DISCLAIMER:
The following content is the intellectual property of the
Ken Akamatsu and its respective subsidiaries
as well as any participating organizations that own
various designs and concepts that will be featured. The
Author in no way claims to be a part owner of any of
the characters that will be portrayed, and writes with
the full authorization of the ffnet website.

WARNING:
The following content is rated K, and is suitable for
viewers aged 5 and up. This is a work of fiction: Any
and all similarities to real life situations is purely
coincidental.

~Project Mako: START~
~Where It Begins~

I guess that I didn't really have any dreams of my own. For most of my life I had allowed myself to drift from point to point, guided by unknown forces. When asked by my parents what I wanted to do with my life, I couldn't tell them anything. At my college interview, they asked me what my dream was, and I said that if being happy counted as a dream, that was mine. My counselor had to ask me two more times, before we agreed on the fact that there wasn't anything I had in mind for the future.

General education: it sounds so normal, but even middle school children know better than that. In America, where such a thing is mandatory, and even private schools have curriculums that force people to study useless subjects that would never apply to their chosen career paths, I would be told that I had more time. But here in Japan it's another story: I'm looking at a hardcover book story with a hardcover book life, begun and ended in a consistent broth of nothingness.

My stomach growled. I opened my eyes and stared at the wide blue and purple expanse above me. Those clouds, they don't make me think of hyper-condensed collections of atmospheric water vapor. They're just clouds with shapes and sizes, all colored white, all drifting from one point to the next, purposeless in their existence. Just like me…

—except I also knew that when clouds got heavy enough, they rained. "Does that mean that one day, I'll come crashing down to the ground…?" I closed my eyes and started laughing to myself. "Then I can water the world, and maybe some beautiful flowers will grow up because of me."

"What's that you're talking about?" A strange voice called out.

"Huh…?" When I opened them again to look for the source, I saw a dazzling shadow looming overhead. "Excuse me?" I asked, squinting to make out his face.

"Big sis, you shouldn't talk to yourself like that. People will start feeling sorry for you."

"Excuse me…?" I sat up and watched him sit cross-legged next to me. I was a little bit surprised. I had been expecting him to be quite a bit smaller, because of his voice. "And who are you?"

The young redheaded boy smiled. "Who, me? I'm just nobody. But you…" He paused.

"'But you…'" I copied him, trying to coax the words from his mouth. How old was this boy? He hardly looked older than fourteen, with his unintimidating appearance. He had a very feminine face, although I could tell he was a boy. His hair seemed to be too long for his age, and he had it tied back with a band behind his head. Probably he was borderline high school. I didn't want to assume he was very young, but I couldn't put him past first year. "'You…'" I went on, staring at him openly now.

The boy twitched a little bit and blinked. "Oh! Sorry about that." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly, and then rubbed his nose. "I was just thinking that you're too cute to be talking about sad things like that."

"Wha—?!" My cheeks went hot. I could only guess the color. "How old are you, young man? Do you have any idea how old I am?" It was all I could do to squeal out of embarrassment. Why was I getting so flustered over a kid? The word shotacon formed briefly in my mind.

He seemed unbothered. "I'm fourteen, but I doubt you'd tell me how old you really are… Hmm…" He closed his eyes and mumbled, as if trying to remember something. "Oh, right! Izumi Ako, age twenty. You just got off the waitlists for American English 004B, right? There was something about 'No dreams' too, if I recall. So, Izumi-san, you've never thought about something like that…?"

I went completely red, I was sure. "T-think about… w-what?!" I stuttered. Who was this freaky kid? Somehow he was able to recite my full name, my age, and one of my classes which, as far as I was aware, was still closed to me. I just got off of the waitlists? Hang on… "W-what the heck? How do you know all that?!"

"Well, shouldn't I?" he replied dumbly.

I was starting to get dizzy. How hot could my face get anyway? I covered it with my hands and looked away shyly. "Hey… kid. Just who the heck—"

"Oi! Negi!" A loud cry from the distance interrupted me.

"Anya?" The boy, presumably this spring onion, got up and waved. "Hey!"

"Where the heck have you been?! I've been looking everywhere for you! I thought you got lost!"

"Ah…" The boy suddenly sounded disheartened. "Looks like I'm in trouble," he murmured to himself. I watched him go to his companion, a long-haired brunette wearing an odd dress. She was shorter than he was, but seemed to be the dominant one. Spring onion took another look at me and smiled. Somehow, when it should have been creepy, I felt something warm inside. I couldn't do anything though, because it was so weird. He rounded the corner, and I found myself alone with the echoes of bouncing tennis balls from the courts one quad over. The wind was very cold.

I fell to the grass again and closed my eyes. There was nothing to look at anyway. The sky had gotten too dark to see any clouds, and there were stars out: the clouds had left me too, left me to solace myself, because they had sorrows of their own. There were three main different types of clouds that she had learned about in school: cirrus, stratus, and cumulus. There were many more, I knew. But if cirrus clouds and stratus clouds kept to their own groups, just like cumulus clouds, where could I find other Ako-clouds with whom I could congregate with?

My cell phone started to ring…

Yours Truly: Hello there, readers! I hope you've enjoyed the pilot edition of "Project Mako." Unfortunately, at the moment, I have no intentions to continue this fiction, but I was inspired and at some point would like to see something come of what you see here. I'm currently busy with my life, and I'm already preoccupied with my current daily cell phone series: "Afterspice!" It might be assuming for a new author of the ffnet community, but I'd like to get feedback on my work. Therefore: If you want to see something happen with "Project Mako", go look for "Afterspice!" in the Vocaloid category and give me your thoughts with what would be a much appreciated review. I'm not making any promises, however, but in the event that I decide to leave this oneshot as it is, I will give another author the opportunity to further it.

Once again, thank you so much for take the time to read this one fiction, out of the many millions on ffnet, and the billions on nets worldwide!