Please don't skip this prologue if you think you wanna know the reason why our hero stutters. ^^

7 years ago.

That evening, a little boy walked to his home while singing his school's song cheerfully. Suddenly a sound of glass falling into pieces startled him who was so close to his house and made his steps even faster to reach home. He opened the front door, closed it, took off his shoes before stepping into the living room.

“*Kaasan, **tousan! I’m home!” he yelled and head to the living room, but seeing no one was there, he put his school bag on the sofa and run toward the kitchen, thinking that his mom or dad might be there after hearing the breaking glass sound.

“Kaa─” he was unable to finish his word when he saw something terrible in his sight, no, something scary. His eyes widened at the scene in front of him.

“Tousan, what did you do?!” the little boy yelled out loud, without waiting any second he run to his beloved mom who had already seemed weak, lying on the floor. Blood was everywhere.

The boy looked up only to see his dad looking furiously while holding a knife in his right hand. The middle aged man’s face seemed like he was going to eat his own child. His face looked fierce, making the boy trembled.

“Kento,” a word came out from the weak woman’s pale mouth. Her half opened eyes were staring at the boy. Still, full with love.

The boy named Kento looked down to face his mom. He kneeled down and quickly placed his mom’s head onto his lap. Though he was really scared of his dad, he still could not leave his mom just like that. No. He just didn’t want to. Now his tears were already falling.

“Run─”

“No!” Kento shook his head and hugged his mom tightly. The blood got to his school uniform. But that would be the last thing he would think of at the moment.

“Kento, for my sake… run,” the woman’s tears were also falling. She didn’t want his one and only child to get in trouble because of her. It was better if she was the only one to die, not her son.

Kento’s hug became even tighter. “Kaasan…” his voice sounded desperate. How could he leave his mom like that? How would he? The mom he had always loved, his heroine, his queen was dying in front of him.

“There’s no time for this! You better move!” His dad’s voice once again made him trembled even more. God, he almost forgot that the demon was still there.

“Tousan…” called Kento. But his face now showed how mad he was toward the man. His eyes turned to the knife in his dad’s hand as he gritted his teeth. Without thinking any longer, he got up and run toward his dad. He wasn’t scared, instead, he felt like killing his own dad.

“Die!!!” yelled Kento as he run furiously toward his dad to push the old man. He didn’t care if his body was small compared to his dad’s.

“What the─” Before the man could finish, his body was pushed against the cabinet. The knife fell onto the floor just how he also fell after being pushed harshly.

Kento didn’t know where he got the strength. But like he cared. He just stood there, watching his dad trying to balance his body. Even his breath sounded mad.

“Cling─” the sound of the knife brushing with the floor brought him back to reality.

“Kento, run!” his mom yelled desperately.

“You stay there!”

While his dad was trying to get up, Kento screamed and run away as fast as he could. He didn’t dare to look back because he knew his dad was trying to get him. He reached the front door and there was no time to put on his shoes when all he could think at that time was run. With barefoot, he run outside heading to the street.

Suddenly without any expectation, Kento saw a red car approaching his way. It honked few times so he could get out of the way, but he didn’t move. He could not. The only thing that he was able to do was stand there without any movement, watching the red car as it was coming toward him.

“What is this?” his mind tried to get things clear.

When his mind started telling him to move, he wanted to but his legs were frozen still. Not a muscle could he move.

The red car tried to brake or at least move aside from Kento so it would not hit him. But as it felt like going in a slow motion, he got hit by the left side of the car’s front hood and his body rolled down to the hard ground. He wanted to breathe but it was freaking painful and before his vision went blurry little by little, he could see the man whom he started to hate standing not far from where it happened. His dad.

“Kento! Kento! Kento!” his name echoed as it was being called by someone, aside from his dad. The person calling his name probably was someone who knew Kento.

Kento couldn’t reply because his body could only lay down, could not move. It was what happened before everything became completely blank and black.

*Mom **dad

A middle-age woman was arranging flowers in a small pot on a table inside a white room which somehow looked dull when a man who looked just around her age entered the room. She looked up to see the tall man smiling lovely at her.

“How is he?” the man asked, throwing a gaze at the laying boy on a white bed in the middle of the room.

“Nothing changed. As you can see,” she answers. Her lips curled a sad smile. After she finished arranging the flowers, she walked toward him and stared at the 11-year-old boy. He wasn’t looking at them back. That was because his eyes were closed. His body wasn’t moving aside from his up and down moving chest. He wasn’t sleeping. He was in coma.

The man looked down at her, the one and only beloved wife of his, the one who always filled his heart with love. He let out a heavy sigh and wrapped his arm around her waist.

“I still hope he’ll open his eyes and have a good life with us. I love him,” she said, burying her face onto his chest.

“I know. I love him too. Let’s pray that everything will be okay. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Then a silence filled the dull room. There were only beeping sounds from the boy’s heart monitor that could be heard. As the woman wiped her tears, they heard the beeping sound changing a bit, surprising them a lot.

She quickly moved to the bed only to see his eyeballs moving and his eyelids opening slowly. A gasp from her could be heard and she quickly pressed a button on the wall to call the doctor.

“He opens his eyes!”

“What?” her husband could not say more than to rush to the little boy. A huge smile could be seen on his bright face.

In a minute, there were a group of nurses and a doctor rushing into the room and one of the nurses asked the married couple to give them the room. For a while, the professionals did their job to take care of the boy who just woke up from a 7 months coma.

He took a deep, painful breath. Euww. Smelled like hospital. He never liked hospitals. Wait, what? Why does it smell like hospital? Is he inside a hospital?

He opened his eyes.

“Kaasan…” called him when his brown eyes caught the head of a woman with face buried in her arms on the side of the bed. When she slowly raised her head to look at him, sadly, he cried which made her shocked.

“Kento, why? Are you hurt anywhere? Need a doctor? Thirsty?” a bunch of questions came out from as she tried to calm him down.

“Kaasan…” the same word again.

The it hit her. Oh right. This boy must miss his mom a lot. He needed his mom to be the first person he sees. Tears were forming in her eyes.

“A-aunt Noriko, wh-where is kaasan?” Kento asked in stutter. He was still crying.

Silence. Noriko was silent at first but she tried giving a sweet smile just to put Kento at ease before answering, “she is fine. Now you just need to think of yourself, okay?” She got up and pour the plain water inside a glass jug into a plastic glass and helped the weak Kento to take a few sips.

“I w-w-want kaasan,” Kento demanded.

Before Noriko could reply, they heard a sound of opening door and there came her husband, Shigeki with a blue paper bag in his right hand.

“Look what I brought!” Shigeki sounded bright and cheerful as he walked toward the bed and placed the paper bag beside Kento.

No response. It made them worried of Kento.

“U-uncle… m-m-my mom,” once again Kento asked about his mom. He still stuttered.

The couple looked at each other and raised eyebrows.

“Kento, your mom is fine,” those words made Kento’s forehead wrinkle. Shigeki was aware of that, so he changed the subject. “How are you feeling? Good?”

“I dddon’t know. I’m fffeeling kind of ti-tired. I’m hu-hungry.”

He smiled. “Don’t worry. Look what’s inside the bag. I bought you some food!”

Following what his uncle asked, Kento took a look inside the paper bag while Noriko and Shigeki stared at him. Just then, Noriko felt something uneasy. Her eyes widened at her husband.

“Papa, why does he stutter?”

Shigeki was taken aback by that question. But he was an optimist, so he just replied, “It’s because he just woke up from a 7 months coma. It’s a long time!”

Noriko wanted to make sure what she thought it was so she gently rubbed Kento’s shoulder so that the boy would look at her.

“Kento, are you hurt anywhere?”

“Nnno.”

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Quiet. Kento’s pale face suddenly changed to a terrified face, making it look more pale than it already was. His eyes reddened.

“Tttousan. Tousan! Hhhe tried to k-k-kill me!” he screamed.

Shigeki and Noriko seemed to be panicked over Kento’s bad condition. It became worse when Kento covered his ears with his palm and then he hugged his knee with fear. Terrible fear. His body trembled.

“I’ll call the doctor!” in a split second Shigeki rushed outside, leaving his wife and Kento there.

“Kento, look at me! Your dad has been caught. You don’t have to be scared anymore. Kento─”

The door opened and the doctor and his nurse came running toward Kento.

“What happened?” the chestnut haired doctor named Naoki asked when he saw Kento’s condition.

“I-i have no idea. He was just fine back then but I was curious as to why he stutters a lot so I asked him a few questions and he’s like this. I think he’s having a trauma.” Noriko looked so  worried and scared. What if something happens to her nephew?

“I’m sorry but can you both wait outside?” asked Dr. Naoki.

The couple just nodded their heads and walked out of the room. It took almost 20 mins before they heard Dr. Naoki’s voice calling their name. The doctor approached them who quickly stood up and waited unpatiently for him to speak.

“Hmm… His body is fine. There’s not much about his body that you have to worry about. It’s just…” Dr. Naoki paused to take a gaze at the couple. He just made the couple’s curiosity rise up. “He… stutters.”

For a moment, blankness could be seen in Shigeki’s and Noriko’s faces. They were a little confused by what Dr. Naoki had said.

“How to put this in words that you guys can understand? Hmmm okay. Does he have any family member who stutters?”

“I… don’t think so. Papa?” Noriko threw a look at her husband.

“Well, I bet no. Our family has no stuttering problems. Why, doctor?”

For a few moments, Dr. Naoki rubbed his temple and then his lips parted.

“There are two common types of stuttering. But there is third type, it’s psychogenic stuttering which can be caused by emotional trauma or problems with thought or reasoning. At one time, all stuttering was believed to be psychogenic, but today we must know that psychogenic stuttering is rare. If Kento doesn’t have any family member who stutters, then I can say that he has developed psychogenic stuttering which caused by his trauma,” Dr. Naoki said.

There was a silence filling in the space. Shigeki and Noriko looked emotionally down which didn’t go unnoticed by Dr. Naoki.

“Don’t worry, sir, ma’am. This problem currently has no cure but there are a variety of treatments available. For Kento, you should put him into early treatment because it may prevent developmental stuttering from becoming a lifelong problem. But like I said, Kento might have psychogenic stuttering. Although we can give him many kinds of treatments, it might also depend on his mental or thought.

Oh one more thing. I’m going to have your Kento for a diagnose by SLP so that we can confirm that it’s stuttering problem and afterward we’ll have to put him into various treatments. That all can be handled under SLP’s job,” explained Dr. Naoki.

Shigeki who looked confused let out a question. “I’m sorry doctor but what’s SLP?”

Dr. Naoki’s lips formed a thin smile.

“Speech-language pathologist.”

A/N: Sooo hey guys! 1st of all, I'm VERY sorry for late updating when I said I'd be updating the first chapter within 2 weeks! T^T A lot of things happened during my hiatus. Sometimes I even feel like going to a place where no one is there and scream out loud, shout as loudly as I wish to! But I can't do it here. The neighbours would call 911 if I did that in real life lol.

So how was it? Is it sad enough? Ugh tbh, I don't feel like this is gonna turn out well. Pardon me if there's a lot of grammatical errors and tbh again, I lack of English vocabulary huhuhu poor me. But frankly speaking, I did some recearch while writing this because I think it's a need for a not-so-smart writer like, me! Yay me! Heh

I think you'll get bored with this long crappy A/N so just read this fanfic and enjoy! Adios~