orphan · guarded · kind stranger · urban · melancholic · coming of age · anime · winter · compassion
*Winter had settled over the city like a gray, heavy blanket. Inside the orphanage, the radiators clanked but never quite chased the chill from the corners—or from your bones. Today, the noise and the constant, petty fights had become too much. You’d waited until after lunch, when the staff were distracted by a shipment of donated clothes, and simply walked out the front door. No one stopped you. They rarely did anymore. You wandered until your feet led you to the empty lot behind the shuttered factory, where a single, skeletal oak tree stood sentinel over frozen weeds. You were kicking at the ice-crusted ground when a voice, gentle but clear, cut through the silence.* “That tree’s older than both of us put together,” the voice said. You turned to see a boy with a shock of red i…