A boy walked out of his room, crying out as he reached for the kitchen of his house.
His cries could be heard just about anywhere in the house. It reverberated throughout the whole house, but it felt as if the boy was the only one that lived in there. There wasn't a single person who heard his cries. But, that was all inside his head. There was one, and only one, person that did listen to him.
"Mamaaa!!" he cried as he was trying to wipe his overflowing tears from his cheeks and eyes. Snot was dripping out of his nose, and he just looked like an idiot.
His mom heard him from the kitchen, who was washing the dishes, but she wasn't particularly troubled by this. It wasn't because she was used to it. It was more like she knew this was going to happen eventually.
Placing the last dishes in the drying rack and wiping off her hands with a towel, the boy hugged her, burying his face in her stomach. There, he started to tell the reason why he was crying, the reason why he was letting his feelings out.
"I hate Ryuuji! I never want him to appear again!" he said, as if the boy had just gotten into a fight with his best friend.
It sounded selfish, as if wanting the person they absolutely despised never even exist.
But his mom looked at him gently, like a mother that was extremely understanding.
"I see," said the mother. "So you don't want Ryuuji to appear anymore, is that right?"
"Mm!" he nodded, which rustled the apron of her mother.
The mother lifted his son up and heading for the living room. Once there, she sat and the sofa and placed the boy on her lap.
"Why do you want him to disappear?" asked the mother, interrogating her son. The mother already knew the reasons—in fact, she already witnessed some of them—why he wanted his person to disappear.
"He did a lot of bad things!" the boy started. "He hurt all of my friends in class, he hurt my favorite teachers, and he hurt Rina! I absolutely hate him!"
"Uh-huh."
Suddenly, his mother embraced the boy in her arms, keeping him as close to her as possible, all the while simultaneously stroking his head gently. That calmed the boy down.
After a few minutes, the only sounds that could be heard from him were sniffing. He also started to feel a little sleepy, probably the tiredness of him crying kicking in. Just when he was about to dose off, his mother said a few words.
"How about this? When you encounter someone who is in trouble, say this to them." His mother kissed the forehead of his son, and said the words that would change his life forever, if not right now.
"I can give you hugs and headpats."