AFTER watching Takumi and Haruka fade into the winding neighborhood streets, I retreated indoors. The evening’s vibrant display of light and sound still played in my mind.
“You all sure are full of surprises,” I told the “oaties,” the little creatures Kaoru had once described as bisque dolls.
They cast me a fleeting, curious glance before slipping away to darker corners of the house. Their hasty exit seemed to imply that with Haruka gone, they no longer had any business with me.
“Fickle as always,” I muttered.
An eerie silence permeated the house, a stark contrast to the earlier festivities, such that the liveliness and camaraderie of our time together seemed almost an illusion. Yet, the sense of fulfillment warming my chest lingered.
“That was quite the Christmas Eve, wasn’t it, Kaoru?” I reflected aloud, taking a seat at the dining table with a cup of warm water cradled in my hands. I directed the question to the chair Kaoru used to occupy. I never really expected an answer, yet I could never quite kick the habit.
“Haruka’s a good kid. She could do with a touch more confidence, but I suppose that’s easy for me to say.”
Wounds of the soul, as ambiguous and invisible as they seemed, often cut deeper than any physical injury—even more so when the person bearing them remained oblivious to their origin.
I recalled a conversation I’d shared with Sakiko, Haruka’s mother, a few days after their initial visit. She’d called again, that time hoping to speak with me alone.
“You must think I’m overprotective of my daughter, don’t you?” A note of self-deprecation strained her voice as she glanced downward, her eyes tracing the rim of her cup.
I had started to reassure her, “No, I wouldn’t—”
“Only a few close relatives know about this, but Haruka experienced a traumatic event as a child,” she said.
“And that’s okay for me to know?” I asked. “My lips are sealed, of course.”
“Yes, I want you to know. Seeing Haruka reach out to someone on her own is a rarity. And besides,” she added with a playful tilt of her head, “I’d like to think I’m a good judge of character.”
Her lighthearted demeanor did not prepare me for that grievous tale.
She recounted a sunny spring day from years past, when the cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom. Haruka, her brother, a few kindergarten friends and their parents met at a distant park for a playdate. The day was supposed to be a fun celebration of their graduation and a farewell to those heading to other schools. The park, buzzing with the energy of spring vacation, was a mosaic of gleeful children, watchful parents, and white-collar workers on break.
“I ran after my son who was chasing a ball out of the park. I thought Haruka was safe playing in the sandpit with her friends and the other moms.”
Just as she reached her son, preventing him from bolting onto a busy street, a heart-stopping scream sliced through the air. Whirling around, her eyes were drawn to a chilling scene: a man in a dark suit looming over a fallen figure, a thick branch in his hand. In an instant that lasted an eternity, she recognized the prone child as Haruka.
The incident had unfolded in a horrifying blur. A seemingly ordinary middle-aged businessman sitting nearby had inexplicably wobbled to his feet and approached Haruka before striking her with a branch he’d picked up. The randomness and swiftness of the attack had paralyzed the surrounding adults. Fortunately, a soccer coach on an adjacent field heard the scream and sprinted over, restraining the man and calling for help; the man didn’t resist. After the blow, Haruka had collapsed, her head cruelly meeting a curbstone.
“She lost consciousness, and an ambulance sped her to the hospital. Only when she awoke the next day did I breathe again. While the doctors couldn’t find anything wrong with her physically and discharged her soon after, her psyche bore the trauma.”
Sakiko described her daughter’s subsequent emotional turmoil: Haruka would laugh one second then cry uncontrollably the next. She’d be happily enjoying a book, only to become furious or terrified for no apparent reason. Her exhausted and frayed mental state was manifested by visual or auditory hallucinations, and during episodes, she displayed an irrational fear of other people, especially older men. Perhaps she was reexperiencing the assault in those moments, because she’d start to cry, yell, and hyperventilate whenever her father or a male doctor neared.
“We were in and out of hospitals for weeks before she finally started to stabilize. But, in the process, she also forgot about the incident entirely.”
Doctors believed it was a defensive mechanism: her mind had buried the trauma to protect her from reliving the event. Both parents agreed that letting Haruka heal naturally, rather than force her to confront the hidden memories, was the kinder option. Though symptoms of her psychological injury occasionally flared, over time, those signs diminished, and Haruka’s recollection of that period disappeared.
The incident changed Haruka. Gone was the bright, effervescent young girl, replaced by someone more cautious and introverted. Her passion for ballet, however, persisted, and she was excited to return once fully healed.
“She’s definitely not the same girl she was before the incident, but she’ll always be my Haruka, no matter what her personality is. I just find it heartbreaking that she doesn’t remember.” Sakiko trailed off, her gaze distant. “If only I hadn’t left her…”
The man who hurt Haruka had accepted his fate readily. He seemed relieved—eager even—to be prosecuted, but his motives remained unclear. He cited an inexplicable urge to harm someone that day, and for reasons unknown, Haruka was who caught his eye amid all the others in the park.
“Inexplicable…” I murmured, lost in thought.
“The senselessness of it all haunts me.”
“I can only imagine.”