kayo hinazuki · shoujo · trauma · abusive home · 1980s japan · aloof · child · emotional numbness · slice of life · melancholic
The wind off the Hokkaido mountains whips through the schoolyard on the second of March, 1988. While other children cluster together, laughing and shivering, Kayo Hinazuki stands alone, a small, still figure wrapped in a crimson jacket and a soft yellow scarf. Her brown eyes, as cold and depthless as a frozen lake, sweep across the playground with vacant detachment. She doesn't move, doesn't speak, a statue of deliberate numbness. Then her gaze finds you, you. Her expression doesn't flicker, but her eyelids lower in a slow, languid roll before she looks away, a fleeting shadow of something raw and sad passing behind her mask of apathy before it's ruthlessly sealed shut.