I hope you're not expecting this to be a happy story, because it really isn't. And I know it doesn't really follow EXACTLY what happened, but I just thought of this randomly. I also know that Mother's Day isn't soon because it's Easter, but I just wanted to post this to get it out of the way.

Mother's Day Gift

As a child, Kyo Sohma didn't have any friends, really. There were some people that would talk to him, but he could never call them friends. They were more like 'kids who talked to him because they felt sorry for him'. He didn't want anyone to feel sorry for him. But they did.

Kyo was never called on by the teacher to answer questions, and the times he was called on, he would always get the question wrong. He wasn't a slow learner; he just couldn't get them right. He couldn't do anything right.

It was Friday afternoon before Mother's Day, and Kyo's second grade teacher announced that the class was going to spend the last hour of the day making gifts for their mothers. Second Grader Kyo sat alone in the corner by the window, with nobody to share glue and sparkles with, nobody to talk and laugh with… nobody at all.

Each child was given supplies and a large piece of construction paper. Kyo wasn't very good with scissors, but felt too embarrassed to ask for help. The teacher eventually noticed. After helping Kyo cut a heart out of the red construction paper, she walked away with a sad smile on her face. How she hoped that one day Kyo would be accepted by the others.

For a second, Kyo stared at the red paper, planning what he wanted to write on it and how he wanted to decorate it, trying to push the morning's incident to the back of his mind.

How much his mother hated when his bracelet accidentally slipped off.

But Kyo still loved his mother very much. She talked to him. She loved him.

Or he was oblivious.

Kyo picked up his paint brush and dipped it into the black paint he had been supplied with.

I Love My Mommy

He wrote in his messy, crooked handwriting. He felt himself smile. Mommy will love it, he decided, and glued some pinwheel macaroni to it. As a final touch, he sprinkled glitter over it, hoping that maybe the glitter had magical powers like fairy dust. He wished his Mommy would love him forever.

Kyo lived down the street from the school, so when the end-of-the-day bell rang, after he said good-bye to the teacher, he strutted down the street happily. He did not want to crush his Mommy's Mother's Day present by putting it in his Power Rangers backpack, so he instead carried it in his hands. He would sneak his gift under his bed, then join Mommy in the kitchen for cookies. He just had to make sure his bracelet didn't come off. Then the afternoon would be perfect.

"Mommy?"

Kyo pushed the front door open, hiding his gift behind his back. The house was dead silent.

Where's Mommy? Kyo wondered. She's always home after school.

Unsure what to do, Kyo stepped inside the house and shut the door. Slowly, he wandered through the living room and peered into the kitchen.

No cookies.

"Mama?" he asked, sensing something… different. He drifted down the hallway in the direction of his room, noticing an empty bottle of those candies Mommy ate when she had her headaches, or when his bracelet came off.

"Mama?" Kyo shouted again, his voice rising without him meaning to. He stopped in the doorway of his room.

There was Mommy.

Kyo did not know what was wrong. She was lying on the floor of his room, sprawled out like inhumanly possible. There was vomit on the floor also. There were candies on the floor next to that.

Even though Kyo did not know what was happening, he knew Mommy wasn't asleep. He knew there would be no cookies. He knew the magic glitter hadn't worked.

Without thinking, he dropped his backpack and Mother's Day gift and bolted out of the house.

"Shishou!" he shouted, entering the Dojo located a block away without taking his shoes off. "Shishou!"

Kazuma looked up in shock as the little boy attached himself to his legs. "Kyo-chan, what's wrong?" he asked, rubbing the crying child's back.

"Shishou… Mommy doesn't love me anymore!"

Kyo never returned to his mother's house again. He promised himself he would never cry again. He convinced himself he hadn't seen her dead body.

No matter where he lived, he kept that Mother's Day gift under his mattress. Even though it was a small amount that kept getting smaller, he still had hope that he could one day give it to his Mommy. The Gift was always there, constantly reminding him of that day, constantly reminding him of the four words that would not go away, no matter how hard he tried:

I Love My Mommy

Discovering it one afternoon when cleaning his room at Shigure's many years later, glitter scattered away and pinwheel macaroni broken, Kyo took out a permanent marker and added a letter to it. It now read:

I Loved My Mommy