A young girl, about the age of ten, flounced about, skipping, dancing and running around underneath an eastern European sky. Her midnight black hair shone under the sun, her pale white skin sparkling. She caught her father's eye, he was sitting on a bench in their vast back yard. He smiled when she saw him, her violet eyes shining brightly at him as her face lit up with a brilliant smile. She ran towards him and flung herself onto his lap. He moved with an "oomph" as he wrapped his arms around her.
"Having fun Leah?" her father asked, his black hair covering one eye slightly.
"Yes! I'm so happy it's finally spring!" she said, hanging her head back to bask in the rays of sunshine.
The father smiled at his daughter. He began to think how lucky he was to be here in this position. But before his thoughts could wander further, he was alerted to his daughter lightly shaking him from his daydream.
"Daddy?"
"Yeah, Leah?"
She shifted slightly in his lap, "How did you and mommy meet?"
He was startled slightly by his young daughter's question. She had never asked him this before and he wasn't sure if she had ever asked his "wife". Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a small blue orb floating in a leftover rain puddle near the bench. He smiled and shook his head, apparently Leah had asked her mother first, looks like the question was diverted to him.
H e looked back at his daughter, she was looking at him expectantly.
"Well, your mother and I used to work together".
"Mommy worked at the office with you?"
He laughed slightly, "No, not at the office. Before you were born, we worked together in Tokyo".
"Oh yeah! Mommy said once that you and her used to live in Japan. Why did you move here?"
Now that was a loaded question, he thought silently. "Well, there were some… complications at our old job. We both ended up getting fired, so we decided to travel and find work". It was, kind of true he supposed, although they weren't really trying to find "work", running would have been a more accurate term.
"Uh oh, you were fired? What did you do? Was it bad?" Leah asked, excited at the prospect of her parents doing something bad, then she could hold it over them and try to get away with more stuff.
"No," he wasn't really lying, "the company was just doing some cutbacks".
"Hm," she contemplated this, then thought of another question. "well that explains how you met, but how did you fall in love?"
He blanched slightly, not prepared to answer the question his daughter just asked. Recovering from the shock of it, he pulled himself together and thought of how they did fell in love. He looked off at nothing, recalling the events that brought him to where he currently was.
"Well Leah, our lives were very different back then. Your mom was really the only constant in my life for a while. The way she said my name made me feel safe. Eventually, after we got fired from our job and we began traveling, I realized that I didn't ever want to be somewhere where I couldn't hear her say my name. I knew that I would do anything to protect her. It was while we were on the ru… er, travelling, that I knew I never wanted to be away from her".
He looked down to see his daughter, her hands cupped together and her eyes twinkling like she'd just hear a magnificent fairy tail.
"Oh, daddy! That's the best love story ever! I can't wait to fall in love!"
"Let's just hold off on that for another ten or twenty years Leah". He said with a laugh, his daughter stuck her tongue out.
They heard the side door open, and then the quiet call, "Hei".
The two looked over, Yin stood in the doorway, a small smile on her lips. "It's time for dinner".
Leah jumped off of her father and ran inside, rambling on and on about the wonderful love story her father had just told her, her mother smiling still in the doorway, looking towards her husband.
"How'd I do, Yin?" Hei asked, putting an arm around her waist as he approached her at the door.
"Well". She smiled, leaning in on her tip toes as her husband leaned in to kiss her.