Hanataro tossed the pressure ball against the wall, the recently added resident, as Will preferred to call the patients, believing it sounded nicer, merely watched the sound of the ball, being blind from having slashed a knife across his eyes after seeing the love of his life, his girlfriend of five years, making out with another man, and on the day he was going to ask her to marry him.

Hanataro suddenly stopped tossing the ball then turned to the eighteen year old and recent high school graduate, "Hey, do you ever wish things had been different between you and that girl?" he asked, since the mere name of the girl would send the teen into spasms.

"Only every day of my life, I just keep wondering what I could have done differently, but I've yet to figure out what, I always respected her, I never forgot her birthday, we seemed to have been a perfect couple, never fought once, what happened?" he asked himself, placing his hands against the bandages that were still around his eyes.

Hanataro sighed, leaning his head against the wall, he tossed the ball once more then got up to leave, "Sorry, I gotta get going, I'll come by again later." he said, waving to the blind teen who waved as well, although he didn't know Hanataro was waving.

Hanataro looked around him, warm, light brown colored walls, wood floor underneath his feet, the Yaledem Institute worked to achieve a feeling of home for its residents, it did not follow a number of institutional procedures that were followed in some other places, it did follow the basics though, such as making sure that the patients received their necessary medicinal needs, as well as their social needs. Yaledem's encouraged the staff to get to know the residents, so that they would not feel the doctors were doctors, but more like friends, family even.

"Time for the dragon hunt!"

Hanataro turned around to stare at the oldest resident in the institution, an eighty year old man, whose only known name was Mr. King, and so he believed he was an actual king and would call forth his champion, who for some he reason he declared was Hanataro, to protect the princess, Jack, why on earth he decided Jack was the princess, who knew? Yet that did not stop the old man's strange fondness for dragon hunts, and as to why he was the oldest of the residents in the institution, who knew, people said it was part of a bribe to Will from some other person, back when he had only just inherited the institution.

None of that really mattered though, because no one could ever say that they did not like Mr. King, he was too nice a person to even attempt to dislike, whether or not he was suffering from his strange mood in which he believed he was a king, he was still a well liked person. Yet the staff didn't particularly like it when Mr. King instigated a dragon hunt, ever since the one time he led a number of twenty people off of institution grounds and they had to go and try to find them before they could cause any serious damage to themselves or others.

"Hey, Mr. King, they're having a feast in the banquet hall!"

The old man who had rolled past Hanataro on a wheelchair suddenly turned around and rushed past him to the cafeteria, "Thank you my Champion!" he shouted as he rolled past, at a speed one would have never guessed such a frail looking man could ever achieve.

"Ah, Hana-chan, William didn't tell me you would be here today, the idiot." a female voice from behind said boy proclaimed,

"Hey, Mako-chan." Hanataro replied, not bothering to turn and look at the older, brown eyed, brunette, and fiancée to William Yaledem himself.

"So, why are you here, and where's Jack?" she asked, wondering how the teen, who seemed like a younger brother to Mako, after having known him for so long, was feeling.



"Jack's in her room sleeping, and I'm escaping reality for a bit, I'm heading off for the gardens." he answered, escaping from the questions that he knew the overly concerned woman would end up asking him.

Hanataro walked around the gardens, filled with colorful flowers and trees, plus a pond with koi fish in it, he threw a few pebbles into the pond and watched as the fish fought over them, only to find that they were pebbles and therefore inedible. He sighed and merely stared out at the sky, 'I've still got to go to school tomorrow.' he thought to himself, deciding to soak into the peaceful landscape, and hope to reminisce something nice. What misfortune that not much that was actually nice, had happened to him.

12 Years Ago

Hanataro stood by the door, holding onto a teddy bear that his father had recently given him and watching his parents talk to each other, although, he didn't understand much of what they said.

"She has no right to do this!"

"Emi, please."

"No, she shouldn't do this, I mean; she might not like me, but still, what about Hanataro?"

"Emi, please, we'll figure something out."

Emily threw herself into her husband's arms, letting him hold onto her as she broke down and cried, Hanataro wondered just what it was that his parents were talking about, and just what about his grandmother ended up making his mother cry.

"We have only a week left, let's spend it wisely."

Emily raised her red head and gazed into her husband's violet colored eyes, those eyes that belonged to a person just a few years older than herself, and she was so young, her parents had been upset that she hadn't gone to college, but still gave their blessings, they knew the couple loved each other so much already.

Emily and her husband suddenly tuned to look at the door, which had opened for Hanataro to rush into the room and throw himself into his parents' arms, he didn't say anything, he didn't really know what to say. Yet, even if Hanataro didn't know what exactly was going on, he could feel it was bad, and he didn't want bad things to happen to his parents.

The man knelt down to Hanataro and held him by the shoulders, "Hanataro, daddy has to go away on a business trip soon, he'll be gone for a long time, but if you're patient enough, maybe grandmother, who's making me go on this business trip, will let you get some days to spend with me, until then, daddy will miss you very much, he will think about both you and mommy each and every day, hoping to see you soon, so that we can go to an amusement park together."

Hanataro didn't say anything as his father hugged him, he didn't say anything about the wet tears dampening his shirt, he didn't even say anything when his mother knelt down and joined his father in the hugging and crying, he didn't even realize, that for some reason he also was crying.

Hanataro suddenly punched the innocent tree that was unfortunately next to him, upset over the way his grandmother, the head of his family, made things. It was only because she was upset that her son had his heart stolen on what was supposed to be a solely business trip by some common, bisexual, American girl, and then continued to go and see her every year behind his mother's back, until she was able to marry and married her back in America and went back home with a pregnant wife. Then she was made 

even more upset when she discovered that the grandson she was given couldn't even be used in some arranged marriage, since he was a homosexual and refused to partake in any arranged marriages in the first place, although she didn't know that two of the main causes for his homosexuality were probably the first probable marriage arrangement she made him go to, and that her favorite grandson had locked him in a closet with a group of girls who had kept trying to kiss him.

Hanataro punched the tree again as he thought about the arrangement his grandmother had set up concerning his father, he had been banished to one of the lower houses in America, and Hanataro and his mother had been granted time to see him, but his mother only gained some few hours each year with which she could see her husband, and Hanataro only gained some short days. Hanataro would have understood it more if the old woman had banished he and his mother back to America instead of her oldest son, but it had turned out that the woman enjoyed torturing Emily far too much as too have her too far away. She had allowed Emily to run a very minor branch of the Yamato businesses, a small series of small hospitals which resided in small towns with small populations.

It seemed that the event that had only recently occurred with Hanataro's first gay love, only helped Hanataro once more realize all that had been bothering him in his life, from the old woman that had tortured him and his parents, to even the fact that his father had still too little power to fight against his mother. How Hanataro wished the old, hateful woman would die, even before he had grown frightened of girls in his youth, Hanataro had always feared old women like that, when he saw them he would hide behind his mother, hoping that she would shield him from their knobby, bony, little fists that he knew hurt so much, from the times when Emily was forced to begrudgingly leave her son alone with that woman.

How he wished that woman would die.