Freeze My Love Prologue:
Sakura no Ki no Shita e - I
The little girl was obviously lost.
"'Nii-chan? Nii-chan?" the seven-year-old sniffled. "Tou-chan?" She looked around again, her lower lip trembling. She looked up and saw the tree in front of her, sakura petals flying around her in a wind; making her shiver even though he knew that she didn't know why.
But he knew.
And then it was too much, and the girl burst into tears. He smiled to himself, knowing her thoughts--she was lost, it was getting dark, and the tree was *scary*. And she wanted her Tou-chan and her Nii-chan.
So she stood in the rain of sakura petals, trying not to let any of them touch her, and crying miserably.
It was time to make an entrance.
"Excuse me."
The little girl looked up, and Sakurazuka Seishirou knelt in front of her, drying her tears. "Are you lost?"
She nodded, trying to stop her tears, eyes wide at the one milky eye of the man kneeling in front of her. "Y-yes. I can't find my 'Nii-chan or my Tou-chan."
He smiled, noticing that her eyes were a very clear green. "My name is Seishirou. What's yours?"
The girl sniffled. "Sa-Sa-Sa-Sakura."
A strange look glittered in the man's eye, and the little girl shrank back suddenly.
"That's a pretty name. One of my favorites." And the Sakurazukamori smiled at the little green-eyed girl.
"I..I...hooe..." she said, shrinking more, eyes wide. And to the little girl, he knew, something had suddenly gone very, very wrong. He knew that she wanted to run, but couldn't. He knew that she could only watch with large green eyes as he raised his hand. And he knew that...
"Sakura! Sakura, you little monster! We were worried sick!"
The loud voice startled the girl out of her paralysis, and the Sakurazukamori withdrew just slightly.
"N-Nii-chan!"
A boy--perhaps Sakura's brother?--ran up to them, his face pale.
Yes. Her brother.
The boy's eyes flicked from the sakura to the Sakurazukamori to Sakura quickly, and the Sakurazukamori watched with some slight interest as a momentary look of panic passed over the boy's young face before settling almost instantly into a relaxed, slightly irritated face--a face he was able to put on only because of the frightened little girl with such green eyes. Only when that face was firmly in place did the boy turn to his little sister.
And being careful, the Sakurazukamori noted, to not completely turn his back on *him*.
That made him smile again.
"Sakura! Why did you run off? You need to stay near us!"
Sakura's brother turned completely to face him. The mask slipped for an instant on the boy's face as he registered an impression of what the Sakurazukamori was, and where he had to be. Then the boy remembered his sister, and the mask reappeared.
Hmm...
The boy bowed, his eyes locked with the Sakurazukamori's, and he wondered if the boy knew that if he took his eyes away, both he and his little sister would never leave the sakura tree. "Thank you for finding my sister," the boy said, hand tight on his sister's, halfway hiding her behind him. "Our father is waiting for us, so we should go now."
The little girl peeped from around her brother, green eyes still wide and never leaving the man standing in the cherry petals.
Yes. The boy knew. So...
Seishirou smiled and reached around the boy slightly to pat Sakura on the head. "Take care of your little sister, Kinomoto-kun."
"How did you know my...?" the boy started.
But the man was gone, and the only answer was the sound of the sakura petals in the wind.