AN: I've been wanting to write this, the past 3 days, and truly, it is stuck in my mind.I know I have other stories to update, but my heart is somewhere else, as you can see...
I hope you won't mind that distraction, and will come to love it as much as my other stories. I feel like this is much more challenging to me, but so much more fulfilling. The story won't be a long one, perhaps hitting 10k words at most, but I really dread and look forward to what you will think about it.
Disclaimer : Maid-Sama belongs to Fujiwara Hiro
— Yesterday Today Tomorrow —
Prologue
—
Crumpled balls of paper littered the cold mahogany floor, the thin layer of dust a telltale sign of careless abandon. In the bleak and winter weather, the room —in the olden days lively and well tended— was dull and cold; a versed remnant of what is used to be.
But in contempt of all the dull and morose depiction, we had forgotten to mention the living being that resided in the depicted residence.
There sat a young and raven-haired woman, bent upon unsullied paper on an antique oak table. The plastic chair she reigned on was conspicuously clashing with the perennial surrounding. Creaking with high-pitched squeaks at each of her impulsive gestures, its unrefined echoes filled the room with decadence.
She muttered incomprehensibly before going on rampage.
An onslaught of black ink offensively tarnished the elegant paper with urgency, before she tore away and glared at what she had scribed.
Another displeased glare.
Another paper being crushed.
It mercilessly joined its fellow predecessor on the cold hard ground.
"DANG IT! Son of a biscuit! Freakin' berries white paper! What the fan-flipping-tastic-holy-strawberry-milkshake problem do you have with me?!" She exclaimed, rhythmically stabbing the paper down with her fountain pen.
Unfortunately, her words weren't stopping right there. Frustrated, her relentless curses were coloring the dim room with streaks of hot temper. Her eyes snapped up, before glaring at the taunting blank word processing document on her laptop screen, sitting on the desk.
"Oh no! Don't you even dare..."
The blinking cursor kept taunting her nonetheless.
"You know what?... Yuck YOU! You, flaming douchebag!" Gritting, she started to desperately type anything. Which was, at the moment and with the current mood going on... Curse words.
"Won't you... stop with your bull spitting... Humdrum screen fudge nugget incompetency..."
A message popped up.
'Critical battery (0%). You should change your battery or switch to outlet power immediately to keep from losing your work.'
She growled in retaliation. "Don't. Even. Think..."
Before she could do anything, the screen went black, successfully enhancing her fuming mood.
"DANG!... DITCHER!" She cried with abandon, flopping down on the table beyond recall.
And that was how her days had gone through.
Days that stretched into weeks. Weeks that ran into months. Months into seasons.
Here was winter.
Already.
She had absolutely tried everything. From switching to papers and ink to 'feel the words and meaning' under her fingertips, to listening to inspirational music for... inspiration. Even going out for a walk in any hours. She had gone every single hours, for God's sake!
The 'morning dew' of a fresh morning, to the first orange 'hued rays of sunrise kissing the sky', a cruise through the 'quintessence of the natural and luxuriant' green park... The calm and relaxing nightfall covering the' full of life city in a spectral glow'...
There were all too cheesy to even put a smile on her scowling face. None of it ever helped her overcome the infamous... Writer's block.
Not just writer's block, no. Her mind had to make the necessary pause, a breathtaking suspense to the heft of the sole idea.
The... Writer's block.
"Fine!" She suddenly stood up, the fighting spirit back, coursing up in her spine. Her finger was pointed at the innocent black screen.
"Fine, you ditch me, I will ditch you too! Good friggin' night!"
Her eyes narrowed onto the white paper, stabbed with black rips from her earlier affront.
"What? Stop. It's your fault too!" She hurled around, eyeing all the paper balls neglected on the floor.
"It's all your fricking fault! I bet you guys are having a darn BLAST there!"
And she yanked her jacket from the chair, making it tumble and fall as she stormed out.
As soon as she stepped out, her light jacket did little to cover her from the large gulfs of air blowing through the white city. A thick winter blanket was awning on flat surfaces, even coating the smallest and narrowest spaces. She took a step forward, feet sinking deep into the layer of snow.
Her toes immediately froze in her flimsy sneakers. Her cheeks were already turning a faint crimson over her pale complexion. But little did she mind any of that. She had neither hated or liked any seasons of the year. All she found in them were the inconveniences they brought alongside their climate.
And the way they implied that time was endlessly ticking, no matter what.
Her head lifted to the blinding and white sky bereft of any trace of summer sunlight. Only boundless heaps of cloud floating there over their heads. An umbrella of smoky clouds.
She kept walking to the main plaza. The sound of the snow crunching under her feet made her count each of her steps under her breath, each exhale eliciting a tiny puff of white into the cold air.
Reaching the main area, a huge Christmas tree was sitting in the middle of it. Tiny children running around with unfettered concerns, they were skimming on the snow and wildly sliding, before falling face first into it.
Misaki squeezed her eyes to make out the child's expression from her far standpoint.
A smile lifted the toddler's face, bright and ecstatic. As if falling into muddled snow was pure bliss. She wanted to face palm at the discrepancy. How the hell would that feel any good? Her head shook side to side, the little child's behavior defeating her crestfallen mood further down the drain.
She moved away before she could trip all the kids, so that they would probably laugh as she would revel in the juvenile satisfaction of superiority.
She wasn't even a violent person... Was she?
Heading to a deserted square, the long and high fences encircling the area were closed to visitors. And yet, she climbed without much struggle, her moves quick and discreet. She was used to coming here in her younger years. Used to a once lively park that would soon be destroyed for who knows what kind of business building.
Strolling to the center of the promenade in the immaculate snow, she spotted some wild winter flowers and foliage, frost in their eternal allure. They'd soon be pluckered off when the construction site would come. But for now, they were still here; waiting for the sun to arise them from their hibernal slumber.
A faint smile on her face, she continued down to the main tree that once occupied the middle of the park. A little pathway uphill led her there, and she could make out the large and light colored tree she had been familiar with. Sparse branches stripped of any leaves, it was ice-covered with white fluffy snow and glassy rimes.
Just like a glass tree, sparkly and iridescent. It would break whenever the wind would blow a little too hard. It would fall, were someone come to touch it with the slightest and lightest brush. A thin balance of eternal and yet ephemeral wonder was her beloved tree.
Maybe it would be the answer to everything.
Heart beating, she ran down to it, hitting the rectangular square that felt so small, now that she had gotten adult.
Maybe it was what she needed.
She noticed a blur of red, but paid no attention to it. After all, who would be foolish enough to sneak into a rundown park as she did? All she could focus on was the glassy tree of her younger years. When she had run with her little sister and fell, face first into snow, only to get back up and laugh mirthlessly into her mother's worried arms.
Then, in the middle of her recollection, the Sun came to spare a single and gold ray down the sky, raining splendor over the square. The tree glistened, someone shifted, and a gust of wind up-rose their way.
A red scarf flew.
Fingertips brushing against rough paper.
A rasp in the silence, and yet unheard of all.
Sparks fired up.
Ambers and emeralds.
Emerald.
As green as a tropical forest.
She stopped in her motions, wanting to get another glimpse of those.
Blonde and golden hair, tall and curiously enigmatic.
All she wanted was another glimpse of those eyes.
But something pitilessly flew on her face, wrapping her sight in a blur of ivory. Cursing, because she was on the streak that day, she quickly removed the paper. A rough texture melded under her fingertips.
Just like sand in her palms, she couldn't help but stare down at the feel.
Paint my heart with your words,
And draw my soul in your eyes.
The smooth and neat scrawl went on and on, the paper adorned of flawless words...
And something else she needed in her own voice.
Although she knew that she might be intruding on the stranger's mind by reading this piece of paper, she couldn't help it. It felt too close to the truth.
A rough sketch
Remains in the shelf of your heart.
In timeless contempt,
The unfinished draft
Begins to complete.
She was forced to glance up as a shadow towered over her. Green forest eyes ensnared hers. Ambers melting in a pool of honey grew wider as they quietly gazed at each other.
Something burst into her heart.
And she ran.
She ran without a care, bolting through the frozen alleys. The stranger's paper still warm in her hand, she ran until she could no longer breath. Until she felt the rush of joy flood her lungs.
Getting into her old apartment in record time, her sneakers were discarded with haste in the entryway, still soaked with frost and pilled snow. She didn't care to pull the collapsed chair back up.
She didn't need to sit.
A layer of hole riddled paper flew in the room, letting the unsullied paper underneath reveal itself. Her trembling hand quickly grabbed onto the fountain pen, and words came all too naturally, flowing with effervescence onto the thick sheet.
She finally wrote.
Under the lonely tree was standing a man.
And he shone like the summer sun, on a cold winter day.
—
Author's note:
I hope you stay with me on this ride. Tell me what you think, and I thank you in advance for everything!
I would really love to hear your criticism or what you think about it =)
PS: Writing poetry is hard, harder than anything I ever wrote. Well, I'm a first timer, so meet my novice 'poetry' if we can even call it that way xD...
But I've read some, and it is beautiful. I hope I successfully convey the beauty of it to you, where every word are carefully chosen and important :)