Chapter 02 ~ Violet Glow
The silence in the room stretched, thin and brittle.
"Wait," Haru said, his voice strained, the word scraping his throat. "That... that can't be right. There must be a mistake. Run the test again."
Dr. Himura shook his head slowly, his expression full of a practiced sympathy that only made it worse. "Mr. Kurosawa, these results are 99.99% accurate. The brain activity is non-existent in response to light. The tests do not lie."
"But his eyes... they're perfect," Aoi pleaded, her voice cracking. She looked at her son, who was now babbling quietly, unaware of the verdict that had just been passed on his entire life. "Look at them! They're so dark and beautiful. They look fine!"
"I understand," the doctor said softly. "I understand this is a profound shock. The physical structures are there, but the neural connection is not. There is nothing we can do. I am... very sorry." He steepled his fingers, assuming a professional distance. "You must be strong. He will need a great deal of special care. He will not... he will not be like other children."
The taxi ride home was a suffocating blur. Haru and Aoi sat in the back, Kaito sleeping peacefully in his car seat between them. The city lights of Kenitra slid past, painting the interior of the cab in fleeting strokes of neon and gold—colors that Kaito would never see. The click-click-click of the meter was the only sound, each one a hammer blow against the silence.
When they got home, the small house felt different. Colder. The colorful mobile of planets spinning slowly over Kaito's crib seemed like a cruel joke.
Haru, who usually returned from any outing ravenous and asking about dinner, didn't even take off his coat. He just slumped onto the sofa. Aoi sat beside him, unstrapping Kaito and pulling him close to her chest, rocking him even though he was already asleep. The air in the room felt heavy, gray, and still.
"How can this...?" Aoi whispered, her first words since the clinic. "How can this be fair?"
Haru stared at the opposite wall. "We have to be practical," he said, his voice flat. "We have to think about the future. What this means. Schools... therapy..."
"Why Kaito?" Aoi choked out, her grief suddenly breaking through the shock. "Why our son? What did we do?" The tears she had been holding back began to stream down her face. "It's my fault," she whispered, her body shaking. "It must be. I carried him. I... I am the reason."
"Aoi, stop." Haru's voice was sharp, cutting through her rising hysteria. He turned, taking her by the shoulders. His own eyes were red, but he was holding himself together by a thread. "Stop saying that. It is nonsense. This is... it is completely out of our control."
He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I'm angry, too. I don't... I don't accept this. But," he hesitated, "perhaps... perhaps there is some good in this that we cannot see. We can't... we can't burden ourselves with problems that have no solution." He looked at his sleeping son, then back at his wife. "Look with me towards the future. We will figure out how to raise this boy, even with this challenge. We will."
He gently took Kaito from her arms and placed him in the bassinet. Then he sat and pulled Aoi into his arms. She collapsed against his shoulder, her sobs finally breaking free, raw and agonizing. Haru held her tight, his own jaw clenched, staring into the middle distance as his silent tears began to fall.
The years passed. Kaito's world was not one of light and shadow, but one of sound, texture, and temperature.
He learned to crawl. The transition was brutal. The house, once a safe haven, became a landscape of hazards. The sharp corner of the coffee table met his forehead with a painful thud that sent him wailing. He would crawl with his hands outstretched, mapping the world through touch: the cool, smooth wood of the floor; the sudden, soft texture of the rug; the unyielding hardness of the wall.
He cried often. The darkness was disorienting, and for him, it was perpetual. Day and night were meaningless concepts, differentiated only by the level of household noise. The silence of 3 AM was a terrifying, isolating void, and he would often wake up crying, his hands reaching out into the nothingness until Aoi or Haru rushed in, their voices a beacon of safety.
But he adapted. He learned the layout of the house. His hearing became extraordinarily acute. He could identify his father's footsteps versus his mother's before they even entered the room. He learned to exist in his void.
He was four years old when the first inexplicable event occurred.
They were at the dinner table. Kaito was secured in his high chair, which he was rapidly outgrowing. Haru was telling a silly story about a student who had tried to use a video game to explain a geometry theorem. Kaito, understanding the light-hearted tone if not the details, was laughing, his high-pitched giggles filling the kitchen. He clapped his hands together excitedly.
"Are you that hungry, Kaito?" Haru laughed.
"Alright, alright, settle down, little man," Aoi said, smiling, as she carried his bowl of rice and vegetables. "Here comes your food."
As Kaito clapped his hands again, a sudden, strange jolt went through him. His laughter stopped instantly, ending in a sharp gasp.
For a split second, his black eyes flashed with a faint, but unmistakable, violet glimmer.
"Haru..." Aoi said, her voice faint. She had seen it.
"Aoi, look!" Haru was already leaning forward, his eyes wide.
Kaito didn't respond to them. He was frozen. His world, once a complete and total blackness defined only by touch and sound, had just... changed.
It was not sight. He didn't see color or light.
He sensed.
Suddenly, he could locate everything. The table in front of him was a shape, a cool, faint outline that seemed to glow with a dim, purple energy. The chairs were the same. The walls of the kitchen were a box around him.
But his parents... they were different. They were bright. He could "see" his mother, a vibrant, warm, purplish shadow standing near him. He could "see" his father, another bright shape sitting across the table. The bowl in his mother's hands was different still—it was hot, and the food inside pulsed with a brilliant, shimmering thermal energy.
He was so stunned by the sudden flood of information—shapes, locations, energies—that he didn't even flinch.
CRASH.
The bowl slipped from Aoi's nerveless fingers, shattering on the floor. She didn't look down. Her hands were pressed against her mouth, her own violet eyes wide in disbelief.
She was staring at her son, whose head was now turning, his unfocused eyes scanning the room, seeing for the very first time.