To Show a Blind Person the Sight of the World Without Using Your Voice

Chapter 2: Utterly Lost For Words

Haruka Nanase

Shivers are running down my spine.

Anxiety is squeezing my throat shut when I see a room filled with people. They're all looking at me, all staring at me as I leak rainwater all over their nice wooden flooring.

My shoes are all muddy, and I was dragged into the living room so quickly, I didn't have the chance to take them off. I probably left an entire oozy spore behind me; I couldn't be more ashamed.

I should've known something like this would happen, karma's soon to strike when you run away from the family that gave up their normal lives to temporarily take care of you; I should've just stayed with my foster parents now I still can instead of running away from their house.

Now all of their eyes are turned to me, all these strangers I don't know.

I haven't been in one room with so many people at once since elementary school, before they decided that homeschooling would be a better option for someone like me.

"Oh goodness," an older woman, who's sitting on the couch with a cup of tea in her hands, says when her eyes meet mine. "What happened?"

She gets up from the couch and walks to me and the guy that dragged me into his living room.

"I'm not sure." The hand that's been resting on my shoulder the entire time tenses. "I-I think he's injured or sick, I don't know; he won't talk to me."

I lower my gaze in pain; of course he's having a hard time with that, everyone always makes a problem about me not being able to tell them what's wrong. I tried telling him I wasn't hurt by shaking my head, but it was like I was invisible to the teenager.

"It's okay, Makoto," the woman says with a calm smile before stating that I don't look injured to her.

I'm not wounded, she's right; okay I might've scraped my knee when I climbed over a fence to get in their backyard, but that's all. All I was doing was taking shelter from the pouring rain, and I must've been so exhausted from being on the run that I fell asleep.

I wasn't planning on staying there too long, or being found by someone, but then this guy, whose name appears to be Makoto, caught me napping on their porch and decided I needed his help.

The woman's green eyes look at me from top to toe, I can see her taking in my black bangs that are probably messily sticking to my forehead and cheeks, my soaked and baggy clothes and muddy shoes. Instead of the expected disgusted glance, I often get from strangers, she looks rather worried.

"Poor boy, you look like you have been out in the rain for quite a while," she eventually mumbles, sounding more like she's talking to herself than to me. "What happened?"

I swallow thickly, keeping my mouth shut and instead reaching for my backpack; which for some reason isn't around my shoulders anymore. I could swear right now, because that little backpack had almost all of my stuff inside of it. Most importantly, it was carrying my notebook and pencil; my preferred way of communicating with people.

I glance at the woman, feeling how my cheeks tone red in embarrassment.

She seems to understand it, but in the wrong way, and immediately says, "Oh, stupid me!" She lets out an apologetic chuckle and continues by telling me she understands I might not want to tell a stranger about something personal, therefore she should introduce herself first. "You can call me miss Tachibana."

When I still don't answer her extremely normal question or introduce myself, she adds, "Don't worry, you don't have to tell me what happened if you don't feel comfortable doing that."