Chapter 44
Under the blazing sun, the school stood isolated in the fields, with low hills lush with greenery behind it. During class, Yumemi Miu always gazed at the stretching mountains through the window.
The sound didn’t come from the direction of the school but from the opposite direction, from a two-story building standing alone in the fields, just like the school, guarding the path to school.
The building had been old, with one room on the ground floor serving as a small shop, the only one in Yori Village.
Last semester, the elderly lady who ran the shop moved away with her family. The day after they left, a red mini truck and a white van arrived. A group of people in blue uniforms got out of the vehicles and started working on the house.
During that time, the small shop and the construction crew became the hot topic among the students.
A young man who, like Miu’s family, had moved to the village from elsewhere, took over the house and the shop.
The shop was renovated and became three times its original size. It now had many more snacks and toys, and the wooden door was replaced with an automatic one. The teachers said the shop was now almost like a convenience store in the city.
At school, Miu often heard her classmates planning to visit the shop.
She had never been there. Her family’s snacks and daily supplies were mostly bought online by her mother.