(A/n: All right, well, I hope that some people at least reviewed by now. I just got done updating Chap.3. Hopefully you will maybe like this chapter better if you didn't like the previous one. In chapter five, entitled Betrayal, some violence comes out and someone gets betrayed. But who? You'll find out when I update, either tonight or tomorrow, hopefully sometime this week. Well, here's Chapter 4-Fate Can Be Kind. Well...sometimes it can anyways. Please read and review. Thnx! .)

His jump was a success. He reached Harle and wretched the knife from her hands before she could attempt to get
away. He could tell by the stunned, surprised look on her face, that she had not detected him standing there. She snapped back to reality though, and tried to get her knife back, but Serge was taller than she was, so he held it out of her reach.

She decided to try to run. She could always get another knife. But if she didn't get away soon, she wouldn't get a
chance to get another. She tried looking for an escape route, but couldn't find a safe, easy one anywhere. She didn't want Serge to catch her. She had to run and run fast!

Serge saw her attempt to run, but he lunged at her once again, pinning her against the marsh wall. He held her there
and wouldn't let her go, not matter how hard she tried to force him off of her. She struggled as much as she could to get away, but all of her futile efforts to escape were in vain.

"Sorry, Harlequin, but you aren't going anywhere until you tell me, no, PROMISE me, that you won't commit suicide!" Serge told her, giving her a look that basically told her that he meant what he said. He was not going to let this continue, it was going to end right now.

She couldn't believe what was happening. He was pinning her up against the wall, had her knife, and was telling her
that she couldn't die. Why? He didn't love her, so why was he trying to stop her? She averted her eyes away from him and found the acid water suddenly very interesting.

He cupped his hand under his chin and forced her to look at him. When he looked into her eyes, he saw tears that
were begging to fall. He smiled at her warmly and dried the tears with the soft pad of his thumb. He leaned close to her ear.

"Don't cry. Trust me, everything will turn out fine." He whispered soothingly into her ear, trying to calm her down.
"Now, if you promise to not run away and kill yourself, then I'll let you go." He told her, lightening his hold that he had on her to show her that he was telling the truth.

She looked at him with disbelief in her eyes. Was he telling the truth? Would everything be all right? She decided to
trust him and nodded her response. He let go of her and sat back onto his knees. She blushed and looked away.

'How stupid am I?' She thought to herself. 'He probably thinks that I'm a psycho because I was staring at him.' Serge
slowly crawled over to her while she was thinking to herself.

"Mind if I sit here?" He asked, smiling. She didn't say anything, so he took it as a 'I don't care' kind of answer. He
looked at her with worry laced in with his expression. "Is something the matter? Did I say or do something wrong?"

She's not saying anything, so he thinks that she's angry with him, so he keeps talking. "I didn't mean to scare you. It was the only way that I could talk to you without you running away. You do know that killing yourself is just running away, right? Are you just gonna keep running away?"

"I'm not running." Was Harle's only response. She didn't even glance up, she just continued to examine the gloomy
flood of water. Then she decided to speak. "Do you want to know the other reason why I tried to commit suicide?" She inquired, finally looking up at him.

"The other reason? There was more than one?"

"Hai. There was one other reason." She said quietly.

"What is it? Did something happen to you?"

"That is part of it." She replied, looking away again. He saw this action of nervousness and moved closer to her.

"Please, don't be afraid to tell me. I'm your friend, remember? You can tell me anything, I promise." He said to her,
reassuringly.

She nodded and then continued. "When I waz younger, my father used to abuse moi both mentally and physically. I waz too scared to tell anyone and didn't want to ruin my mother's so-called 'happy marriage', so I kept quiet. One day, during school, a boy that I knew tried to make me smoke. Of course, moi would never do such a thing, so I told him no, but he wouldn't listen. Pretty soon, he pushed moi up against the wall and told me that he would kill me if I didn't smoke, so I kicked him. And I kept kicking and kicking and kicking and kicking until a teacher broke us up. The principal called my father to tell him about what I had done and to aware him that I would have a one-day suspension,"

"When I came home, he waz waiting there for moi. I knew that he waz furious, but I tried to smile; though it took a lot of effort to do so. He told me to go wait in his room because he wanted to talk to moi. I did as I waz told and when he finally walked into the room, I noticed right away that he had no clothes on. He locked the door and used his magic to evaporate my clothing. He pushed me onto the bed, and then..." She halted at her words and began to sob. Serge wrapped his arm around her waist and let her cry onto his well-muscled chest. He rubbed
her back in a soothing motion.

"Shh, it's okay. You don't have to go on if you don't want to, I understand." He told her, doing anything to make her
pain go away.

"No, I will finish what I have started." She responded. "After he pushed moi onto the bed, he raped moi. He said that, that's what I get for being a bad, irresponsible, selfish girl. I waz powerless against him. I waz only thirteen at the time and I couldn't really use strong attack spells, so I could only lay there, crying until he waz finished,"

"For the rest of my life, until I met you, that is, I waz very timid and would never let any guys touch me. People thought that I waz some kind of freak and were constantly calling moi a witch because I practice witchcraft and someone found out and spread it around the whole school, along with dozens of rumors. It waz out of control and I couldn't take it anymore. I just wanted it all to stop. But when I came to you, you seemed to not care about moi, so I decided that my life should not survive any longer because no one wants moi. To them, I am just a witch and a freak." She concluded, new tears filling her eyes.

Serge hugged her tightly and rocked her back and forth, whispering soothing words into her ear and gently drying the tears in her eyes with his hands.

"But I want you, just the way you are. I don't care about what any other person thinks about you. I was such a jackass to not see that the real love of my life is sitting right in front of me. I'm sorry that I didn't see it any sooner." Serge confessed, hugging Harlequin close to him.

(A/n: The funny thing about this story is that Harle's life is based partially on my own. Except I wasn't raped by my dad, but he attempted to. I did try to commit suicide and I have been heartbroken countless times, but my friends
told me that I couldn't because they would be devastated if I was gone. Plus, my dream of ever becoming an anime/manga artist would never have a chance. For this, I would like to thank my friends who have always been there for me. Thank you everyone for your support. Without you, I'm afraid that I would not be here today. Well, I guess that hopeful people will review cause I only have 1 person who did so, but then again, some people may not. I am begging you people; I need your support on this story! Thank you to anyone who has reviewed and have read my story. Please review--it would make me really happy! Hope to update soon! . -Pure Evil Youkai)