Chapter 1: Spring Whispers in a Breeze
Star stepped off the plane and brushed a few strands of light brown hair from her green eyes. She opened the red expanses of Makura, her umbrella, frowning at the sun. Despite the heavy breeze, it was still very hot. Star hated hot. She shifted the weight of her backpack to both shoulders instead of just the one and followed her family into the airport.
It had been a full year and six months since her parent's and younger brother's untimely, house-burning deaths, and only a week since her older brother, a member of the US Marine Corps, had received orders that they were to be stationed in England.
Things moved fast after most of her family died. They had lived in northern California near San Francisco, but shortly after the funeral she moved to southern California to live with her older brother Alexander (Alex for short), sister in law Elicia, and four year old niece Keira. But not long after that they had to leave again, this time to a completely unfamiliar place. London, England. Star was depressed enough about having to leave her home of 12 years, but when she had to leave California altogether, leave the USA altogether, she was so sad she pretty much gave up speaking. Which was odd for such an outspoken person.
But now, here she was in England, not knowing what to do, where to go, who to be friends with...nothing. She felt utterly alone.
Star stayed pretty much entirely to herself for several months. She was enrolled in an English high school, which was very different from her old high school. She did, however, find one thing of interest. A Japanese girl named Isshi Tatsuya.
Okay, a special secret about Star—she's a little less then straight. There. We admitted it. If you don't like it, tough—I'm not the one making you read this story, I'm just saying it like it is.
Tatsuya was average in height, but so much more in everything else. She was slender and strong, her skin a creamy beige. Her eyes were black pools and her dark hair was shoulder length and wild, dyed a lovely midnight blue. She was amazingly smart and funny, and she had amazing taste in fashion, or at least the gothic and lolita fashions. She was the only other person than Star that Star had seen dressing like that. She felt drawn to her the very first second she laid eyes on her in their algebra class. But Star felt even more drawn later in the day when she ran into her again in her music class.
Star walked into the music room and took her seat with the rest of the kids in the choir section and silently scanned the room, examining each student individually. Sitting a little separate from the rest of the band kids, Tatsuya sat tuning a black and orange sunburst acoustic guitar, her hair falling in her face as she bent over her instrument in concentration. Star was taken aback by her beauty. Her fingers were long and thin, her arms wiry and a bit veiny, which is to be expected from someone who plays guitar, framed by a white-laced, black-belled sleeve, her collar bone accented well by a scoop-necked, form-fitting black mini dress and white-laced, black bodice. Black boots added a few inches to her height and rose to her fish-netted knees, her feet keeping time to the tune she played to check the result of her tuning.
Star's mouth hung open in amazement. She was not only skilled in algebra, but skilled in the art of making Star go "eep." She vowed never to speak to the girl for fear that her lovely face might be marred by a frown or look of annoyance at her presence.
When Tatsuya finished what she was doing and looked up, Star looked away, pretending to be pulling something out of her backpack. When she closed the zippers on her pack, she refused to even risk a glance at Tatsuya. Instead she busied herself by straighten her pleated grey miniskirt, lavender corset, and black form fitting shirt she wore under it to keep herself from becoming too self conscious. Star pursed her dark purple lips together and pushed her black framed glasses up her nose, fidgeting as she always did. As she stared down at her lap, she heard someone flop down in the seat next to her and then proceed to hold out a sparkly blue nail polished hand.
"I'm Tsu. I like your outfit."
Star's eyes widened and she looked up at the lovely creature smiling down at her. She couldn't help but notice the snaggle-toothedness of the smile. It reminded her of how a rabbit would smile if it could. She was in love with her in that very second. Unable to say hello for fear of rejection, Star tried a smile and a small bow. Tsu laughed; the sound of wind through a chime.
"What's you're name?"
"............."
Star panicked. She was sure if she tried to talk to her, Tsu would decide to hate her, but if she didn't respond, then Tsu would decide to hate her. As Star mentally tossed herself off a cliff, hours seemed to pass by in the seconds that she was unable to respond. She was SURE Tsu would frown and leave, but she just sat there, smiling and waiting. Finally, Star threw her vow off the cliff as well.
"I'm.......Star."
"Star? That's a nice name." Star proceeded to hurl herself from the cliff once again. The way Tsu said her name was too much. Her voice sang of spring and the soft lack of emphasis on syllables made her nickname sound so perfect. Too perfect for its bearer. Star stared again at her lap, smiling faintly.
"So is Tsu..."
Much to Star's surprise, Tsu let out a happy little squeal.
"Yay, you said it right! Most people call me Sue." Star chanced a glance at her. She was so lovely, and so happy with her. Star smiled timidly in return, knowing for certain that the time of her rejection would come before class had a chance to start.
Well, to make a long story short, the rejection didn't come before class, and it didn't come during class, or after class when Tsu insisted on becoming Star's lunch buddy. In fact, as it turned out, Tsu had been waiting for a good opportunity to say hello to her, for she had been noticing Star over the past few months the same way Star had been noticing her. When Star came to school wearing this particularly noticeable outfit, Tsu had felt it time for her to take action and say hi for now she had a reason to approach her. To Star's shock, it turned out that Tsu had made absolutely no friends since she moved to London from Japan with her father, who had been transferred there for work.
Unfortunately, when Tsu asked Star for her story, she was not as up to talking about it as her new friend had been. When she merely shrugged and remained silent (as she had most of the lunch period, leaving Tsu to do most of the talking) she was sure Tsu would decide she was boring and leave her alone. But she didn't, she just continued on with a story about her old band back in Osaka, Japan...
A few months went by and slowly Star stopped believing that Tsu would go away and leave her alone. Occasionally Tsu would ask Star a question about her past, but she never pressed for an answer. Star appreciated her for this and loved her more and more. As time continued to progress she became increasingly afraid of her feelings. She remembered how disliked and ridiculed she had been in California for being what she was, remembered how the last girl she'd confessed her secret to had reacted...she didn't want to tell Tsu, but she also knew that no matter how hard she tried to avoid it, some day she would have to tell her. She feared that day with all her being.
Whenever she was around Tsu she felt so happy, but at the same time so sad. Around Tsu she was able to get over the sadness of loosing her family; after all it has been over 2 years. Tsu made her forget her sadness, and even managed a few real conversations with her. Tsu helped her to gain control of her life again, which was more than she could say for the therapists she was forced to visit.
Tsu waited until Star was ready to talk about her experiences, and when she did talk about them, she didn't get analytical about it. She just put an arm around her and let her know she was there for her. The therapists barraged her with questions and wouldn't stop. They always tried to find logical reasons for how she felt and how she acted. They were who caused her to stop talking. Tsu brought her voice around again just by being there and being patient. And this just made her love her more.
Then one day something happened. One day Tsu was very quiet. She hid behind her hair all day and wouldn't look Star in the eyes. Star became very worried for her friend.
"Tsu, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, it's nothing..." Tsu's voice lacked the spring time, lacked the wind chimes. Something was very, very wrong.
"Tsu, please, what's wrong?"
She took Tsu by the shoulders and brushed her hair from her face so she could get a good look at her. Right on the apple of her right cheek spread the dark blue and purple of a fresh bruise.
"Tsu!" Star gasped. Tsu looked away. "Tsu, please tell me what happened!"
"It's nothing, Dad and I were just—"
"You're dad?" Star was shocked. Tsu's father had always been such a gentle man.
"No! Dad would never do that! Mom—" So that was it. Star remembered Tsu telling her something about why she and her dad had really left Japan. Tsu's mother. Star became very quiet and angry. "Mom came to visit."
A silence came between then that Star was afraid to break. She was so angry. How could someone hurt Tsu? Hurt someone so perfect and beautiful? Tsu began to tremble and cry and Star put her arms around her.
"It's alright, Tsu, we'll take care of this, she won't be here forever...she was only visiting, right? We can make sure she doesn't come near you again."
"No, Star, you don't understand, she only hit me because I made her mad! She only does this when I deserve it, she only hurts me when I do something wrong, and I did something very, very wrong..."
"What could you possibly have done?" Star was in shock. She knew Tsu tended to take blame on herself, but how could this possibly be her fault?
"I told her I'm....that I'm...that..."
"Tsu...?"
"I...I can't tell you!"
Star's heart shattered. Now must be the time of that impending rejection she feared so much, and she hadn't even confessed her feelings yet.
"It's okay if you don't trust me..." Star muttered, letting go of Tsu. "I don't blame you if you want to get rid of me..."
Tsu eyes widened. "NO! Oh, God, Star, no!"
"Then why won't you tell me?" Asked Star, feeling that erge to tell her everything burning in her heart, as it had many times before.
"Because...I'm afraid...you'll want to get rid of me!"
"Tsu, you know I wouldn't do that! You're the only friend I've had in two years! I can't just dump you! Why don't you just TELL me!"
Tsu stared at her lap and crushed the material of her cut-off blue denim shorts between her fingers.
"I told her I was in love, okay!?" Tsu cried, her voice a raging winter storm. Star felt herself suddenly die inside. In love? She was in love with someone? Tears burned her eyes.
"In love! That's all? She's mad at you 'cause of that?" Star cried, trying to fight back her own storm.
"It's not that I'm in love, it's WHO I love..." Tsu blurted. Star could see her friend turning a terrible shade of red.
"Who, then?" Star demanded, feeling terrible. Terrible for being rejected, terrible for yelling at Tsu, terrible for surviving that fire two years before...terrible for everything.
Tsu leapt to her feet, "You, okay?! YOU!!!" and took off.
Star felt herself stop. Just completely stop. How could this be happening? WHAT was happening? She didn't understand anything. How could Tsu possibly love her? She wasn't worthy of Tsu's affection. She didn't deserve such a perfect person. Star sat on the lawn outside the school where she and Tsu always had lunch the rest of the day, sobbing.
When the end of school crept up on her, she grabbed her back pack and left early, not wanting to deal with the mobs of high school students. On her way home, she spotted someone standing on the other side of the street. Tatsuya. Tsu. Emotion exploded inside of Star's body and caused her legs to begin running, caused her voice to cry out Tsu's name, caused her arms to drop her backpack and encircle the small, fragile spring bunny in her arms, caused her to hold onto her tight so she couldn't run away.
"Tsu!" She cried, gazing down through tear streaked lenses at her love. "Tsu, listen to me!" She smiled down at her, amazed at the sudden turn of events. Now she was the one in action and Tsu was the shy, quiet one. "Tsu, I love you."
The two of them shared in their first kiss that day, made up, and then made out. For the first time in two years, Star felt sure and strong about something, and for the first time in her entire like, Tsu felt sure and strong about how she felt toward girls. She felt now she had the strength to stand up to her mother. That day they promised to be together forever. They promised to love each other forever and never be apart. But that night was when Star got the letter.