Black Wings
By: Aisaki Sumi
Fly me away, to a far away land…where there's just you and me…and a pair of black wings…
Chapter Six
September: the start of a new school year; the beginning of another season, marking the end of the all too short summer holidays. The cool, faintly minty air slowly replaced the humid, moisture-laden ones of summer. The season of harvesting was just around the corner, quietly making its presence known through the changes of the color of the leaves, adding small puddles of auburn and flaming red dyes to their edges.
The brisk, refreshing breeze spread through the field, the years were gone almost too quickly, carrying with it faint traces of nostalgia. Sakura stood under the large cherry blossom tree that extended out its branches in a form of an umbrella, shielding her from the gentle shower of white lights.
The sun wasn't as merciless and bright as before, she noticed. The rays were much gentler, and softer: it was almost dim and sad in a way. Sakura tightened her grasp around her sketchbook and held it closer to her heart. Arts were her life, and she had carried her sketchbook wherever she went ever since her mother's death.
Nadeshiko bought her the sketchbook as a gift for her twelfth birthday and encouraged her to draw, to express her feelings—the things she couldn't translate into words—through her sketches. She loved arts. It was the only way she could be honest with herself and cast aside the delusive lies that surrounded her.
Words could be deceptive at times; people could mask their feelings and emotions and ugly intentions easily through culled speeches. But when artists paint, their mood, thoughts, emotions were all displayed on the canvas. Nothing was hidden, nothing was masked. They painted the image they saw in their mind; the beautiful reflection of their hearts.
Sakura loved painting her dreams land when she was younger. The image of that gentle slope still stood out in her mind. She remembered the day when Nadeshiko was standing on the top of the hill, suffering the wind as it whipped her loose white dress around her, tossing the long waves of ebony hair around her visage restlessly.
Like an angel, Nadeshiko ran a hand through her long hair, looking out over a field full of flowers in all shades of warm colors. The wind that was blowing against them brought the fragrance of those flowers along, something that smelled sweet and gentle, lightly drawing them closer to the field. She recalled how her mother looked on that very day, her eyes closed against the breeze, smiling faintly.
It looked like a picture out of a fairytale book.
But she no longer wished to paint that picture. It would simply bring back too many memories that were better to be left alone, untouched and forgotten—like an old, abandoned brownish photograph, fading away around the edges as time battered it. She didn't want to remember it. She wanted them to be forgotten, but she knew it was a burden she must carry on for the rest of her life.
Summer would always bring these memories back to her, and she was thankful that it was finally ending.
Staring ahead at the tall buildings surrounded by tall black metallic fences before her, she realized how long she had been absent from this small town. It was a place where she had happily grown up and then left reluctantly when her parents' divorce shattered her world.
It marked the commencement of her new journey and her new life away at Tokyo, where it involved only her and Nadeshiko.
She had thought she was starting anew and would remain in this new place; however, she had been proven wrong by fate, as she was brought back to this town where she was raised and had once been happy.
Tomoeda, a place she had left behind, the place that brought her mother and father together, but also the same place that had torn them apart. And Sakura didn't know if she should miss the place or hate it.
Deciding on neither, she let out a small sigh and waited patiently for her best friend's arrival. She had promised Tomoyo that she would wait by this cherry blossom tree so they could enter the school gates together, like they had done so many times before, like nothing had changed between them. But Sakura knew, better than anyone else, that her life was no longer the same.
She was no longer the same Sakura that left Tomoeda six years ago.
The four years she had spent in Tokyo asylum after her mother's suicide had changed her and had irretrievably altered her personality. The shock of discovering her mother's dead body, covered in blood and huddled in the bathtub, sent her to the realms of insanity. This event turned her world upside down and shattered the beautiful images painted by her innocent dreams and naïve beliefs.
During her stay at the asylum, she had become more quiet and reserved, letting herself fade into the facades and become invisible—fading until she became a part of the whiteness that embraced the vacant place that was filled with people like her—people who no longer wished to be part of this disgusting, sickeningly sinful world that indulged the ugliness, the deceiving lies and people's ill intentions.
At the age of thirteen, Sakura was forced to face the hard reality, a darkness lurking in the corners of the world that she had once thought so beautiful. Her emerald green eyes lost their childlike innocence and the brilliant glint that reflected a child's dreams. They grew colder and harder as she slowly learned the corrupted and tainted nature of the world around her.
It was then she decided that she would smile no more and would speak no more.
She learned to depend on herself instead of on the others—others who were bound to leave her behind one day and never look back. Perhaps people like her were meant to walk down the road of life alone, wandering in pure solitude, carrying the burden of guilt and an unspeakable sorrow and bitterness that only they could understand.
Even though she was back and had been treated with familiarity by Tomoyo, she knew better. She knew that they all look at her differently now. She could see the sympathetic look in their eyes or the frightened glances they cast her way. To them, she would always be that faded young girl, battered psychologically, who was labeled as insane and haunted by the memories of her mother's death.
A doctor, or rather a therapist, had taught her how to use paintings instead of words to express herself. And in that way she could take her anger or fear or anxiety out on the canvas instead of on herself. It was the only way to cure her, or so they said, since she refused to speak to any of the doctors, even her family members.
Her father had gone to the asylum to visit her quite a number of times before, but she refused to see him, or anyone else. She just wanted to be left alone, locked up in a white room where she could think through things. She remembered, on those days when she was scared, how she thought of the story Nadeshiko had told her during the happier moments of her life when she still had a family.
Those soft words always echoed in her mind. "…when the earth is tumbling; when the heavens are falling down upon the mortal realm; when the world is ending; when hopes are shattered and vanishing; when dreams are turned into nightmares; an angel with large black wings would come and bring salvation to this dying world..."
She often found herself doubting the accuracy of the prophecy. It was simply too unrealistic for her to accept. Yet a part of her believed in it, strangely enough.
She thought she had lost the ability to believe, to dream, the moment when her world shattered into thousands of small shards, and when insanity took her into its cold embrace. She was almost sure that it couldn't be true, but the meeting with him changed her mind.
Dark angels did exist. Because he was real.
It was then that the loud rumbling of the engine hauled her back into the reality. She turned in the direction of the advancing waves of noise resounding through the air. And there, she saw that familiar looking motorcycle, flaming red, glittering dazzlingly bright even under the dim sunlight.
The dark angel was right in front of her, riding on that motorcycle. She stared at him with such fascination, mesmerized by his sudden appearance. The strands of soft chestnut hair fluttered with the wind, glowing a brilliant honey tint, like golden threads of the finest silk.
She squinted her eyes a little, her mind tracing the invisible contours of his black wings. There was a grin of confidence on his face as he pulled the motorcycle up into a flying position. She remembered seeing that image on the day he took her home and saved her from the kidnappers.
At that very moment, she almost believed he could shine a light through her darkened world, and lead her back to the right path again, the trail that she had strayed away from so long ago. He could be the angel she had heard her mother speak so frequently of, the one that would bring salvation to her world.
Like a the brilliant light of the distant Northern Star, perhaps he could help her find the way back home, to her once perfect life again, filled with love and so much more.
Until then…
"Sakura-chan!" She whipped her head around, turning her attention toward the speaker: a natural reaction to the sudden call. There, she spotted the familiar smiling face of Tomoyo, someone who used to be her best friend, who stayed by her side through thick and thin, someone who promised to help her pick up the pieces of what was left in her life.
She didn't know if she could believe again.
Dipping her chin low until it touched the edge of her sketchbook, she strolled down the path which would lead her to Tomoyo. A gentle wind whirled by, caressing her cheeks as she neared the gates of her new school.
But she was soon stopped by another distant call.
"Hey sketchbook-girl!"
She turned at the nickname, not sure if it was for her. But she definitely matched the description. Green eyes peered through the waves of other advancing students, wearing the same type of uniform as her, and her vision led her back to the place where it had been a moment ago.
There, she saw a grinning Hiro and Eriol, and as well, the owner of that pair of passionate amber eyes that seemed so piercing and stared right into the broken, lost soul in this battered shell.
Those eyes belonged to her dark angel.
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