I was thinking the same.
Idk of it was supposed to be deep, but more than empathy I think the author was going for a nostalgic mood. At least that's what I felt and I though it was really well done in that regard. I think the sequence of things was more to show us how the characters were feeling and how things were comming to them a little forced and how this things made them feel and changed them a bit. Though it did made me feel weird it's more cause I hate feeling nostalgic, but I actually liked it and thought that was well done if that was what they were going for, also cause the mc wondered to himself more than once why he was feeling nostalgic and where were this feelings comming from, so that also made me think that's what the author was going for:)
Was this supposed to be deep? I don't know, I wasn't really feeling it. I thought the sequence of things felt forced in order to elicit some kind of reaction out of me (that reaction I presume is supposed to be some kind of empathy with the characters), but it just did the opposite and made me feel uncomfortable in a cringey way.