The dark atmosphere of the street did not exactly help in calming her nerves. The sky was grey with the warning of rain to come. It was early afternoon as the woman walked steadily down the street clutching a grey tote bag to her chest, as if trying to hold in her racing emotions. The walk towards the strangely named home gave her time to reflect on how she had got to this point in her life, 'I'm honestly surprised how easy it was to find all this out' she thought to herself. She reflected on the pain and sadness that she had been put through, while remaining hopeful for what might be about to occur. A strong gust of wind speeds towards the woman with enough strength to catch her off-guard. Her bag fell out of her arms and landed behind her, as she turned to retrieve it a thought crosses her mind, 'perhaps I should just keep walking in this direction? Stay away and never interfere with her life?' However the nagging feeling within her to find out the answers to all her questions persuaded the woman to turn around. She rounded a corner and found herself on a pretty little street, even in the miserable weather the street seemed to shine and having a welcoming aura. The directions which she was given a small piece of paper from the less than intelligent woman at that less than intelligent man's office told her that the home she was looking for was still a ways down the street. 'The Sunshine Residence huh?' the woman laughed as she once again thought of how overly optimistic the people must be to live in a place with that sort of name. Her heart would not stop beating, she felt as if her whole body would be consumed in nerves and fear, a million questions ran through her head on whether she should take this plunge. All her life she has had to rely on her instincts. But now it was as if she had none, she was totally unsure of what she should do. As panic rose up inside of her making her sweat and breath heavy, she saw I little sign out the front of a tall, beautiful building. It was intimidating, standing over the woman like a god, yet it had such a welcoming feel, just like the rest of the street. The woman opened her bag and took out her most precious possession, she looked at it, trying to get courage from it. "I have to at least try" she whispered out loud to herself as she gave one last look to the ageing item before clutching it to her chest then storing it back in the grey tote bag.

. . .

Ema sat at the kitchen table reading a book she borrowed from the library on the history of French Patisseries. At the age of 18 she took her passion of creating desserts very seriously and hoped to make a career. The last two years of her life had brought her so many blessed things, a real family, a proper home, the realisation of her dreams and the perfect relationship with the boys she had a crush on since early high school. Ema jumped as a large thump came from the entrance hall, she walked over to the disturbance to see her father bringing home a large package, not surprising since it was nearly Christmas. "Papa" Ema said with a smile "welcome home, what's this?" Rintaro turned to Ema with a smile on his face,

"it is a present for Wataru, something he can use in the backyard with the others and on his own." Ema was excited for the coming Christmas as it would be one of the only times in the past year that her whole family would be together. Both her parents and brothers have been busy all year and some such as Hikaru and Futo had struggled to be home at all due to their work. "Ema" Rintaro called out, "I also got you something, an early Christmas present" he smiled and handed over a rectangular package walking towards the kitchen. "Thank you Papa!" Ema beamed as she opened the package. Tears, a mixture of happy and sad swelled in her eyes as she looked at the contents. She held in her hand a silver photo frame with the words family is forever carved in the top. The frame held an image of Ema's birth parents holding her baby self, sitting on a couch laughing. "Looks like you were a very healthy baby" a deep voice says over Ema's shoulder. She looks up to see her eldest step brother Masaomi admiring the picture. At that moment the doorbell rings, "I'll get it" says Masaomi turning towards the door. "I'll come too" Ema smiles, bringing the photo frame with her. Once they opened the door they saw there a nervous looking woman with ash brown hair. A moment of silence passed between the brother and sister and the stranger at the door, the woman, who looked in her early twenties stared wide eyed at Ema. "May we help you?" Masaomi asked the woman, the woman shook herself out of her trance and quietly, quickly asked "ar-are you Ema Hi-hin-?" she couldn't seem to get the words out of her mouth. Then she suddenly looked at the photo frame Ema was hold, a look of disgust crossing her face. Ema was too stunned by the look on the strange woman's face to reply. At that moment Ema's father came around the corner and called out from the end of the hall, "anyone want some tea?" Before either Ema or Masaomi replied the woman had turned and ran away.

. . .

The woman ran away from the scene, tears streaming down her face, from sadness, pain, anger and a small bit of happiness. She was there, the information wasn't fake, she could tell as soon as she saw her. As the woman rounded the corner she ran smack bang into someone and fell straight onto the ground. She looked up to see that she had ran into a man probably around six or seven years older than her with blonde hair. He was dressed as if he was some sort of monk, 'great a man of the cloth exactly what I want right now geez' she thought to herself with extreme sarcasm. "Are you ok?" he asked without sounding at all concerned "how horrible of me knocking into a lady like that. Shall I take you back to my place to clean you u-" he stopped noticing that the woman was crying "are you hurt?" he asked genuinely. He moved to help the woman up, she was too exhausted to resist, she mumbled a thank you and went to leave. The blonde man grabbed her hand "please, are you ok? I haven't hurt you have I?" he asked with concern. Laughter could be heard from a man walking towards the two people. The man laughing approached the blonde man asking "troubling girls again Kaname?" the man who arrived next to the laughing man sighed, the woman noticed straight away how much the two men looked alike. "Well Tsubaki" the blonde man started, but the woman didn't hear what the end of the sentence was as she took opportunity at the man called Kaname's distraction to run leaving the weird situation behind.

It took her an hour by foot to get back to the hotel she was staying at, she had only been in the city for a couple months but she was lucky that she was given this room by the owner of the hotel, a friend. However if she didn't find somewhere else she could afford soon she would be in serious trouble, a bartenders wage doesn't stretch too far. She collapsed onto the bed and let the sadness and disappointment overcome here. The woman cried and cried, full of so many questions. Was that Ema? Well of course it was all the evidence was there, Ema looked so much like, well her. Why was he there? He man who I never wanted to see again? What had happened to that photo Ema had? It was not right. The thought of the state of that photo made the woman cry more. She reached over to her bag and pulled out her most precious possession, the same image Ema had in her frame, however the woman's copy had more to it than the version Ema possessed.