RUN

The story begins with Kouichi, the only son from a wealthy family. His mother died when was very little, and within that lapse of time, his father married a second time, and the stepmother brought her own daughter over, Serino, who would later become Kouichi’s little sister. His father used to ride a bike in his youth, on which he went on many trips to many places, meeting up with new people, and having different experiences. Kouichi liked to listen attentively to his father stories, no matter how plain, or simple they sounded. Both his admiration and love for his father grew with the pass of time, mostly due to these stories, and seeing how other people relied so much on his father. But after a couple of years, his father passed away. It’s normal, life comes to an end, he thought.

By then he was already a college student, and would soon inherit and administrate his father’s company. Reality kicks in, a reality far away from those stories he used to hear. He had to embrace it, until he stumbled upon that old bike once again. It was non-functional, rusty, long forgotten by time. That beaten up bike, left abandoned at the corner of the garage brought him to tears the moment he laid eyes on it, and decided to do a total restoration of it to go on a journey, just like his father did. Easier said than done, though. There’s school, responsibilities, and pretty soon, work. Somehow, he got permission, both from his father’s company and school to be absent for a while. And his stepmother helped him with the cost of the bike’s restoration. Okay, everything is moving smoothly. But he hasn’t done anything on his own, he is just the family’s pampered child. They answer to his whims. But that’s precisely why he wanted to go out to the world; to grow as a person, to gain experience in life, to stop being the family’s child, and become like his father, his life-long role model. To obtain that “something” his father had, but he actually hasn’t.