part1 · 002-ep2
Episode 2: A Sudden Farewell
The house was quiet.
"Mom?"
Ren called again as he kicked off his shoes.
"I'm home."
No answer. She wasn't in the living room. She wasn't in the kitchen. He went up and checked the second floor, but his parents were nowhere to be found.
"...Maybe they went out?"
Ren murmured to himself. Normally, if they were going to be out late, his mother would message him. But that day, nothing had come.
Ren put down his bag and sat on the sofa, still in his uniform. He turned on the TV. The usual shows. The usual sounds. Even so, he couldn't settle.
He looked at the clock. Six in the evening.
"Dad's not home yet, either..."
Normally, this was right around the time his father would get back. Ren picked up his phone and called his mother.
—No answer.
He tried again.
—No answer.
"...What could they be doing?"
That was when the doorbell rang.
Ding-dong.
"Yes?"
Ren headed for the entryway and opened the door.
A man he didn't know was standing there. A police officer.
"You're Kurose Ren-kun... right?"
"Yes."
For an instant, the officer went silent, as if choosing his words.
"It's about your parents. There's something I need to tell you."
"...About Dad and Mom?"
"That's right."
An unpleasant feeling spread through Ren's chest.
"Did something happen?"
The officer didn't answer. Instead, he asked if he could come inside.
Understanding nothing, Ren showed the officer into the living room. They sat facing each other.
"Today, the car your parents were riding in was in an accident."
"...An accident?"
Ren's voice grew small.
"Both of them were taken to the hospital."
There the officer stopped. Ren waited.
"...And?"
No reply.
"What about Dad and Mom?"
The officer lowered his eyes.
"...I'm afraid..."
Ren didn't want to hear the words that came next.
"At the hospital they were taken to... they passed away."
"..."
It made no sense.
"...They passed away?"
"Yes..."
"...That's a lie, right?"
"Ren-kun..."
"But — this morning..."
Ren stood up.
"We talked. Just this morning, like it was any other day."
"..."
"Dad told me to be home by dinner..."
His voice was shaking.
"And Mom..."
He got that far, and the words stopped.
That morning's scene surfaced in his mind. The toast. The fried eggs. His father's newspaper. His mother's smile.
A conversation about nothing at all. All of it from this morning. Just a few hours ago, it had all really been there.
"...This is..."
Ren shook his head.
"This can't be happening..."
The officer said nothing. He just watched Ren in silence.
That silence was more frightening than anything.
◇
After that. Talks about what would become of Ren began almost immediately, too.
Ren had no relatives he could call family. Both his father and his mother had grown up in children's homes. Neither had ever really known their own parents. They met after leaving care, eventually married, and Ren was born.
Which meant Ren had no grandparents to lean on. No aunts or uncles to speak of, either. Now that his parents were gone. There was no family left to take him in.
A caseworker from the child guidance center, contacted by the police, came to the house as well. Where he would live from now on. Who would support him. Apparently any number of things would have to be decided.
But.
Ren had no room in his head for any of it. His father and mother were dead. Even that much. He still hadn't accepted it.
◇
That night. Ren was in the living room.
The TV was on. But none of it reached him.
The morning's dishes were still on the table. The mug his mother had used. The newspaper his father had been reading. Nothing out of place at all.
And yet.
Only the two of them were gone.
"...Dad."
No answer.
"Mom..."
No answer.
Ren sat on the sofa, unable to move. He looked at his phone. The messages from his mother. Their last exchange.
'Dinner when you get home, okay?'
That was all. Ren's fingers trembled.
"...You said you'd be home."
No one answered. A quiet room. Only the hands of the clock were moving.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The sound was impossibly loud.
◇
The next day, Ren didn't go to school. Nor the day after that. Nor the one after that. He couldn't even work up the energy to put on his uniform.
When the school contacted him, he didn't know what to tell them. When messages arrived from friends, he couldn't reply.
Mizuki reached out over and over, too.
'Are you okay?'
'You're not coming to school...'
Ren stared at the screen, phone clutched in his hand. He tried to type a reply again and again. But his fingers wouldn't move. He didn't know how to say it.
—Mom and Dad are dead.
He couldn't make himself type those words.
Mizuki came to the house, too. The doorbell rang several times, and he could hear her voice from the other side of the door.
But.
Ren couldn't bring himself to open it. If he saw Mizuki. He would have to say something. And right now, even that was beyond him.
Ren turned his phone face-down.
Since his parents' death, the caseworker from the child guidance center had visited the house again and again. Ren couldn't go on living alone like this. From here on, he would be placed under temporary protective care while a place for him to live was decided. That was how it had been explained to him.
"..."
None of it felt real to Ren yet. Leaving this house. Living somewhere else. He couldn't think about any of it.
All over the house, his parents' things remained. His father's shoes. His mother's apron. The food in the fridge. The laundry.
Photographs.
Everything that had been "normal" until yesterday now squeezed at his chest.
Ren picked up a photo frame. A picture of the three of them. His father smiling. His mother smiling too. And in the middle, Ren, not yet fifteen.
"..."
Ren gazed at the photo. A single tear fell.
"...Please come home."
It was a small voice.
"Dad..."
"Mom..."
No answer.
From that day on, the house stopped being a "place to come home to" for Ren. It became the place his loved ones had vanished from.
And little by little, Ren stopped going out. He didn't go to school. Didn't see his friends. Time simply slipped past, there inside the house.
The talks with the child guidance center were moving forward, too. There were no relatives to take Ren in place of his parents. He couldn't keep living in the house, either. Before long, he would be taken into temporary protective care. Ren had been told as much himself.
But.
No matter what they said to him. It never sank in.
Morning. Then noon. Then night. Over and over. He had lost track of how many days had passed.
Then one day, a thought crossed Ren's mind.
—Being here hurts.
There were too many memories of his parents in this place. Wherever he looked, he remembered the two of them.
Besides.
Soon enough, he would be leaving this house anyway.
"..."
He didn't want to be here.
But.
He didn't know where else to go, either.
Ren stood up. And he left the house with nothing. He hadn't decided on anywhere to go.
Just.
He wanted to go somewhere that wasn't here. That was all.