Chapter Text
"You useless child. Your school informed me you were absent again today" the woman said as he pushed the boy down. He crashed down against a cluttered floor littered with trash and bottles of liquor.
"Not gonna speak?" She grabbed the boy's hair and lifted him close to her angered face. His scalp burning from the sharp nails and the woman's harsh treatment.
"Okaa-san please. It hurts!" The boy sobbed against her hold, arms trying to pry his mothers hand off of him.
"I GAVE YOU LIFE. I FED YOU. CLOTHED YOU. AND THEN YOU WASTE AWAY YOUR LIFE BEING A THUG"
'Like you've been wasting away as an alcoholic?!'
He swallowed the words building in his throat while she was snarling words he can't comprehend anymore.
It wasn't always like this. His mother used to just let him do whatever he wanted. She would cook food for every meal for them to share and he really liked how her food tastes. Although sometimes the dishes may not be much due to the tight budget they have.
They would share the table everyday with him telling her about his day while his mother stayed silent. Which was fine because he can talk for the both of them.
He would go to school everyday because a salaryman he once met told him he could get a good job and earn lots of money if he studied well. His first thought was that it would help lessen the weight on his mother's shoulders.
Maybe his mother would be proud of him once he starts earning money. Maybe she'll be less sad about the father he never met.
But things aren't so straightforward that life would follow as planned. He was smart, that was a fact he knew with his exam scores and the praises he got from his teachers. He's also a fast learner so he could breeze through the lesson materials faster than his peers. People admired him and many of them would befriend him because of his intellect.
As he grew up, her mother became cruel and began lashing out at him, blaming him for the love of her life leaving her behind. Jealous kids at school somehow found out about how his mother's former lover, then dragged his name as the source of their break up it became the school gossip. They made it seem like he was the villain in the story. And so the place he once thought as a haven became suffocating but he endured.
"IF IT WASN'T FOR YOU, HE WOULDN'T HAVE LEFT ME! I WOULDN'T HAVE TO SUFFER THIS POVERTY! YOU RUINED MY LIFE!" The woman screamed her lungs out as she threw her son against the wall. He let out a whimper as his back collided against the wall and his scalp hurts. He may have had some bald spots from how hard her hold was.
'It wasn't always like this.' He kept chanting this phrase in his head as he felt water welling up his eyes and yet refused to let fall down. 'She still loves me, doesn't she?'
His mother's face was flushed in a deep red out of anger and eyes that could set him on fire at any moment. She took a hold of an empty bottle of beer and sent it flying towards him. It hit the wall beside his head and shards hit him with the close proximity.
'It stings'
"Okaa-san please calm down" His tone was begging. He can feel a bit of blood flow down from the cuts on his face and hands.
"I was only helping Tadaomi-san with her groceries for some money"
"So you're saying I can't provide for you? How ungrateful can you get?!" She makes a gesture of reaching for another bottle. The boy's arms fearfully raised his arms in front of him. The bottle shattered at the right side of his head. His head is spinning. He felt viscous liquid flow down his face, hands that didn't manage to block the blow touch the wound and seeing it painted red.
'It hurts.'
The woman seeing the bloody visage of his son in front of her, froze at the sight, sobering her up from her drunken haze. Her throat locked tight from words that threaten to escape.
She took a step forward.
He flinched.
What she did was horrible. She has to say something. Apologize.
"Leave" -is what left her mouth instead.
"But Okaa-san—"
"LEAVE!"
The boy immediately scrambled away hurriedly enduring the pain. He hobbled towards the door quickly just to get out of there.
He ran as fast as he could in his condition until his feet could no longer keep up. He arrived in the local playground near his house and those tears he kept from falling are now flowing down his cheeks as he sobbed.
'Why. Why? I just want to help.'
The whisper along the halls of his middle school grate his ears while the side eyes he kept on getting makes him want to claw out his own skin. It seems like everyone in that school are only out to get him so he opted out of class just for a day of peace.
He went to the Tadaomi-san to see if she needs any help in her house as she has decided to pay him for the chores he would assist the old lady. After all, the bill for electricity is due soon.
This was the very first time he skipped class and yet it led to this. He knew his mother can be cruel in her words and is susceptible to breaking things when drunk. She may have raised a hand or two but never to this extent.
'I've always known Okaa-san holds some resentment over me because of my father. But he's not here anymore. Why couldn't she have loved me instead. Am I that unlovable?'
He shouts in despair and hurt as the blood continues to flow from his head. Heart wrenching screams of frustrations and sorrow can be heard throughout the empty area, the dark skies his only witness.
'No, no. She still cooks me food and leaves some allowance on the table before I go to school. She doesn't mean to hit me. She was just drunk. She will cool down tomorrow and she will prepare delicious food for me as usual.'
The boy continued his lament as adrenaline left his body from the fear due to the earlier altercation. His head throbbed so hard he thinks he might pass out.
'If I'm gone from her life, would she be happier?' He's been crying his heart out for hours though it felt shorter. His sobs evened out as his body calms down.
What he did not know was the embeded glass on his right cranium keeping the blood continue its flow. Beneath the tree he sat down hours ago, he felt himself slowly slip away.
It reminds him of a quote from an anime he really liked to read. It felt silly just thinking about it.
"If you'd like to become someone new, go north. If you'd like to return to who you once were, go south."
Up ahead, the view from his seat faced northwards. The night sky had shifted from hours ago, its deep darkness gently fading into soft, morning colors.
"The skies... are so pretty from here... Okaa-san."
And the boy knew no more.
As the first ray of sunlight emerged from the east, it shed its warmth onto the boy, illuminating the peaceful expression left upon his face.