Learning to Walk Seven Steps

At 3, he began attending Izumi no Gakuen, a facility for preschool-age children with disabilities in Saitama. Doctors had said he might never walk unassisted; with training, he managed seven steps. He never spoke, but he had his own ways of showing feeling — laughing when lotion was rubbed on his arm, or growing quiet and content near a girl he liked at the facility.