Sea of the Wind, Shore of the Maze, Prologue

Prologue
    Snow drifted from the sky.
    The large and heavy snowflakes fell as if they would never stop.
    To look up at the sky was to see a canvas of white with countless dull, gray shadows painted upon it.  His line of sight followed the snow sweeping across his entire field of vision into the sky, and before he  knew it, all he saw was white.
    He watched as a snowflake drift lightly onto his shoulder. It was a big, thick snowflake that looked  almost like a crystal made of cotton. Snowflakes fell continuously onto his shoulders, arms and his bright red  palms. They immediately melted into the transparent color of water.
    His breath really showed how piercingly frigid it was, more so than the white snow. He turned his  small child's slender neck and the white of his breath followed his movements and hung in the air, making  him feel chillier.
    He had already stood there for an hour.
    His little hands and exposed knees were all red like a completely ripened fruit, and he had lost all  feeling in them. No matter how he rubbed or covered them, he felt only the cold seep into his bones. So he  was like this, feeling nothing as he stared uncertainly into the air.
    This was the yard on the northern side.
    A storehouse that was no longer in use stood in the corner of the narrow yard. A crack in the earthen  wall made the air even colder.
    The three sides of the courtyard were the main building, the storehouse, and where the wall contained  the yard. However, at this frigid and windless time, there was nothing he could use in this place to shelter  him from the cold.
    There wasn't even anything in the yard one could call a tree. For a time in the summer, the irises would  bloom, but right now, the ground was only scattered with the white snow.
    "What a stubborn child." His grandmother had moved from the Kansai region when she had gotten  married, but when she spoke, she still carried a thick accent.
    "He could at least cry a little. Even a little bit would let people know that he feels bad."
    "Mother, you don't have to be so harsh."
    "It's because you dote on him so much that he's become so stubborn."
    "But..."
    "Today's young parents only know how to please their children. It's better if the children receive some  strict discipline."
    "But mother, what if he gets a cold..."
    "He won't get a cold from a little bit of snow. —You listen to me. Unless he sincerely apologizes, he's  not allowed back inside."
    He just stood there.
    In fact, all this had originally happened because of a small matter; someone had dripped water onto the  floorboards under the sink and hadn't wiped it up.
    His younger brother blamed him and he denied that he'd done it.
    By his thinking, it was because he didn't remember doing such a thing that he felt secure enough to say  that he didn't do it. His grandmother often warned him that telling lies was the worst thing he could do, so he  didn't want to lie and say that he had done such a thing.
    "Just be honest and apologize, and the matter would be over."
    Grandmother had said it very severely, so he could only explain again that he hadn't done it.
    "Why are you so stubborn?"
    His grandmother always said this about him, so his young mind decided that he was indeed stubborn.
    Even though he wasn't too clear on what exactly "stubborn" meant, he had his own way of explaining it: because I'm a "stubborn" child, grandmother doesn't like me.
    He hadn't cried because he was confused.
    His grandmother wanted him to apologize, but if he had given in and done so, wouldn't he have  become the kind of lying child that his grandmother hated so much? He didn't know what the right thing to  do was. He felt very anxious.
    The hallway extended horizontally in front of him. Beyond the hallway's glass window was the paper  door of the kitchen. Through the half piece of glass installed in the paper door, he could see his grandmother  and his mother arguing in the kitchen.
    The two of them arguing made him feel very sad. Usually, in the end his mother would admit she was  wrong, and then she would have no choice but to quickly clean the bathroom. He knew that his mother  would eventually hide in the bathroom and secretly weep.
    —I wonder if mommy is crying again.
    He thought about this as he stood uncertainly.
    His feet felt a little numb. He moved all his weight onto one foot and felt a dull pain in his knee. He  could not feel the tips of his feet, but he still forced himself to try to move a