Chapter 1

"NO!" Two of the men were taken aback by my sudden outburst, yet the one who first spoke stayed somber and down cast.

"I'm sorry, but I can't hide something this important from you. From this day forward, I'm going to be…"
"NO! None of this can be true, it's all a lie!" I could feel tears pouring down my face. "You're lying! You have to be."

"I'm afraid it's true," he nodded sadly and added softly, "I wish it weren't,"

"NO!" I jumped up. "You're a bad man, how could you know these things?! You're lying, you….." I didn't know what to say. No matter how much I wanted to deny it, I couldn't keep up this act. Deep inside, I knew he was right. My parents were gone and they thought I hated them. The tears kept falling, and after a few more seconds, I silently ran up to my room. In the distance, I heard Tomoya try to follow me upstairs, only to be stopped by the men outside telling him to wait, but the sounds downstairs, while loud, were overpowered by the cries of anguish in my heart.

My parents were dead. My parents were dead….

I buried my face in the pillow in my room, quickly making the pillow wet. I tried to suck up the tears, attempting to consider what life would be like without them, but I couldn't even take a minute to think. Minutes passed. My tears had slightly subsided, but regardless, I still felt sadness I thought would last eternal in my heart. The first thought that came to mind was the men.

"They…..must have done something to my parents. They're the ones who…." I couldn't bear to hear those words ring in my mind again. I wasn't sure whether they had done anything to my parents or not. Either way, I hated them all and the work that took my parents from me. I knew in some way, that where they had worked was dangerous.

My mind brought me back to earlier that day. I yelled at my parents, said I hated them, and wished they weren't my parents at all. I felt like my entire body was pierced with daggers at that moment. I didn't mean those things, but never getting to say goodbye to my parents made me angry at myself. Soon enough, I found myself sobbing again.

I heard footsteps, coming closer to me by the second. Instinctively, I guessed the man had returned. I did not want to talk to him at all. I turned, and was surprised to see Tomoya instead. While I knew he could never understand the situation I was in, he looked so somber, one might think his parents had died.

"Kotomi…. I'm….. sorry."

"You don't understand, Tomoya-kun." I buried my face in my hands. "I didn't wish them a goodbye. I, I didn't let them know I loved them before they left… I was so ungrateful." I sobbed for a few seconds before continuing. "I yelled at them, told them I hated them…" My attention turned away from Tomoya to upwards. "God, I'm so sorry. I know I deserved it but…. Why, why did you let me do it? WHY?!" My face had contorted into one of complete depression. I no longer felt happy with anything. I saw myself as an ungrateful brat who wasn't grateful for the parents I was given at all.

Tomoya walked over to me. His face was also teary-eyed. Sitting next to me, he stared down at his hands as I cried.

"Kotomi, my mommy's dead." I suddenly stopped crying, and turned towards me. "She's been dead for over a year now." He slowly stood up. "I find myself crying almost every day. Every morning before school, every night before I go to bed, I can't ever stop thinking about it." He started crying. "Every day, I ask myself, 'What did I do wrong, why did my mom die?' And to this day, I don't know why she died. But….." He turned his head towards me. "I learned one thing. I can't blame myself for what happened. Many, many people die every day. It just shows how cruel….. How cruel life can be." His tone suddenly grew sharp, and he almost started to yell. "But you can't blame yourself for what happened to them, Kotomi! You can't! You messed up; people do that every day, but you can't blame yourself Kotomi!"

I was shocked. Frightened in a way I had never been frightened before. Tomoya had never yelled at me this way. He'd never been so fierce about anything I said. Before I could say a word, he started to break down.

"You can't. You can't, Kotomi, you…." My face began to well up with tears again. Although we were both seconds, he seemed to keep his composure better than I did. After a few seconds, I started sobbing, and we wrapped each other in a warm embrace. I felt his warm face crying against my shoulder, his tears occasionally touching my bare skin. I could tell he wanted to say something. I could tell he wanted to clarify his statements, continue to let me know how valuable life was, and possibly remind me of honoring my parents by being the best person I could be. He didn't say a word. I didn't dare say a word to disturb the calm, peace I felt in that moment. During our embrace, I felt strange, but I felt a calming, encouraging feeling I had never felt.

I never wanted to let him go.

After what felt like hours, I felt myself giving away to fatigue. Oddly enough, Tomoya seemed as awake as ever. I lay against his shoulder. Smiling as he did, I saw Tomoya slowly lay me down on my bed, pulling the covers over me as he did. Before I fell asleep, I heard Tomoya say,

"Sweet dreams, Kotomi-chan."

I gazed down at the girl I had just lain down in her bed. As I stared at her, I started to feel a strange peace inside. I felt like what lay before my eyes represented all of the beauty the world had to offer.

As I slowly walked outside Kotomi's room, and down the stairs, I thought back to the events that had previously occurred. When I decided to go to her house for a birthday party, I, Tomoya Okazaki, had no idea I'd be celebrating a birthday alone with Kotomi, and then having to comfort her when her parents turned out to be dead. In my condition, my mother dead, father now lost in depression and sadness, I never thought I'd have the power to encourage anyone. Never even I'd have the strength to briefly remove my rain cloud in order to act cheerful and kind to others. Somehow, I'd done both.

When I reached the downstairs section of her house, I turned towards the old man who'd told Kotomi the startling news. In a way I couldn't understand, he unsettled me, he looked old and alone?

"Thank you for lifting Kotomi-san's spirits." He said, standing up from his position on the couch.

"Yeah, it's what friends do for friends." I forced, hearing the slight edge to my voice with stunning clarity.

"Indeed. I have a feeling she may not trust or like me after what's happened today. But I hope, I might be able to convince her of my loyalty to her and her family," he spoke the words with a strange burden. He looked at me. "Would you please to continue to come and visit her? Her parents, Kotaru and Mizue spoke to me of how great a friend you were for her, and she needs her friends,"

"I was going to do that anyways. What would make you think that after her being her friend for quite a while now, I'd just stand up and walk away when she's feeling so sad?"

"Nothing. I've just seen many people in my life," he sighed. "Observed someone going through tragic circumstances, and then saw so-called friends leave them alone to mourn, as they cannot relate to their friend's pain or-," His words carried loneliness and pain that made me wonder if he somehow knew how both Kotomi and I felt.

"Well, I'm not them." I walked to the front door, shutting it behind me.

"Don't ever be that," he spoke to the now absent boy.

I don't know why I reacted so tersely. I don't know why I didn't go home, and exhibit all of my anger there. That's what I normally did.

That day, however, I felt a different, better reason to be angry than my own problems. Kotomi, my best friend Kotomi, just heard an hour or so ago her parents are now dead. When I told her about my mom's death, about the pain I had been through ever since, I felt an emotional connection, a bond stronger than I'd ever felt before, develop between us. It's as if, as sad as it may seem, tragedy connected us in a way I had never expected it would.

For once, I could see the positives of the bad thing that happened years ago.

As I walked home, I suddenly realized how dark it was. The normally silent thoughts that rang through my head seemed to be yelling at me, only the occasional wind gust to set me at ease. A year ago, I'd never even consider staying out this late; of course my parents would have come looking for me then. Now things were very different from what they were like a year ago, no one came looking. Not even a distant unsettling old man bothered to look for me.

I had a few friends at school. I definitely wouldn't say, by any definition of the word that I was popular, but I would say school, on occasion, could be enjoyable. Although whenever I went home, I never found myself thinking about school, or the friends I'd talk to there. It seemed as soon as I returned home, reality would come crashing down as soon as I saw my dad. From the time she died, he had already become distant, but soon he seemed to lose any ounce of life in him to alcohol and gambling. Sometimes I think he died when my mother did and never came back to me as if I was not worth coming to. There were times, particularity early on, I'd admit to myself that my dad tried to convince me he still cared by doing things for me, but this felt shallow and sad to me as he never felt like the loving, caring father he once was. Instead, he felt cold and distant, someone too driven by pain and emotion to truly connect with me or anyone else. If the father I knew before hadn't completely disappeared with my mother's death, he'd become a faint whisper of what he once was.

Kotomi, however, was one of the (maybe the only) bright spot in my dreary life. Her curious, shy, relatable personality seemed to brighten my day in an instant. Since we first met, I could tell we would be good friends; even if it seemed like we were very different people. On the inside, we shared a bond I felt was never unbreakable.

At my age, 10 going on 11 years old, most kids would've been scared walking home in the near pitch black darkness that reigned over the sky. I wasn't most kids. I'd find myself being lost in my thoughts more and more as time went on. Sometimes, I didn't see the point in leaving my mind for anything. Kotomi's birthday was definitely no exception.

But, I found myself thinking about more than my sadness. I thought about Kotomi. About the pain, and sadness she must be feeling realizing her parents were dead, about how life will be like for her leaving with a strange, slightly distant old guy who seemed to be emotionless. My mind drifted to what school will be like, having to potentially hide her depressed emotions in order to seem friendly in front of other people. The constant barrage of worries that might come into her mind now seemed to be bombarding my mind.

As I finally reached my broken home, I came to a conclusion.

No matter what happened in Kotomi's life, no matter how she would treat me after her parents' death, no matter what may happen regardless of what anyone would say. I will take the old guy on his word, now certain on one thing.

I was going to stay Kotomi's friend no matter what.