00 - Prologue
The world is changing around us. Even when there are those of us who wish for it remain a certain way, it shifts and mutates to the point where everything eventually becomes unrecognizable. That's how things were in this town; the school, the woods, the hills, the streets, the environment, the people, even myself. I often wished there were moments when I could stop time and freeze it for my own satisfaction. Yet, no matter how hard I prayed for things to slow down, I knew that it was just selfish to try to stop the movement of progress. Despite this, I still had a mild hate for the drastic change my eyes witnessed over such a short period of time.
It had taken me almost eighteen years since birth to realize this tragedy and when my mind finally comprehended, I regretted my own inability of being unable to both cherish and savor the moment. Only a fragment of those days was able to remain with me as a memory. But even those recollections would be buried and suffocated by new ones and eventually decay out of existence.
Thinking about a lot of things, I passed the school gates and descended down the hill, towards home. It was eerily quiet that afternoon, with no one around apart from my own shadow. I stopped for a moment and breathed out a heavy sigh to see the white puff of my breath condense in the cold air. My eyes then looked up at the white sky to watch the falling snow as I wondered whether or not it'd turn into rainfall or pile up on top of each other by tomorrow. Either ways, it didn't matter. I had nothing to look forward to since everyone I knew were moving away for college or jobs while I seemed to be the only one left behind in this town. It made me feel useless, knowing I would be stuck here while everybody would be propelling themselves into a higher world but this is how fate had decided to play on me. Then again, I was mostly to blame for loafing around for so long. It was a part of me I regretted the most, yet I did manage to change my ways towards the end with a lot of help.
I looked back down the hill and noticed someone I recognized standing still; a beautiful girl with long, gray hair, and eyes as blue as the ocean, Tomoyo Sakagami.
The sight of her made my chest tighten as I held my breath. She was staring straight at me with her sapphire eyes that both transfixed me and penetrated the back of my skull. For seconds, maybe minutes, we stood there. Motionlessly waiting for something while snow fell on top of our heads until finally, she opened her mouth.
"How are you… Tomoya?" she called out with a soft voice. A missed voice.