The scene replayed once more before little Haruki's eyes…he stood there in a black suit… a grave… sorrow hanging heavy in the air.

  Everyone around him was grieving, yet every pair of eyes was fixed solely on him.

  But this time, his grandmother was no longer the pillar she once was.

  She sat broken among the mourners, unable to offer the strength she had once wrapped him in.

  The stares pierced through his soul, unrelenting, sharp.

  And his mind twisted them into something darker…something familiar.

  They were the same eyes his father had…each time before the blow landed, full of blame, disgust, and hate.

  In that moment, the truth he had tried so hard to escape became undeniable.

  "He was the reason they died.No one else. It was all his fault."

  Haruki's thoughts spiraled, his mind shackled by invisible chains pulling him downward, dragging him into the bottom of a dark ocean, burying him in its cold, crushing depths.

  Then, suddenly ,a sharp punch landed on his shoulder, yanking him out of that spiral.

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  "Ouch…"

  He flinched and turned to see the source of the blow, Fuji, standing behind him, his face scrunched into a scowl.

  But his eyes… his eyes gave him away.

  He had seen the tears threatening to fall from his friend's eyes.

  Fuji scratched his nose, then spoke in a voice that sounded rough, maybe intentionally so.

  "You okay?"

  Haruki rubbed his shoulder where he had received the blow that had pulled him out of the depths of overwhelming emotion.

  That simple question from Fuji echoed deeply within his heart.

  He himself didn't even know what he was feeling…

  Was it sorrow for losing his parents?

  Or guilt eating away at his soul?

  Or was he supposed to feel relief that all the violence he had endured was now gone… even if it came at the cost of his parents' lives?

  He shook his head, trying to shake off the daze once again.

  He gathered all those conflicting emotions and shoved them to the back of his mind, locking them away in his heart as if they had never existed.

  Then he spoke in a low, hoarse voice, heavy with the chaos that had formed inside him.

  "Yeah… I'm fine."

  But Fuji didn't believe those words.

  Haruki's pale face, and his slumped shoulders, like he was carrying a mountain on his back, exposed the lie.

  Still, Fuji didn't push further. He knew his friend was already carrying more than enough.

  He stepped a little closer…then, without warning, he extended his arms and pulled Haruki into a tight hug.

  A hug that held no words, but carried warmth and hope that maybe, just maybe, it could ease a little of the pain inside.

  Haruki's eyes widened at the sudden embrace,but it didn't take long for his inner walls to collapse, and he broke down in tears.

  Tears streamed down his small cheeks, soaking into Fuji's shirt, his little body trembling harder with each sorrowful sob.

  Fuji bit his lower lip in exhausted helplessness, unable to do anything but tighten his arms around the crumbling Haruki, as if to keep the shattered pieces of his heart from falling apart.