Shinji becomes a master of small deceptions over the next three days.
He arrives at the garden each morning with new explanations—tripped on the stairs, bumped into a locker, slept wrong and his neck is stiff. Each excuse delivered with a practiced casualness that almost sounds believable. Almost.
Hakurage accepts them at first. Nods. Doesn't push. They work side by side in the garden, planting winter flowers, clearing debris, repairing the pavilion's collapsed corner. Normal things. Safe things. Neither mentions the way Shinji winces when he bends, or how he aches on his left side, or the new bruise blooming purple across his neck.
On the fourth day, it rains harder than it has all season.
They take shelter in the greenhouse, and Shinji is helping move a planting table when he stumbles. His hand shoots to his ribs, and for just a second, his face shows everything—pain so deep it steals breath, exhaustion that goes beyond physical, the weight of pretending nothing is wrong when everything is wrong.
The moment passes. Shinji's expression smooths into careful neutrality. "I'm fine. Just twisted my bones wrong." Hakurage stares at him from across the greenhouse, rain drumming overhead, and something in his silence feels different. Heavier.
"You keep saying that," Hakurage says quietly. "That you're fine. You've said it twelve times in four days. I counted." "Because I am fine." "Shinji—"
"I don't want to talk about it." Shinji's voice is firm. Final. "Whatever you think you see, whatever you're worried about—just leave it alone. This is my problem. My family. Not yours."
The words land like a slap. Hakurage's face does something complicated—hurt and frustration and understanding all fighting for space. "Okay," he says quietly. "Okay."
They don't speak for the rest of the afternoon. Just work in tense silence, the easy companionship of recent days fractured by unspoken truths neither knows how to address.
When the rain finally stops and Shinji packs his things to leave, Hakurage doesn't ask him to stay. Doesn't offer shelter. Just watches him walk away, and the distance between them feels wider than the garden gate.
Shinji's apartment building looks worse in the fading evening light—concrete stained with years of neglect, windows covered in grime, graffiti marking the ground floor walls. He climbs the stairs slowly, each step a negotiation with his injured ribs, and pauses outside the door.
He can hear the television inside. His father's coughing. The normalcy of it makes everything worse somehow. He opens the door as quietly as possible.
His father is on the couch, as expected. Three empty beer cans on the floor beside him, another in his hand. He looks up when Shinji enters, and his eyes are bloodshot and mean.
"Where have you been?" "School. Then the library." The lies come automatic now. "Liar. I called the school. You've missed four days this week." Shinji's stomach drops. He sets his bag down carefully, mind racing for explanations that won't make this worse.
"I can explain—"
"You can explain?" His father stands, swaying slightly. "You can explain why you're skipping school? Why you're sneaking around? Why you think you can just do whatever you want?"
"I wasn't sneaking—"
The first hit comes faster than Shinji can react. His father's fist catches him across the mouth, splitting his recent barely-healed lip open again. Copper floods his tongue. He staggers back against the wall, hand to his face, tasting blood.
"Don't lie to me!" His father is advancing, the alcohol making him sloppy but no less dangerous. "I'm sick of your lies. Sick of your disrespect. Sick of you!"
Shinji knows this pattern. Knows the only survival is to make himself small, quiet, invisible until the storm passes. He drops his eyes, shoulders hunching.
"I'm sorry," he says, voice flat. "I won't skip again."
"You're damn right you won't." His father grabs Shinji's shirt collar, slams him against the wall. Pain explodes through Shinji's ribs. His vision whites out for a second. "You think you're better than this? Better than me? You're nothing. You'll always be nothing."
The apartment door crashes open.
Both Shinji and his father freeze, turning toward the sound. Hakurage stands in the doorway, soaked from rain that's started again, his storm-cloud eyes taking in everything—Shinji against the wall, blood on his face, his father's fist still gripping his collar.
"Get away from him." Hakurage's voice is low and dangerous. "Now." Shinji's father releases Shinji's shirt, turns to face this intruder. His eyes narrow as recognition dawns.
"I know you," he says slowly. "Shizu's son. The one who—" Understanding crosses his face. "That's where you've been. At that damn garden. I told you to stay away from there. Told you that place was cursed."
"Let him go," Hakurage repeats. "Whatever this is, whatever you think you're doing—it stops now." Shinji finds his voice. "Haku, leave. This isn't your business—"
"It became my business when he hurt you." Hakurage's eyes never leave Shinji's father. "I've watched you come to the garden with new bruises every day. Watched you pretend everything's fine when you can barely breathe. I stayed quiet because you asked me to. But not anymore. And so I followed you here and found this freak beating you to a pulp."
Shinji's father laughs, ugly and sharp. "You think you can come into my home and tell me how to handle my son? You think because your parents had money, had education, you're better than us? So you have no right to call me such low leveled insults!"
"I think you're a coward who hurts others because you can't face your own failures." Hakurage steps further into the apartment. "I think you blame Shinji for everything wrong in your life when the only person responsible is you."
The words hang in the air for one heartbeat. Two. Then Shinji's father moves.
He crosses the distance fast, brings his fist up toward Hakurage's face. But Hakurage isn't frozen with years of conditioning like Shinji. He dodges, and his father's momentum carries him forward into the wall. He recovers quickly, spinning, and this time connects—a solid hit to Hakurage's jaw.
"Stop!" Shinji shouts, trying to move between them, but his father shoves him hard. He crashes into the kitchen counter, ribs screaming, sliding to the floor.
Hakurage wipes blood from his split lip, and something in his expression has gone cold. Not angry—beyond anger into something crystalline and controlled.
"Is this what makes you feel strong?" he asks quietly. "Hitting people? Hurting people who can't fight back?" "Shut up—"
"Does it help you forget? That you lost your job because you were too proud to admit you needed help? That the embezzlement investigation cleared you but the damage was already done? That you destroyed your own family through alcohol and bitterness?"
"I said shut up!" Shinji's father swings again, wild and furious.
This time Hakurage doesn't dodge. He catches the fist mid-swing, holds it. For a fifteen-year-old who spends his days gardening, his grip is surprisingly strong.
"You worked for my parents," Hakurage says, his voice shaking now. "You were kind once. I remember you bringing Shinji to the garden, watching us play. You smiled. You were a good father then. What happened to that person?"
Something breaks in his father's expression. For just a second, Shinji sees it—grief and shame and self-hatred all colliding. Then it hardens back into anger.
His father wrenches his hand free, and his other hand comes up holding something. Shinji sees the flash of glass—a broken beer bottle, jagged and lethal.
"Haku, run!" Shinji screams.
But Hakurage doesn't run. He stands his ground as Shinji's father lunges. The bottle swings down toward Hakurage's face, and Hakurage raises his arm to block.
The glass connects. Slices deep across Hakurage's forearm. Blood immediately streams down, shockingly red against his pale skin.
The sight of blood seems to break something in the room. Shinji's father stumbles backward, staring at the bottle in his hand, at what he's done. His face goes white.
"I didn't—I wasn't trying to—"
Shinji is moving before conscious thought, grabbing Hakurage, pulling him toward the door. Blood drips on the floor, leaving a trail. Hakurage's face has gone pale, but he's still standing, still conscious.
"We're leaving," Shinji says to his father. "And if you ever hurt me again, if you ever come near the garden, I will report everything. The police. The pain you caused us just now and before all this. Everyone. Do you understand?"
His father just stares, the bottle hanging from his hand. "Do you understand?" Shinji shouts. "Yes." His father's voice is small. Broken. "Yes. Just—just go."
They go.
Down the stairs, Shinji half-supporting Hakurage, both of them leaving red droplets on concrete. Out into the rain that's falling harder now, washing blood from Hakurage's arm but unable to wash away what just happened.
They make it three blocks before Hakurage's legs give out. He sits heavily on a bus stop bench, his injured arm close against his stomach. The cut is deep, several inches long, bleeding freely despite the rain.
"Why did you come?" Shinji asks, his voice raw. "I told you to stay out of it. I told you it wasn't your business."
"Because you're my family." Hakurage's voice is steady despite everything. "And family protects each other. Even when it's stupid. Even when it gets them hurt."
"You're bleeding everywhere—" "So are you." Hakurage nods at Shinji's face. His split lip is bleeding again, and there's blood from his nose mixing with rain. "We're a matching set."
Shinji sits beside him on the bench, and something enormous breaks in his ribs—not physical, but emotional. All the careful control he's maintained for years fracturing under the weight of what just happened.
"He could have killed you," Shinji whispers. "With that bottle. He could have killed you and it would have been my fault for bringing you into this." "He didn't kill me. I'm fine."
"You have a massive gash across your arm!"
"I've had worse. The greenhouse glass was worse." Hakurage examines the cut with surprising calm. "This needs stitches though. Real stitches, not the kind I can do myself."
"I don't have money for a hospital—"
"I do. I have some saved. Enough for emergency care." Hakurage stands carefully. "Come on. Let's get this taken care of. Then we figure out what comes next."
"What comes next is I go back there. Apologize. Try to smooth this over—" "No." Hakurage's voice is absolute. "You're not going back there. Not tonight. Not ever if I can help it."
"He's my father—"
"He cut me with a bottle. He hurts you until you can't breathe. He's not a parent, Shinji. He's a danger." Hakurage takes Shinji's hand with his uninjured one. "You're staying with me. At the garden. For as long as you need. I don't care if it's a week or a month or forever. You're not going back to that."
Shinji wants to argue. Wants to explain about duty and family and all the reasons he can't just leave. But looking at Hakurage—bleeding because he tried to protect him, standing in the rain making promises he might not be able to keep—the arguments die in his throat.
"Okay," he whispers. "Okay."
They walk together through rain-soaked Tokyo, two wounded figures supporting each other, leaving behind the apartment and everything it represents. Behind them, in that small space of violence and broken things, Shinji's father sits alone with a bloody bottle and the ruins of what he's become.
The emergency room is bright and sterile and full of questions they don't fully answer.
The doctor—a tired-looking person in their forties—examines Hakurage's arm with professional efficiency. "This is a clean cut. Deep. How did this happen?"
"Broken glass," Hakurage says. "Accident in our workshop."
The doctor's eyes flick to Shinji's bloody face, back to Hakurage's arm. The doubt is visible but unspoken. "This needs seven stitches. Maybe eight. I'll clean it and close it up. You'll need antibiotics. Follow-up in a week."
When it's done, Hakurage's arm is wrapped in clean white bandaging, stark against his rain-soaked clothes. They're given prescriptions they probably can't afford and instructions they'll try to follow.
Outside, the rain has become a downpour. They stand under the emergency room overhang, neither moving toward the exit. "I'm sorry," Shinji says finally. "For all of this. For my father. For you getting hurt because of me."
"Don't." Hakurage turns to face him fully. "Don't apologize for being hurt. Don't take responsibility for his violence. What happened tonight wasn't your fault."
"I brought you there—"
"I chose to come. I chose to confront him. I chose to stand between you and him because that's what you do for people you care about." Hakurage's voice breaks slightly. "I lost six years without you. I'm not losing you again to someone who doesn't deserve you."
"Thank you," Shinji says quietly. "For coming. For fighting. For not leaving even when I told you to." "Always," Hakurage responds. "For as long as you need me. Always. Because that's what friends are for."
They walk back into the rain, heading toward the garden, toward the small living quarters that will become home for both of them for just a bit, but Shinji cannot just leave his fathers situation unsolved. Behind them, the hospital glows bright against the dark. Ahead, the garden waits—damaged but alive, broken but blooming.
Two figures moving through rain. Two people who survived the night. Two hearts learning that sometimes protecting each other means standing in the path of violence and refusing to move.
The rain continues falling. Blood washes away in gutters. And somewhere in the dark, a father sits alone with his failures while his son finds family in a garden that remembers kindness.
TO BE CONTINUED...