"Time to eat!"
Before the words left her mouth, Diva's chopsticks began to move on a collision course with her lunch.
It was the first night in her apartment in Osaka. She began to unpack her boxes and luggage during the entire day and only had a few items left to unpack. She had chosen a decent apartment to live in, though honestly her father believed she could have done better and it was mostly out of dire desperation to live on her own. It wasn't the young children running jumping upstairs or the old man shouting at a passerby in the hallway for playing his music too loud that made her fall in love right away with the apartment. It was the fresh start that she needed to begin a life for herself and the distance from her family. Moving out of her parent's home was a little stressful, she loved them dearly yet she didn't want to live with them for the rest of her life. Especially her younger siblings, the twins.
Diva put in her earbuds and made her new bed, aligned her books, and stocked up on the family photos. Diva had lived in Yokohama, Japan previously with her family, however after wanting to see more of the world and earn a since of independence she moved out to Osaka where the six hour seventeen minute drive was pure bliss. Sadly, she had left behind a great number of friends there whom she missed terribly. She was already depressing herself with memories of her classmates. A new move meant that she would have to attend a whole new high school with people she didn't even know. The whole idea was terrifying in itself.
She picked up the flyer beside her, staring at the large print. Sakuranomiya High School. She hadn't really looked up much information on it though she figured it would be a decent school just like the last one. At her other school she'd been a top student excelling in all subjects, practically at the head of her class. Her teachers were saddened to see her go. Especially Etsuko, her best friend since she'd been in Yokohama for those years. Then again Diva didn't remember much about her early years due to a childhood incident that left her amnesiac. Her ever so concerned parents reassured her that all of her old memories would return one day. It bothered her that some part of her memories were locked away, that she couldn't tap into them at all. Her psychiatrist claimed that some sort of traumatic event would unlock all of her memories.
Sometimes Diva dreamt about a place that depending on the weather would be bone chilling cold or lave hot; stones pressing into her skin and...footsteps. Someone running down a hallway or corridor and the clang of a lock falling to the floor...then nothing. What was it?
She removed her earbuds, paused her music and walked over to her laptop. Opening the thin notebook she typed in her password, accessed her video chat and waited. She promised her mom she would video call her once she'd been settled into her humble abode. It would be a relief to see her mother's kind face. She waited a few minutes then a kind face framed by ebony hair popped up on her screen.
"Diva, my sweet baby." her mother's soft voice announced through the speakers. "How are things in your new apartment?"
"It's great mom. The view is absolutely gorgeous."
"Well I wish I were there with you baby. I'm glad you're safe and sound, mommy got worried."
Diva tucked a strand of dark hair behind her hair. Her mother was overly protective as well as a fierce mama bear. No one messed with her kids and got away with it. Once one of the twins had been hit with a ball at school one day by a gang of bullies. Not being one to tell, her brother Tatsuya confided in her which had been a big mistake because Diva's tongue slipped to her mother about the hit. Her mother arrived at school one day with the twins in tow demanding one of them tell her who hit Tatsuya. Finally, Kohaku-the oldest twin born two minutes before Tatsuya-wagged his tongue. A bigger boy named Gin was the culprit.
Long story short Gin never bothered the twins again. Their mom could be quiet scary when she needed to be, she even scared their father not too long ago.
"How's dad?"
"He's still upset that you moved in that crummy apartment building. He wanted you to finish school down here, go off to a university."
"Of course..." Diva sighed. "I happen to like it down here. School doesn't start until next week and I found a job here that I love."
"You did?" Her mother's onyx eyes lit up like Christmas trees. "What kind of job?"
"I'm working as a waitress at a steak house," she replied cheerfully. Diva loved working she wasn't the type of girl to be pampered and spoiled by her parents or use their money for her own personal use. School wasn't as boring as balls as her best friend Etsuko once quoted.
"Can I talk to dad?"
"Sorry dear, he's away at work at the moment. Would you like for me to leave a message?"
"Work again, huh?" Diva remarked trying not to sound upset.
"I know you miss him, honey. Maybe sometime this week or the next the two of you can chat it up."
"I would hope so. Oh, mom there's something I've been meaning to ask you."
"What would that be?"
"Before I left home, I was in the attic looking for old photos of myself for a school project. I noticed that there weren't any photos of me as a baby or even as a young girl. Just pictures of me today. There are pictures of the twins from infancy to their pre-teens now."
Her mother was silent for the next few minutes, her eyes shifted from the other side of the screen, she bit on her thumb nervously.
"Mom?"
"Sweetheart, a long time ago there was a fire that pretty much burned all of our family photos. Your father and I tried to save the photos but they were so horribly burnt there was no need to keep them."
"I don't remember a fire..."
"Diva, dear you don't remember a lot of things."
"You're right I suppose."
"I'm sorry if I came off rude."
"No it's fine. I was just curious as to why there weren't any photos of me from my early childhood..."
"Don't worry Diva it will all work out soon."
She blinked not saying anything.
"Diva?" her mother asked.
"I have to go now...I love you." She didn't give her mother a chance to respond as she had closed the top of her laptop shutting it down. She had been asking her mother that same question for the past two years, if not her then her father. And it was always a different story as to why there weren't photos of herself during her early childhood. Her photos had either been lost during their moves, the family had moved about ten times, they had been eaten by moths or gotten wet during a flood, causing them to mold. They kept telling her these things until eventually she stopped asking. It would just be nice to have some semblance of photographic memories of herself to hold onto.
"I don't really know much about anything."
Diva had no recollection of any event in her life that had occurred more than one year ago.
Simply labeling it amnesia seemed too exaggerated, and for the most part her day-to-day life wasn't all that inconvenienced by it. However, it was times like this that she had a sense of loss for the memories she no longer had. The worst part about it was feeling like she didn't know whom she was most days.
"It's been a whole year and there's so much I don't know about…it's frustrating."
That's weird. A fire destroyed my photos? Wouldn't she have told me this long before instead of now? Why wait this long?
Diva changed into a pair of shorts and T-shirt, pulling her long raven hair into a braid and unpacked another box of her belongings.
Next door she could hear her neighbor throw something heavy in one corner of their room and children running up and down the halls. Suddenly a knocking came onto her door. Perplexed the ravenette frowned wondering who could be at her door this late into the hour.
Walking over to the door she peered through the peephole and unlatched her door to, opening so that she could get a full view of the stranger at her door. She was not prepared for the man on the other side. He was rather tall so much so that he dwarfed her own stature. His dark hair was so black it made Diva look like a blonde and his eyes, those grey slated pupils were staring at her without so much as blinking.
"Hello, how may I help you?"
"I hope I'm not keeping up too much noise, neighbor."
"Oh no, you're fine. I'm doing a lot of unloading myself. I just moved here."
"Welcome to the neighborhood."
"Thank you," she said smiling.
"I also wanted to apologize for the noise, I didn't mean to be so loud. I am Kaname."
"I'm Diva." She extended a hand outwards to meet his ever larger one. His grip was strong it was almost as if he could crush her, he probably could.
"Diva, huh?"
"My mom is an opera fanatic, so she named me Diva."
He stared at her for a long moment. Her cheeks began to flame.
"I'll keep it down next time." His smile was almost playful, giving his once neutral expression some light.
"I am glad to have a neighbor. This room has been empty a long time. I should be going it is quite late, I hope you have a good night sleep."
And he did an unusual thing. He closed the door for her after giving her one more fleeting smile. With an audible click Diva let go of the breath in her lungs she had no idea she had been holding.
When she looked through the peephole he was already gone. All the while her heart was beating fast. She could still feel his big hand engulfing hers. But this other feeling…
Why does he look familiar?
A/N: I honestly do not know if I should continue this or not. I was re-watching Blood+ again and no, after about three or more so years I am still not happy with the ending. This is where if I owned Blood+ Saya and Diva obviously would still be separated, yet both would be leading happy lives with their respective families.