Prologue

Yu watched the reactions of his classmates – well, now former classmates, he supposed – dispassionately as their homeroom teacher broke the sad news: he would be transferring out to attend Yasogami High in Inaba due to his parents moving. The reaction was always the same wherever he went – a collection of disappointment and indifference, always mild at best and token at worst. He didn't blame anyone for reacting that way either. A year was too short for any meaningful attachment to form, and in the great constant of school life his presence was a fleeting one.

It was as he was leaving that he was accosted by classmates wishing him well. He responded in kind, more out of politeness than anything, until a pair of his friends, temporary ones he had rented out for the year, of average height and looks with a standard interest in sports, games and girls, approached him with teasing looks.

"Man, sucks to be you, having to move to the ass end of nowhere and all," one said, sounding far less sympathetic than he ought to. "But that's life, I guess."

The other gave a helpless shrug. "Don't know how I'll get any homework done without you around. Man, maybe I'll actually need to study on my own now."

"As if. You'll just call him up the moment you need help."

"Can you even get a phone signal over there?"

"Do they even have phones?"

The two shared a laugh. Yu offered a half-smile, not really seeing the funny side but not being able to muster up the resistance to tell them to stop. That was just how they were, never taking anything seriously, complacent in their lives and always relying on Yu's smarts to get them out of trouble, be it with helping them with homework or talking down the students and teachers they pissed off.

He left them with short goodbye and "it's been fun" – though if he were being honest, it hadn't – and walked out into the hallway to promises of "we'll stay in touch" being thrown at his back. He was only a few steps down the corridor before he bumped into a first year girl in a neighbouring class. She was a bookish girl, with thick hair and glasses, who spent most of her time in the library. She had become something of a study partner for him.

"I heard you were leaving school," she said, and sighed sadly. "Just when I was hoping we'd be in the same class next year, too. Now who am I going to talk to about books?"

He didn't know what to say. He didn't think she was accusing him but somehow he felt like it was his fault. "Sorry."

"No, it's okay. These things happen. If I start missing you I can just call you." She gave him a smile and a wave. "Take care."

He broke off from her and left he school building altogether, having not been stopped by as many people as he would have liked. On the school grounds, he met a third year who was the captain of his sport's club, a tall, well-built man with a buzz cut and a square jaw.

"Hey man, heard the news. I'll be honest, it's gonna be tough to find someone as good as you. You were a real worker." He patted Yu on the shoulder with a large, meaty hand. "Still, we'll have to make do. Call me if you need anything, okay?"

With that, he left Yu alone at the front of the school. He took in the building for one last time, and felt no real reluctance to leave. He didn't feel much of anything. The school was just another to check off the list, and somehow he felt that he would meet the same people at Inaba, just in different guises.

He returned home to an empty house. Both his parents had jetted off overseas a day ago without so much as a goodbye or take care. As soon as they had received confirmation that Yu's belongings had safely arrived in Inaba, they were gone, like they had just dumped their unruly child at the day-care, brushed off their hands, and went off to indulge in hobbies now that they were free of their burden. He recalled the last conversations he had with them.

His mother had been at the dining room table one afternoon, nose deep in thick musky tomes, reference books and printed journals. There was enough to cover the entire table, which could usually seat about eight people despite them being a family of three. Yu remembered taking a journal off a stack, opening it up to the first page and immediately feeling dizzy as he was assaulted by highly technical jargon and concepts he could scarcely comprehend.

"It's too early for you to be reading about robotics," his mother said without looking up from her book. Yu placed the book back atop the stack, delicately so as to not send it tumbling over. "I could get you some beginner's books, though. Oh, but you'd need to improve your maths and physics grades first, otherwise it'll just fly over your head instead of into it."

"My grades have improved," said Yu, a little defensively.

"Yes, but they can still be better. Kirijo wouldn't even consider you for one of their apprenticeship schemes." Here, his mother finally looked up at him, peering at him over her glasses. "Maybe if you attended Gekkoukan, you'd have a chance, but…" She shook her head and returned to her reading. "Well, some things aren't meant to be."

Gekkoukan High School had been an option for Yu when he was in Middle School. His parents were happy to pay the tuition and send him off to live in a dorm for the next three years, and he was happy to do so if it meant being able to stay in one place for a while. But 2009 proved to be a disastrous year for the area: a mysterious illness saw thousands enter into comas, while two students and Gekkoukan's director lost their lives. Although the circumstances around the deaths were never clear, there was a notable decrease in applicants for the following year. Yu was one of those who had to look elsewhere.

Up until recently, though, it still remained an option. His mother worked and owned a flat in Iwatodai, and if not for his mother being relocated to an overseas branch, he could have transferred to Gekkoukan instead of Yasogami. But there was no preventing his mother from leaving, not least because she had been looking forward to the opportunity for years. Yu was just unavoidable collateral damage.

As for his father, him being home was a rarity, and him being out of his study was even rarer. Yu didn't so much as talk to him as he had a consultation with him; the only way to speak with him was to book an appointment and be prepared to be placed on a lengthy waiting list.

It was during these appointments that his father would always interrogate him about school, specifically the people he knew. Yu's answers were consistent: he had a lot of acquaintances, but no friends.

"Yu, my boy, what you need is not friends, but connections," his father would say, usually sat in his study and tapping away at his laptop, connecting. Yu would always ask what the difference was, and would always get the same, condescending answer. "The difference is in the balance, of course. Friendship is illogical, difficult to form and ever harder to maintain with little reward. One side is always giving while the other always receives. Connections, on the other hand, are all about mutual benefit. Both sides understand that in order to receive they must first give. Do you understand now, Yu?"

When he thought about those words now, he found them difficult to deny. He had given people his intelligence, knowledge, expertise, talent, and time in the hopes of receiving friendship in return, but they had taken everything without giving him anything.

His classmates would miss him because they would longer receive his help when they slacked off. That girl would miss him because she would no longer benefit from his intelligence or knowledge about books. His sport's club captain would miss because he would no longer have his talent on his team.

If his father was appraising them, he would call them worthless. They were pointless as friends and no good as connections. They might as well be parasites. And then he would round on Yu, asking what he had been doing for a year.

Yu wouldn't have a defence. Not a single friend, nor a single worthwhile connection. He might as well not have bothered.

Maybe next time he wouldn't.

Of course, he did have questions about his father's philosophy on people. Did his dad's philosophy apply to his family as well? Did he give his love to his mother so he could receive a child, a possible heir, in return? Did he give Yu the "opportunity" to meet many different people, and form many different connections, so that he would be ready one to work for him, if not take over? He didn't have the guts to ask these questions, for fear his father would confirm a long-held suspicion and cast their status as a "family" into doubt.

Really, they felt less like a family and more like three people had been thrown into a dorm together, came and went as they pleased, and stayed only to eat, sleep and study. Though if he was being accurate, that only applied to his parents. He was more like their pet hamster who had to be passed around from person to person.

And this was just one problem. Perhaps the root of everything, but still just one, solitary issue out of several.

He was in the taxi, on route to the train station. The driver's attempts at starting up a conversation had finally stopped when it became apparent Yu wasn't going to give anything more than grunts and monosyllabic responses. His mind wasn't in the taxi at that moment, but in the future.

By the end of his year in Inaba, he doubted he would be any different to how he was now. He just couldn't see how things could possibly change. It would be a year in stasis until his next, thrilling move at the behest of his parents.

After that, he would be in his final year of high school. After that, he would be… well, he didn't really know. In a lot of ways, it wasn't his decision to make. After all, he had parents that were grooming him, in their own way, in their own image, pulling him along the path they designed for him.

He tried to look at the positives. A year in the countryside with his uncle would be like an escape from city life. He would be meeting an entirely different type of people, and experiencing an entirely different type of life. Maybe he would make friends this time, maybe he would find love, maybe he would learn things about himself he didn't even know. It could be a novel experience, something fun, exciting and enlightening.

But who was he kidding? He had no reason to expect any of that to be the case. It was only a small hope; one he was sure to extinguish as soon as possible before it turned into disappointment. An amazing year like that was best confined to his dreams.

He sighed and look out the window at a traffic light currently shining red. His thoughts had been spiralling down into the gutter for far too long. He tried to muster up some sliver of positivity, if only because the ride to Inaba would be a long one, and he didn't want to be wallowing in his own bitterness for its entirety. Something, he thought, had to give eventually. The longer this lifestyle went on, the closer he would be to a point where something changed. For better or worse, be it in the near or distant future something would inevitably change.

Until then, he just had to endure.

Meanwhile, in a place between mind and matter, dream and reality, and the conscious and the unconscious, a limousine accelerated down a road of cracked asphalt.

Its destination was unknown. None of its passengers nor the driver knew where they were headed.

A thick fog closed in from all sides. No matter which direction they looked, they could not see a thing.

Nonetheless, the wheels turned, and the limousine moved in a direction.

Inside, the passengers waited calmly. A man wore a broad smile, as if he was enjoying their current trip into unknown territory. He occupied himself by shuffling a deck of cards. Eventually, he drew three, and placed them onto a small table.

Suddenly, he snickered, and gazed into the space ahead of him, as if someone was standing there.

"Well now. It appears that we will soon have a guest with an intriguing destiny," he said. "You will find that the road that lies ahead of you is one shrouded in fog. It is one that should not be walked alone." He chuckled. "But we shall tend to the details of your fate another time. For now, you may look forward, as the year ahead will be a turning point in your destiny."

Back in the taxi, a silver haired boy continued to look out the window. He watched a set of traffic lights remain stuck in red, until suddenly they changed to green, and they were moving again, onwards to the next chapter in his life.