DISCLAIMER: I do not own Yu Yu Hakusho. This story is for entertainment only.
France. Almost eight years later.
It was a vivid day. Botan was looking outside the oversized window, and she squinted. Everything seemed to shine so brightly: the sun, the sky, the flowers.
The sun had risen long before, yet she felt she wanted to take a cup of coffee. She then remembered that she have to read something. Yes, the article.
It was written in a famous magazine, featuring herself, her career for the past few years, and her recent engagement with an ambassador's son. In the article, there was a clipped picture of a woman in the arms of a dashing man, both were smiling and seemed happy.
Was she really?
A good question, that was, for she was not certain. Actually, that certain picture talked to her oddly. She could not fathom the happiness that image was trying to deliver.
For her, however beautiful and expressive the picture was, it was completely empty.
She went outside the little house— which she rented from her colleague, and was situated in a small village in Aquitaine— after being bothered by thoughts regarding about her situation.
She welcomed the soothing breeze of spring on her face. The brightness of everything pushed the idea of taking a walk. It might clear her mind.
Yet, however kind the breeze was, it could not blew the ugliness of her past which came rushing back.
After what happened, Botan left her home. She did not care which part of the world she would end up to, as long as it was very, very faraway from them, him, as possible.
She was really grateful for meeting a couple, whom she helped out of a dreadful incident, who gave her an opportunity to escape. They invited her for a free-stay in France with them, which she shamelessly accepted. Yes, it was an indecent step by her, but she was desperate then.
A month of stay in France gave her a good opportunity to escape from everything completely. She applied to work under the couple's household.
Her first job in France was serving tea. She always smiled at the memory. It was the start of her new life. From serving tea, she became the couple's model after she agreed to be painted by the missus.
The portrait of her is a complete masterpiece. Botan was thrilled when the couple decided to hang it in their shop's window in Paris. Many people desired to buy it, but the artists clearly pointed that it was not for sale. In a way, she felt she leveled with those beautiful faces that embossed billboards and known magazines, after all, Parisians loved her.
The portrait was just an ordinary painting, but what made the portrait so luring was that it eloquently shows Botan's heart. The lady on the canvas speaks directly to anyone who sees her. She seems to be trying to bare her soul.
For Botan, it scared the hell out of her. The truth was, after she figured out what her own portrait was trying to tell her and other people, she could no longer look at it.
It was the very reflection she was running away from.
She could not sleep, not because it was only ten in the evening. It was surely because of caffeine. She drank more caffeine lately than before. That was why she was sent packing by her boss for vacation in western part of the country.
Her room was dark, and the windows were opened so that the fragrant breeze could come in and lull her to sleep. Aside from caffeine, another thing that made her stare to the ceiling, wide-eyed, was her recent engagement.
The things from before came flashing back.
She became one of the fashion consultants of a recognized magazine, with the blessing of the couple after apprenticing under their wings for a couple of years. Another two years brought her to better positions, and by the seventh year she became the assistant editor, and providing services in the entertainment business. She could have worked as a print model, but she declined such kind of offer. She was too shy for that kind of challenge, she thought.
In her seventh year in France, she met Koenma. It happened in a social party, and it may be the potential of him to sweep her off her feet that brought them into an affair for months. Botan did not thought he was serious about her, until he fell into his knee in his father's party, and proposed marriage to her in front of a hundred important guests.
Can she refuse? Yes, if she was open to the idea of ruining herself. She could not disappoint the hopeful guests who were in front of them. She never thought that Koenma was a sly bastard.
The engagement worsened everything after almost eight years of peaceful solitude. It made her thoughts venture into the most forbidden part of her past. Him. Just a flash of his face in the back of her mind made her shut her eyes so tight. As if it was not enough, she sat up and shook her head in her cradling hands.
The breeze blew again from the window, only then she felt it soothed her entire being. But with its comfort, the breeze whispered something alarming.
"You should come back," was what the wind said.
Then, she could not sleep anymore.