ゆきのまち
ひなたをさがす
たびびとよ
yuki no machi / hinata o sagasu / tabibito yo
in the snowy town / a traveler searches / for a patch of sun
There is a building in my city that pretends not to exist.
Seven stories tall, stained with age, wrapped in a skin of gray concrete that drinks in winter light like a forgotten sponge. The entrance is narrow and dark, and the stairwell smells of wet metal, dust, and something else — something faintly nostalgic, like old libraries left unventilated.
I found the rooftop by accident years ago.
The door at the top was rusted, its paint peeling like sunburned skin. Someone had wrapped a chain through the handle, but the chain was cut years ago, leaving a jagged silver scar across one link.
Push it gently, and it sighs open.
The rooftop always surprises me.
Even after all these years, it feels less like stepping outdoors and more like entering another version of the city. The air is thinner up there. The silence sharper. The sky too close, as if someone pulled it down just a bit so you could touch it if you stretched.
One winter afternoon, I climbed the stairs again. My breath rose in pale clouds, disappearing before they reached the next floor. The cold was the kind that clings to your bones, like an animal with sharp little teeth.
When I pushed open the rooftop door, sunlight spilled across the concrete in long, trembling ribbons. The city below was a mosaic of roofs dusted white, chimneys exhaling tired wisps of smoke, windows glowing with the faint domestic warmth of early evening.
That was when I noticed him.
A man in a beige coat stood near the far edge, leaning on the waist-high railing. His coat was too thin for winter. His hair was dark and uncombed, pushed back by the wind into haphazard shapes. He was reading a book, the pages rippling like small wings trying to escape his hands. He didn’t turn when I came out.
“Beautiful light today,” he said, as if commenting to the sky rather than to me.
I stepped closer. “Feels a bit like a dream,” I replied.
He nodded. “Dreams and rooftops get along well. They share the same altitude.”
Something about him felt slightly out of phase with reality — like he was an echo of someone else, or someone from a different hour that accidentally slipped into mine. His coat smelled faintly of cedar and cigarette ash. His shoes were wet from snow that had already melted away.
“What book is that?” I asked.
He closed it softly, almost reverently. The cover was plain gray with no title. “A book about questions,” he said. “Not answers.”
We stood in silence as a gust of wind swept across the rooftop, dragging a paper cup along the ground with a hollow scraping sound.
“Do you come here often?” I asked.
“Only on days when the city feels heavy,” he said. “Up here, things float differently.”
He pointed toward the horizon. A band of golden light stretched across the sky, thin as a blade. Below it, the city buzzed silently, as if someone had pressed the mute button on the world.
“Most people never look up,” he said. “They stay down there, caught between schedules and screens, letting the days pass like receipts they never check.”
He turned toward me then. There was nothing unusual about his eyes, but something in them felt unmistakably familiar — the worn-out curiosity of someone who has spent too many hours searching for something nameless.
“You look like someone who still looks up,” he said.
I shrugged. “Rooftops are the only place where the city doesn’t lie.”
He smiled faintly. “Exactly.”
The wind shifted, colder now, carrying the metallic scent of winter storms. He slipped the book into his coat and walked past me toward the door.
“Remember this place,” he said without turning around. “When you forget who you are, the city will remind you.”
The door creaked shut behind him, and I stood there alone, listening to the hum of the city below. For a moment, the world felt like it was holding its breath — as if waiting for something impossible and delicate to land.
I have gone back many times since.
The rooftop never changes, yet it always feels different, as if adjusting its shape to match whatever version of myself climbs those stairs.
I never saw the man in the beige coat again.
Sometimes I wonder if he existed at all, or if the rooftop itself conjured him — a guardian spirit of forgotten places.
Still, the reason I return is simple.
Up there, away from the crowds, the noise, the artificial glow of screens, the city becomes honest. The cold sunlight in winter feels like truth.
My favorite place is always the same:
somewhere above everything,
somewhere quiet,
somewhere the world becomes thin enough
for something magical to slip through.
life 
Leave a comment