Shion was a good boy.
Shion cleaned and cooked. He treated his mother like the entire world, and asked for nothing in return. Not even a bite to eat.
Shion had blisters on his hands and a ribcage that was more prominent than what was healthy. Shion was jarred and scared and would sooner die than let his mother down.
Shion had let enough people down.
Something in West Block had made Shion twisted and ugly. He never wanted that again. He wanted to return to a pleasant, helpful Shion. Someone had made Shion hurt.
But Shion could not remember who it was.
It took two days. He knew this, because he recalled being hurt, but hopeful before he went to sleep on the second day. When he woke up, he was only hurt, and he could not entirely fathom why.
The doctors referred to it as post-traumatic amnesia. They didn't fully grasp the trauma, nor the time span from it till the amnesia, and Shion couldn't help them. But Shion would try.
"Won't you eat today?"
Karen stood at the doorway to Shion's bedroom. The boy sat on his bed, picking at his latest hobby. Karen tended to pick up hobbies for Shion, hoping to help him recover somehow. Shion tried to make it work. Now, he wove a suede bracelet. He planned to give it to his mother.
"Sure," He answered. "I eat everyday." This was a lie, of course. Shion barely ate. He couldn't find the appetite. The wishy-washy memories of west block, all containing a large, gaping vacancy, made him sick.
The death of Safu made him sick.
The death of all the innocent people made him sick.
But that was all he could remember. The deaths and the loud noises and the stench of corpses. There was a spot in the mix that was invisible, and just out of reach.
Shion was too sick to eat.
"You're nothing but bones," Karen told him. Shion winced. Of course he was.
"I'm fine," he insisted. Karan's eyes brimmed with disappointment. It stung. Badly.
"I hope you will be, Shion," She said softly. She left, hand on her mouth. Holding back something neither of them wanted to hear. Shion wondered for a long time how he could weave an apology.
It wasn't the complete truth that Shion could never remember. He remembered when he dreamt. He saw the face and remembered the events between them and felt the feelings. But when he woke up, he forgot. He only knew that he had these dreams because he woke up with a sense of guilt and dread. A feeling that he had just let go of something he needed to hold onto.
He might be able to move on, if not for these dreams. The dreams tortured him. Passive aggressively, for the most part. This would also be rather forgettable, if it weren't for the occasional dream that Shion remembered 100%. These dreams were the very worst; and the simplest of all. These dreams contained a voice with no specific tone nor timber. It told him one thing, and one thing only.
"You will remember me."
So Shion clung onto the vague hope of trying to remember. Not the hope that he had originally had, before forgetting. A new, twisted, ugly hope. The hope of once again having hope.
It all made Shion dreadfully ill.
"You're washing dishes again?" Karan asked. A long time ago, this would be said with a little humor and curiosity. How odd to find her son doing the dishes for the second day in a row. Now it was said in a soft, pleading voice. How dreadful to find her son washing dishes, after cooking and cleaning the rest of the house, for the 40th day in a row. Shion knew she wanted him to stop. He also knew that she secretly appreciated the help. So he continued to supply it to her.
"Will you at least sit down and have some tea?" Karan suggested weakly. Shion nodded.
"I'll have some tea," He said, leaving out the other half. He didn't sit until the dishes were washed.
"Let me make you some," Karan offered, approaching the element. Shion quickly flicked it on and set the kettle down, eliminating the need. Karan sank back, having been robbed of the opportunity to help her son.
"I've got it, mom," Shion told her, smiling in her direction. Karan didn't smile in return.
"Please sit down with it when you're done," She said. Shion nodded.
"Of course."
The one thing Shion would always consume was tea. Hot water was not something limited to his mother, and he didn't mind using the supply of earl gray tea. Karan had received it as a gift, and she disliked the stuff too much to drink it. Shion was happy to take it off her hands.
When the dishes were sparkling and dry, Shion took it and escaped to his bedroom. He wove his project over the steaming tea, finishing the bracelet when the cup emptied. A smile on his face, Shion brought the bracelet to his mother in the garden.
Only to find her crying.
Shion could not look at the sight for more than a single moment. He dropped the bracelet and went into the kitchen, already shaking with anxiety and guilt.
He had to eat. He knew he had to. Before he burdened his mother with a dead body. He went into the bakery, fishing though the cupboards for the more-than-one-day-old bread. He tore off a piece and ate it.
And good grief, did it hurt. It fell, stale and starchy, into his empty stomach, scraping at the bare flesh inside of him. It did not stay down.
Shion managed to make it to the bathroom, and lost the bread into the toilet. His body was too weak with hunger to handle the lurching and heaving. He collapsed onto the cool floor, falling unconscious within the minute.
Karan wore the bracelet. She wore it as she carefully fed Shion tiny spoonfuls of soup and rice throughout the days. She had taken good use of the time after Shion woke up; he was disoriented, and begging for the company of a caretaker. And now he could not stop eating. The hunger then would be far worse.
"You've burst all the blood vessels around your mouth," Karan told him. Thought now, she spoke with a motherly tone. Collapsing in the bathroom was the final straw, and Karan had effectively switched into overdrive in the moments in took Shion to regain consciousness. It had stretched on long enough, it seemed. They both knew it.
"Who was it?" Shion asked, lying in bed and toying with the suede bracelet on his mother's wrist.
"We don't know, dear," She answered softly, stroking his hair. Shion's eyes felt heavy; relaxed. It was when Karan's fingers traced over the scar on his cheekbone, that Shion pulled away. Someone had done that before. Someone who no longer existed in Shion's memory. Karan's eyes traced over her son.
"Was it a mouse?" She asked. Shion shook his head. She had asked before. The person in his dreams was not a mouse. They were not small enough to be a mouse; not in stature or attitude. Karan chewed on her lip.
"Did they write?" She asked. Shion shook his head again.
"They did something else," He recalled. Not writing at all. "I can't remember what." Karan had showed him the notes that she managed to keep. But the things they said only sat precariously on the edge of what Shion remembered and what he didn't. They told the story of someone surviving horrific events; which Shion had done. Or else, he would be dead. They did not tell the story of another person. Only the presence of what might have been someone. Shion simply couldn't place it.
A dream one night spoke in a familiar, anonymous voice.
"You're still waiting."
And Shion knew. He was waiting. And whatever he was waiting for, would tell him.
Shion was hoping for hope. He was waiting to know.