Blur
Author's Notes:
Thought I'd make an AU fic for my fave couple, so here it is! This was initially planned to be a one-shot but my mind kinda formulated a long plot as I typed it out, so it is gonna be a multi-chapter fic. This was inspired by the quote typed above and a song by Anchor & Braille.
I don't own Shaman King. It's Hiroyuki Takei's.
PROLOGUE:
'The loneliest people are the kindest. The saddest people smile the brightest. The most damaged people are the wisest. All because they do not wish to see anyone else suffer the way they do.' – Anonymous
They came from different worlds; yet they were so similar in so many ways.
He was born with a silver spoon on his mouth; the heir to a family of lawyers and doctors, expected to be either, when all he wanted was an easy life, to listen to music and play his guitar, take a break from everything – the expectations, the stress, the fake smiles, the parties, the blind dates his parents and some buddies set him up for; basically, his current life. After all, he was only eighteen years old, bound for law school (he ended up choosing it by tossing a coin).
His life was only getting started, and he was glad that he was allowed to move into his own apartment in Tokyo, an exclusive flat just a few minutes away from his university. He decided that he would live through the next four years of university in his own rules and pace, before he was enslaved again when he starts to work for his mother's law firm. After all, it was all laid out for him, clear as a sunny day. He knew all he had to do was pass his subjects, get his law degree, and the rest was up to his parents. It was all planned and clear-cut, until he met her, the girl who would turn his life around.
She, on the other hand, grew up with a hollow shell of a mother who had a flurry of boyfriends who took turns in raping her whenever they could. When she turned twelve, she knew she could no longer take the verbal and physical abuse she received, and ran away from home, took the train to the farthest place her money could afford, and never came back.
The next four years of her life were spent in an orphanage. Everyone knew that she was intelligent, and had a thirst for knowledge and justice. While the rest of the children played outside, she stayed in and read all the books in their mini-library. When she turned fifteen, she started to run errands for the orphanage and was paid a small sum in exchange, which she used to purchase second-hand books from a small bookstore near her orphanage. She was determined to not end up like her mother, her father, and the people around her who was contented with their lives.
Young and ambitious, she wanted to study law; she wanted to be a lawyer. But she knew she could never afford to go to law school unless she passed the entrance examinations; she was fully aware that it required proper education. She wanted to apply for a high school scholarship, but how was that possible when her orphanage was not able to send her to school at all?
But everything changed when she met him, the one who would make her dreams a possibility. She was almost sixteen when she met him as she was exiting the bookstore she frequented. Like a cliché movie scene, she was too absorbed in her own thoughts, and almost got hit by the car he was sitting comfortably in – he and his chauffeur took her to the hospital. He visited again, and again, and the rest, as they say, was history. Next thing she knew, she left the orphanage shortly after her sixteenth birthday, and never came back. The following month, the orphanage started to receive continuous donations from an anonymous sponsor.
In April the following year, she got her first taste of education; she passed everything with flying colours, managed to keep her life and past a mystery to everyone; despite her popularity and intelligence. Girls who were jealous of her created rumours about her. No one knew, except her, how close their rumours hit home. Despite that, she continued to strive until she got her university scholarship and her first choice of university and degree due to her excellent grades and school performance. She graduated without friends, and remained a mystery to everyone, yet just like in the past, she never looked back, never returned.
She has achieved her goal for now, that was what was important. At least, that's what she kept telling herself. It was the only way she could move forward; yet she knew that a huge part of her will always be chained to her past and present. But she had to take a gamble; in her case, she put everything on the line, for the sake of a future that was still uncertain. After all, she thought bitterly, her past, her present, her future, everything is, was and will probably always be a blur.