And Thus He Became an Abyss

That promised tomorrow didn’t come for Hazuki or Naoe. As Hazuki left the park that night, he received a phone call that his grandfather had collapsed on the living room floor. Hazuki raced to the nearest hospital where his grandmother was waiting. Doctors and nurses rushed by them in a flurry amid the sounds of beeping monitors and calls over speaker systems. Stale white light ensnared Hazuki as he sat there in a panic. His grandmother couldn’t speak. Shakes rattled her terrified body as tears fell down her face in silence. Night passed into morning. Surgery was undertaken in desperation. The surgery failed.

Footsteps approached Hazuki and his grandmother as they sat in the waiting room chairs. Caution and defeat echoed in every footfall, and Hazuki felt his chest begin to crack under strain as he anticipated what was coming.

“Oh no. Oh god no,” whimpered his grandmother as she looked up at the somber doctors.

Hazuki’s grandfather was dead. And in the grief that erupted afterward, his grandmother’s heart seized. Her arm locked in pain as sweat began to mix with her hysterical tears. She collapsed forward and Hazuki fell to the ground to save her, but it was too late. No one could reach her in time and her head hit the ground with a cold thud. The sound of fragile skin slapping on the tile floor in full force echoed across the room.

The seams of reality seemed to be tearing around Hazuki as doctors and nurses immediately flooded his grandmother to begin administering aid. The glare of the sterile white lights seemed to be burning into Hazuki’s retinas as he wept without realizing it.

“Help her! Help her please!” he screamed out as they hoisted his grandmother onto a bed and whisked her away without a word to him.

Then he was left alone in the waiting room. Now there was no one with him. Terror pumped through his body with such force it felt as though his skin was being peeled off with a dulled knife. Even his teeth radiated with unseen pain as the white light blinded his eyes.

“No, no, no, no, no…” was all he could whisper as the world collapsed around him.

Unable to calm his shaking body, Hazuki resigned himself to pull his arms around his chest and ball up in the chair.

Hours went by without a word, then it happened.

The footsteps returned. Only this time, Hazuki caught the sound of concerned adults murmuring as they walked. Hazuki looked up to see a horde of doctors and other grown-ups in work attire approaching him.

His grandmother’s heart had exploded from grief. She was dead. In one night, everything that remained had been taken from Hazuki. He was alone.

The day that followed bled between truth and hallucination. Soon Hazuki’s eyelids were raw from the unending stream of tears. As he was still a child, government supervisors arrived in hours to tell him that he was now a ward of the state. They would be taking him home briefly.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Since you are still a minor with no living kin, you are now in the custody of the state. We will be handling funeral arrangements but will need your signoff. Cremation will happen after the funeral and the remains will be taken to your family gravesite,” said one of the supervisors.

“But… what about my grandparents’ house? What about my school? What about-” Hazuki stopped as his thoughts raced to Naoe.

“I have to tell her…” he whimpered.

“Is this a person you can call?” asked the supervisor.

Hazuki realized he had never gotten any form of contact from Naoe. She had always just been the girl at the plum blossom tree. He shook his head in defeat.

“Unfortunately we are not able to take you to any other locations besides your home, the funeral home, and the gravesite…” answered another supervisor.

So, hours later, Hazuki was at his grandparents’ house surrounded by government guardians. He had ten minutes to pack up a single suitcase or trash bag of belongings and say goodbye. Entering his bedroom felt like a stranger breaking into a hotel. It was now unfamiliar. Devoid of warmth or happiness and merely a place to rest. Absent-minded hands fumbled to grab a random variety of clothes that were haphazardly thrown into a small suitcase on the floor.

Hazuki looked around the room to see if there were any mementos he wanted to take. As he scanned his belongings, nothing elicited any emotional response. It was just stuff now. Hazuki slowly sat on the floor by his suitcase and began to weep once more.

“Oh god no,” he cried alone as he fell to his side and lay on the ground in defeat.

Sobs came uncontrollably and Hazuki did not fight them. Grief returned in full force. It was a sorrow he had not known in years and had hoped to never experience again, yet as he laid there on the floor feeling his tears run against his mouth, he feared it may never unmoor itself from his bones ever again. Sorrow mixed into his essence and became a part of his very being. A new numbness began to stitch itself into the fabric of his soul, and he almost let it consume him. But then an image flashed in his mind.

An image of Naoe smiling at sunset.

It jolted Hazuki like a charge from a defibrillator and he sat upright in an instant. He had to go see her.

Hazuki leaped up and bolted for the door, but the guardians were there.

“Are you ready to- Hey?!” called out one of the adults as he ran by them.

“Hazuki stop!” called the other as he shoved through them with all his desperate might.

The doorway burst open as Hazuki stumbled out in delirious fervor.

“We’ve got a runner!” called out one of the guardians as they began pursuit.

Hazuki’s mind wasn’t clear as he sprinted down the steps and to the street. He had to see her.

“Hazuki no!!” screamed an adult as Hazuki leaped into the road without looking.

But it was too late.

He had jumped without gauging his surroundings, and he did not see the incoming work truck that was passing by.

Before he had even planted his feet, his left leg was struck by the full force of the vehicle. Bone snapped instantly as Hazuki flew through the air like a ragdoll. Pain unlike anything imaginable burned through his leg and torso as the asphalt ripped at his skin upon landing. Everything burned into nothing and reality faded into dreams.

The sterile white light returned in nauseating doses. Noises and voices beeped and murmured. Hazuki’s hands were tied to the sides of a bed. Needles entered his arms. Warmth and void coated his being as all feeling vanished and he became a husk.

…

“Hazuki, are you feeling better?” asked the woman.

Hazuki blinked his vacant eyes. Days had passed now and he was still in a hospital bed on suicide watch. His hands were still restrained.

“For the last time, I wasn’t trying to kill myself,” Hazuki pleaded in frustration.

“You jumped in front of a moving vehicle hours after losing your remaining family. You must understand that the State is required to take serious precautions. Especially given your family history...” replied the woman.

Hazuki’s hands pulled at the restraints as he let out a frustrated whimper.

“I was trying to go see her,” he said.

“Who is she? A classmate?” asked the woman.

Hazuki shook his head.

“What’s going to happen to me?” he asked as tears formed in his eyes.

Even as he cried, the void in his being was still there. His soul felt out of alignment now. As though his existence and body were rendered in one spot, but his soul was rendered a few pixels out of alignment. Unsettled and isolated. Voided and hollowed.

“Your grandparents’ remains have been taken to the gravesite. The government is working with a legal team and the banks to deal with their remaining debts. There was still a balance on their mortgage, so the lender will be taking their house back.”

“As such, you will not be staying in Inabe City. There is a nearby home for older wards, which is where you’ll be transferred to. The home has a school attached, so you will finish your education there,” said the woman in a completely neutral tone.

“I’m leaving?!” asked Hazuki.

She nodded as he cried.

“Once you are cleared to leave the hospital, you will be taken to the gravesite to say your goodbyes, then guardians will escort you to Yamanashi.”

“Yamanashi? That’s hours from here. That’s almost to Tokyo,” said Hazuki.

“As stated, it is the nearest orphan- home for older wards of the state that currently has capacity,” replied the woman.

Pain pulsed through Hazuki’s left leg, which was now full of pins and wrapped in a cast.

“Orphanage…” whispered Hazuki.

“This home is known for its care and kind staff. It is not like the horror stories. This is not the end of your life or the end of your happiness Hazuki. There will be adults there to help you recover and find your way.”

“What about my leg? And do I have to take these meds?” asked Hazuki.

“The doctors did what they could. And the government will cover a small cycle of physical therapy to help you recover. But your leg had multiple fractures. And your A.C.L. was torn, along with your Achilles. It will take great effort on your part to mend. And the State will require you to take these meds until you are an adult. After that it is your decision to stay on them or not,” she replied.

The harnesses and cast were burning now. Hazuki felt as though his whole body might rip if any more grief moved through it. So he resigned himself to collapse into despair and sank into bed. Movement avoided him for days, as he shifted to scrape a few morsels of food each day, then returned to immobility. Sores appeared on his back and buttocks from the lack of movement, but he didn’t care. The added pain of the lesions was lost on him as nothing else could be registered within his abyss.

Time dripped by like his IV drips. Days turned to weeks and soon he was released. He stood for the first time in nearly two weeks and braced himself on the rails as he moved to the wheelchair that was to be his new temporary prison. Then he was in a van with several strange adults, on his way to say goodbye to his family and Inabe City. Tears did not fall anymore. Instead, there was nothingness. Sorrow had made way for defeated acceptance, and Hazuki sat in silence as he looked out the window at the city blurring by.

After the gravesite visit, Hazuki was loaded back into the van and was set off towards his new home in a faraway land. As the van moved through traffic and towards the major thoroughfare to take him away, Hazuki looked out the window once more in hopes of seeing the plum grove in the distance. But it wasn’t there. The van did not take a route that went near the sea of pink trees. Hazuki felt a ping of sorrow claw its way through his void as the thought of never seeing Naoe again draped itself over him in the embrace of a funeral shawl. A single tear ran from his eye as he looked away from the window and bid farewell to the life he’d known.