Chapter 12: The Faintest Sign (Final Chapter)

Aoi stood frozen in front of Ren’s house once more, the same place she had been only days before. The afternoon sun was low, casting long shadows across the quiet neighborhood, but the warmth did nothing to calm the ice-cold fear gripping her heart. Her hand hovered over the doorbell, trembling. A thousand thoughts raced through her mind—questions she wasn’t ready to face, fears she had tried to bury. She had heard rumors at school that day, whispers of something worse than just Ren running away. And despite everything, despite the dread tightening her chest, she had come back.

The door creaked open, and Ren’s mother stood before her, looking even more broken than the last time. The lines under her eyes were deeper, her face pale, as though the weight of the world had collapsed on her shoulders.

“Aoi...” Her voice was barely audible, like a whisper carried on the wind. Her eyes were bloodshot, filled with a sorrow that Aoi instantly recognized. It wasn’t just worry. It was something far heavier.

Aoi could barely form the words. “Is he…?”

Ren’s mother swallowed hard, her lips trembling as she spoke. “Ren… he’s in the hospital. He tried…” Her voice cracked, and she had to pause to collect herself, but her next words were no less shattering. “He tried to take his own life.”

Aoi felt the air leave her lungs in an instant. The world around her blurred, her vision swimming as the weight of those words hit her like a wave crashing down.

“He’s alive,” Ren’s mother continued, though her tone offered no comfort. “But the doctors said... he might not make it.” Her voice broke, tears spilling down her cheeks as she stood helplessly in the doorway.

Aoi stumbled back a step, her heart pounding in her chest. Her mind refused to accept it. Ren... Ren, who had been sitting with her every day, who had been so quiet but always there, was now lying in a hospital bed, teetering on the edge between life and death. It didn’t seem real. It couldn’t be real.

“I... I have to see him,” Aoi stammered, her voice barely above a whisper. Her legs felt like they might give out from under her, but she forced herself to stand.

Ren’s mother nodded wordlessly, tears streaming down her face as she stepped aside to let Aoi in.

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The ride to the hospital was a blur. Aoi’s mind raced, but every thought was drowned out by the image of Ren, alone in his room, staring at those gray walls, sinking deeper into a darkness she hadn’t seen coming. Guilt gnawed at her, twisting her insides until she felt like she might break apart. She had been there, right there beside him, and yet she had missed it all—the depth of his pain, the emptiness that had consumed him.

When they arrived at the hospital, everything felt distant, like she was watching herself move through the world from far away. The bright lights of the hallway, the sterile smell of disinfectant, the soft hum of machines—it all felt surreal, like a nightmare she couldn’t wake up from.

Ren’s room was at the end of a long corridor, tucked away from the bustle of the hospital. The door was slightly ajar, and Aoi could see the faint outline of his figure lying on the bed inside. Her heart clenched painfully as she stepped inside.

There he was. Ren. His pale skin almost blended into the white sheets of the hospital bed, tubes and wires attached to him, monitoring his fragile life. His eyes were closed, his face as still and expressionless as ever, but this time, it wasn’t because of his usual silence. This time, it was because he had been too close to slipping away forever.

Aoi moved to his bedside, her legs weak and her heart heavy. She had rehearsed a thousand things she wanted to say on the way here, but now, standing in front of him, she couldn’t find a single word. Tears welled up in her eyes as she sank into the chair beside his bed. Her gaze fell to his hand, lying limply on the bed, and the tears finally spilled over.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice barely audible. “I’m so, so sorry.”

Her hand hovered over his for a moment before she finally gathered the courage to take it. His skin was cold, too cold, and the feel of it made her breath catch in her throat. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. Ren was supposed to be here with her, sitting quietly in class, his presence a steady constant in her life. He wasn’t supposed to be lying here like this, broken and fragile.

“I should have known,” she said, her voice cracking. “I should have seen it. I should have helped you.”

The weight of her guilt was unbearable. The signs had been there, written in the pages of his notebook, in the silences between their conversations, in the way he looked at her when she talked about Kaito. She had been blind, caught up in her own world, never realizing just how deep Ren’s pain had run.

“I was so selfish,” Aoi continued, her tears falling freely now. “I thought I understood you, but I didn’t. I thought you were okay. I thought...”

Her words trailed off into silence. There was nothing she could say that would change what had happened. Nothing she could do that would fix what was broken. But still, she held his hand, squeezing it gently, as if her touch alone could bring him back.

And then, just as she was about to lose hope, she felt it.

A faint twitch. The slightest movement of his fingers beneath hers.

Aoi gasped, her heart leaping in her chest. “Ren?” she whispered, her eyes wide with shock and hope. She squeezed his hand again, her own trembling. “Ren, can you hear me?”

But there was no further response. His hand remained still, his chest rising and falling in slow, shallow breaths. Yet that small twitch, that tiny sign of life, was enough to fill Aoi with a glimmer of hope she hadn’t felt since she first heard the news.

She didn’t know what would happen next. She didn’t know if Ren would wake up, or if he would ever truly recover from the darkness that had nearly consumed him. But in that moment, as she held his hand and whispered his name, she knew one thing for certain:

He was still here. And that meant there was still time.

Time to help him, to be there for him in a way she hadn’t been before. Time to make sure he knew he wasn’t alone.

As she sat by his bedside, her heart heavy but filled with determination, Aoi realized that this was only the beginning.