Broken Promises

A little blond boy swayed slowly on a swing, staring down at the ground as a cold wind cut past. His eyes were swollen, his cheeks blotched red from crying. He pulled his jacket tighter as the chill set his legs shivering.

The park sat in a forgotten corner of his neighbourhood, ringed by houses that mostly stood abandoned. It had long gone to seed — bushes overgrown, weeds pushing up wherever they liked. 

A few benches, some rusted slides, a pair of swings. Nothing else worth a second look. 

His mother was always warning him away from it, unsafe as it was for a boy his age. But he came anyway, to get away from everything. It was the one place no one could find him. The one place he could cry without being seen.

Nobody could find him except his best friend.

"Haruuu!" a girl called from the distance. "Finally! I found you!"

The boy looked back to find his dearest friend, Shiomi, hurrying up to him, panting from the search. Young Shiomi wore her white hair cropped short, which gave her a tomboyish look, and her plump cheeks were flushed a bright red that made her look like a little tomato. She paused to catch her breath, then huffed, frantic, "Haru, your mother's looking for you! Come on, or you'll get scolded!"

The boy turned away and broke into loud sobs.

"I— I don't want to go home. I don't want my parents to see that I've been crying. They— they'll ask me why and I'll tell the same thing and then— and then they'll say the same stupid thing. They— they always tell me to be strong against those bullies, but I can't. I'm weak… I'm weak and pathetic, Shio."

It hurt to watch him like this. Shiomi knew what he was going through — she always tried to help, and sometimes there was simply nothing she could do. She remembered the last time she had tried, and the fight it had turned into.

***

"Haru, you have to tell our teacher. It's the right thing to do! My parents told me to always tell my teacher if anyone troubles me at school... So why can't you?"

"No, Shio, no. I can't tell the teacher."

"But why not!"

"I— I just don't want to…."

"Fine! If you're not going to tell your teacher about that stupid bully, then I will!"

They were in the cafeteria when she said it, and the moment Shio stood up to go through with it, Haruto panicked and caught her before she could leave.

"Shio, please sit down. I'll tell you why I can't report him."

She frowned and sat. 

"Shio, you know how my dad left his job because he was unhappy? Well, I know Mom and Dad try to keep it a secret, but his new job doesn't pay very well. Mom's started working overtime at the hospital, and that boy… his father is like the important doctor there. Everyone calls him 'Chief,' and my mom says he's really strict, that he shouts a lot."

"But what does his father have to do with you?"

"I— I don't want to trouble my parents any more than they already are. The bully knows my mom works at that hospital, and he said— he said he'll make his dad fire her if I tell anyone."

"But—"

"No, Shio. Please, no. I just don't want anyone to know about this. Can it please be a secret?"

Shio's eyes welled up at the look on his face, and she gave a slow nod.

***

The bullying got worse as days went by. 

It had started small — taunts, name-calling — and grown from there. The whole thing had begun over a pencil. Haruto had refused to hand his to one of the bigger boys because Shiomi had asked for it first. Being turned down in front of everyone had stung the boy's pride, and he had decided to make Haruto pay. 

He rounded up his friends and started in on him in front of the class. Some of the other kids joined the laughter — innocently enough, most of them — but every laugh was fuel, and the bullies kept going. 

Before long it turned physical. 

They tripped him in the hallways, stole his notes and hid them, flicked bits of eraser at the back of his head during class. Haruto had tried to fight back once, but the boys just closed ranks and shoved him off — and he had run, crying, to where he sat now.

Shiomi took a breath and did the only thing she could think to do. She went to him and hugged him tight, letting him cry into her shoulder, and patted his head.

"Don't worry, Haru. I'll always be your friend. I— I really want to help you, and… I know your parents don't really have the time to. I— I just feel helpless sometimes. But I'll tell you this:" 

I will always be there for you.

Haruto pulled back and looked at her with teary eyes.

"Promise?"

"Promise!"

***

A few days later, early in the morning, Shiomi's parents dropped the two of them off at their elementary school. Haruto felt it the moment he walked into class — a buzz in the air, everyone a little more excited than usual. He took his seat and caught the boy in front of him talking about a transfer student. Then the bell rang, and the children scrambled back to their places.

Their homeroom teacher came in, and the transfer student followed behind her. He was lean and slight, like Haruto, with shiny black hair combed neatly to one side and a crisp new uniform. He carried himself with an easy poise, a wide smile on his face — and before the teacher could get a word out, he introduced himself. "Hello, everyone! My name is Kentaro Takahashi. I hope we can all be friends!"

It took only a few periods for him to become popular. He was warm and sweet-natured, easy to like and easy to talk to. But one boy in the back row watched him the whole time, sharp-eyed — as if sizing up an enemy.

During recess, the boy from the back came over and flicked Haruto's head. "Hey, Blondie. Show me what you brought for lunch."

Shiomi, across the room and talking with her friends, had no idea what was happening. Haruto kept his eyes down, took out his bento, and handed it over without a word. The bully opened it — carefully arranged egg rolls his mother had made — and carried it straight to the trash can, tipping it in while Haruto watched, horrified.

"You know I don't like eggs, Blondie." The bully scowled. "Ugh! They stink even from the trash. You should be grateful I threw them out."

Haruto frowned, about to say something and then the bully said the thing that broke him.

"I was expecting something good. But what do you expect from a boy whose mother works as some part-time nurse in my father's hospital?" he cackled.

Something in Haruto snapped. 

He glared, furious. "Don't say bad things about my mother!"

The bully raised an eyebrow and started toward him, something dangerous in his face, his friends watching from across the room, amused. Shiomi caught sight of it — the balled fists, the way he was closing in — and shot up from her seat. But before she could reach them, the new boy, Kentaro, stepped into the bully's path. "Back off. You shouldn't say mean things to people."

The bully's scowl curdled into something nastier. "I knew you'd be trouble, you little goody-two-shoes."

He shoved Kentaro without any idea of how strong the new boy was. Kentaro slipped the push, caught the bully's wrists, and twisted them into a lock until he yelped and begged to be let go. Kentaro released him at once and said, almost cheerful, "You shouldn't hurt people. You never know how strong the other one might be." He smiled — almost dangerously. 

The bully looked up to find the whole class staring. His own followers, turning away, refusing to meet his eye. Humiliated, tears springing up, he bolted from the room. "You don't know who my father is! Just you wait!"

Kentaro let out a breath as the other kids gazed at him in awe. Then he smiled and turned to the boy he had rescued, holding out a hand. "Nice to meet you! I'm Kentaro — but you can call me Ken-chan."

Haruto looked at him in wonder and shook his hand. "My name's Haruto. And— and you can call me Haru-chan."

From across the room, Shiomi bit her lip. Then she shook the feeling off and made herself smile — glad, she told herself, that he had found a new friend.

Over the next few days, Haruto and Kentaro grew close. They ate lunch together, traded hobbies, kicked a ball around after school — Haruto loved playing soccer with him, even if he was hopeless at it. The friendship drew the reclusive, shy kid out. He opened up to the other kids too, and little by little he grew popular. 

The bully kept his distance, watching it all with a quiet resentment. But as Haruto's circle widened, Shiomi found herself slipping to the edge of it. She stopped coming over. He was so busy with everyone new that he never noticed he had started leaving her behind. They used to walk home together but now they didn't. 

The gap between the two best friends only stretched wider.

Everything was going well for Haruto until, one day, Kentaro said, "Hey, Haru-chan! Want to see this cool place I found yesterday?"

Haruto lit up. "Yeah! Show me. Let's go!"

Kentaro led him off, eager and grinning, to a deserted spot along the sloping banks of a river, where Haruto whooped and slid down the slope.

He was too happy to notice anything was wrong. He trusted Kentaro completely. He would have believed anything his dear Ken-chan told him. He turned to call him over to play, and when he looked back, his whole body went rigid.

The bully was standing beside Kentaro, smirking. For a moment Haruto only stared, confused.

"Good boy, Ken-chan," the bully said. "Nice work, fetching my dog back."

He came at Haruto, slow and menacing, and Haruto couldn't make himself move. The bully seized him by the collar and screamed into his face. "You little mutt, how dare you go against me?! Don't you know my father could fire her?! You thought you had a savior now?! You never did, and you never will! You know why? 'Cause you're weak, you dumb mutt!" He drove a kick into Haruto's stomach. The boy crumpled, moaning but the blows didn't stop. The bully kept hitting him where he lay.

He screamed for help. "K-Ken-chan! Shio-chan! S-Somebody— HELP!" He looked to Kentaro, only to find him turned away, the polite smile gone, replaced by something like disgust and pity. Haruto couldn't bear it. He had to know why his friend had done this. Somehow he scrambled out from under the blows and ran to him — filthy, bloodied, streaked with tears — sobbing, "Why… why, Ken-chan?!"

Kentaro shoved him back on reflex. Haruto lost his footing and tumbled down the slope, coming to rest just short of the water, where he lay and wept. The bully laughed. "Better behave from now on, jerk! You don't have Kentaro to rely on anymore! And those new fake friends of yours? Forget them... Or we'll spread rumors about you, and then everyone will hate you." And without a single glance back, the two of them left him there alone by the river.

Haruto cried for a long time — more from the betrayal than the physical pain. Eventually the crying wore itself out, and he lay staring, empty, at the orange-pink smear of the sunset.

The first thought to surface, after hours of it, was — 'Shio…'

He reached toward the fading sun with his blood-smeared hands, as if reaching for someone. 

'I… I was so happy with everyone around me, having so much fun, that I forgot all about her. Didn't I promise we would always be together? Why did I break it? Why? Shio… where are you? Shio… Shio. Shio. ShioShioShio!'

His mind couldn't hold it, and something in him began to come apart. He blamed himself for everything wrong in his small world — his parents' money troubles, his loneliness, his fears. Piece by piece, he broke. He curled in on himself and pulled at his hair as his thoughts spun loose, crying now without a sound.

Before long it was dark, and Haruto was too spent to cry or even move. The pain had gone numb. He couldn't feel much of anything now. He turned his head and looked at the river beside him. The stars had come out, and the moon hung full and still, both of them mirrored in the black water. 

The reflection seemed to pull at him. 

He could almost hear the water whispering, calling him closer. In a daze he got to his feet and went closer to the edge. He dropped his weight and settled into a deep rest, his heels flat against the uneven river bank. He stood there watching the night sky held in the surface — the stars trembling as ripples crossed them, the white moon breaking apart and gathering itself again.

"Beautiful…" he whispered, and reached out for it.

With a splash, he fell into the river.