Promise

Prologue: Rose Petals on the Road

Rewritten and posted 7/27/2014

A/n- Ayup, I'm reviving it chapter by chapter, rewriting things and improving the overall quality. Huehuehue. I doubt any of those that followed the story expected anything else from it, but if you hung in there I give you all of my thanks and love. I hope you enjoy it, because reading back on my old writing style, I felt like this story was a mess. A mess that I had a direction for, unlike most of my messes.

'I'd be playing baseball and hit a pop-fly into your window on accident. I would knock at the door and be greeted by your mother, and of course go up to your room to apologize. That's when I'd see you there. Of course, we'd start talking and it would be so much fun that I would come back, and start helping to take care of you. That's how we'd meet...'

Seconds only lasted a second, as minutes only lasted a minute. For Yui Takamura, seconds had stretched out into eternities and minutes had decided that they now were a measurement of forever. Though at the time she wouldn't be able to marvel at all of the wonders of the world, later on she realized that an incredible number of thoughts flowed through her mind in that single instant.

The sound of shattering glass, crunching metal, and rending flesh resonated in her ears with such a long, low ferocity that she was sure that she would hear it for the rest of her life. Of course, that was considering that she lived past this slow, agonizing moment. Perfectly spherical beads of scarlet seemed to hover in front of her ruby orbs, fascinating and beautiful. Her fingers stretched out to touch them, yet she found that she couldn't move her arm. As a matter of fact, it seemed that it was being moved for her, as if she were flying against a strong wind. Her mouth opened to question the phenomenon, and her eyes saw shaped through a blurred veil. People? A crowd? There were screams.

And then her journey from the air to the ground ended and she hit the concrete full force, pain wracking her every nerve. Her mouth opened to release a scream that she could simply not find within her. The air from her lungs was gone, the control of her muscles had left her alone with this wretched agony. Every inch of her body screamed, and those beautiful droplets splattered against her face and the ground like paint shaken from an artist's brush.

Blood. Her blood. Her broken body, her mangled bones. If only she could see through this transparency of stinging white. She could only think, her thoughts whirring through her fading consciousness. She could pick out small bits and pieces through the screams of the witnesses before the sirens drowned out all noise.

"He hit her, oh my God the bus driver just hit that girl!"

"No, she jumped in front of the bus, I saw it!"

"...Doesn't she go to my school...?"

"The ambulance is here, oh God she's dead! I can't look!"

"She just attempted suicide!"

"…-vehicular manslaughter!"

But this new life surrounded by strangers held nothing for Yui. She had legs; she had been able to run, play guitar, and hit her own home run. Yet there was no attachment, nothing else left. Nothing but the love and true happiness that she had been promised in a previous life. So she had stepped out in the street, hoping to force fate to bring his hand to hers.

"Hideki Hinata…" fading eyes locked onto a white-clad figure in her direct line of sight. The minor league team at the park just across the street had raced over at the sound of screeching tires; they stood wan-faced and horror stricken, just as everyone else did. The pitcher, a dark-skinned boy who stood at the front of the group, visibly paled as she seemed to move her silent lips with her head facing his direction. "I hope you keep your promise. I'll be waiting. This new life isn't all that it's cut out to be, you know. So what do you say? I know I kind of rushed things, but do you still want to marry me?"

As she clung to the hope of that long-ago promise with fingers too broken to close around that one dream, the sky rumbled in protest and opened up its darkest clouds. Dutifully, the rain began to wash away the blood that had pooled around her, resembling rose petals discarded on the unforgiving asphalt.