Prologue

Third Person / Namine POV.

It was so unfair ...

Namine sighed and leaned her head against the cool window pane while she listened to the noise of the train moving. Blinking, she slowly opened her bright blue eyes and looked at the gray, heavy clouds, which obscured the sun and the blue sky in a threatening manner.

With the corners of her mouth pulled down, she shifted her weight for what felt like the fiftieth time, cursing inwardly how uncomfortable the seat she had taken a few hours ago had become. Tense, she ran her fingers through her long dark hair while she glanced outside again. The young woman was not able to spot any animals in the fields and in the woods through which her train passed. Judging by the gray gloomy atmosphere, Namine was pretty sure that it would rain soon, if not storm, and maybe this was the reason why she couldn't spot any of them. Surely they have all already looked for a shelter or hid in their nests and caves. After all, she had once heard that many living beings could smell a storm in the air and then, guided by their instinct, hide themselves away.

If she was being honest with herself at that moment, her own instincts screamed at her as well, to run away and find shelter. Only to crawl out of her hiding spot when this nightmare was once and for all over. Outwardly, however, she tried not to show any signs of her restlessness and to remain seated until the announcement of her stop was finally called out.

Basically, it worked quite well, apart from the fact that she had been tearing one brochure after the other to shreds for some time. Very slowly, one snippet after the other, she had removed from the colored paper and now a huge pile lay on the small travel table that was attached to the wall of her compartment.

She was alone in her small cabin. Happy to have some more time to herself until she had to face the seriousness of her situation with open eyes. Namine had never been a person who tended to hide or run away just because she was afraid of an unpleasant situation in her life, but she also needed a certain amount of time before she was ready to face them. This time she just didn't felt ready at all.

But, she really wasn't a coward by all means and she wasn't going to start becoming one now. So, no matter if she wanted it or not, she would face the unpleasant situation silently and fight for her peace of mind and pride.

Frustrated, the young woman sighed again and turned her attention to the folder, which was surrounded by the countless, mainly turquoise and white snippets of various school and city brochures resting on the small table. Some time ago she had released the loose pieces of paper from their clinging clip so that she could study them one after the other. They described the place and the person who would await her at the end of her several-hour trip. At the top of the little pile was a single picture of a younger version of the young man she would meet in person in her not so distant future.

With warm, chocolate brown eyes he looked at the camera with a cheeky grin on his lips, while he held a volleyball in one of his arms. His other free hand formed a piece symbol with his long fingers over his pretty head. She really had to admit, that the young man looked very handsome. His full, brown hair falling to the side was slightly messed up, sticking out at its ends giving him a casual aura, while the mischievous smile on his full lips made him look very charming. In addition, the white volleyball jersey looked outrageously good on him. It was a clear indication of how sporty he was. But she wasn't surprised that he was quite the athlete. After all, it was one of the few details listed in the information about him. He was captain of the team at his school, which she would attend as well for the coming year from the week after next. He looked like someone who would be popular. Sporty, intelligent, handsome. The girls in his school probably fell for him like moths to a flame. Who knows, maybe he even had a steady girlfriend, which would actually be extremely uncomfortable. Not that she actually cared if he was taken, but for their... situation it would be... unfavorable.

Be that as it may, looking good wasn't everything. Namine knew what she was talking about, after all there were more than enough examples in Tokyo that showed her exactly that a handsome face doesn't mean a likable character. No matter how beautiful a person was on the outside, that did not mean that they also had to be pretty on the inside. But well, as the captain of his school's volleyball team, he must be a good team player, right? So maybe they are going to get along well enough.

But, no matter how she turned it around in the end, her stomach crumpled every time she lost a single thought about the fact that this train would bring her to him, a complete stranger. Stitches made her heart feel painful when she thought about leaving her friends and family behind. The memory of how they had held her heart breakingly in their arms at the train station, before they had taken one last souvenir photo, made her tears well up into her glassy blue eyes.

Sniffing, Namine reached into her well-kept bag and took out her beloved, bulky camera to look at the photograph again. The exposure was horrible and the angle wasn't the most beautiful either, but the beaming faces of her two best friends, who had both taken her delicate frame in their midst, conjured a small, tender smile on her lips. Taking a deep breath, she clicked through the small gallery before she decided to switch to the photography mode. The young woman wiped her tears from the corner of her eyes, before she stood up briefly to focus on the table on the loose pile of papers and snippets. With a trembling lower lip, she took the camera from her field of vision again in order to drape the documents artfully, to create an aesthetically pleasing view. She distributed the snippets she had torn from the brochure of her new school over the documents and the photo of the young man. Once again she reached out to shift the picture in the center of the artfully draped papers. Sniffing again, she raised her camera in front of her eye and tried several angles before finally pulling the trigger a few times.

Why did her parents have to push her into such a situation? Of course she knew that they wanted only the best for Namine in their own way, but how did they get the idea that they knew better what was good for her than she did. After all, she really wasn't a little child anymore.

Why did her grandparents have to commit to something like this before she was even born and why were her parents so eager to give this stupid agreement a chance. After all, they all lived in the 21st century. Those agreements were so outdated.

The words of her mother still echoed in her ears, how she had tried countless times to persuade her to cooperate. Thinking about their several discussions, the young woman began to play with the light regulator of her camera to compensate for the poor train light, before taking several more pictures. Namine had struggled against their wishes for so long, but eventually she had become weak after getting a tempting offer.

"If you give it a chance for a year, we will support your dream of studying photography."

That was what had changed her mind! Her parents had always been against her wanting to turn her passion into her profession. Artists had little chance of becoming successful enough to finance a certain standard of living, and even if Namine didn't care, her parents normally wouldn't have allowed it. It was all the more shocking that they had be endesperate enough to make such an offer. It was probably the pressure from her grandparents that made them make such a decision.

In the end she had giving in to her family's wishes.

Well, what did she have to lose after all? She would give a year in an unknown city, with an equal unknown person, for a future in which she could live out her passion, as much as her heart desires. That was a deal she was ready to make if it meant that afterwards she would have a whole life that she could determine herself. She planed to make the most of her situation, to concentrate on graduating from her new school in order to create the best possible conditions for her future goals.

She would walk up to the person in the photo, to reach out to him, hoping that they would be able to get along with each other.

If she did develop feelings for him, she could still figure out how to deal with them afterwards. She wasn't afraid of falling in love. Those things happened. It wasn't on her to-do list, but there are some things that can't be planned. The only thing that made her feel a bit more queasy was the thought that she might be the only person who could fall in love in the end, but she really didn't want to think about that. For now she just decided to follow her plan as she had imagined it. All she wanted to focus on right now was her future and to mentally prepare herself for the fact that she was going to meet him soon.

Oikawa, Tooru.

Her fiancé on trial.