Prologue:
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Unconsciously, Ikuko shifted her weight backwards, slowly pushing her sunken heels further into the soft Earth before shifting forward again. She let the sound of heavy, rhythm-less water wash over her as cold, invisible fingers ran down her spine. Her eyes sightlessly bared into the rectangular hole in front of her. She sniffed, jerking her shoulders from their slumped position, momentarily and shifted backwards again, the smell of day-old cut grass and freshly bought flowers lost on her.
A comforting pressure was gently placed on the small of the woman's back where it drew reassuring circles. Ikuko's deep violet eyes moved from their subject-less stare to the man beside her with a smooth, lethargic twist of her bent neck. Kenji smiled down at her through fogged glasses before tenderly pushing her small form towards his slightly larger one.
"Are we ready to go?" His voice was just loud enough to hear over the prattling on the umbrella held in his left hand.
Kenji's wife hesitantly let a withering smile spread across her once painted-red lips, her left arm coming to grasp the back of his freshly dry cleaned, black blazer. She pulled her heels out from within the mud before walking away from the lowered, ivory casket. Ikuko's puffy eyes glanced back half expecting to see her five year old daughter standing on the edge of the small grave, pouting at her for not carrying the girl back to the car.
She was, instead, greeted by a small boy with drenched, black hair looking back at her, his face crestfallen. The boy shifted his gray eyes to stare at the woman's mud-washed heels as if guilty for some unspoken crime. Ikuko's eyes ran over his languid form as he trudged after the couple, his hands shoved into his coal slacks' pockets. She wished he would willingly breach the distance he had established between himself and her, breaking down the stone barrier he had suddenly acquired over the past weeks, but rather, he choose to walk without the shelter of their umbrella. Maybe, it would just take time.
Ikuko turned back to her husband as he gave her waist a quick squeeze before he slid his arm from around her. She let hers fall away from his back immediately missing his warmth against the left side of her body, but ducked into the car instead of retreating into him again. Her eyes looked up at her husband with faint reassurance as he closed the passenger door for her.
Kenji stood by the car door behind hers patiently waiting for the brooding five year old to ketch up to them. Ikuko smiled chiding herself; five year olds couldn't brood, could they.
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A/N: I've really tried to imitate my favorite writer in this, Kimra. Please review.
4/16/03 9:08 PM