Kaji woke with a start, sweating profusely as he came back to reality. The horrific image still fresh in his mind. Shaking his head and wiping his eyes, Kaji set about his morning routine. Thinking back...
It had been a week since he had been discharged from the hospital. His wounds were mostly healed or at least tended to. When he returned home, the first thing that he had expected to receive was a slap upside the head and a long, painful lecture on how dangerous and stupid it was to go out into the wild alone. Lectures about how he could have died out there and never been found, about how he should never leave the village without a partner, bla bla bla...
Instead, what he came home to was something that he was not at all equipped to handle. Their house was a disaster and his mother was an absolute mess. Everywhere he looked there were empty tissue boxes and trash bags piled high with their used contents. Almost every square foot of horizontal space was stacked high with paperwork, letters, and messages. As it was, his mother had guessed that he had left on his journey to find a rare and valuable root. But rather than sending a missing persons request to the village council, she took her time, trusting in the ability of her finely trained son. But as one day became two, and two days became four, she allowed herself to overflow with worry. The very idea that something had happened to her one and only baby boy was devastating. She sprung into action, sending letters, unearthing old friendships and calling in old favors all in the name of finding her son. Or at the very least, finding what was left of him. Again and again the thought brought her to tears, taking time off of work to devote every single drop of her energy to his recovery. So, while she would have liked to visit Kaji in the hospital, upon hearing that he was in bad shape but still alive, she had passed out from a mixture of relief and concern. It had all been too much for her to handle, so she had been relocated and confined to her bed to get her some much-needed rest.
So it was much to Kaji's surprise that when he was reunited with his mom, that she was open with him fully. Her concerns, worry, love, and care all washed over him like an emotional blanket, and in no time he was weeping and sobbing along with her. Their relief providing the emotional security they both so badly needed. As long as Kaji had ever known his mom, she had always been strict, cool, and uncompromising. But now she was, weeping into his hair and sweetly hugging him to death. It was like she was a different person. However, the fact remained that the stress had deteriorated her heath massively, and that she wouldn't be able to walk for at least a few days. So that was where he spent his last few days, tenderly caring for his sick mother as she recovered her strength.
WC: 528