POV: Haruka's Mother
The house was never silent, but today the quiet was oppressive. It was the sort of quiet that crept under doors and lingered in the corners, bedding down like dust.
Haruka's mother stood in her daughter's doorway, pretending she just happened to walk by. Her eyes betrayed her.
She noticed it at once—the paper folded open on the desk. Haruka must have hurried off to her first class. Or perhaps she'd wanted someone to notice it.
The handwriting was familiar. A little neater than it used to be, but still her own. The words, though, were something different.
A bird who lost her lake.
A song she never sang out loud.
A door she had never been able to open before.
Haruka's mother sat down gradually, her hands trembling as she held the paper. When she read the poem, it was brief, covered in metaphor, but she recognized it. Not for what it said, but for what it hurt.
"There hadn't been a time when Haruka wrote from the heart in so long.".
She remembered how Haruka would leave short poems tucked in the margin of books or on breakfast napkins. Her eyes used to twinkle then. Her voice had not yet been conditioned to be gentle.
But then came the tutors. The practice tests. The interviews. The stifling silence at every family dinner, where her husband would read out percentages and rankings like fairy tales. And Haruka—her child—had nodded along, believing compliance was love.
A tear dropped onto the lip of the paper before she could grab it.
She folded the poem into a neat square and shoved it back onto the desk.
The tension preceded the voices that night.
Haruka sat opposite her father at the dinner table, fists clenched in her lap, shoulders held stiff like a soldier on duty. Her mother lingered in the kitchen while the man laid out the printed TOEFL score sheet with deliberation.
"113," he said, fingering the paper. "Why not 120?"
Haruka had nothing to say. Her fingers had curled in slight spasms.
Her father continued, "You scored a hundred on practice exams. You had everything. What went wrong?"
"She still passed," her mother replied softly, shocking herself.
The room fell silent.
Haruka's father spoke to her, not in anger—no, that would have been easier to handle—but in shock.
"She passed?" he asked, his voice low.
"Yes," her mother insisted, stronger now. "She passed. That should count too.".
Haruka looked up. Not at her father. At her mother.
The older woman's face was un readable, but her fingers were white-knuckled in a fist gripping the edge of the counter.
"She's trying," she said. "Let that be enough for this night."
There was a wordless silence, lasting a whole five seconds, before her husband stood up, refolded the paper, and left the table.
Haruka looked down at her soup bowl, but she had no appetite.
That night, several hours later than when the dishes had been done and the lights extinguished, Haruka's mom sat alone at the kitchen table. The refrigerator hummed the room's only sound.
She reached into the drawer and pulled out her old phone—the one she hadn't touched in years, now virtually forgotten. She plugged it in, waited for the screen to come to life. Dust was stuck around the edges.
She opened the gallery.
The photos took a moment to load. But when they did, it was like opening up a time capsule.
Haruka at five, clutching a cookie in both hands, chocolate on her cheek.
Haruka spinning in a pink raincoat, under an umbrella, laughing.
Haruka sleeping on her lap, clutching a worn picture book.
A lump rose into her throat.
When had it changed?
When had her daughter stopped smiling with her whole face?
She scrolled some more. Some award ceremony photos. Neatly cropped photos of certificates. A staged photo of Haruka with a university recruiter shaking hands. They were milestones, yes—but they weren't memories. Not real ones.
And then she saw: her daughter was grieving.
Not for someone else. For herself.
For the girl she had been. For the dreams that had been squeezed out of her like wrinkles from a uniform.
Her mother puffed and hung up the phone.
In the living room, her husband was snoring peacefully. Upstairs, Haruka's light was still on—though she suspected her daughter wasn't studying.
She had no clue what tomorrow would be like.
But tonight, she allowed herself to cry.
Quietly. Stealthily.
Because glass did not break with one blow. It cracked slowly, under strain. Until one day, it couldn't keep itself whole anymore.
And maybe, just maybe, that was a beginning.
Not an ending.