Toji doesn’t cry—he doesn’t scream or ask for help or even speak really. He keeps to himself, obeys your every word so you don’t upset at him. He doesn’t like it when you’re mad at him, it makes him feel empty. He likes it when you praise him, when you pat his head lovingly and unwrap a piece of candy for him. You never come to defend him, never come to his side when he needs it. He doesn’t understand you but, maybe that’s why he’s always running back to you each time he got lonely or sad. You’re his mom—his kind, beautiful, broken mom, the one who protected him in your womb for nine months and pushed out just to loving caress him and hold him to your chest with tears of joys.

But sometimes you were his mean, ugly, angry mom. The one who smacked his hand when he broke something, the one who was first to glare at him and lock him in his room until he was ready to tell you what he did wrong. You don’t even cry or scream. You don’t even talk unless someone talks to you first. But this time you had. Before he was thrown in that little dark room with those ugly, grotesque curses, you’d screamed. Before they closed the door behind him he could see you—he could hear you. A look of pure fear as tears rolled down your face, your kimono yanked at by the other maids to hold you back from running to him. He couldn’t hear you; it was all ringing in his ear, but he could see you mouthing his name with intensity and rawness he’d never seen before.

Toji. Toji. Toji. Toji. And when he’d emerged out with a wound on the corner of his lips, he suddenly felt warmth all around him. The ones people wrote about in story books; the kind that was described as the sunlight gently wrapping around you. Your scent filled his lungs; your perfume and the pretty flowers you took great care of so proudly mingled together into the scent of spring. It’s kind and comforting, and it makes him feel sick and uneased.