Blue Spring Tragedy | Kou Mabuchi x Reader

03: Words

The third time he met her, it was cold.

Carrying a bouquet of flowers, (f/n) walked down the lonely isle, her two little brothers skipping happily in front of her.

"Grandma, grandma!" Aki squealed, investigating the empty hallway.

"Is she in here? Nope." Aoi began opening and closing doors, looking for his grandma. "Here? Nope. Maybe this one... nope, nope, nope."

"Wait, what about this one?" Aki slid open a door to the left, expecting an angry and old geezer that would nag at him endlessly. Instead, there was someone who was the complete opposite...

Kou looked back in surprise.

"Aki? Aoi?" He sat up in his seat, turning away from the hospital bed. "Why are you here?"

His tired eyes traced up to the person standing by the door. She stood there, holding a bouquet with the same tired eyes he had. "(L/n)..."

"Tanaka." She stepped inside. "What are you doing here?"

"I asked you that question first," Tanaka replied.

Aoi and Aki were ready to make some noise in the blank room, but both hushed themselves when they saw a sleeping woman in the hospital bed beside Kou. They looked at each other and both concluded that she was his mother.

With slight hesitancy, she answered. "We came here to see our grandma. She's been sick for the past couple of weeks, so we decided to visit her."

"What about your cousins?"

"Cousins? We have none of them." Aki answered. Kou turned to (f/n) for an explanation.

She fidgeted with her fingers, ashamed of her actions. "I-I lied about them. I came here to visit our grandma. We don't think she has long left so I decided to come here before she-before she..." Her voice faltered at the last sentence. She gripped the bouquet closer. "Sorry."

Kou stared at how emotional she was in front of him. Throughout the time he had known her, she never really said much and was always seen reading a book or doodling on a scrap piece of paper.

He shook his head. "No, it's fine. I understand." He turned back to the woman in the hospital bed, calm and peaceful.

"Is she... your mum?" (F/n) walked towards Kou, taking a closer look at his mother.

She laid in bed, sleeping as the monitor beside her measured her heartbeat. For the amount of time Kou sat behind her, he tried to distract himself from the monitor, afraid that the beeping might end.

"She looks quite young." (F/n) commented. She took out a flower from the bouquet and placed it in the empty vase on the desk beside her.

A hydrangea.

"Thanks," Kou said, watching his mother breathe slowly. "She'll smile when she sees it."

"No problem," she nodded her head.

"Big sis, can we go see grandma now?" The twins groaned of boredom, tired of watching their sister talk to a random boy they met only yesterday.

"Yes. Of course." She cleared her throat. "I hope she gets well soon."

He didn't reply.

"Come on, you two," (f/n) ushered the twins out of the room, knowing that it would be best to leave the boy alone.

She almost let out a sigh at his lack of response.

"I hope your grandma gets better as well." She heard Kou say, as if he was reading her mind.

(F/n) spun around, only to see his back facing her. She stared, hoping that he would look back too.

"Thank you," she quietly said. She was ready to close the blank, hospital door. "Goodbye."

He didn't reply, for those were the very words that he didn't want to hear. Not from her. Not from anyone...

Especially not from his mother.