A/N: Hello everyone! As true to my announcement, I have begun to rewrite the chapters for Hold Me Close. I think I either wrote too much and the pacing wasn't right either once I got to the Teikou Arc plus I was over thinking it and maybe I overdid it here and there so I have changed it. This chapter will be the one that has changed the most because I don't exactly like writing in first person and having a flashback kind of makes it hard… So in other words, the prologue will be significantly different from the first time I wrote it however the background info is still the same or similar. I just changed the way I introduced it. I hope no one minds… =_=;
Well, allow me to start over. I hope everyone will like this story!
As you grow older, your memory starts to fade. There will be moments that you don't want to remember but remember and there are the moments where you want to recall but can't. Then there are the memories are just there; you neither want them nor try to push them away.
A girl with shoulder-length, black hair looks down at a book smiling to herself. The cover of the book was a hard cover, large, and had a rugged texture to its surface. It was opened however, revealing plastic pages holding photographs among photographs of a family.
The start of the book was filled with numerous wedding pictures of a woman and a man, obviously the bride and groom. Several pages later there would be photos of the couple in casual clothing, sightseeing different landscapes and cities. The girl smiled as she saw a familiar house that was once part of her memories, a place she hopes to go to again soon.
Eventually the photos show the woman in the hospital, her stomach becoming bigger as if being blown up like a balloon. Her smile was genuinely happy, excited even, to give birth to another life. The next picture had the woman with a bundled up baby girl in her arms. She was tired out but relieved and was staring at the newborn affectionately.
The child's first birthday, first time walking, dressed up for numerous events… there were photographs of everything.
Photo-filled pages continued, eventually showing the birth of another daughter, dated four years after the first child's birth date, and another daughter, two years after the second daughter's.
Junko Kasumi chuckled at the pictures at her two younger sisters, finding pictures of the second-born covered in their mother's make up, with lipstick smeared over the left side of her face and mascara brushed over her forehead.
The abundant photographs continued until they ceased immediately after the picture of her and her sisters with their aunt and uncle, before their parents had left to Japan to look for a new house. That latest plastic page was dated several days after she was placed under the care of her aunt and uncle, about when she was five years old. In that page was the pressed and preserved Jasmine flower.
Kasumi blankly stared at the flower before sighing and tilted her head back to look at the ceiling. Closing her eyes, she remembered the faint memories of the blood and darkness, the screeching wheels and the painful stab in her leg. The dream of red that would bring a temporary, warm comfort but later on, a terrifying feeling of fear and loneliness.
A shiver ran down her spine as the events of that day occurred. The day where she had, at one point, lost herself, and had lost her sisters.
"Sumi-chan!" an older woman's voice called from the first floor of the house.
"Yes Mommy?" Kasumi asked, still seated in her chair, staring at the ceiling.
"Are you ready yet? We're going to out to eat dinner soon with the Akashi's."
"I'm done. Are we leaving early? I thought we were going to meet with Yuudai jii-san and Seijuurou until 8."
"We are. I was just making sure you didn't forget," Junko Temaki noted to her daughter as her head popped out from the hallway. "So what is my dear daughter looking at?" she asked as she noticed the opened book in front of Kasumi.
"Just old memories. I barely remember any of them though. And here I thought I had a good memory for a knack of things," Kasumi said while smiling sheepishly.
Temaki smiled knowingly at her daughter and nodded. "I'm expecting you to come down in half an hour. Finish up walking down memory lane otherwise your father will find you looking at those photos and he'll be crying at how much you've grown up."
Both mother and daughter laughed at the thought. "That's probably true," Kasumi agreed as she stood up. "Well I finished right before you called Mommy so I can come down now. Do you need help with anything?"
"Not that I know of… You know, Kasumi, if you really don't want to go you don't have to. You and Sei-kun haven't been talking for a while, now have you? A lot of things seem to be going on with the both of you and I don't think it's really either of your faults."
Kasumi shook her head. "I'm going to have to face him eventually. I want to face him. That fight really didn't solve anything but I think our feelings towards each other are clearer now so it just has to end in a compromise. If I don't see him, I won't move on."
"Then I'll let you two handle it. My daughter really has become fine young lady," Temaki said proudly, placing a hand on her cheek.
"I wouldn't say that…"
"Even if that's the case, I'm glad that you are facing your problems properly rather than avoiding them forever Sumi-chan. Come on, let's go down stairs."
Temaki left the room, disappearing into the hallway while Kasumi felt a burden in her heart lift. She had a feeling she was doing the right thing, even if it scared her so much to see her childhood friend again after several weeks of avoiding him.
Kasumi stepped out of the room before pausing and looking back at the opened book on the desk.
"It's time to finally move on once again," she whispered before walking down the stairs after her mother.
A/N: And there is the end of the prologue which is significantly different from the first time I wrote it. I really hate writing in first person honestly. It just doesn't sit well with me. Plus I didn't want to start in the past. Why not go and have something of the present that already foreshadows a problem that will come into being. As of who won the Winter Cup finals was never said however I believe in some kind of break down in Akashi whether Rakuzan won or not. I'm still expecting his other self's ability to show eventually.
That said, I don't know if this prologue is better or worse. I'm really tired right now is all…. I really can't deal with school or personal problems properly. Wish me luck on my AP Chem test tomorrow for it's going to kill me.
Please drop a review below and tell me what you think ;D I'd really appreciate it! Thank you for reading!