Days passed, and only memories remained. Seasons changed, but the heart didn't. Bringing forth new jubilant vibes, autumn rushed in unannounced. The swift breeze carried the dried-up, dull leaves, scattering them on the ground, rigorously messing up the roads and surrounding areas. Flocks of migratory birds soared above the sky, signalling the changing of tides brought on by the coming of a new season.

Four months passed since Evelyn left the village to live with her new husband in the city. She never came back for her daughter. Claire's health had deteriorated significantly after Evelyn left. Leyon was left to do whatever he could to keep their small family alive and well, but he never complained. On the bright side, he was warming up to people. Claire believed it was due to Hikari. Leyon was slowly transitioning back to the lively kid he once used to be.

"Granny? Are you going somewhere today?" Leyon asked, seeing his grandmother all dressed up, holding a bright red umbrella.

"I want to go out in the fields today and see what the villagers are doing. It's October, it's the harvest season after all," Claire replied quite happily.

Leyon nodded wordlessly. His grandmother had been telling him that she'd been feeling under the weather lately and didn't want to go out. To see her suddenly get dressed and ready to go outside in such good mood surprised him. It seemed like she was out of her depressed state for the time being, and he couldn't be any happier.

"You should stop watering the plants and go play as a kid should," Claire ordered her grandson. "Stop being serious all the time."

"It's okay, granny. I can manage." Leyon smiled.

Claire shook her head in disappointment. "This kid. Acting like a grown-up. So, you can manage without me now, eh?" Claire taunted, putting her hands on her hips.

"That's not what I meant, granny," Leyon tried to explain but ran out of words.

"I'm kidding." Claire laughed and patted Leyon on the head.

"That's mean, granny." Leyon sulked. "There's one thing I know though!" he exclaimed, suddenly brightening up. Claire looked at him expectantly, waiting for him to go on. "I know granny will stay here with me for a long, long time. Maybe till I'm forty... Nah that's too short." Leyon counted with his little fingers. "... fifty, sixty?!"

Claire chuckled. "You think granny is immortal? I can't stay with you that long. But I promise I'll stay with you for a long time, long enough to see you grow up and start a family of your own. So don't worry, dear. But are you sure you won't get tired of this old lady later?" she teased.

"No! Of course not!"

"Okay then. Granny should get going. I'll cook your favourite dish for dinner when I return." Claire said, opening her umbrella and preparing to leave.

"Bye granny." Leyon waved from the back as he watched Claire leave.

"Bye, dear. Don't stay in the house all day. Go and play with Hikari," Claire shouted from the distance.

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"You call this food?" Hikari's father snapped, kicking the bowl of rice from the table. "Only pigs would eat that."

But you are a pig, Hikari thought, annoyed at her father's childish behaviour. She quietly cleaned up the spilt bowl of rice from the floor without casting her father a glance. Even after her mother left, there was no change in her father's lifestyle or behaviour whatsoever, always wasting his days drinking and gambling, sometimes beating her up and wreaking havoc in the house depending on his mood. Hikari had to learn to do everything by herself now that her mother was gone: cooking, cleaning, and managing the household while putting up with her worthless father. But grandma Claire was always there to teach and help her though she couldn't do much about her father.

"What a useless daughter I'm living with. Can't do anything right," Hikari's father muttered. "But what can I expect from the daughter of a vile woman? I lost my appetite." With that said, he got up and left the house.

Whenever Hikari was home, she would avoid meeting her father. Showing her face to him only reminded him of her mother who left him. He would then beat her for all nonsensical reasons like why she looked like her mother, or bring up other pathetic accusations to upset her. He felt joy in watching her suffer; he relished the idea of exacting his revenge on Evelyn by taking his anger out on Hikari.

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"Ah!" Leyon screamed, the paintbrush slipping from his hand. "Hikari, don't sneak up on me like that," he said and turned around only to see Hikari laughing at him.

Crumpling the ruined sheet of paper, he threw it away. This was the third time Hikari messed up his painting. The girl got no chill when it came to playing tricks on him.

"What are you doing?" wrote Hikari in her notebook before passing it to Leyon.

"I was painting." Leyon sulked, disappointedly gazing at the beautiful stretch of the green landscape before him.

"Leyon is really good at drawing."

"Am I?"

Hikari furiously nodded her head.

"My dream is to become a famous artist one day."

"Really?"

"Yup. What about you? Do you have a dream?"

A dream? Hikari wondered. She slowly shook her head.

"There must be something you want to become in the future. Don't you have one in mind? A dream or a goal?"

Hikari shook her head once again. She couldn't think of what she'd like to do in the future. The words dreams and goals sounded foreign to her.

"Then I'll give you a suggestion." Leyon thought deeply, his eyes moving up and down Hikari's form. "Hmm... I think you should become a teacher. You're kind and honest and you love interacting with kids. I can picture you as the perfect teacher," Leyon said, smiling widely at Hikari.

Me? A teacher? thought Hikari. Her cheeks flushed with colour. This was the first time anyone had ever given her a reason to look forward to the future. Leyon had just given her a purpose, and she was determined to make it come true.

"Work hard, okay?" Leyon said as he took out another blank sheet of paper from his bag and began to paint.

Hikari inched closer to catch a glimpse of what Leyon was painting this time. She passed her notebook to him again. "Can you draw me?" Hikari looked up at him shyly, waiting for a positive response.

"No. I don't want to draw you."

Hikari lowered her head in shame.

"I'm not good yet. And I can't draw human faces properly." Leyon blushed. "When I improve, I'll draw you then." His voice lowered as he waited for Hikari's reaction.

Hikari slowly nodded, raising her head to give Leyon a wide smile.

"Wait for a while, okay? I promise I'll draw the most beautiful picture of you." Leyon returned his attention to his painting, but the thought of Hikari never left his mind. Over the past few months, his relationship with her had gotten a lot closer. They would play together most of the time, usually after Hikari came back from school. Sometimes, they would fly kites and run around the meadows, laughing and jumping in high spirits. Other times, they would ride a bicycle. Leyon would be the one taking Hikari on a ride, with her sitting silently in the rear seat. Those carefree days flew by like the breeze tickling their skin. In a world full of ups and downs, they sought comfort in each other's presence. They were like two swallows in a pond, their bond unbreakable, their souls like one, impossible to separate.

An hour later, Leyon finished his painting and tugged it inside his bag. He glanced to the side and found Hikari attempting to copy his painting in her small notebook. She was nowhere near as good as him. He tried to hold in his giggles when he saw the awkward-looking imitation but commended her efforts nonetheless.

"How are you doing?" Leyon asked out of the blue. "Do you... miss your mother?"

Hikari merely shook her head and turned away from him.

"Did he make things hard for you again?" Leyon asked her another question.

Hikari ended up giving him a weak smile this time as if telling him she was doing okay. Leyon wanted to believe her, but he knew she was lying.

Without warning, Leyon grabbed Hikari's wrist and rolled up the sleeves of the shirt she was wearing. From her wrists to her arms, there were bluish-black marks and bruises all over her skin.

"You." Leyon couldn't find the right words to say.

Hikari snatched her hands away from Leyon and hurriedly rolled down her sleeves, refusing to meet his gaze.

"... Hikari, I wish I could take you away from him. I'm sorry I can't do anything. I'm sorry I can't protect you," Leyon said with a defeated look.

Hikari could only smile at him. That was all she could do. She smiled.

She smiled a lot more than normal to make up for the words she couldn't speak. Over the months, smiling also became a way of hiding her feelings, a kind of mechanism to give herself a false sense of security and comfort when she was alone and feeling lonely. Others might find it annoying, but smiling was the only way for her to convey her thoughts to people when she didn't have a note to write on, and only Leyon was able to see through all of that. Leyon didn't need words to know what she wanted to say. He didn't need for her to speak because he always knew what was on her mind with just a glance.

Sighing, Leyon stood up from the grass and gazed straight ahead, aware of a pair of curious eyes watching his every move. "Ah!" he screamed in the air. "I want to grow up soon." He clenched his fists as he forced a smile to grace his lips.

"Hey, boy? Are you Claire's grandson?" Leyon heard a male voice call out to him from the distance. A man rushed towards him, panting heavily, and then stopped to catch his breath when he finally reached him.

"What's wrong, uncle?" Leyon asked curiously. The man looked to be a villager from the area.

"Your grandmother, she's... you need to come with me."

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Leyon's mind was blank as he sprinted madly through the halls of the hospital. The only parts of his body that seemed to have a mind of their own were his legs.

"Don't run through the halls. This is a hospital!" An angry staff shouted at him, but he didn't care.

"Granny!" Shouting madly, Leyon tried to rush into the room where his grandmother was admitted but was stopped by a team of doctors who had been tending to his grandmother.

"What's this kid's deal? Get him out of here!" a doctor yelled angrily from inside the room.

"Boy, you shouldn't be in here. Let's go." One of the villagers who had been waiting outside held Leyon by the arm and dragged him out of the room after apologising to the team of doctors.

When Hikari and the man finally caught up to Leyon during the chaos, they saw Leyon being held by the villagers. But despite their best efforts to calm him down, Leyon thrashed wildly in their hands, demanding they let go of him.

Leyon was told Claire had a heart attack when she was out in the fields. From the wide, transparent glass screen fitted in the hospital room, Leyon could see everything that was going on inside. Wires and cords were attached to his grandmother's neck and chest. A heart rate monitor sat on a cart beside the bed with odd wires leading from it. One doctor got on top of his grandmother and performed CPR. A long, straight line ran across the monitor screen. The doctors tried everything they could to resuscitate her, tirelessly pumping her chest again and again but it was fruitless.

Ten minutes later, Claire was pronounced dead due to heart failure.

The team of doctors rushed out of the room and left after apologising to the others waiting outside. Leyon finally wrung himself free from their grasp and ran in to see his grandmother. A crying Hikari quietly followed him and stood a few steps away from him. The villagers watched him sympathetically from outside the room, not daring to enter, letting him have his privacy with his grandmother for the very last time.

A sharp pain went through his chest at the sight of his grandmother lying motionless on the bed. His heart thumped wildly in his chest as his breathing became heavy. Unknowingly, a lone tear slid down the side of his cheek.

"... Granny cooked chicken stew for you. It's your favourite, isn't it? I made vegetable broth too. This is good for your health. Eat up lots."

His grandmother's words flooded into his mind as more painful flashbacks of her followed.

"... I promise I'll stay with you for a long time, long enough to see you grow up and start a family of your own. So don't worry, dear. But are you sure you won't get tired of this old lady later?"

"... I'll cook your favourite dish for dinner when I return."

The scenes replayed themselves over and over again in Leyon's head. "Granny. Don't play with me. Get up," he cried, shaking his grandmother's lifeless body. "You said you'd cook my favourite dish for dinner when you returned. So, get up. Let's go home." He shook her body hoping she would respond, but he knew very well she wouldn't.

Before long, Leyon found himself crying. The strong boy who never cried; the strong boy who always held himself together; the strong boy who never let himself shed a single drop of tear even after losing his parents, was crying. His father who had taught him to be strong, taught him to never succumb to his tears but endure and fight back, that image he'd been trying so hard to keep up shattered into a million pieces.

How could he fight against something that was out of his control? How could he endure when his heart felt like it was being stabbed repeatedly with a knife? All he could do now was cry, cry without any restraint. And so, he did. He cried, a river of emotions flooding him. The anger, the disappointment, the grief, the sadness, everything that he had been holding in since the moment his parents died, his tears carried them all out, spilling them like raindrops on the cold white floor. This time he would cry for his grandmother, for his parents, for everything he was going through.

If only this was all but a dream, he wished.