Okomatsa San Monologue

PROLOGUE
The orphanage reeked of sweat and mould, which was very uncommonly unhygienic for the town’s standards. The children were dirty and unbathed; their clothes more like tattered scraps. Money was scarce, and the owners were greedy. Money mysteriously disappeared from all the charity funds, but somehow Okomatsa-san got nicer clothes and finer jewellery.
The children, underappreciated and sceptical, kept their beady eyes on their caretaker.
The children looked soulless to the public eye. They got sent to school with dirty, broken uniforms; orphans routinely got punished for it. They showed up in public with less fat on their bodies; their bones more prominent. It was completely obvious that the orphans, malnourished, had only a limited
She needed tutoring and had her extracurriculars. Her tutor was an amicable boy from year 5, Minami Kenjirou. He offered up tutoring her in grammar and amateur sciences. For the most of the time, she was striving, and failing, to sew up her uniform in the ' Family and the Consumer Services ' classroom, so Ivy never made it to class in time for those topics. She'd been lectured many times of how she could end up kicked out of school for failing basic courses.
As she trudged down the sidewalk towards the train station, the girl couldn't help but notice the crude stares from the bystanders. Ivy knew she looked different, light silver hair and deathly pale skin compared to black hair and pewter skin. It was easier to compare her red eyes compared to brown. She could comprehend why she unnecessarily had attention; if she saw an albino girl, she would definitely be confused.
The small ' jingle, jingle ' of the loose change in her pocket alerted her to the possibility that of which there were pickpockets in the area. Her small hand took hold of the change to stop the noise. Ten steps to the station. Nine steps to the station. Eight steps to the station Seven steps to the station. Six steps left until she faced a new crowd and faced the embarrassment related to walking up to the platform. If only she wasn't in donated clothes; an oversized tee-shirt, a pair of torn up and crudely sewn leggings, and a pair of beat-up
Three steps to the box office, two steps to the box office. "Hello little girl," The ticket vendor drawled. "How many, and to where are you going?"
Ivy swallowed audibly, before whispering, "One to Hataka, please."She held out the dulled coins.
"Fifty-two yen, miss," the vendor drawls on, taking most of the money and handing her the ticket.
Ivy mutters a thank you under her small breath and walks over to the platform. The benches held many bystanders; the chatter was too loud to even hear a thought, the stench reeked of tamago sushi and sriracha sauce. The train soon pulled up and the flood of people leaving the train flowed out into the streets.
She entered in relatively quickly, grabbing a seat before anyone else boarded.
The train wasn't as crowded as it seemed; there was a seat for her and her messenger bag. The open space between the poles and the grips dangling from the ceiling had most of the populous, the seats were almost vacant. Ivy could breathe, but the stench of tamago and sriracha lingered. She grimaced, who puts sriracha sauce on