There was an endless pile of boxes; the pile being so tall that Ienzo couldn't see over it and had to literally climb over it to get to anywhere in the house. Besides the arguments of where his father had been all night or where the money in the household had been spent there was excitement in the air. Spring crept upon the sleepy town as quietly as the rising sun.
This was it; he was going back to his birthplace. Back to where it all began. His mother had been assigned to teach in Japan for the upcoming school year in April. This was the only place he loved, the only place where he felt he belonged. No one dared pointed out how smart he was or no one dared picked at the oddity he called his first name. The fact that he was faceless, nameless and that nobody cared, he enjoyed that.
Those last few weeks in school were the absolute worst. His teachers kept talking about how they would miss him and the fact that everyone was calling him teacher's pet pierced his mind painfully. He wanted badly to leave everything behind.
Four years would be enough time to lie low in the grass, to be unnoticed; to be untouched. His parents seemed to have gotten along better in Japan. Things were never as they were here… in this place. Ienzo's moment of bliss was interrupted by a high-pitched cry "Ienzo, what are you doing? Are you daydreaming again!? Wake up and make yourself useful, we've got a lot of cargo to ship!"
"Coming mother." was all Ienzo could manage, struggling against the height of the boxes. "I am so short then why do they continuously pile boxes on top of boxes? Do they seriously expect me to move all of this?" Ienzo said to himself.
The idea had hit him clean across the face. With that he just pushed the boxes over, keeping the explanation in his head of why some unknown dish had broken. Then with all his strength he slid the boxes across the length of the apartment; landing them in a neat pile by the door. He continued to do this all day and part of the night, pausing only to eat, until the slowly diminishing pile of boxes was completely moved elsewhere. He counted and then counted again. That was good enough. His mother wouldn't bother him tonight so he went back to his room thinking of all the fun he was going to have now.
The lush Japanese green was overwhelming and Ienzo now eleven years of age had to restrain himself from attaching to the airplane window. It had been six years since the last time he was here. Even now as the plane landed he already felt as if he belonged.