The camera gracefully glides over a tranquil park, capturing the serene beauty of nature and architecture. The park is bathed in the warm glow of late afternoon sun, casting long shadows across the neatly trimmed grass. The scene unfolds with gentle sways of the swings and the rhythmic spin of the carousel, painting a picture of timeless nostalgia and simple joy.

Ryoichiro sat on a bench, trying to ignore the slight embarrassment he felt being in a children’s park at his age. He watched as Risa enjoyed a cone of ice cream from the truck parked nearby, her face lit up with a genuine smile that seemed to capture the essence of carefree youth.

“Ryo-chan, remember when we used to come here every summer?” Risa said, her voice laced with nostalgia. She took a slow, savoring lick of her ice cream, her eyes glazing over as she reminisced. “We’d always start with the swings, then head over to the sandbox. You used to dig for treasure and claim you’d found buried gold.”

Ryoichiro chuckled, a little self-conscious but amused. “Yeah, I remember. And you always insisted on being the pirate captain.”

Risa laughed, her eyes sparkling with fond memories. “That’s right! You were such a good sport, always humoring me. And your mom would bring us snacks and keep us entertained. She was always so kind and patient.”

The mention of his mother made Ryoichiro’s heart twist. He had been struggling to reveal the truth about what’s happening to him, and hearing Risa’s casual mentions of her felt like a stab to his heart. The guilt of hiding something from her, intertwined with the pain of her often long absence, were almost too much to bear.

Risa continued to recount their childhood adventures, her voice drifting between playful anecdotes and more sentimental recollections. Ryoichiro’s gaze wandered across the park, trying to focus on the present but finding it increasingly difficult. He glanced at Risa, her expression full of warmth as she spoke of the past.

“Do you ever think about how different things might have been if —” Risa began, but she stopped abruptly when she saw the pained expression on Ryoichiro’s face. She looked at him with concern. “What’s wrong, Ryo-chan?”

Ryoichiro hesitated, his mind racing. “I’ve been thinking… Maybe I should tell my mom. Maybe what Yuko meant about no more innocents dying is that if I tell my mom the truth, she won’t get dragged into this mess. Maybe she’ll be safe from all of it, even if I reach out to her. I know she’s busy with work and everything, but she should be able to find time to sit down and talk to me about it.”

Risa's eyes widened, a flicker of disbelief crossing her face. Her gaze met Ryoichiro's with a mixture of pity and sadness. "Ryo-chan," she began softly, her voice trembling slightly, "what are you talking about?"

Ryoichiro looked at her, confusion etched on his face. “Huh? What do you mean?”

Risa hesitated, her gaze softening as she reached for his hand. “Ryo-chan... I know this is hard, but... do you remember what happened last year? With your mom?” She paused, giving him a moment to connect the dots, her voice barely above a whisper. “It’s been a year since... she passed away.”

The words landed with the weight of a heavy truth, sinking in slowly. Ryoichiro almost choked, and he stared at her in disbelief. “Risa-chan, wha-what did I say about those kinds of jokes? That’s not funny… ” he reprimanded, his voice barely above a whisper.

Risa’s face softened with a mix of sadness and sympathy. “Your mother… she was killed in a drunk driving accident, remember? It was my boyfriend — your best friend — who was driving. I’m so sorry, Ryo-chan. I didn’t know you were still in denial about her death.”

Ryoichiro listened to Risa, his eyes locked on hers, but his mind was a whirlpool of conflicting thoughts.

“This can’t be true,” he thought, forcing himself to stay calm. “It’s just… impossible. But why would she lie?”

The words she spoke were too heavy, too real, yet they collided with his deep-seated belief that this was all just a misunderstanding, a bad dream he could wake up from. His chest tightened as he tried to grasp at anything that would make her words untrue.

“Mom isn’t gone. She can’t be. I would have known — felt something.”

Risa's voice became a distant echo, her words muffled as Ryoichiro’s thoughts spiraled. “No, she’s wrong. She has to be. But… what if she isn’t? What if everything I’ve been ignoring is true?”

His breath hitched, a cold sweat breaking out on his skin.

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“I don’t want to believe it! I don’t want to face it!”

Ryoichiro’s breath came in shallow gasps as the full weight of Risa’s words crashed down on him. His mind spun as the realization hit him, the fantasy of his mother’s presence shattering into fragments. He felt his legs go weak, and he struggled to stay upright. “No… no, that can’t be true. It can’t be…” His whole life seemed to unravel, leaving him feeling hollow and lost.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?” Ryoichiro’s voice cracked, his eyes welling with tears. “Why did they let me keep believing she was still alive? I thought… I thought I could still talk to her.”

Risa’s eyes were filled with sorrow as she reached out to him, her voice barely a whisper. “I’m so sorry, Ryo-chan. It’s not that we wanted to deceive you. You were in such deep denial, and we didn’t know how to break it to you without causing more pain. We thought you needed this… this illusion to cope, to hold on to some part of her. That’s what I did in the beginning, too. We were trying to protect you, not knowing that it was only making things harder.”

She continued, her voice trembling. “After the accident, we saw how you started to shut yourself off from reality. You talked about your mom as if she was just away on a long trip or at work. We didn’t want to force the truth on you because we feared it might push you over the edge. We thought it was better for you to come to terms with it on your own, in your own time. I know, I did.”

Ryoichiro shook his head, struggling to comprehend. “But… but why didn’t you tell me the truth sooner? I could have… I could have faced it!”

As the scene unfolded, various bystanders reacted with a mix of concern and curiosity. Some parents quickly gathered their children, pulling them away from the commotion with worried expressions. Others, sensing the heightened tension, exchanged uneasy glances and murmured among themselves.

“A lover’s spat? Seriously, youngsters these days don’t know how to keep their private matters behind closed doors,” a middle-aged woman speculated.

Risa paid no mind to the onlookers around them, her focus entirely on Ryoichiro. She sighed deeply, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “When you stopped bringing up your mother, I thought maybe you were starting to move on. I’ve tried to avoid mentioning Masayoshi around you, and when I did, you seemed to handle it okay. We thought if we gave you space, you’d eventually come to terms with it in your own time. We should have been more straightforward with you, but we were all afraid of how you’d react. We didn’t want to push you too hard or make things worse. We hoped that, eventually, you’d find a way to accept it when you were ready. But it seems we misjudged, and now...”

The weight of her words hung heavily in the air, and Ryoichiro felt the shattering pain of realizing how his friends had tried to shield him, albeit ineffectively. The truth he had been avoiding crashed over him like a relentless wave, leaving him to grapple with the deep, aching void left by his mother’s absence.

As Ryoichiro’s mind raced, the park around him seemed to shift. The warm, familiar sunlight that once filled the space now felt harsh, casting long, jagged shadows on everything. The soft hum of the air, once a comforting background noise, grew louder, almost unbearable, like a distant roar. The playground, which moments ago felt like a safe haven, now seemed to close in on him, the nonexistent walls inching closer, making it hard to breathe. The ground felt like it was rearranging beneath him.

Ryoichiro’s entire world crumbled, leaving him adrift in a sea of grief and confusion. His mother’s comforting presence, the imagined conversations — they all dissolved into a painful void. The stark reality of her absence, once only a faint echo, now roared in his ears, overwhelming him with the force of its finality.

As Risa’s words settled over him, Ryoichiro was left to grapple with the crushing weight of loss he had been desperately trying to avoid. The last vestiges of hope he clung to were swept away, leaving him exposed and vulnerable in the midst of his deepest sorrow.

Risa reached out, her hand resting gently on his. “We tried to help you, Ryo-chan. But you were so determined to hold onto that illusion. We didn’t want to push you too hard.”

Tears welled up in Ryoichiro’s eyes, and he looked away, unable to face the overwhelming grief and betrayal he felt. The memories of his mother, once a comforting presence, now felt like cruel reminders of what he had lost. The truth he had been avoiding for so long was too much to bear.

“I thought… I thought I could keep her with me, Risa-chan,” Ryoichiro said through choked sobs. “I didn’t want to let go. I was trying so hard to keep her alive in my mind.”

Risa’s heart ached for him, and she moved closer, wrapping her arms around him in a comforting embrace. “I’m so sorry, Ryo-chan. It’s okay to grieve. It’s okay to feel lost. But you don’t have to face this alone.”

As Ryoichiro clung to Risa, the park around them seemed to blur, the sounds of children’s laughter and the distant carousel fading into the background. The reality of his mother’s death had hit him with a force he wasn’t prepared for, but Risa’s presence offered a small measure of solace in the midst of his pain.

The sun continued to set, casting a golden hue over the park as the shadows grew longer. Ryoichiro sat in the comfort of Risa’s embrace, feeling the weight of his grief and the enormity of his loss. It was a moment of profound sorrow, but also one of potential healing — a chance to finally confront his past and begin the process of moving forward.

Back at Ryoichiro's apartment, Risa quietly gathered some of his belongings from his room. She suggested he stay at her place again, concerned that being surrounded by memories in his own space might be too painful for Ryoichiro to face alone.

Ryoichiro stared at the floor, his thoughts spiraling into chaos. “Mom… gone?”

The words seemed to echo in his mind, but they didn’t stick.

“She was just here… wasn’t she?”

His breath hitched as he tried to remember the last time he saw her, the way her voice soothed his worries. But the memories felt distant now, shrouded in a fog that refused to clear. This can’t be right…

He shook his head, desperately clinging to the disbelief. “No, Risa-chan… she’s… she’s still…” His voice faltered, the denial crumbling beneath the weight of the truth he still didn’t want to accept.

He closed his eyes, and the memories came flooding back — the way his mother would hum as she cooked dinner, her laughter filling the room. But now, those memories felt strange, as if they belonged to another life. “How did I not see it?” he wondered, the confusion refusing to let go of him. “Was I just pretending?”

Every cherished moment seemed to shift under the weight of the truth, leaving him feeling like a stranger in his own past.

"Ryo-chan, are you ready to go?" Risa's voice was soft, barely more than a whisper, as Ryoichiro stood with his eyes closed, lost in his memories.

Risa didn’t press him for a response. Instead, she reached out, her fingers lightly brushing his. When he didn’t pull away, she squeezed his hand, offering silent support. They stood like that for what felt like hours, the quiet between them filled with unspoken understanding.

“I’m here, Ryo-chan,” she whispered eventually, her voice steady, offering him a lifeline without pushing him to speak. It was enough to remind him that he wasn’t alone, even as his world shifted.

Ryoichiro opened his eyes, still misted with tears from his memories, and met Risa's gaze with lingering sadness.

“I was so worried about you,” she admitted, her eyes searching his. “I didn’t know how to help… as I was hurting too.”

Her confession hung in the air, allowing Ryoichiro to see her vulnerability, to understand that she had been hurting too. It wasn’t just about him anymore — it was about the people who cared for him, who had been carrying their own burdens in silence.

As the first stars appeared in the twilight sky, Ryoichiro knew that the road ahead would be long and difficult. But with Risa by his side, he felt a glimmer of hope that he might eventually find a way to rebuild his life and honor the memory of his mother, even as he faced the harsh truths he had long avoided.