I returned home after several seasons had passed.

The trees in my tiny backyard bore yellow and red leaves – a sign of the upcoming winter season. The air had grown colder in the past days. I shivered as I walked in, whispered "I'm home", and prepared for a bath.

When I was folding all my clothes and placing them in the laundry basket, I was reminded of my younger days, back when I could throw away my clothes, carefree, while my mother would criticize my manners and shake her head in dismay.

I thought of her a lot, my mother. She was someone I had deeply disliked for her overbearing nature, yet the one I missed the most when I went to Tokyo for further studies. All my hatred had melted away right from the moment I got into the train and saw her swollen eyes bidding me farewell, as I prepared to depart for a different prefecture.

It was saddening, returning to staying alone after seven months of a business trip, so far away from the old house that protected me for most of my life. I wondered if it was any good to grow older.

After freshening up, I peeled some nashi I had purchased earlier and put off cooking or a few hours. I wanted to browse some options to revisit home within the next day.

When I slid the shoji, nostalgia hit me in the form of origami cranes.

I was not concerned of intrusion – living alone, I had left behind everything dear to me at my birthplace. But I certainly was perturbed by the several cranes scattered around in my living room; how many, I couldn't tell.

They exceeded hundred cranes... maybe five-hundred or so? Perhaps even more.

I recalled entrusting my mother with the duplicate keys. Had she lost them? Even so, why so many paper cranes? I tilted my head slightly in confusion, and after a moment, it struck me. I burst out laughing. Work really had clouded my mind.

My siblings!

Those little children had undertaken the job of getting on my nerves for the longest time. They were sweet, yes, but that hint of mischievousness really went off the charts sometimes.

Recalling the old legend of folding a thousand paper cranes to earn a wish, I could already see my parents dumping the mess in my house while my siblings protested the cranes were for God.

I used to bother them as much as mother, to be honest. From coloring to tying their shoelaces, I had taught them all. I was also an untrustworthy person for I always sold their secrets to my parents. Perhaps they too perceived me just as I saw my mother?

Carefully clearing some of the origami, I slid under the kotatsu, finally warm. I wished to visit them at the earliest, so I turned on my laptop to browse e-tickets. While I was at it, I also ordered sturdy strings to hang the cranes up, forty a bunch.

Perhaps the cranes were intended to be given when I had left. They must have missed me by a day or so, then. If all this effort was meant to protect me from injuries, these cranes certainly fulfilled their purpose. God was merciful.

Dusting off the thin layer of filth on a crane, I felt the creases of the origami paper – they were well-pressed.

My siblings were in high school now. They didn't have stubby hands and neither did they struggle with scissors anymore. They had grown up too – and it was a foreign thought. I could never see those two as adults.

I booked a Metro ticket departing late evening the next day. I was terribly excited, wondering how everyone would react when I'd pop up after several months.

Walking in after an exhausting day, finding my mom in the kitchen making my favorite dishes, beaming at my father as he flipped through news channels, and yelling at my siblings to stop running downstairs out of excitement – I dreamt of those happy memories that night.

I looked forward to eating my mother's classic rice and fish, coupled with miso soup and pickled vegetables.

Next morning, I took a detour while buying some essentials. I passed a jewelry shop and bit my lip in guilt. It was my childhood dream to buy my mother a diamond accessory. But I was yet to earn enough to buy the kind of bracelet I had in mind back then. Saving up while managing myself was difficult, having only worked for two years.

It somehow slipped my mind to buy them even the smallest of presents, as thoughtless as it might sound. But, for whatever reason, I collected some of fallen red leaves because they were astonishingly beautiful. It wasn't very effort-filled, yet I felt a sense of completeness as I inserted them in my jute bag while locking the door before leaving.

When I reached home, I eagerly knocked on the door.

But... my hand passed right through?

I blinked in disbelief and tried feeling the door to reassure myself, but I sensed the homely atmosphere inside instead of cold wood. My senses were blurring.

I was suddenly aware of the inevitable, realizing that the line between me and the environment was becoming bolder every second.

I had no time remaining.

I felt a wave of paranoia. It had been seven months since the thousand cranes had been folded in despair. It would only be a matter of time before I wilted away. This was my last journey.

I did not know how I felt accustomed already to this state, though. I bolted through. I wanted to see my family again, for the very last time.

They were at the table, their seats arranged in a manner than hid my absence. I noticed the rice cooker placed behind my mother's seat. Dinner had gone almost tasteless, lacking pickles and meat.

She never used to rely on technology, my mother. Me and my siblings often showed her several machines, from the rarely used dishwashers to the widely used rice cookers, trying to convince her to reduce her workload. I should have been happy, really, seeing her finally ease herself. Yet I questioned her choice.

"Mother, why?" I screamed out.

Finding my father without a newsprint was a first. The television wasn't switched on in the other room either. And my siblings, well, they were sickeningly quiet. They weren't making a ruckus while narrating their school adventures.

I pressed my fingers to my eyeballs – they felt so very real. Was everything a sham? Was my house, whose items I could touch, see-through? Was this jute bag I held my imagination?

I wanted to convey to them that I was here. That I was okay. But perhaps I was in another plane of existence, for my words couldn't break through.

Those cranes had been a guide, leading my lost and wandering soul to my broken family so that I could finally find solace.

I remembered lying half-conscious on my futon while my siblings told one another, "One thousand cranes and our wish will come true. God is merciful." I remembered groaning in pain and asking my mother for fish, for my tastebuds had lost their ability and everything tasted like dust. I remembered my father feeding me, leaving the newspaper without a second thought.

The cherry blossoms I saw during February were the last touch of life I would ever feel.

I saw my worth in my family – everything I had ever been. Those days when I had hurt my parents with my words and actions, had they forgiven me for it? And those days that I spent realizing I wasn't all that special, had they been disappointed with me?

Maybe I was a bad child and a bad elder sibling. But I trusted with all my heart that they didn't think so.

All this while, it seemed, I was the one and only me.

I toured all the rooms. It was as if nothing had ever changed, as if life had frozen. The edge of the table was still chipped, the microwave still had a broken handle, the television remote was still missing a button. My room was untouched. My uniforms still hung up on my favorite hangers, the bedsheet was still the same, and my books were still messily piled up. But there was not a single speck of dust on my items.

I teared up, hoping they'd move on soon, just as I would.

I would never be able to buy my mother diamonds, my father fancy electronics, and my siblings costly fruits. All that I could have given them were memories, and I hoped I had done my part.

My collection of maple leaves settled on the living room table like the cranes did on my kotatsu, and even though they might be nothingness in the living world, they brought my final voyage to a close.

I muttered a small prayer for my family's well-being before disappearing.