---
The morning light slipped through the half-drawn curtains, casting long shadows across the quiet kitchen.
Maria sat at the table, unmoving, a cup of tea long gone cold in her hands.
She hadn't touched it.
She hadn't eaten in days.
The refrigerator was stocked. Yuki cooked when she could. But Maria's appetite was gone—just like him.
---
Harukoo.
She still couldn't say his name aloud without her throat tightening.
He was her son.
Her only son.
But she had never treated him like it.
---
Why?
She asked herself that every night.
Why did she push him away?
Why did she always choose Yuki?
The answer came easily.
Because Yuki was the child of the man who saved her husband's life in that burning wreck.
And Harukoo?
He looked too much like the man she lost.
He reminded her of the life that was stolen from her too early.
So instead of holding him close…
She punished him.
---
"I'm a horrible mother."
She said it aloud, voice hoarse.
Yuki, who had come into the room unnoticed, froze in the doorway.
Maria didn't look up. "He hated me in the end, didn't he?"
Yuki hesitated. "...He didn't hate you."
"Then why did he leave?"
Yuki's voice cracked. "Because you never gave him a reason to stay."
---
Maria's tears finally came.
Years of cold detachment melted into sobs.
"I used to watch him sit at that table," she whispered, staring at the empty chair. "He'd look so small. Just waiting—for a word, for affection, for anything."
Yuki approached slowly. "He used to ask me why you loved me more."
Maria looked at her, horror dawning.
"I didn't know what to say," Yuki admitted. "I think he stopped asking after a while."
Maria buried her face in her hands.
"I didn't know I was losing him until he was already gone."
---
Flashback
His 18th birthday.
She had forgotten it.
He came to the kitchen that morning, hesitant, quietly hopeful.
"Good morning," he had said.
She was half-distracted with work. "What do you want?"
He paused. "It's my birthday."
She had blinked at him like he was speaking another language.
Then she said it.
"Do what you want. Just don't get in the way."
It was the last thing she ever said to him.
---
Now, sitting in that same kitchen, the words echoed like a curse.
She looked at Yuki with tear-filled eyes. "I didn't mean it."
"But he believed you did."
---
Later That Day
Maria sat on Harukoo's old bed, brushing her hand over the pillow.
She whispered softly, brokenly, "Come home."
Then louder.
"Please…"
Yuki stood outside the door, eyes closed, listening.
---
Meanwhile…
Harukoo sat in Silva's room, surrounded by laughter and the warmth of chosen love.
She was curled beside him, her hand resting gently on his.
"You okay?" she asked.
He nodded.
Silva smiled faintly. "You looked far away for a second."
"I was just thinking," he murmured. "About my mother."
She didn't say anything.
"I used to think I hated her," he said. "But I think I just… stopped expecting anything."
Silva ran her fingers through his hair. "Do you still want her to say sorry?"
He was quiet for a moment.
"No," he said. "I want her to feel what I felt. The loneliness. The silence."
"And if she does?"
Harukoo looked up at the ceiling.
"I still won't go back."
---
Back Home
Maria wrote a letter.
She rewrote it five times.
Every time, the words rang hollow.
In the end, she left the page blank except for six words:
"I'm sorry. I was too late."
She folded it and placed it on his pillow.
Even if he never came back, she wanted him to know.
That she finally saw him.
That she finally understood.
---