The sun warmed bench sat in a lonely corner of the parklands, hidden in the behind the shadows of a large tree.
He took his hands out of his pockets as he wandered over, from taking his usual shortcut home, the heavy bag on his back had something that was digging into his kidneys that he was anxious to remove.
He went over and sat in the patch of sunlight that encircled the bench, where a branch had fallen many years ago, making a natural spotlight.
He slung off his bag, it slid with a thud onto the ground at his feet, and he started sifting through it.
The warm day was beautiful, with very few clouds in the sky, and he removed his jumper.
'Hey!' Someone said suddenly, and he pulled the collar of his jumper clear of his head to see a girl striding towards him.
'What?' He asked, confused as to why a complete stranger was approaching him, and she stood next to him.
'Don't you know not to sit there?'
He paused. 'No. Why?'
'It's haunted.'
He gave her a disbelieving look.
'Course it is. Am I going to be haunted for the rest of my life now?'
'No, but you should still have some sort of respect for the dead.'
He stared at her for a long moment. 'I didn't think anyone had died here before,' he said.
'Well, no,' She admitted, relaxing her stance slightly, 'that's the favourite place of this girls, before she died, so she stays there.'
He sighed, and slid off the bench and onto the concrete slab underneath, next to his bag, reaching into it with one hand to find whatever was jabbing him earlier.
'How'd she die?'
She raised an eyebrow at him.
'Not being disrespectful or anything, you seem to know a bit about it,'
'Well, I guess so. It's a bit of a long story, I guess.'
He checked his watch. 'I've got time.'
She sighed, and sat down on the grass opposite him.
'See, there was this girl, Kagome. People would tell you she was depressed, but you couldn't tell by looking at her.
'She would smile, all the time, you couldn't get her to stop smiling. She never seemed upset, and nothing seemed to faze her in the slightest.
'But she didn't come from the greatest background. Sure, her parents were great people, and her family, but it was the little things.
'Her parents got divorced when she was very small, and they were only happy when they were on either side of the country. Her father remarried when she was seven, they had three girls together. Her mother found a new man later, they moved in together when she was eight, and had twins.
'They never saw her anymore. Yeah, she was there, and they would talk to her, but it was like they had a long-lost aunt that nobody knew that visited twice a year.
She grew up in an environment that didn't need her, and she knew it. But she still smiled, still laughed with her friends, the few that she had.
She wasn't a loner or anything, she just didn't have that many friends at one time. And she would loose contact with them quickly if the friendship grew a rift.
Kagome was, well, she was a rather unremarkable person. She wasn't a great mathematician, or an opera singer, but she was good at things that nobody noticed.
She enjoyed writing, and would write stories, long and short whenever she felt it, right here on that bench.
'Well, not that one specifically, she was scared off for a while when that branch fell and broke the old one, but she was quickly found afterwards writing away in the new spot of sunlight.
She did lots of different things, that no one could draw a similarity between. Like she played soccer for her school, and she sang in the choir. She loved writing, and she enjoyed chemistry. She was an odd combination of everything.
But, still, she still had the overhanging feeling that she wasn't needed.
She would never say it, not in a million years, but not only did she know she was unneeded, unwanted, but she was also, cripplingly lonely in the world.
There was one thing she wanted out of life.
Nothing bad, nothing too difficult.
She wanted a family that needed her.
That actually, truly cared.
One that, if she died, then their lives would change.
Sure her parents would be upset about it, but there would be no empty place at their table, no room to clean out, no unimaginable hole in their hearts that they could not get over, no matter what they did.
She wasn't thinking about killing herself, but the thought was there.
Still, she smiled, she laughed, she enjoyed her schooling, she boarded here in the city.
She looked, and felt invisible, and she knew that she wasn't actually that good at anything of great value.
She wasn't another girl who was the best in the class at chemistry, as well as history and maths, she didn't go on to do soccer at a club level, and there was always someone who was a better singer, or pianist then her.
Yet she still, smiled and laughed, she still enjoyed what little she had.
She felt like she was a waste of time, a waste of oxygen, and a waste of space.
'It was a regular day when she died. She finished school for the day, and carried her bag home, as per usual.
Her phone rings, as she's leaving, and she picks it up.
It's her mother, saying how budget is tight, so she won't be able to come home for the bi-yearly visits for the next two visits.
She smiles, says 'no worries', and hangs up.
Soon after, her dad rings, saying that she can't come back for the next visit, they've got other relatives staying for the next time she was coming over, and they had nowhere for her to stay.
No, she couldn't possible go to a friends house for the two weeks that she was going to be seeing her half-sisters, and it wasn't necessary that she come home anyway, with the flight prices being what they were.
'I guess that's what did it.
She said goodbye to everyone, as usual, said; 'Goodbye! I'm going, have a good night.' Still smiling, still laughing.
She leaves, she walks over to this place, with the sun just about to go behind a cloud, and leaves her notepad, and a pencil here.
Then, she walks into the city, smiling, walked up a parking building to the top story, leaving her bag at the bottom.
'And she jumped.'
The two at the bench were silent for a long moment.
'Some people say that she still sits there, writing away, waiting for true happiness to help her feel needed.'
A butterfly floated past lazily, and they watched it, quiet until it was long gone from their sights.
'That's a very sad story.' He finally said. 'Did it turn out that she was needed?'
'No.'
He shook his head slowly. 'Those stupid idiots couldn't see what was right in front of them. The parents, I mean. She didn't should all that bad, and how could they go and do that to their own daughter?'
'Easily.'
'Well then, you're as unsympathetic as the rest of them. She should have gotten what she wanted out of life. And she didn't. That really sucks.'
She stood then. 'Well, at least a perfect stranger cares.'
He hesitated slightly, then stood. 'Sure. Why not? Why shouldn't anyone else care?'
She smiled at him, and turned to leave.
'Nice talking to you, though.'
He sat back down, reaching for his bag, sighing.
Suddenly, he looked up, to perhaps ask the stranger's name, to see her fading away into the shadows of nothingness, her face turned back to him, and a true smile on her lips.