January 2, 2012: The second day of my celebration of Ren's birthday is here. 8D I made him cake and sang to him and put it on Tumblr 8D
He'd better love it~
But anyway, you guys! D: I have to take the moment to complain here. Only one review last chapter. One! D: It's been a while since I've gotten reviews, and I have to say that it doesn't help my inspiration much... *milks the sad act for as long as possible*
So, yeah. Here we are with the second chapter! Tomorrow's chapter is the last one, unfortunately. Hope you enjoy~!
Chapter Two
Part One
~Three Years...and One Week Ago~
The two of them sat on the small bank that overlooked the river; they were hiding underneath the bridge. She was blushing heatedly as he nuzzled and kissed her neck.
"D-Daisuke," she insisted, somehow both incredibly happy and also uncomfortable. "C-can we stop? Someone might see us..."
He quieted her with a passionate kiss on the lips. "Don't worry about it," he told her when he finally pulled his face away from hers, just enough to give them both room to breathe. His hand, which was at the small of her waist, slowly began to move downward.
She grabbed his wrist before he could make that big a move. "Daisuke," she repeated, nervousness entering her voice. She knew exactly what he wanted, but she had never given it to anyone before, or even anything that was relatively related to her...area. Her sister had already gone that far with Yuichi, but she herself...she couldn't give that much of herself…
Daisuke let out a breath, and she knew he was exasperated with her. "Come on," he said, pulling her even closer to him. "You'll like it."
She flushed. "I-I know," she stammered. "I-I just-" She broke off when he put his hand on her jaw and ran his fingers through her long, dark hair.
"But I love you," he told her.
She had never heard those words from him before, and her entire body seemed to tingle with happiness. She had never heard those words from anyone in the sort of way he had said it. Her heart thumped in her chest. She opened her mouth, almost about to either say "yes" or "I love you too," but she hesitated, finding herself just short of willing to say those things.
Lately, she had found herself unwilling to say a lot of things to anyone, but that was beside the point.
He waited for a small amount of time before he sighed again and said, "You know what? We'll do this in a week. My parents are out of town then. And you," he continued, pulling a strand of her hair toward his face, "can wear...a kimono."
She balked. "But...I am Chinese," she said dumbly.
He leaned in towards her ear. "Exactly. But you would look prettier in it than anyone."
She turned her thoughts over in her head before she finally nodded, in such a manner as if she were a small child.
()()()()()
~Present Day~
When morning came around and Ren finally began to be pulled out of his slumber, he had the out-of-character thought to just stay there in his bed, at least for a little while. He didn't want to remember the things that had made him irritable yesterday.
He had almost drifted back to sleep when he realized that the aura of the room was off.
Instantly awake and in battle mode, he sat straight up, his body coming into contact with the cool air outside of his bed sheets. He began to grope underneath his pillow for where he had stashed his sword, but he stopped in surprise when he saw the reason for his rude awakening.
He looked to Bason, who had popped into sight beside him. "Why didn't you wake me up when she came?" he snapped, still running off adrenaline.
Bason sweat-dropped. "You told me not to wake you up..."
The glare Bason received could have rivaled even a certain itako's worst looks.
"What are you doing here, Ming Yue?" Ren asked irritably, pushing his bed-hair out of his eyes.
It was a second before he noticed that her semi-transparent face was a shade of red, and it took him another second that he was sitting up in bed, wearing nothing but his boxers. And then it was his turn to flush.
"C-can you get out of here while I change?" he demanded, slightly flustered.
Ming Yue nodded hurriedly before moving through the window.
Ren sat for a moment before swinging his feet out of the bed and standing up, heading over to the dresser. He put on his clothes—pants and a shirt—before he finally paused and let out a breath. "How long was she there for?"
"About an hour, Bocchama," Bason admitted. "But I wasn't going to let her do anything!" he added hurriedly.
Ren, exasperated, went to the bathroom and came out a few minutes later. He stood uncertainly in the middle of the room for a moment. "Ming Yue?" he said, feeling extremely stupid when there wasn't any sort of reply.
"I think...she might be outside," Bason said, motioning his small spirit-ball form toward the window.
Ren grumbled to himself as he slid open the window—despite this being the penthouse suite, the window was a tad hard to open, almost as if no one had ever had a reason to open it before and so it was therefore sticky. He stuck his head out the window—he had no qualms about the height, especially after being dropped out of the sky by the Patch—and looked around. He realized pretty quickly that it was drizzling lightly. "Ming Yue?"
It was only a couple of seconds later that she materialized a few feet in front of him. "...Good morning...Lian," she greeted with a small nod. Ren thought that she looked distracted.
Ren had a feeling that today, like yesterday, was not going to be good. He decided to push the thought aside, though. He crossed his arms. "Do you want to tell me something?" he asked meaningfully.
She fidgeted with her hands. "Can I show you some places today?" she asked.
He paused. "Can't you just tell me what the hell happened to you?" he asked impatiently.
"I will once I show you those places, I promise," she insisted. "Please?"
He huffed. "I'll think about it over breakfast," he grumbled as he slid the window shut. As he walked away from it toward his door, Ming Yue floated through the glass.
"That wasn't very nice," she pointed out, her voice having changed from hesitant to biting.
His tongari twitched. "Can't you leave me alone for five minutes?" he snapped.
He turned in time to see her open her mouth as if she was about to retort, but she closed her mouth with a tight-lipped frown and disappeared from view.
"Damn it," Ren muttered.
()()()()()
Later that morning, Ren followed Ming Yue down a suburb street. He was dressed in his black coat and yellow scarf to protect himself against the autumn chill and the rainy fog that pervaded the whole city, blocking out the sight of the taller skyscrapers with its greyish-white expanse. The tiny raindrops pricked at the skin on his face, and sometimes he had to squint to see Ming Yue if she got too far ahead of him.
"Where are we going?" he asked her for the third time that hour. She had taken him on a roundabout course through Tokyo, in which they had ended up in this small, cramped suburb.
"It's not too far from here," she insisted; to him, her voice sounded restrained, vibrating with a barely-suppressed energy. Ren noticed her controlled excitement, and to say he was suspicious was an understatement. He was always on the alert, but he had no idea what kind of threat Ming Yue could pose to him—and he rather doubted that she was able to do anything to him, as she was just a human ghost.
After a few minutes, she suddenly stopped and pointed at one of the houses. It was plain and small, a normal Japanese suburb house, and there didn't seem to be anything special about it. But the way Ming Yue stared at it, Ren had the feeling that it contained something both wonderful and...sad, something that was impossible for her to have.
"I was heading to Daisuke's house that day," she told him. "He graduated and doesn't live there anymore. I have no idea where he went."
Ren didn't know what to say. Part of him wanted to walk away, for he certainly did not want to listen to a sob-story about the man that Ming Yue had wanted but couldn't have. But on the other hand, something about her expression rooted him to the spot.
Ming Yue clutched onto the lower part of her kimono, balling her hands into fists around the fabric as she stared at the house. "I...I was wearing this because he wanted me too. For the first time, he and I were going to..." She trailed off and looked away.
Ren's face went red at her implied meaning. He looked away as well. After a moment, he looked back up to find that he couldn't see her anymore. "Ming Yue?" he called quietly, taking a few steps along the road.
"This way," she said, and he finally caught sight of her through the grey mist. Stuffing his hands further into his pockets, he walked after her and hunched his shoulders to keep his scarf around his neck. As he followed her, some of the rain from high in the sky condensed into thicker droplets and splattered onto Ren and his surroundings.
Why is she showing me this? he wondered, not for the first time.
Eventually, they emerged from the suburb and came to a flat bridge that spanned two banks and a river between them. On the other side were the blurred edges of the continuation of the community, but Ming Yue's and Ren's immediate surroundings were clear of everything but oxygen and rain.
Ming Yue pointed downward. "We were underneath this bridge when he told me he loved me. This bridge was where he first kissed me, too. And down there," she said, pointing downriver, "is the school where we went with my sister and her boyfriend. Her boyfriend worked some, too."
He could hear the longing in her voice, and he thought of Jun. "What about your sister?"
"...She studies at the university here," was all Ming Yue elaborated. She started floating across the bridge, just as the rain started to strengthen and begin to pour out of the sky.
Ren hissed in disgust at the cold and quickened his pace so that he could cross the bridge and find shelter. Even his resolute tongari was beginning to be frayed by the downpour, and he was beginning to get soaked. Before he could get too far, he slowed to a stop.
Bason materialized in his spirit ball form beside him and motioned behind them. "Bocchama..."
Ren knew—Ming Yue's aura hadn't moved. Still irked that his hair was steadily getting soaked, Ren half-turned around to see that Ming Yue had not moved an inch from her spot since the rain had started to come down hard. She floated above the pavement of the bridge, one of her hands held out in front of her as if she were holding something delicate, but that was impossible...
When Ren figured out what she was doing, he could only stare at her.
Ming Yue looked longingly at her transparent hand; the raindrops fell straight through her fingertips. "I used to hate the rain," she admitted softly; he could hardly hear her over the sound of the water splashing onto the ground. She closed her hand into a fist as if she could clutch onto the rain. "I hated getting wet."
Ren stood there, letting his bangs stick to his face; his tongari was beginning to fray even more because of the weather. There was no need for her to explain, because he understood. He had been dead before, but the Iron Maiden had revived him. Ming Yue didn't have that luxury.
Without quite consciously knowing what he was doing, Ren slowly but purposefully walked up to her. She only rose her eyes up to meet his. He extended his hand to her.
He felt slightly stupid and embarrassed, but he asked, "Do you want to feel the rain again?" His voice was slightly quieter than normal, but it was hard to hear over the rain.
Ming Yue stared at him.
Ren scowled slightly, feeling his cheeks heating. "I'm not going to be able to help you if you don't tell me what exactly it is that you want, because it seems that you want to procrastinate from finding your killer. We might as well try this."
She hesitated, and some emotion passed through her expression. "I've never..." She didn't need to verbally finish her sentence for him to know that she had never shared the body of a shaman.
Ren, already a bit irritated at himself, grew impatient. "Well? You want my help, don't you? Don't you trust me, at least?"
He didn't miss the determination that grew in her eyes. He gave her quick instructions, and resolutely, she converted into her spirit ball form and nestled into the palm of his hand. Ren hadn't handled too many spirits other than Bason and Spirit of Thunder and some of the spirits at the Tao Manor, but her aura was entirely feminine and quiet, though there was a bursting excitement about her. She seemed only barely able to contain herself. Ren himself felt nervous for once in his life; why did this seem so personal?
Swallowing his apprehension, he pushed her into his chest. The familiar sensation of breathlessness overtook him for a short second, but before the feeling faded, he felt as if he had been suddenly punched in the gut. Having been caught off-guard, he staggered backward a couple of steps and gasped for air.
"What...?" he managed to say before his vision flickered for a second.
"Bocchama!" Bason exclaimed, appearing worriedly in front of him.
Ren grit his teeth as scenes began to overtake him. For a moment, instead of standing there in the rain, he was transported back to the day when he had first come to Tokyo and met…Manta, of all people. He saw himself splitting that speeding truck in half. He saw the explosion it caused—but he himself had not been standing at that angle to it... And he was blown back by it, but that had never happened to him... Other things flashed very quickly: seeing a nametag with both Chinese and Japanese characters on it; watching someone sit in a chair and cry; watching someone walk away; and finally, searching for what felt like forever...for him.
As suddenly as the images had come, they stopped. A tense silence occurred for a moment before Ming Yue withdrew from his body. From across the span of a few feet, she, on the verge of tears, glared at him.
Ren stared at her. Utter horror had settled like a cold grip around his heart.
He had killed her.
She had brought him all through this to show him what he had truly done to her, to make him feel guilty.
It had worked.
"...Why are you telling me this now?" he managed.
"You killed me!" Ming Yue exploded. "You took everything from me!"
Ren opened his mouth to respond, but he hesitated. How could he make up for what he'd done? Ming Yue was long dead. "...I was a different person then," he said. He felt horrified with himself. How could I have killed someone without knowing I did?
She stared quietly at him before exploding into frenzy. Rage twisted the expression on her face with a mixture of pain and sadness and suffering...
"Well?" she yelled. "What are you going to do about this?"
Ren was still encased in a state of self-horror. He couldn't believe this. It was almost too much. He thought he had gotten over his past, but now it had been shoved right back into his face. "What can I do?" he asked, only barely able to hear his own voice over the rain. He repeated himself, loudly this time, and added, "You're long dead!"
She grasped her head as if she had an excruciating headache. "Feel guilty! Repent!" she screeched. She began to shake. "D-die!"
He didn't know how to reply. But luckily—or unluckily—she gave one last scream at him before disappearing. The silence that followed, which was broken only by the rain, felt too quiet.
Finally, Ren turned and began to walk the way Ming Yue had been leading him. The images she had shown him kept flashing in his mind; they were so powerful that he forgot about how even his bones could feel the chill of the rain.
He wasn't that surprised when he eventually found himself at the intersection where had split the speeding truck in half that had ended up killing Ming Yue. He looked, but all the physical damage had been erased. The bakery had obviously been renovated and bought out by whoever owned the print shop.
When he stood silent at the corner for a long while, Bason floated concernedly beside him. "Bocchama...?"
Ren shrugged and began to walk down the sidewalk. "I did what she asked. I was the killer she wanted to find. It's time to do what I want to do."
Part Two
~Three Years Ago~
The girl held her sister's bandaged, cold hand. Aside from the scars and burns and the shorn hair of the one on the bed, the conscious one remembered how much they looked alike. Long, dark hair...deep, dark violet eyes...
"How could this have happened?" she murmured, her voice hoarse from crying.
Yuichi stood beside her as she sat in the one chair. He had no idea of what to do. He didn't know if there was anything he could do.
The young woman shook her head. "Where was she going?" she whispered. She looked to the package of clothes that the nurse had put on the bedside table; it contained the kimono that the young woman's sister had been wearing.
Why was she even wearing that? the young woman wondered. Why wear a kimono when we aren't Japanese?
"Why are you here?" she asked as she squeezed her sister's hand, her voice breaking on the last syllable.
()()()()()
~Present Day~
Thankfully, it appeared that Jun and Pailong had gone out somewhere for lunch, which left Ren alone, aside for Bason, when he got back to the penthouse. When he got to his room he stripped quickly out of his soaking clothes and hurried into the shower to warm up. It took a long time for the feeling to return to his toes and the rest of his body, but when he was finally finished he turned off the water and hurried to his dresser, hardly caring to do a good job of drying himself off because he knew that there was no way to escape the rain outside anyways.
He quickly procured a set of clothes from his dresser and put them on before finding another coat—one that wasn't soaked completely through—and put it on over his clothes. Unfortunately, he didn't have another scarf to protect his neck, but he decided that that wasn't necessary. He then made sure that his sword was at his side and that he also had a collapsible Kwan Dao stowed in his jacket, and then left the hotel as quickly as he could.
()()()()()
The rain had let up to a drizzle by the time he got to the Inn. The ground everywhere was muddy and wet; there was no exception to this. As Ren approached the house, he pulled out his sword and extended it before oversouling with Bason. And then, Ren simply waited; he didn't need to call out, as he knew that his furyoku would be picked up well enough by the shamans in the house.
Sure enough, not two minutes later, the door opened and Yoh poked his head out. "Ren?" He took in the sight before him and didn't even question why Ren was battle-ready. Instead, Yoh said, "I take it you helped Ming Yue."
Ren nodded stiffly. "She found her killer." He unbuttoned his coat and pulled it off, letting it fall to the muddy ground and revealing his battle outfit. He made note of where his coat fell, lest he need his Kwan Dao at some point, which he doubted.
Yoh took a look at the rain and looked a little uncomfortable at the thought of fighting in the downpour, but nevertheless he withdrew into the house for a second to grab his katana and the antiquity. As he calmly oversouled, Anna and Manta filled the front doorway, as did Jun and Pailong, who must have come to visit again.
Ren cast aside his thoughts and immediately launched himself at Yoh. He couldn't afford to lose focus now; he had to kill Yoh in order to win, there was no other way around it.
He made to slash at Yoh, but the carefree shaman—looking at least somewhat serious, for once—parried the blow. The two fought as if they were in a sword-fight, only on a much larger scale. They ducked, parried, and blocked each other, neither truly able to gain any ground on the other. Ren grew incredibly frustrated, both with himself in this battle and himself outside this battle. Thoughts kept distracting him, and he found himself wishing, now more than ever, that Ming Yue had never come looking for him. He hated the fact that he couldn't stop thinking about that and wasn't able to focus on the current battle.
There was a sudden, brief reprieve when Ren jumped back to avoid a blow and Yoh didn't lunge at him. Instead, the lazy boy looked at him and said, "You seem a bit distracted, Ren."
That sentence itself was enough to burst the dam that Ren had put up around the anger at himself that had built up even since yesterday. In a fit of anger, he focused his furyoku into making lightning and shot the energy at Yoh.
If Yoh hadn't blocked it with his oversoul, the lightning would have probably ended up lighting up the house in flames. The lightning had been so wild and uncontrolled that Ren suddenly had no doubt that he could have killed everyone nearby in the blast.
Disgusted with himself, Ren let go of the furyoku controlling his oversoul and stored his sword back at his side before he whipped around and stalked off the property, although he remember to grab his soaking coat up off the ground. He didn't put it on, however, as it was wet. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knew he was risking catching a cold, but at the moment he could not care less.
"Lian!" Jun called after him concernedly, but he just shook his head at nothing and kept walking.
Ren came to a conclusion quickly despite his anger as he walked back to the hotel. He wasn't quite sure how, but he had to find Ming Yue again and somehow help her pass on—not just because of what he'd done to her, but also because he was a shaman...though his reasoning was mostly based on the former thought. Surely the only way to get things back to normal would be to do the right thing.
However, Ren wasn't sure of how he would be able to find Ming Yue quickly. He could ask Anna to use her itako powers to find her, but he shot down that idea immediately: Anna probably wouldn't do it, and besides, his pride wouldn't allow him to ask...especially after his complete failure just now. He supposed that he could look around the print shop or at the bridge, but something made him hesitate about doing that. The images that Ming Yue had put in his head—whether intentionally or not—kept flashing in his mind, and he had the feeling that there was more to the situation than he had originally thought.
The strongest images that had been left in his mind were of the crying person and the person walking away, but the most intriguing one to him was the sign of the nametag, the one with a person's name written on it in both Japanese and Mandarin. No matter how hard he thought about it, the sight of it was blurry in his mind...although it seemed familiar somehow. He was sure that he would be able to recognize it if he saw it, but he had no idea what it said.
Why would Ming Yue remember a nametag of all things, anyway? He was pretty sure that the tag had been mounted on a wall and not on someone's shirt... Maybe it read "Daisuke," but he got the feeling that it wasn't that...
Unable to make much headway in his thoughts, he made it back to the hotel and changed once again into dry clothes, this time into more normal clothes rather than his battle outfit. He then debated with himself on what to do next. He supposed starting at the print shop would be a good start. The sooner he started, the better, if only to keep his mind off of his earlier failure against Yoh...
The rain had finally completely tapered off by the time he'd gotten to the print shop, and more people were out and about. He figured that it must be an hour to two after lunch, and he realized that he hadn't eaten anything since breakfast. He looked around and saw a small restaurant down the street and decided to take a small detour to eat; Ming Yue didn't seem to be in the area anyways.
While he ate, he watched the people go by outside the window (and otherwise ignored the stares from the girls in the restaurant). He studied the faces, as if each living person could possibly be Ming Yue—which of course wasn't possible. He took the time to look at the surrounding buildings as well...and that was when he saw it.
The hospital, down the street at the corner on the opposite side.
Could the nametag...could it be in the hospital and have the name of a patient on it, someone Ming Yue cared about? Ren remembered her reluctance to talk about her sister...
He paid for his food and quickly exited the restaurant to make his way down the street to the crosswalk that led to the hospital. He took a moment to stare at the tall, rectangular building before he crossed the street and entered through the visitor's entrance.
Acting like he knew what he was doing, he took a look at the directory and saw that the floors available to visit were two through five. He took a second to note that the atrium he had entered into had a staircase on the right leading to the next floor, while the elevators were a little bit to his left down the hallway extending to the opposite end of the hospital. Underneath the staircase was the front desk, and across from that was the security desk.
"Bason," he whispered as he walked toward the staircase; the Chinese spirit appeared at his shoulder in his spirit ball form. "Start from the fifth floor and work your way down. Remember: it's a nametag with Chinese and Japanese characters." Obediently, Bason floated upwards.
He headed up the staircase confidently, and the security guards only seemed to glance at him—not that he cared, he could incapacitate them easily if it came to it. He continued up to the next level, where there was a cafeteria to his left and a set of doors leading to patients' rooms; there were a few people sitting in the cafeteria, but there was no one in the hallway, so he quietly slipped through the doors and walked down the new hallway.
There were definitely nametags on the walls outside the doors, and they even reminded him strongly of the image Ming Yue had implanted in his mind, but none of the names clicked for him—and none of them also had the name in Mandarin as well.
As he turned around to head back out into the main hallway and to go up to the next floor, he came face-to-face with a nurse.
"Can I help you?" she asked. She seemed to be a kind woman in her forties, with lines in her face, and her voice was polite but forever tinged with a certain sadness that must come from working in a place with so much sickness and death.
Thinking quickly, Ren spoke in Mandarin. "I'm looking for a friend."
The woman's eyebrows immediately went up. "I'm...sorry?"
"I do not speak Japanese," Ren lied slowly, taking extra care to enunciate his words. He hated resorting to this—he felt incredibly stupid to be stooping this low for something that possibly couldn't help him.
The woman frowned. "I believe we have one or two Chinese patients here. Are you looking for one of them?"
Ren took a moment to pretend to process her words and then nodded.
The woman looked rather relieved to have made a bit of headway in the whole "language-barrier" department. "I don't remember the names because of how many patients we have, even if you told me, but I do remember the rooms. I could lead you to them if you'd like. Are you family?"
Once again, Ren took a moment to nod. "Cousin." He thought for a moment before repeating the word in Japanese.
The woman nodded and led him back out of the hallway of patients' rooms and then to the elevator; she almost hit the button for the third floor before she hesitated and then pressed the fourth floor button. Ren noted this but said nothing and followed her to one of the rooms. The nametag did have Japanese and Chinese characters on it that read "Mao Tan." Ren knew at once that this was not who he was looking for. He shook his head at the nurse, and he was sure that he saw the sadness in her eyes.
"Well, then," she said, leading him back to the elevator and pressing the button for the third floor. At this point, Bason returned and whispered to him that there was a nametag on the third floor, but Ren didn't respond to him as he didn't want to arouse suspicion in the woman.
"...I hope you're not looking for Xian-san," the nurse finally said quietly a moment before the elevator door opened and she stepped out into the hallway.
Ren couldn't help but raise his eyebrows at the nurse's words; however, she hadn't been looking at him as she spoke, and she continued to lead him down the hallway. He noted that the nurse had said earlier that should couldn't remember the names of the patients, but Xian was Ming Yue's last name. So this must be Ming Yue's sister or another relative, he thought to himself, though he thought it more likely to be her sister, as they approached a door at the end of the hallway. He noticed a nametag beside the door.
It read "Xian Lian," and Ren recognized it from Ming Yue's thought and not just because "Lian" was his name as well.
He nodded to the nurse, and she dipped her head in turn. "I'll leave you be," she said. "Xian-san hasn't woken up in years...," she muttered as she turned and left.
Ren raised an eyebrow. Lian was in a coma? So that was probably why Ming Yue had thought of her, and was so secretive about her. Ren highly doubted that he would shout it to the world if Jun was ever in Lian's situation.
As he grasped the doorknob and slowly opened the door, he wondered if Ming Yue ever came by to visit her sister, and if he had a chance of seeing her if he did this.
The room was set up to that it was initially rectangular, but the bathroom just beside the door turned it into an irregular hexagon. The room was rather bare, aside from a small television in the corner and a small table beneath the far window that contained a small-but-wide vase that had only one flower in it—a white lotus. Fitting, he supposed, as "lian" did mean "lotus."
The single bed was faced toward the window, its back end toward the door. It was tucked into the space between the window and the outer wall of the bathroom. Ren could see a dark-haired, silent figure lying in it, but he couldn't see the person's face... Except...he could see the person's right arm, or rather, the lack of it below the middle of the upper arm.
Ren stood there for a moment, startled; how could that have happened? He closed the door softly behind him and walked slowly toward the bed. However, before he could take too many steps, the door was opened and a young woman's voice asked him, "What are you doing in here?"
Taken by surprise, Ren turned around and recognized the girl. "Ming Yue?"
Even as he finished saying the word, though, he realized that he was wrong—this was not Ming Yue. For one, the young woman was alive. Another fact was that, while her hair was long and she did look incredibly like Ming Yue, she was several years older than he was, and he was the same rough age Ming Yue had been when she had died. This young woman looked to be about eighteen or nineteen, perhaps twenty at the most.
She was the person who had been crying in the memory.
In response to his words, the girl stiffened, her violet eyes growing suspicious. "How do you know my name?"
Ren blinked. "Are you...Xian Ming Yue?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Yes. But who are you?"