I cannot make anyone understand.

Day 6: I want to love someone and be loved back.

Yua woke up because she felt like someone was staring at her. She could feel the gaze of something lurking.

Her eyes slowly opened. All she saw was a dark ceiling and a dim blue clock light.

5:12 AM.

For a few seconds, she stayed still beneath the blanket, trying to figure out what exactly had disturbed her sleep. Then she realized the futon across from her was empty.

Yua sat up immediately. The room felt cold. It was like all the warmth had been quietly drained out while she slept.

The bedroom door was slightly open. That bothered her instantly. Yua slowly stood up to investigate.

The hallway outside was dark, illuminated only by weak traces of dawn leaking through distant windows.

Then she heard it. Talking, but it sounded more like muttering. Quiet enough that she couldn’t fully make out the words. It was coming from downstairs. Yua hesitated before carefully descending the stairs.

Each creak beneath her feet sounded intrusive somehow. The voice became clearer the closer she got.

“…I don’t think I am cut out for this anymore.”

Yua froze.

“…What the hell are you even trying to make me do…”

Silence again.

“…No, they’ll notice.”

The bathroom light downstairs was on. A thin strip of yellow light stretched across the hallway floor. Yua slowly approached it.

The bathroom door was open just enough for her to see inside. Tsubasa stood in front of the sink, motionless. One hand rested beneath the running faucet. Water overflowed continuously across his fingers. He was staring directly into the mirror.

Not at himself.

But at something past himself.

“…Maybe this is already enough,” he whispered softly.

Yua’s stomach twisted. She lightly knocked against the bathroom doorframe.

The sound made Tsubasa stop immediately. Complete silence.

Then, very slowly,

He smiled. Not at her. At the mirror first.

Then he turned around.

“…Morning.”

Yua stared at him carefully. Something felt deeply wrong. Just wrong in a way her brain couldn’t organize properly.

He looked at her as if she had walked into the middle of a conversation she was never supposed to hear. She slowly typed on her phone.

What were you talking about?

Tsubasa looked at the screen. Then at her.

Then, strangely, he looked at the mirror again. It genuinely felt like he was looking at something standing directly on that mirror.

“…Nothing,” he answered softly.

Another lie. His expression always changed slightly before he made something up. That tiny delay was enough evidence for her to notice.

Like he had to consciously choose which face to wear first.

Yua glanced toward the mirror again. His reflection looked normal. But the longer she stared at it, the stranger it felt, because Tsubasa himself barely blinked.

The faucet continued running softly between them.

Drip, drip, drip.

Then Tsubasa suddenly tilted his head slightly.

“…You know what the worst part is?”

Yua frowned slightly. He looked exhausted again now. Not sleepy. He just looked existentially exhausted.

“The more you explain yourself,” he said quietly, “the less believable you sound.”

The sentence lingered heavily in the bathroom. Yua typed carefully.

Are you talking to me or to someone else?

Tsubasa laughed softly under his breath. Was this some kind of inside joke to him?

“Ahh, it’s really nothing at all.”

His eyes drifted toward the mirror again.

“I was just talking to myself to calm down.”

The water kept overflowing across his hand. He still hadn’t noticed, or maybe he didn’t care, but that lie was so obvious to her. Yua’s chest tightened uncomfortably. Something about this conversation felt deeply disorienting.

Then Tsubasa finally looked down at his soaked sleeve.

“…Oh.”

His expression shifted faintly. It was like he genuinely forgot the water was running.

He turned the faucet off. Silence immediately filled the room afterward.

Tsubasa stared at the sink for a few seconds.

Then quietly muttered—

“ I cannot make anyone understand what is happening inside me. I cannot even explain it to myself.”

Yua frowned.

Who are you talking to?

But before she could type it out, Tsubasa suddenly looked directly toward her again.

No, not her. Past her. Past the room itself.

His expression became unreadable for a second. Then he laughed quietly.

“…Sorry. Ignore me.”

Yua suddenly felt a strange, irrational discomfort crawl up her spine. Because for the first time since meeting him, she had the overwhelming feeling Tsubasa wasn’t fully talking to her at all.

Tsubasa brushed past her before she could type anything else.

“Everyone’s gonna wake up soon,” he said softly.

The hallway light outside the bathroom flickered once.

Yua turned back toward the mirror instinctively.

Only her reflection stared back now.

But the uncomfortable feeling stayed.

Like she had interrupted something instead of someone.

—

Breakfast was quiet. It was the kind of mealtime where everyone acted normal enough that the silence itself became noticeable. Haruki’s mother hummed softly while preparing food. Her husband scrolled through his phone occasionally between bites. Yua’s father looked half-dead from exhaustion and alcohol.

A full set of miso soup and omurice was put on the desk. The rest of the adults have already finished eating while the three teenagers were trying to finish it.

Everything looked ordinary. Tsubasa sat across from Haruki.

Yua could not stop noticing how careful he was now when it came to his behaviour around them, a complete opposite to what happened yesterday. Every movement looked deliberately measured. The angle of his smile. The timing of his responses. Even the way he laughed sounded selected rather than natural.

Haruki glanced toward him while eating.

“…Did you wake up early?”

Tsubasa froze for a fraction of a second.

“Yeah,” he answered calmly.

“I couldn’t sleep much.”

Haruki nodded sympathetically.

“Makes sense. Tokyo’s noisy.”

Tsubasa lowered his eyes afterward like he was somewhere else entirely. Haruki’s mother smiled lightly while pouring tea.

“You used to complain about the noise too.”

Haruki paused. The atmosphere changed instantly. Nobody reacted strongly, but Yua felt like something was wrong.

Because Tsubasa’s fingers stopped moving.

Haruki blinked.

“…Me? I’m used to it.”

His mother laughed softly.

“When you were little.”

A pause.

“Oh.”

Haruki smiled awkwardly.

“I don’t remember ever complaining about the noise though...”

But the response sounded uncertain somehow.

Yua slowly looked between the three of them. Something felt strange about the conversation itself and the way everyone responded to it. They were unconsciously acting around a subject they collectively agreed not to examine too closely.

Tsubasa quietly stood up afterward.

“I’ll help clean.”

Haruki’s mother immediately shook her head.

“No, no, you’re a guest.”

That response made Tsubasa visibly pause, only for a second. He smiled again, with that same carefully constructed smile.

“…Right.”

Yua suddenly felt cold again.

—

Later that afternoon, Haruki brought out old photo albums. It happened naturally.

Yua’s father mentioned embarrassing childhood stories, Haruki groaned in response, and suddenly several dusty albums ended up spread across the living room table. The atmosphere finally relaxed slightly afterward. Even Tsubasa looked less tense sitting on the couch nearby.

Haruki flipped through photos while complaining.

“Why do moms always keep the worst pictures imaginable?”

His mother laughed.

“Because they’re cute.”

“They’re humiliating.”

Yua quietly looked through the pictures too. Elementary school ceremonies, birthday parties, family trips, ordinary memories.

Then she noticed something odd.

Haruki looked slightly different in the older photos. The younger version of him smiled less.

There was a strange stiffness in his expressions, especially in the earliest pictures, like a child trying hard to behave correctly.

Yua frowned slightly. Then she noticed something else.

In the oldest photos, Haruki’s father was missing. There were no pictures of them together. None at all.

There were photos of Haruki with another man. A taller man Yua didn’t recognize. The pictures themselves felt strangely uncomfortable, not because anything bad was happening, but because of how little affection existed inside them. The man never touched Haruki directly in any photo.

He was always standing nearby instead, smiling politely, like someone posing beside a relative’s child. Haruki suddenly leaned over her shoulder.

“Oh, those are old.”

Yua glanced toward him. He laughed awkwardly.

“I barely remember that guy.”

His mother’s hand stopped turning a page. She briefly stopped but then continued again.

“…You were really little back then,” she said softly.

Haruki shrugged.

“Yeah.”

Yua noticed Tsubasa staring at the photograph now. He was looking at Haruki. His expression looked distant again.

Then Haruki casually said,

“I think Mom got remarried when I was around five or six?”

The room suddenly felt too small, because Tsubasa looked genuinely sick now. Something inside him had physically recoiled.

Haruki noticed immediately.

“…Tsubasa?”

He looked up too slowly.

“Hm?”

“You okay?”

Another tiny delay before the smile.

“…Yeah.”

Something clicked in Yua’s head at that exact moment.

Yua suddenly realized something horrifying. Every conversation in this house kept orbiting around parents.

Mothers, childhood, families, and every single time—

Tsubasa reacted in a certain way towards it.

—

The funeral was held later that afternoon.

Haruki’s family stayed behind at the house. They did not know Yua’s mother personally, so there was no reason for them to attend. The car ride there felt strangely muted.

Her father drove quietly while occasionally rubbing his tired eyes at red lights. The Shirogane family happily lent them their car for the day. Tsubasa sat beside Yua in the backseat near the window. He had barely spoken all day.

Tokyo blurred past outside. They passed by crowded streets, a few traffic lights and people continuing their lives normally.

Yua did not really get the reason why they would lend them the car even though the funeral hall was just a few minutes away, but they insisted for them to take it anyway. They had already arrived less than 10 minutes after they left the house.

The three of them promptly got out of the car as they made their way inside the building. The funeral hall smelled faintly of incense and flowers.

Too many flowers, sweet enough to become suffocating after a while.

Yua stood quietly beside her father while relatives and acquaintances she barely recognized offered condolences one after another.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“She was such a kind person.”

“You’ve grown so much…”

The same phrases repeated endlessly until they stopped sounding like language anymore. Just noise. Yua nodded politely every time.

She knew these people never really cared about her anyway. They sat down after they received some condolences.

Beside her, Tsubasa stayed unusually silent. It looked like he was somewhere else mentally. Every once in a while, Yua caught him staring at families gathered together nearby.

A mother fixing her daughter’s sleeves, someone leaning against their father’s shoulder while crying, or a wife clinging to her husband for support.

That same unreadable expression crossed his face again.

The chanting eventually began. Soft Buddhist prayers echoed throughout the room while incense smoke curled upward into the dim ceiling lights. Yua stared quietly toward the framed photograph at the altar.

Her mother smiled gently in the picture. It felt strange seeing someone look so alive while everyone gathered around them mourned.

She did not feel any sadness or remorse at all. For a brief moment, Yua wondered if death itself was just another kind of misunderstanding.

A person still existed in everyone’s memories. In photographs, in habits, and in conversations.

And yet somehow, they were still gone.

Beside her, Tsubasa suddenly spoke quietly.

“…Did you love her?”

Yua looked toward him. Her eyes remained fixed on the altar. Not the photograph, but the flowers beneath it. She couldn’t bring himself to look directly at her mother’s face.

Yua slowly shook her head.

Tsubasa stayed silent afterward for several seconds. Then he smiled faintly. A tired smile.

“…I see. That makes sense.”

The sentence sounded strangely fragile.

She could never forgive her for all the suffering her mother had inflicted upon her.

Yua looked toward him. Her eyes remained fixed on the altar. Not the photograph, but the flowers beneath it. She couldn’t bring herself to look directly at her mother’s face.

Yua slowly shook her head.

Tsubasa stayed silent afterward for several seconds. Then he smiled faintly. A tired smile.

“…I see. That makes sense.”

The sentence sounded strangely fragile.

She could never forgive her for all the suffering her mother had inflicted upon her.

The screaming.

The hospital visits.

The nights spent waiting for someone who never came home.

The feeling of constantly being unwanted inside her own house.

Love was supposed to hurt less than this, wasn’t it?

The chanting continued softly in the background. Yua stared toward the altar again.

“…Most people still cry for their parents anyway.”

Tsubasa’s voice was quiet enough that it almost disappeared beneath the prayers. Yua glanced toward him.

“When someone dies,” he continued softly, “everyone suddenly starts talking about how kind they were.”

A pause.

“How much they were loved.”

His smile thinned slightly.

“Even if that wasn’t true.”

Yua slowly lowered her eyes toward her phone as she typed carefully.

Did your mother hurt you too?

The moment he read the sentence, something flickered across his face.

Tsubasa stared at the screen for a long time. Long enough that Yua thought he might ignore the question completely.

“…That’s a difficult question.”

Yua frowned slightly.

Difficult?

Tsubasa finally looked toward the altar properly for the first time since entering the hall. His eyes landed briefly on the framed photograph, then it immediately drifted away again.

“I think,” he said slowly, “some people hurt others without meaning to.”

He paused as he carefully chose his words.

“And some people know exactly what they’re doing.”

The incense smoke curled upward between them.

Tsubasa watched it quietly.

“…The problem is that children usually can’t tell the difference.”

“But maybe that’s normal.”

Yua stared at him silently.

Tsubasa tilted his head slightly toward the altar.

“People always want mothers to be good people.”

His voice softened.

“Even when they aren’t.”

Yua stared at him silently.

The funeral chants echoed softly through the hall around them. Somewhere nearby, someone was crying quietly into a handkerchief. The sound blended strangely with the low droning prayers.

“…I think people are born wanting to forgive their parents,” he said quietly.

The sentence lingered heavily between them.

“Even when they don’t deserve it.”

His expression remained unreadable.

“Because if you stop loving them completely, then you have to accept something worse.”

Yua lowered her eyes slightly.

Like what?

She typed the question slowly onto her phone before showing him. Tsubasa read it, then smiled faintly.

“That you were small and helpless,” he answered softly.

“And the people meant to protect you still failed anyway.”

The incense smoke drifted upward in thin gray lines.

Every sentence sounded like it belonged to someone else. It was like he was describing humanity from a distance instead of describing himself. Maybe that was the only way he could say any of it aloud.

Tsubasa leaned back slightly in his seat.

“I think children are terrifying, honestly.”

Yua blinked, she was not expecting a reaper as terrifying as him to be scared of kids.

I don’t believe you.

Tsubasa laughed.

“What? They can adapt to anything. I think that’s quite horrifying.”

His eyes drifted toward a little boy sitting beside his mother several rows ahead. The child looked bored, swinging his legs absentmindedly beneath the chair while adults mourned around him.

“If you leave a child in a bad environment long enough,” Tsubasa continued quietly, “eventually they start treating it like normal.”

The smile on his face weakened slightly.

“They’ll still cry at first, though.”

His fingers tightened subtly around the prayer beads in his hand.

“But after a while…”

Silence. Yua stared at him.

Tsubasa looked toward her this time.

And for once, the expression on his face frightened her more than his fear ever had.

Because there was absolutely nothing there.

No sadness.

No anger.

No grief.

Just acceptance.

“…After a while, you stop waiting for someone to save you.”

The chanting continued in the background.

Tsubasa looked back toward the altar again.

“You know what’s strange?”

His voice sounded distant now.

“People say children are innocent.”

A faint smile appeared again.

“But children notice everything.”

The smile lingered weakly.

“They notice which parent sighs before coming home.”

“Which footsteps mean danger.”

“Which version of someone walked through the door.”

Yua’s chest tightened painfully. Tsubasa spoke about it too naturally. It sounded like someone recalling weather patterns instead of memories.

“They notice when love starts feeling conditional.”

The words came out quietly. This thought process felt way too familiar to her, because she also felt the same way as well.

Yua looked down at her phone again.

Then slowly typed:

Did someone abandon you?

The moment Tsubasa read the sentence, something changed. There was just a tiny shift in his face when his eyes read the sentence before him. Like a crack briefly appearing beneath glass.

He stared at the screen for several seconds without blinking.

“…You really are quite perceptive huh?”

Yua frowned slightly.

I can read you like an open book at this rate.

Tsubasa smiled and looked toward the altar once more.

“Well it’s not really abandonment per se...”

His reflection faintly appeared against the polished wooden floor beneath the funeral lights.

“For example…”

He tilted his head slightly.

“If a mother looks at her child and only sees a burden…”

The incense smoke drifted between them slowly.

“Was the child ever really loved to begin with?”

The question sat heavily in the air.

Yua lowered her eyes toward her phone again.

The funeral hall felt smaller now somehow. The incense smoke, the chanting, the quiet crying around them, it all pressed inward until breathing itself felt strangely difficult. Tsubasa still stared toward the altar.

“…Sometimes,” he continued softly, “people leave because they want to.”

His fingers rolled one of the prayer beads absentmindedly between them.

“And sometimes they leave because they think they don’t have another choice.”

Yua stayed silent. She wanted him to continue talking.

“I think adults overestimate how much children understand money.”

His eyes drifted toward a woman holding a sleeping toddler near the back of the hall.

“When you’re little, you don’t really understand things like rent or debt or jobs.”

A pause.

“You just understand whether someone stayed.”

The words settled heavily between them. Tsubasa’s expression remained calm, but there was something deeply unnatural about that calmness. Like these thoughts had been replayed inside him so many times that all the emotions attached to them had worn smooth.

“…Children are selfish,” he said quietly.

“They don’t care if someone’s struggling. They still want to be loved anyway. Which is probably normal.”

The chanting echoed softly throughout the hall.

“I think some people become parents before they’re actually capable of protecting another person. Then one day they realize they’re drowning.”

The prayer beads clicked softly in his hands.

“And they start convincing themselves that giving the child to someone else is an act of love.”

Yua slowly looked toward him again. She got it now.

“Maybe sometimes it even is.”

He is talking about himself.

But something about the way he said it felt wrong.

Yua typed carefully onto her phone.

Do you think she hated you?

Tsubasa looked down at the screen.

For once, the tiny delayed smile didn’t come immediately. Instead, he stayed very still. Then he quietly shook his head.

“No.”

The answer came softly.

“I think…”

His eyes lowered toward his own hands.

“She was probably just desperate.”

The sentence should have sounded forgiving. Instead, it sounded devastating.

The funeral chants continued steadily around them, then Tsubasa suddenly laughed again. A small sound. It felt empty.

“You know what’s funny?”

Yua frowned slightly.

“When adults say a place is ‘better for the child.’”

His fingers stopped moving against the prayer beads.

“They usually mean it’s more convenient for themselves.”

Yua’s stomach twisted. Tsubasa tilted his head slightly at her reaction.

“I think people assume children forget bad things if enough time passes, but memory is weird. You forget the details first.”

“Then names.”

“Then faces.”

A pause.

“But your body remembers.”

Yua felt cold all over. Because ever since yesterday, Tsubasa sounded genuinely frightened. He stared quietly at his own hands.

“Sometimes someone touches your shoulder normally,” he whispered, “and your body reacts like you’re about to die.”

The prayer beads clicked once again between his fingers.

“Sometimes certain footsteps make it hard to breathe.”

His voice softened further.

“Sometimes you suddenly hate being looked at without understanding why.”

Then Tsubasa smiled again. That same delayed smile.

Only now, Yua realized it wasn’t just fake. That smile felt practiced. Like something he learned for survival.

“…Humans are adaptable,” he said quietly.

The smile remained perfectly gentle.

“Even to things they never should’ve adapted to.”

Tsubasa didn’t look at Yua when he spoke again. His fingers kept moving over the prayer beads, but the rhythm was now slower, uneven, like he had lost track of what he was counting.

“…When I was younger,” he said quietly, “I thought ‘home’ just meant the place you slept.”

A pause. Tsubasa was now talking about himself. The chanting in the funeral hall continued in the background, soft and indifferent.

“But it actually means the place where you learn what you’re allowed to react to.”

His fingers stopped for a moment, then resumed.

“I used to get told I was ‘difficult’ when I reacted, but I wasn’t doing anything different. I just didn’t know which version of me was allowed in which room.”

Yua’s hands slowly curled in her lap. Tsubasa’s gaze drifted slightly downward.

“…There were rules I wasn’t told. Like when to stay still.”

“Or when not to look at someone.”

“And when to pretend you didn’t feel anything.”

Tsubasa’s expression didn’t change as he spoke.

“That place wasn’t really a home,” he said softly. “It was just… somewhere I was left.”

“I think adults call it ‘helping’ when they can’t take responsibility.”

A pause.

“And I think children just call it surviving.”

Silence stretched. Tsubasa stared at his hands.

“I learned early that if I stayed quiet enough,” he continued, “things ended faster.”

A pause.

“And if I didn’t resist…”

He stopped again. Yua’s body went cold. Because she understood now. Not everything, but enough.

The way he flinched at sudden movement, the way he reacted to proximity like it carried weight, and the way his body seemed to remember danger before his mind even processed it. Tsubasa exhaled softly.

Yua’s fingers shook slightly. Her anger started to rise, slow, heavy, burning.

She finally understood what happened to him.

Tsubasa tilted his head slightly toward the altar again.

“…When I was moved again,” he said quietly, “it was supposed to be better. She called herself family, but she wasn’t really interested in being one.”

His tone didn’t change. It stayed even and almost detached.

“More like… she liked the idea of having something that couldn’t leave.”

Yua’s nails dug into her palm. He was now talking about his grandmother.

“I think adults underestimate how long children can survive in places they don’t understand, because children don’t leave. They adapt…or they stop reacting altogether.”

A vision of that monster last night flashed through her mind. Yua’s vision blurred slightly. Not from tears yet, but from anger building too fast to process.

“I don’t think she saw it as anything wrong,” he said quietly. To her, I was just… something that stayed where it was put. I think that’s why I don’t really trust ‘family’ as a concept.”

She finally understood exactly why Tsubasa spoke like someone who didn’t expect to be understood at all.

Yua looked down at her phone again. Her fingers hovered.

Then typed:

Is Haruki’s mom… your mom?

Tsubasa finally went still. The beads stopped moving. The chanting in the hall continued. For several seconds, he didn’t respond.

“…You noticed too quickly, I guess it was pretty obvious then?” he said.

Yua’s stomach turned, not just out of understanding now, but anger. Boiling, rising anger.

Because it meant what she was beginning to piece together wasn’t an isolated tragedy.

Tsubasa finally looked up slightly, not at her, but past her again, like he was addressing something beyond the room.

“…I don’t blame her,” he said.

And that made Yua’s rage spike harder, because he should have.

Tsubasa’s voice softened again.

“I think she just…” he paused, choosing words carefully, “couldn’t carry everything.”

A faint breath.

“And I was the thing that didn’t fit.”

Silence. Then, almost imperceptibly, he added,

“So I got placed somewhere I would stop being a problem.”

Tsubasa’s hands shook as he gripped his knees.

The funeral continued around them, but for her, something inside the world had shifted permanently.

She softly placed her hands on his.

The boy looked up at her.

The girl simply just smiled at him, to the best she could.

That was when she made the decision.

Before she dies, she will end it for him.

In a fit of boiling rage, she will deliver justice.

Those adults don’t deserve to live any longer.