Chapter VI: The Mother Who Never Stopped Waiting

The Mother Who Never Stopped Waiting

The dream came to her just before dawn.

Fujimoto Kaede stood in a field she did not recognize. The sky above was neither night nor morning—suspended in that fragile gray between endings and beginnings.

She heard laughter.

Small. Bright.

The kind that once echoed through her kitchen, down narrow hallways, beneath tables during games of hide and seek.

She turned.

Sora stood there.

Not pale. Not crying. Not afraid.

Smiling.

“Mama,” she said gently.

Kaede fell to her knees within the dream. She had not heard that word spoken to her in fifteen years. Not out loud. Not in Sora’s voice.

“You’re late,” Sora said playfully.

Kaede tried to speak, but her throat closed.

“I’m not hiding anymore,” Sora continued softly. “You can stop looking.”

The field brightened slightly.

Kaede reached forward.

Her fingers brushed air.

Sora began to fade.

Not painfully. Not tragically.

Like mist dissolving under sunlight.

“I’m not scared,” Sora whispered.

Then she was gone.

Morning

Kaede woke with tears on her face.

But they were not the same tears she had cried for fifteen years.

These were lighter.

She pressed a trembling hand over her chest.

For the first time since that autumn day long ago, the ache felt smaller.

Not erased.

But eased.

She sat up slowly in her small apartment near the edge of Kurotsuki. Her husband’s photograph rested on the shelf across the room. He had died in a traffic accident four years before Sora vanished.

She had survived both losses.

Barely.

When Sora disappeared, Kaede had searched for months.

Through forests.

Through drainage tunnels.

Through abandoned buildings.

Including Kuroyama Hill.

The police had combed the area repeatedly.

Nothing.

No body. No evidence.

Only absence.

Eventually, the town stopped searching.

Eventually, even the whispers faded.

But Kaede never did.

Not in her mind.

Not in her heart.

Until last night.

School

When she entered the classroom that morning, something in her posture had changed.

Her shoulders were less tense.

Her eyes clearer.

Students noticed.

Aika noticed immediately.

Ren noticed something else.

The heaviness that had lingered around Kaede since her arrival—

Was gone.

Class began normally.

Halfway through, Kaede paused.

She looked toward the window.

Then toward Aika and Ren.

“I had a dream,” she said quietly.

The classroom fell silent.

“In it… my daughter came to me.”

Ren felt his pulse quicken.

“She told me she wasn’t afraid anymore.”

Her voice wavered faintly.

Aika lowered her gaze.

Kaede rested her hand lightly against the desk.

“It’s strange,” she continued. “After so many years… I feel like something has finally ended.”

Ren swallowed.

Ended.

The word echoed inside him.

Had it ended?

Or had something merely shifted?

After Class

When the bell rang, Aika and Ren lingered behind.

The other students filtered out.

Kaede gathered her papers slowly.

Aika stepped forward.

“Fujimoto-sensei,” she said gently.

Kaede looked up. “Yes?”

Aika hesitated, choosing her words carefully.

“If someone you love… was scared when they were alone… but isn’t anymore…”

Kaede’s breath caught.

“…that would mean they found peace, right?”

Silence filled the space between them.

Kaede’s eyes glistened.

“Yes,” she whispered. “It would.”

Ren felt something tighten in his chest.

Kaede stepped closer.

“You two went to Kuroyama Hill last night, didn’t you?”

Ren’s heart skipped.

Aika did not lie.

“Yes.”

Kaede studied their faces.

There was no accusation in her expression.

Only understanding.

“I lived in this town once before,” she said softly. “My daughter disappeared not far from that hill.”

The weight of the unspoken settled fully.

“Sora,” Ren said before he could stop himself.

Kaede froze.

The name had not been spoken in the classroom.

Her hand trembled.

“How do you know that name?” she asked gently.

Ren’s throat tightened.

Aika stepped in carefully. “We just… heard it somewhere.”

It wasn’t entirely a lie.

Kaede closed her eyes briefly.

When she opened them again, something had changed.

Not grief.

Gratitude.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

For what, she did not say.

She didn’t need to.

The Lingering Presence

That evening, Ren stood alone in his room.

The dream replayed in fragments.

The endless corridor.

The distortion walking.

The almost-human face within its shape.

He approached his mirror slowly.

His reflection stared back.

Tired.

Thoughtful.

Alone.

He waited.

Nothing.

He exhaled softly.

Maybe he had imagined it.

Maybe the trauma lingered longer than expected.

He turned away from the mirror.

The lights flickered.

Once.

Ren froze.

He turned back.

In the mirror—

For less than a second—

The distortion stood directly behind him.

Closer than ever.

Its head tilted slightly.

Not aggressive.

Not violent.

Curious.

Ren spun around.

His room was empty.

But the air felt—

Occupied.

He understood something now.

Sora had been bound by fear.

Bound by isolation.

Bound by unfinished emotion.

When that was acknowledged—

She was released.

But the distortion had not been bound.

It had been present long before.

It had witnessed.

Observed.

Fed, perhaps—

On the moment fear overwhelms.

And when Sora left—

It had not vanished.

It had shifted.

Its focus.

Ren felt the pressure again.

Behind him.

Close.

Patient.

Some things do not haunt places.

They haunt thresholds.

The instant a heart breaks.

The second a mind fractures.

The breath between fear and surrender.

Ren closed his eyes slowly.

He had not broken that night.

He had frozen.

And in that frozen moment—

It had seen him.

Outside, Kuroyama Hill stood silent beneath the moonlight.

The old school no longer felt heavy with sorrow.

Sora’s waiting had ended.

But deep within its corridors—

The air still remembered.

And somewhere—

Something waited for the next child who hides too well.