Everything ends.
Where there is a start, there must always be an end. That goes for everything from love to life. But where there's an end, there's usually an opportunity for a new beginning. Sometimes people think it's impossible to begin again, or even to recover from an end, to be able to feel emotions as strong as they did at the beginning, but it's not. You only need to open up your eyes and your heart, and soon enough, that beginning will be within your reach.
One man started the new beginning to his love life two years ago, when he fell for a gorgeous woman in Japan.
It took a while for him to recover after his first divorce, but he waited for the beginning of a romance. He claimed he never wanted one, not after what happened with the demon from before, but all the time he was secretly waiting for another chance. For a living angel to come to him and give him his new beginning and happily ever after.
Luckily, he met that angel during a business trip to Japan when he bumped into Miwa Asahina, a mother-of-thirteen who had recently lost her husband to a tragic accident.
The two kept in contact and the man frequently visited the country to see her. Over the years that they saw eachother the relationship between them grew stronger and stronger until he couldn't bare it anymore; he had to marry her.
The day before White Day he flew over to Japan with a ring in his pocket and a goal set in his mind. The day after, he proposed. Of course, she said yes. She practically screamed it. Not only was this his second chance at happiness, but hers too, and neither of them were about to let it go to waste.
The next few months they were together were spent arranging for his daughter from his previous marriage to fly over and live with twelve of her thirteen sons, believing that sharing a house with them would make the family bond and grow close while they went to live in a different house together and plan their wedding day. One thing they never counted on was if she'd accept her new family...
"Wait a minute, you're getting married? To somebody I've never even met?!" the young girl shouts, slamming her fists on the table in response to her father's inconsiderate actions.
"Now, just calm down for a minute-"
"And to top that off, you're dragging me off to Japan against my will!" Her brown eyes blaze with anger. "All these years you could've been here taking care of me, but no, you had to keep flying over to Japan to visit some stupid woman! What about me?! I've probably spent more time with my uncle than with you! It's not as if our family is massive either! Don't you ever think I might get lonely?"
"Hey, look on the bright side, you'll have plenty of brothers to keep you company now, thirteen to be exact!" her father says, slightly intimidated.
"And don't you think-" she pauses, taking in her father's words before speaking once more, "hang on, I have how many brothers?!"
"Thirteen, you'll be living with twelve of them."
"And you never considered my feelings?! What is wrong with you?!"
"I did. I knew you'd react like this, so I told you today so you'd have enough time to pack for tomorrow instead of trying to find ways to escape this," he mentally smirks, seeing her at a loss for words, he knows that he's got her cornered. "We're flying out first thing in the morning. Your schooling, passport and everything else have all been sorted over these past few months so there's nothing for you to worry about."
With only a couple of words left to combat his, she sits back in her chair and folds her arms. "I'm not leaving," she calmly states. "I refuse."
"I think you misheard me. You don't have a choice in the matter, we're flying out first thing in the morning," he repeats sternly.
"You mean you're flying out first thing in the morning. I'm staying with my uncle."
"No, you're coming with me tomorrow."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are."
"No, I'm not."
"Yes, you are."
"Keep dreaming, I'm not going."
How on earth did I end up here? Roxy asks herself in her head, waiting for takeoff. She deliberately waited for her father to sit somewhere else before seating herself by a woman with long, flowing orange-brown hair and piercing green eyes.
"Good morning," the woman says, smiling politely.
"Yeah, hi," the young teen replies.
"Is this your first time going to Japan?"
"Mhm," she nods, "what about you?"
"Oh, I'm from Japan, I just enjoy going to gather new material for my books from other countries. I'm a novelist, you see."
"Cool. I wanted to be a novelist a few times, but I always lost interest in what I was writing, so no story's ever really finished when I'm the writer."
"I see."
"I'm Roxy, by the way," the youth says.
"My name is Hikaru Asahina," the elder smiles. "It's nice to meet you."
"Asahina?" she repeats. "By any chance, is your mother Miwa Asahina and are you getting a new little sister?"
The woman nods. "How did you know?"
"My father's supposed to be marrying Miwa-san and apparently I'm getting thirteen new brothers," she explains. "I was never told I'd have a sister, though."
"You don't. I'm a man through and through."
Silence fills the air.
"You're a what?"
"A man," Hikaru says once more.
"Then why do you look more like a girl than I do?" she pouts.
Although Roxy has quite a feminine appearance with long hair, big eyes and a cute face, an hourglass figure and a nice bust going with that, her choice of clothing being hoodies or t-shirts and tracksuit bottoms or leggings, often paired with trainers or boots and how she always refuses to wear makeup makes her look quite a bit more boyish than the 'male' sat next to her.
"I disguise myself as a woman in order to gather material for my books."
"Why can't you do it as a man?"
"Because I write mainly for the noir genre. I have to know the side story of the criminals and obviously most of them are males. Cross-dressing is the easiest way for me to get close enough to them to discover those side stories."
"Okay then," she says, not believing a word of it.
Within a couple more minutes, the plane takes off. The flight lasts many boring hours, but chatting to her soon-to-be step-brother helps to move things along. The sky is pitch black, other than a couple of stars messily scattered about. The majority of the passengers are in the process of waking up when the plane lands.
Roxy and her father meet up once more when they exit the plane and he gives her her luggage. All the while, by Roxy's side is Hikaru.
"Looks like you've met one of your brothers already," he smiles at the pair.
"How'd you know it was a boy?" she blinks, surprised.
"Oh, we've met eachother before during one of my visits to mother," Hikaru explains.
"Mhm. Hopefully he'll take good care of you," the elder man says, sending a sharp glare towards Hikaru as if to tell him he'd better or bad things are in his future.
"I certainly will. It's very late, Roxy-chan," Hikaru points out, gazing up at the stars. "My apartment isn't too far away from here if you'd like to stay with me for the rest of the night. I was supposed to be the one picking you up tomorrow anyway, but it seems your flight was earlier than we'd anticipated."
"I think I'd rather stay with my idiot father, but thanks for the offer," she smiles slightly, though still considering his offer.
"He's going to live somewhere else, didn't you know? Him and mother live separately from the rest of us. I live on my own, and Natsume's planning to move out soon, but all the rest of our brothers live together. You'll be with living with them."
"You know, in all the hours we've been on the plane, I really can't believe we never talked about your brothers."
"Our brothers," he corrects. "We'll have plenty of time to talk about that on the journey. There's also another option; you could go to your new home tonight. Though, I can't promise that your room would be ready, but it would be entertaining in the morning."
"What do you mean 'entertaining'?" she tilts her head inquisitively.
"You'll see," he winks.
"I guess that's where we're going then."
"I'll just make a quick call to see if any of them are still awake. The last time I came without calling I never heard the end of it from Ukyo." Hikaru takes out his phone and starts the call.
"I'll have to be going now, I have a fiancé to meet," the father smiles, walking away with his suitcases in hand. "I'll see you when I see you. Goodbye."
"Yeah, bye," Roxy utters, giving a half-assed wave.
"I have her with me now. Yes. Yes. Okay, I'll see you when we get there," Hikaru ends the call and turns to face his soon-to-be step-sister. "Azusa and Ukyo are still awake, and Ukyo has offered to pick us up. Come with me, we'll go and wait for him."
The pair spend a couple of minutes walking in silence before deciding to wait on the pavement. Roxy puts her suitcases one on top of the other and sits on them to save her from carrying them during the wait while Hikaru looks out for the car. She watches the elder cautiously.
Now away from her father, she realises that there's nobody she can truly, whole-heartedly rely on. What if this man - or woman - was some kind of rapist? Or a murderer? You never know these days.
Perhaps her father was being a little too trusting? Hikaru didn't exactly seem like the most honest person. After all, he does lie about his gender all the time. All she could do was pray that this man knew what he was getting her into.
Finally. Just. Finally. I've been meaning to upload this for so long, but I didn't have the title til I was playing with ideas with a friend over Skype a few minutes ago.
But anyways. Tell me what you think. I've also reversed the timeline by two years because I felt like it and 8yo Wataru is probably adorable as hell so yeah.
Remember to review, byebye.~