"Winds of Hope".
An X ficlet by Maria.

Characters: The Monou family, Kamui Shirou, Tohru Shidou.
Summary: Kotori wonders if the wind will bring Kamui back... Spoilers for Kotori, Fuuma and Kamui's common backstory.


The winds would always remind Kotori of something. Whenever it came as a breeze, it would mess with her hair and she's think it was time to cut it shorter - and repent in the way to the hairstylist. Whenever it was unusually warm, she'd wonder if it would rain. If it brought fallen leaves, she wous know it was time to sweep the yartd. If it broguut a sweet smell to her nose, she would get hungry and decide to cook something tasty...

And whenever the wind brought flower petals, she would be reminded of Kamui-chan.

Kotori could remember the boy clearly, even after so many years. He was quiet and cute, so much that she'd ocasionally giggle and imagine him as a girl. He and his mother, Tohru-san, used to visit the Tokagushi shrine often, since she and Kotori's mother were long-time friends. Both women would sit down and talk with Kotori's father, Kyougo, about so many things that Kotori herself couldn't understand back then (because of inexperience, early age, so many factors..), while Kamui himself played with Kotori and her older brother Fuuma. Hide-and-seek, word games, dad and mom or doctor, climbing to trees (even when it meant that Kotori would get stuck up there and the guys had to get her down)... they did so many happy things together.

But soon, it was over. After Saya Monou died, Kamui-chan and his mother were gone. They disappeared without a trace; Fuuma tried to find them to no avail, Kotori asked her father many times if he knew the truth and never got a real answer... When she needed Kamui-chan the most, he was gone, and even years after he left... Kotori still wished he was there in those bitter days, holding her, telling her it'd be all right, trying to lie while saying that the woman she once saw dismembered and lying in a pol of her own blood wasn't her mother...

However, Kamui wasn't there. But Kotori herself held no grudges. There was no use for anger and spite, she thought, and both he and Tohru-san most likely had very good reasons to be far, far away.

Now, Kotori Monou is a 16 years old highschool student. She does well in school except in PE clas (the problems that her heart condition brought her...), helps her father and brother in the shrine, and tries to live her life at the fullest. But there's one single thing she keeps to herself, well hidden under her mask of Perfect Japnese Young Girl...

The winds blowing in her dream world have told her that, soner or later, Kamui-chan will come back to her.