I do not own Skip Beat!
Hey guys! So the readers of my fanfiction 'A Different Dawn' know that I decided to turn chapter 20 (which is this exact chapter) into a multi chapter fanfcition.
Anyway, this is the prologue I wish you guys will enjoy this story and let me know what you think of it!
Thanks to my beta reader/editor Theriechenbachevent for her hard work!
Prologue : I Believe in Ghosts. Do You?
Ugh! Kyoko cringed making her way through the tombstones, she just had to live at the end of a cemetery and she just had to be the freak with an ability to see supernatural creatures!
'Keep walking, don't look, don't look, don't look!' She told herself inwardly, sliding her way through the ghosts and specters around her. The phrase had become her daily mantra.
Kyoko was a young woman in her twenties who worked at a drugstore and even though she would much rather have preferred the night shift, her boss insisted on enforcing his 'no female workers at night' policy. While said policy might have been practical for the safety of your 'normal female', Kyoko was worried about a different kind of safety. In her mind, she'd be far safer working through the night shift rather than walking through the graveyard after her afternoon shift ended.
"Just act naturally, they usually don't act up if they think someone can't see them."
"Eeeep!" Kyoko yelped at the deep voice that brought her out of her musings, half stumbling over her own feet. The owner of the voice was a young man, clad in dark jeans and a gray hoodie. He was quite tall, much taller than her. His hair was dark but seemed to be quite soft and for a moment she caught herself thinking what would it feel like if she touched it. He looked at her through his chocolate brown eyes, his lips curled up in an amused smile.
"Sorry, did I scare you?" he asked, the grin turning sheepish at her obvious surprise.
Kyoko's mind briefly flashed her images of her mother warning her not to talk to strangers, before she discarded them.
'Screw it! I'm more scared of those things than of him right now.' She thought. Anything would be a welcome distraction to her current predicament.
"That's alright." She said after finding her voice again. "Can you see them too?"
"Yes, for quite sometime now." He said. "I'm Ren by the way."
"Kyoko. Mogami Kyoko." Kyoko smiled, a bit relaxed now that she weren't alone. "Nice to meet you Ren-san."
"The pleasure is all mine." He chuckled at her politeness. "So what would a young lady like you be doing in a cemetery at this time of night?" he asked.
"Well, my house is at the other end of it and I just got out of work." Unfortunately for her, walking home after the sunset was just as bad as doing it at midnight. In fact those things seemed to be the most active at twilight,that bizarre slice of time between sunlight and sundown.
"Why are you living there? If you don't mind me asking of course." He said with a raised eyebrow.
"Well, the house was in my family way before it turned into a graveyard and for some reason my mom didn't want to sell it and move away from this creepy place…something about keeping the property in the family or whatever."
"I see." he shrugged "Guess you could always get your own place later on…"
"Assuming I'd be able to afford it." She snorted at the ludicrousness of the suggestion.
"Student loans?" he asked dryly.
"What else?" They exchanged a knowing look before they both started laughing, bonding over the inside joke that only students would understand.
"So how long have you being seeing these guys Kyoko-chan?" he asked gesturing to one of the spirits lurking nearby.
"Basically…since I was born, or at least for as long as I can remember…" She shivered at the thought.
"And you're still not used to them?" he asked incredulously.
"Are you?" she retorted without hesitating.
"Guess you could say I don't really have a choice." He said, putting his hands in his pockets.
"Well, no matter how many times they pop out, I just can't act cool about it." She paused "That's my place, guess this is goodbye." She said.
Now that she thought about it, her house was the only inhabited place around, so where was he going? She was lost in thought before a cold hand pulling at her ankle brought her back to the current situation
"Aaaack!" She kicked the thing away, making her stumble back, crashing into Ren's broad chest.
"Sorry, I get a little jumpy walking through a cemetery haha." She joked, as she pulled away to stand on her own, trying to brush off the embarrassing incident.
"That's alright, I used to get scared when I was alive too." He said as he turned to walk away, leaving her in a frozen state.
'No freaking way.' She thought, not daring to believe what he'd just said.
"See you tomorrow Kyoko-chan." He turned and waved at her before fading into a thin cloud of mist.
A/N: The next chapter, ch1 should be up as well!