train bound to Hokkaido, her suitcase close beside her. No one else was on the carriage. No youngish man either.
The train was direct to Hokkaido, and with no plans of stopping or and news of delays or waiting times, it would take 4 hours to get there. Yuri looked at the stations clock. It was now 8:23 am. The train was bound to leave at 8:40.
17 minutes.
She could sleep. Lightly of course, in case anyone tried to grab her suitcase.
She say down, the suitcase gripped between her legs, the handle raised and between her thighs.
Before the train began moving, the announcement was made, and the ticket collector for this train came out, checked Yuri’s ticket, and then exited through to the next carriage.
She fell asleep after this, the soft rocking of the train’s carriage, the warm sun filtering through the window soothing her to sleep.

“Miss.”
A voice cut through the swirl of black blotches and flashes of light. “Miss” it called again.
Yuri’s head rolled forward, a moan escaping her slack mouth. Her eyes opened wider as she realised the train’s gentle rocking was static. Becoming more alert, the numbness of the heavier than intended sleep turned into a mild panic, a sense of surreal unreality creeping in as she violently shifted from the calm of sleep to the reality of the carriage. The voice belonged to the ticket collector who knelt before her, his hands gently on her shoulders.
“We’re here? Yes?” She said in a dreamy voice.
Her hands, that were once clasped together loosely on her tightly joined knees, suddenly ran up her legs, grasping for the top of the suitcase handle between her thighs.
A moment of panic.
“Yes miss. You slept through the whole night! My, you must’ve had a long journey. Got any family meeting you?”
It was like what the train’s conductor said on the other platform.
“No. Visiting. I’ll find my way.” She looked down.
Between her legs to see the familiar handle, that had been clasped in her hand since leaving the police precinct, since leaving her home in Tokyo. It had, in a way, become an extension of her, a fusion to her body, and of course with good reason. “I’ll be going now.”
She got up, the ticket collector backing off slowly, adjusting his hat and placing the glasses he hung on a chain around his neck back up to his face.
“Have a nice trip miss!” He said smiling.
She turned back, slightly nodding to affirm she had heard him, but said nothing in return.
She stepped onto the platform at Hokkaido as a few busy people shifted through the various cut ways and doorways on the platform. She found an isolated bench, not far away. Rushing over, she placed the suitcase on her lap, and, as privately as she could, unzipped it. Rifling through the clothes, she ensured that the pouch at the bottom of the bag had not been disturbed or tampered with. It had not, its teeth still firmly gritted. Then, as if she was about to cut the wires of a bomb, she carefully opened it.
The white envelope was there, and the remaining money she had for her half of the ¥5,000,000 – a few ¥10,000 spent on the train tickets – still remained wedged in the envelope. She nodded to herself, a smirk on her face. What luck she felt she was having.
Covertly, she did everything back up and left the station, before so, taking a map of the local town, flicking to the hotel and B&B section.
The list was startlingly long. A lot of traditional and rustic old Japanese-style places. Only a handful of modern ones.
She remembered hearing a story of her mother and father holidaying in Hokkaido, when they were that bit younger, before she existed. They said it was a romantic ski trip, and time spent in the hot springs and baths. It had been romantic, or at least romanticised to Yuri enough to make it sound magical.
“Oh, it was wonderful!” Yuri’s mother had said. “We watched shooting stars fall over the mountain tops in a hot bath. Just us two. It was so perfect, just me and your father. In fact, it was that night that we decided to have a child, or children, we hadn’t decided then.” Yuri’s mother had smiled at her. “I think things would’ve been different if we’d never had gone to Hokkaido.” Yuri’s mother had cupped Yuri’s right cheek, and smiled proudly.

Yuri made her decision.
She found a B&B named ‘Yoshinobu’s Rest Den.’ It was old style-Japanese, with a pagoda type roof. It looked so peaceful, quiet, almost perfect for escaping. It felt to Yuri as if, she was escaping not only from the current situation, but the current time. The building was a throwback, to a simpler time that she yearned for.
Yuri gawked at the building, getting lost in romantic visions of slipping away to another time. An elderly woman, with an incredibly humped back, hunched over onto a walking stick, wobbled towards her.
“Young lady.” She croaked.
Yuri, thrown off by the voice, spun around to face it. She looked at her level, then tipped her head down to meet the elderly woman’s gaze. She felt odd, like she had been caught doing something she should not have been. She waited to be chastised.
The elderly woman’s lips puckered. “You’re not going to stand and stare at the building all day are you? It’s nearly lunch time.”
And with that, the elderly woman tottered back the way she had entered.
Yuri looked at her, her small body wobbling as she disappeared behind the bush row, lining the base of the building, neatly trimmed back. She, on tentative feet, decided to follow the old woman across the small stoned gravel, her feet lightly pressing in the stones, her suitcase still firmly gripped by the extended handle in her hand dragging a dipped path in the gravel– like a snake when it drags its body along the ground through desert sands – into the main entrance of the hotel.

The main hall was very open, but Yuri could see the way that the corridors tightened, and the thin staircase that led upstairs, gave the rest of the building a constricted feeling. She took a few more steps, looking about her, trying to figure out where the elderly lady went.
“Young lady.” The voice croaked again.
Yuri spun to the direction it came from, spying the woman’s wispy white hair just about poking out from behind the reception desk, framed in a little wooden enclosure. Yuri approached.
The old woman’s lip’s puckered again.
“Is it an overnight stay, short-stay, or long-visit?”
Yuri blinked a moment, thinking of something to reply back with.
“I – I guess it’s a long-visit.” She eased up, leaning forward on the desk to see the elderly woman better.
“How long?”
She could see the little woman had a pen in her hand, writing on a booking form, in immaculate handwriting, crisp - classically trained styled writing– and had written down the duration of the visit as ‘long-stay.’
“Maybe a few weeks, maybe a month.”
The old woman hovered over the box. Without replying, she simply scrawled a ‘1’ then ‘month’. She filled in the rest of the form; the check-in date, the check-in time, the check-out date and time. Then, as she finished the final lashing of ink on an immaculately written symbol, she hovered the pen back over to the name box.
“And your name?” This time, the woman looked up to Yuri. “No, wait, let me guess it first.”
Yuri smiled uncomfortably.
The woman puckered her lips.
“You look like a Yuki, or a Yuri?”
Yuri gasped, slightly taken a-back.
“It’s Yuri.” She held her suitcase, closely to her side.
Was this woman psychic? Or was she someone who had been warned of her coming, by some agent or the mob, or even her father? In her confusion, she did not realise the elderly woman was asking her a question.
“Young lady. Can I have your family name?”
“How did you guess my name was Yuri?”
“I have a knack to telling the name of someone due to their face. I’m, however, not so well accustomed with it when it comes to family names. I have never found surnames to be of particular depth or wealth in a character, even though we are born and taught to call people by their last-names. You just looked like a Yuri to me.”
“Kikuchi. My name is Kikuchi Yuri.”
It felt odd saying it, like she was saying it for the first time.
The old woman looked back to the paper, carefully placing in the name box Yuri’s name, once again in the immaculate handwriting. When finished, she tore out the page from its bindings, gently so as not to leave a scrap of paper in the book. She took the page, and using a small foot stall on wheels, stood up on it to reach the hatches that held the room keys. She slid it into a slot, one of many built into the wooden frame of the reception desk. Upon entering the paper, she withdrew the key.
“Room 15. It’s right at the top, in the back of the hotel.” She hopped of the stool with surprising agility. She raised her hand, the keys dangling in-between her thumb and index by the leather strip that bore the number of the room. “I presume you’d like it up there. Out of the way.”
Yuri outstretched her free hand, palm up. The old woman dropped the keys into the offered hand.
“Thank you.”
The woman puckered her lips again.
“I will be upstairs later to collect your money for the week. Take the stairs on the right,” she pointed at the wall, her eyes boring through the wall. Yuri followed the length of her arm to the point of her finger, then through the stand. “It’ll be three storeys up. I hope you enjoy your stay, seeing as you’ll be so long with us.”
Yuri bowed.
“Thank you.”
She left the old woman at the reception desk, making her way hurriedly up the thin stair case, reaching the third storey.
She fumbled with her key, looking about her seeing if anyone else was coming down either end of the tight corridor. Other than her and the woman, the place seemed deserted.
Feeling more like a spy than ever, she gently pushed open the door and let it creak open gently, bumping gently against the inner wall.
This was the beginning of her two year stay at ‘Yoshinobu’s Rest Den.’

Next Chapter: Part 2 - Leaves: II