The first thing Haruto noticed was the smell. It slammed into him, thick and cloying, replacing the sterile, recycled air of the train car. Not the acrid sting of ozone or the terrifying coppery tang of blood he'd braced for in the blinding flash that had swallowed the Yamanote Line. This was… warm. Yeasty.
He sniffed his nose, kinda remind him of the bakery near his house but amplified a hundredfold, saturating the very air as he breathed. It was so fundamentally wrong after the sterile chaos of the train that having his stomach clenched.
Blinking against at the light that wasn't fluorescent tubes, but a deep, liquid gold pouring from a sun hanging impossibly low and large in the sky. Panic, cold and sharp, pricked his skin. Where were the skyscrapers? The grey concrete canyon? Instead, an endless, rippling ocean of wheat stretched in every direction, stalks taller than him, heavy golden heads brushing against his cheeks with a dry, papery rustle.
The young boy pushed himself up from the ground. The sheer, overwhelming scale of the wheat field, absenced any human structure.
He instinctively patted his chest and stunned, his eyes then following down. His school blazer was gone. His fingers scrabbled at the unfamiliar, rough-woven fabric – an oatmeal-colored tunic that scratched his neck. His pockets were empty. Phone. Earbuds. The half-eaten Pocky stick he'd been nibbling have also vanished.
The mundane loss of the Pocky, absurdly, was the detail that made his throat tighten. This wasn't just disorienting; it felt like an erasure.
"Huh," he rasped, the sound alien in the vast, whispering silence. His voice felt raw, unused. "Im not in the Yamanote Line." The understatement was a confusion mixed with doubt… a lot of doubt.
He pinched the skin of his forearm, hard, digging his nails in. The sharp, bright sting bloomed, undeniable. This is not a dream. Not a concussion. The confirmation brought no relief, only a deeper chill.
Ahead of him, the dense wall of wheat shivered. Not just from the breeze, but something parting it. Haruto froze, heart hammering against his ribs. His instinct screamed danger. Who? Or what could be out here?
Slowly, a figure emerged, resolving slowly from the gilded stalks. A girl. Maybe above his age, seventeen or so. The bright light bleached making a white strands shimmer along the edges of her long black-purple hair, escaping a crooked straw hat tied with a faded, once-red ribbon, she held a sickle, its curved blade catching the low sun in a wicked gleam. In the other, a single severed stalk, dripping a bead of milky sap.
Haruto signed, feeling like his heart about to jump out.
She stopped several paces away, not startled, but studying him. Her gaze wasn't hostile, but the sheer certainty in it, the way she took in his strange clothes and bewildered posture without a flicker of surprise, was unnerving. The silence stretched between them like a taut wire.
"You're bleeding," she said finally, her voice clear but cautious. A statement, not a question.
Haruto looked down at himself, confused. A thin line of red traced down his forearm where the wheat had scratched him. "I... I guess." He touched it, came away with crimson fingertips. "It's nothing. Just a little scratch."
Her grey mixed purple eyes swept over him again, more carefully this time. She was still holding the sickle, but loosely now. "You're not from the valley."
"No." The word tasted dry. "I was... on a train. In Tokyo. Then... this incredible light. Like an explosion, but silent. Then... I woke up. Here." He gestured helplessly at the sea of gold surrounding them. "I have no idea where 'here' is." The admission felt like defeat.
She tilted her head, studying his face with the intense focus of someone used to reading subtle signs. "Tokyo?" She pronounced the word carefully, like she was tasting something foreign.
"Yeah… Tokyo." He tried to keep his voice calm but the girl's steady composure was somehow more unsettling than outright suspicion would have been.
"What's your name?" she asked, shifting her weight but keeping that careful distance.
"Haruto." He raised a hand in an awkward half-wave before letting it drop, feeling foolish. The formal gesture belonged to a different world.
She titled her head at him. "My name is Lumi, the daughter of this filed owner." She paused, glancing at the sun sinking toward the horizon, painting the wheat in deeper shades of amber.
Lumi was quiet for a long moment, her eyes never leaving his face. The sickle remained in her hand, but she'd lowered it to her side. "You look lost," she said finally. "Really lost. Not just... geographically lost."
"I am." The admission was barely a whisper.
She seemed to come to some internal decision. "The sun's almost down," she said, glancing again at the horizon where the light was deepening to burnished gold. "Fields aren't safe at night. Not for people who don't know them." She hesitated, then added, "Not for anyone, really."
"Okay." He muttered.
"Where will you go?" she asked, and there was something almost gentle in her voice now.
Haruto looked around at the endless, rippling wheat. No roads. No signs. No landmarks of any kind. The immensity of his situation hit him like a physical weight. "I... I have no idea."
Lumi studied him for another long moment, her gaze taking in his obvious bewilderment, the way his hands trembled slightly, the lost look in his eyes. Finally, she sighed. "My parents won't be happy about a stranger," she said, "but they'll be less happy if I leave someone to wander the fields at night."
She turned without waiting for his response, expecting him to follow. "Come on. But..." She looked back over her shoulder, and her expression was serious. "My parents will want answers. Real ones. And my mother... she'll know if you're lying. So don't."
"What do you mean, she'll know?"
"She just does." The casual certainty in Lumi's voice sent a fresh prickle of unease down Haruto's spine, she raised her arm out, offering him.
Haruto hesitated. The field stretched vast and silent. The sky was deepening, and he could already feel the air cooling. The sheer quiet pressed in, broken only by the rustling wheat.
He looked back towards where he'd woken, but the wheat had closed seamlessly behind him, leaving no path. Trapped. He had no bearings, no tools, no allies. The city's constant hum of safety in numbers was gone, replaced by an immense, vulnerable solitude.
With a final glance at the impossibly empty horizon, he awkwardly grabbed Lumi hand but then she pulled him and started walking.
He yeulp out a small sound, not entirelly against the idea of being pull by a pretty girl. "Hahn…"
The path between the rows was narrow, forcing him into single file. Wheat stalks whispered against his bare arms, a constant, tactile reminder of his intrusion. Lumi moved with unconscious grace, her steps sure and quiet, her body flowing around obstacles Haruto only saw at the last second, forcing him into clumsy stumbles. He felt loud, ungainly, an intruder in a rhythm he didn't understand. Her straw hat bobbing steadily ahead, trusting he'd follow.
After what felt like an hour but was probably only couple minutes, breathing air thick with pollen and that overwhelming scent of baking bread that seemed to emanate from the very earth, the wheat suddenly fell away.
The wheat parted like a curtain, revealing a sight that stole Haruto's breath. Before him lay a scene ripped straight from the pages of a medieval illuminated manuscript. Haruto raised his gaze, taking in the strands of moss creeping along the stone walls that formed the house, the towering chimney, the massive stone chimney puffed fragrant smoke into the twilight air, carrying the comforting smell of fresh bread. Several enormous burlap sacks leaned against thick wall or the ground.
Haruto stumbled slightly as his shoes hit the uneven rock plates laid out in a winding path toward the cottage. The stones were smooth from wear, each one slightly sunken into the earth, their surfaces darkened by time and weather. The sound of his footsteps sharp, hollow clicks echoed oddly in the quiet, reminding him of the blocky, pixelated paths in that old mining and crafting game he usually plays. The comparison was absurd, but his mind latched onto it, desperate for any scrap of familiarity in this impossible place.
The young boy breath caught in his throat as the massive wooden door swung wide—only to be immediately blocked by an enormous sack of bread, lumpy and straining at its seams. A towering, muscular man shouldered past, hefting the bag with ease despite its size, his thick arms flexing beneath rolled-up sleeves. His face was rough-hewn, sun-browned, and streaked with flour, his dark beard flecked with bits of dough.
The man strode toward the side of the house where a small, weathered barn stood, its wooden slats warped with age. Before he even reached it, a chorus of eager squeals erupted as a dozen pigs came barreling out, their many eyes, too many eyes, all gleaming with anticipation. Haruto's stomach lurched. Each pig had four, five glossy black orbs embedded in their skulls, blinking in mismatched rhythms as they scrambled forward, their snouts twitching at the scent of fresh bread.
The man grunted, stumbling slightly as one particularly eager pig darted between his legs. With a curse, he heaved the sack down—thud—and it burst open, sending golden-brown loaves tumbling into the dirt. The pigs descended in a frenzy, their strange, multiplied eyes rolling wildly as they shoved and snapped at the fallen bread.
Haruto stood frozen, his fingers digging into the rough fabric of his tunic. The sight was absurd, grotesque, wrong—yet the man just sighed, wiping his hands on his apron as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world.
Lumi could feel Haruto nervous yet curiousness, she tightened her slender fingers around his hand, pulling him forward. "Don't stare," she muttered. "They will get nervous if you do so."
One of the pigs lifted its head, five gleaming eyes locking onto Haruto. A wet, snuffling noise escaped its snout before it returned to its meal.
Haruto swallowed hard, dazing his eyes to each of them.
The man's gaze locked onto them as he standed up, his posture shifting from casual to threatening in an instant. Any amusement from the strange pigs vanished—now his eyes were pure warning. Haruto had never seen someone so massive in real life, only in videos and films.
"And who's this, Lumi?" He asked.
The man's voice was deep, rough like gravel dragged over stone. His stance shifted—just slightly—but it was enough to make the air itself feel heavier. His broad shoulders blocked out the fading sunlight, casting Haruto in shadow. Those cautionary eyes, sharp and unblinking, pinned him in place.
Haruto had seen strong men before, on TV and in ads but this, this was different. This was raw, real power, the kind that came from years of labor, not a gym. The man's forearms were corded with muscle, his hands large enough to crush a skull without effort. And the way he looked at Haruto—like he was sizing up a potential threat, or maybe just deciding how much trouble he'd be—sent a cold prickle down his spine.
Lumi stepped forward, unfazed. "Found him in the south field. Says he's lost."
The man's gaze didn't waver. "Lost," as he repeated, the word slow, deliberate. "From where?"
Haruto's throat tightened. Tokyo would mean nothing here. But what else could he possibly say?
"I—I don't know where this is," he admitted, voice thinner than he wanted. "One moment I was on a train, and then… I woke up in the wheat."
The man's nostrils flared slightly, as if testing the air for lies. Then, with a grunt, he turned his head toward the cottage and called out, "Mari!"
A moment later, a women appeared in the doorway. Her hands were still dusted with flour, her expression calm but unreadable. Her eyes—gods, her eyes—were the same storm-purple as Lumi's, but older, wiser. And they fixed on Haruto with an intensity that made his skin prickle.
The man jerked his chin at Haruto. "He say he's lost. Suddenly appear here."
The woman—Mari—studied him for a long, silent moment. Then, without a word, she reached out and grabbed Haruto's wrist. Her grip wasn't harsh, but it was unshakable. Her fingers pressed against his pulse point, her thumb brushing over the scratch from the wheat.
Haruto tensed, but before he could pull away, her eyes flickered—something like recognition, or maybe resignation—and she released him.
"He's telling the truth," she said softly.
A beat of silence. Then the man sighed, rubbing his beard. "Damn." He looked Haruto up and down again, this time with less suspicion and more… pity? Resignation?
Then he took the glance from the women, Mari, and Lumi before back to Haruto.
"Well. If he's here, he's here. Can't leave him to the fields at night."
A flicker of relief—small but warm—flared in Haruto's chest before doubt swallowed it again.
The man jerked his thumb toward the cottage. "Inside. Eat something. Then we talk."
Haruto's legs felt weak with relief but as he stepped forward, something feel tighten. He then look aside, realized that he still holding Lumi hand the entire time.