The sky hung low and gray over the quiet countryside town, a pale prelude to the rain that would fall in the afternoon. The narrow streets smelled of damp earth and freshly plowed fields, and the wind carried the faint, lingering scent of cherry blossoms from the riverbank. It was the sort of spring morning that felt fragile and eternal, where sunlight shone weakly between the cedar trees, and time seemed to stretch lazily like smoke from a tea kettle.
In a small home beside the Kisaragi River, a child named Sozuki Yamagaki slept beneath a faded blue blanket. The gentle chime of the shop's bell above the wooden door whispered faintly through the floorboards, stirred by the morning breeze. Outside, the emerald rice paddies stretched like a calm, green sea, while the cedar forests whispered secrets only the wind could understand.
Sozuki's mother, Airi, moved quietly through the home, humming a soft lullaby as she hung laundry under the morning sun. Her hands were gentle, brushing over the cloth with care, her voice a thread of warmth woven through the stillness. His father, Daichi, worked in the dim glow of a single lantern, carving a small wooden rabbit from a block of cedar wood. The faint scent of sawdust mingled with the aroma of roasted barley tea that simmered on the stove, filling the home with the smell of safety and familiarity.
Every morning was a ritual: the tea brewing, the toast of wood on wood as the spoon met the miso soup bowl, the soft clink of chopsticks against porcelain. For Sozuki, these sounds were the world itself — small miracles of routine and love.
"Good morning, Sozuki," Airi said gently, leaning over to pat his hair. Her smile was the sun's reflection on the river — warm, brief, perfect for Sozuki.
"Good morning, Mama," Sozuki replied, his small voice still sleepy but soft with comfort.
Daichi looked up from his carving, nodding, his eyes bright beneath the lantern's glow. "Did you sleep well, crazy rabbit?" he asked, teasing, though the child was not yet old enough to understand all the nuances of humor.
Sozuki laughed softly. "I dreamt of the river," he said. "It sang to me."
His father smiled, setting the knife aside. "The river always sings," he said. "Even when no one listens, it sings."
Breakfast was simple but perfect. They ate miso soup, grilled mackerel, and steamed rice, the sound of Sozuki's chopsticks tapping against the bowl punctuating the rhythm of the morning. Outside, cicadas began to cry faintly, their song carrying across the river. To Sozuki, it was as if the world itself had slowed to watch, honoring the quiet happiness of their small family.
After breakfast, they walked to the town's bread shop. Kawahara Bread Shop was small, the wooden sign faded and slightly chipped, but inside the air was always warm with the smell of yeast and sugar. The baker, an elderly gramps who always remembered Sozuki's name, greeted them with a nod. Airi would buy melonpan for Sozuki, and he would sometimes get a small bun shaped like a rabbit — a playful nod to his father's carving.
"Sozuki," Daichi said as they left the shop, carrying the sweet warmth of bread in brown paper bags, "promise me something?"
The kid looked up, puzzled. "What is it, Papa?"
Daichi knelt slightly, holding Sozuki's small hands in his own. "Always protect the people you care about," he said gently, "even if they don't protect you back. Even if they leave you behind. If you only protect yourself… you risk being truly alone. But if you protect those around you… even just one… then you'll never be alone, no matter what happens."
Sozuki nodded solemnly, the weight of the promise settling in his heart like a stone he did not yet understand. "I will," he said softly. "I will protect them."
Airi smiled, brushing a strand of hair from his face. "That's my brave son."
For months, the days passed like this: laughter, warmth, and the gentle rhythm of a life lived in love. Sozuki's world was small but safe, bound by family, the town, the river, and the cedar trees. Every Saturday, they returned to the bread shop; every evening, they shared dinner and tea; every morning, the river sang, carrying their memories like blossoms on its current.
But even the calmest rivers hide currents beneath their surface.
It was the winter of 1981 when the world broke.
Snow fell thickly, coating the tiled rooftops in white silence. Sozuki lay in bed, the blue blanket cocooning him in warmth and safety. Outside, the wind howled softly, carrying with it a quiet warning he could not yet understand.
Then came the shouting.
At first, Sozuki thought it was part of a dream — voices deep and frantic, not like his parents'. Then the crash of wood. Then… silence. A silence so deep it swallowed the world.
His small legs carried him down the stairs before he knew he had moved. The sight that greeted him froze him in place. Red stained the tatami mats where they had once been clean. Wooden carvings lay scattered, their smiling faces soaked in dark, unyielding liquid. His mother lay beside the overturned kettle, eyes wide, staring past him. His father's hands were still slightly curled, as though frozen mid-motion.
Sozuki did not understand. He thought maybe they were sleeping. Maybe it was a dream. But the cold pressed into his small hands as he shook his mother.
She did not move.
He tried his father next. Nothing.
Panic clawed at him, sharp and inhuman, yet he had nowhere to run in his mind. His heart tightened, his tears froze before they fell. And then he ran.
He ran through forests thick with snow, across the small stone bridge that spanned the river. Moonlight glimmered on the frozen water, echoing the ghostly light that had settled over his home. The river, which had always sung to him, now only whispered of loss. His small frame moved blindly, driven by instinct, until he collapsed beneath the Torii gate at the edge of the village — the one his father had said led to the mountain spirits.
Days blurred into weeks. Sozuki survived by rice balls offered at shrines, by streams of water, by the fragile kindness of strangers who could not understand him. Sometimes, older children stole from him. Sometimes, the villagers left him to the cold. He stopped speaking. He stopped crying. He became a shadow, hollow and small, haunted by the warmth he could no longer reach.
On a rainy evening in 1982, he returned to the river. The cherry blossoms had begun to fall early that year, petals drifting in the rain like ghosts of what was lost. Sozuki stood clutching the wooden rabbit his father had carved, the single broken ear a testament to fleeting joy and fragile memory.
"I want to go home," he whispered, voice so soft the wind almost carried it away.
The current was swollen and fierce. The river that had once sung lullabies now roared with indifference. Sozuki's small body faltered, and then collapsed among reeds and petals. When villagers found him the next morning, his small form lay tangled in water and blossom alike. He was buried beside his parents under the plum tree that bloomed white each April, silent and small, yet not forgotten.
Yet death did not end Sozuki.
Some said he returned as a whisper along the riverbank at dusk. Children spoke of a small child who asked, "Have you seen my mother?" before fading into fog. Priests tried to bless the place, but the scent of tea, cherry blossoms, and roasted barley persisted, as if the Yamagaki family still invited visitors for one last meal.
And Sozuki, himself, still wandered, still wondered who he was. He walked the path between the river and the Torii gate, jumper white, sneakers gray, wooden rabbit in hand. He hummed a song he did not remember learning, watching the lanterns flicker in the town below. And though his body no longer aged, the longing for warmth, family, and the home he lost never left him.
In the fleeting moments of memory, Sozuki remembered more than just the pain. He remembered warmth.
He remembered sitting with his mother, laughing over a slightly burnt loaf of bread. He remembered her hands as she poured tea, steam curling upward, a scent he would never forget. He remembered the careful curve of his father's knife as he carved rabbits from blocks of cedar, the careful, loving precision of each motion.
And he remembered the promise.
Always protect the people you care about. Even if they don't care for you back. Even if they leave you behind. Protect them. Protect them, Sozuki, because protecting only yourself… that makes you truly alone.
Even in death, even after decades and memories lost to wandering, that promise remained. It tethered him to the world of warmth and love he had known, a faint, fragile thread binding him to humanity he had once belonged to — and the friends he would find again.
He pressed the wooden rabbit to his heart, a relic of the past, a promise made, a bond remembered. Still lingers in memory.
And somewhere, in the distance, the river sang again. And he would rememmber it all again. And then he met Hana.
TO BE CONTINUED...