Kirigiri Kyouko and her partner Makoto had fought valiantly in a war that had plagued the land they lived in for many years, and as a reward they were given a substantial amount of land by the King. However, the one thing that they wanted more than anything was a child, but they never had one of their own.

To help him accept the fact he would never be a father, Makoto would spend a lot of time in the woodland they'd been gifted by the King. One day, while he was walking through the woods, he came across a wall. On the other side of the wall, there was a garden. It was a beautiful garden, every fruit and vegetable imaginable lined up in neat rows, all perfectly pruned and tended. Makoto wished he had a garden like that, and every day, when he went on his walk, he found himself returning to the garden again and again and again, until the thought of never being able to eat from the garden drove him to such despair that he scaled the wall, and landed on the other side with a soft thump.

Makoto could have had his pick of any of the fruits and vegetables there, but the one he really wanted was the rampion; a type of lettuce. He didn't know why, but the second he landed in the garden and saw it, he was driven out of his mind with longing. He filled his pockets with rampion, and then scaled the wall and ran back home as fast as he could.

That night, he made a salad out of the rampion. His wife didn't like it very much, but Makoto loved it. He ate his entire plate, and what was left over of Kyouko's as well.

When the two of them went to sleep that night, all Makoto could think about was that rampion, and how wonderful it had tasted. He tossed and turned in his sleep, working up a sweat, until the sun rose, and Kyouko found him fevered, shivering and sweating, boiling and freezing.

"My dear," she said, "is there anything I can do for you that will make you better?"

"Yes," Makoto mumbled, his voice croaky and his throat on fire. "I need you to walk through the woods, and find the white-brick wall. On the other side of it is a beautiful garden. Climb the wall, and take some of the rampion from the garden, and then I will be well again."

Kyouko asked, "But... whose garden is it?"

"I don't know," Makoto answered, "but I need some of that rampion!"

Kyouko nodded, and kissed her husband lightly on the forehead. "I'll return soon," she promised him, as he drifted into a troubled sleep.

It took Kyouko barely any time to find the garden; it wasn't hard to follow the trail Makoto had trodden into the ground. She quickly climbed the wall, and then found the rampion. She was about to leave when she heard a terrifying cackle from behind her, and knew that this wasn't any ordinary garden; it was the garden of a witch.

"Upupupupupu~ So you're the thief that's been rummaging in my rampion, are you?" laughed the witch.

Kyouko turned slowly to meet the witch's gaze. She had cold, icy eyes and a cruel grin on her face. Her hair was long, curled and golden, separated into two bunches, and she wore a long black and white dress. Kyouko thought she was probably one of the most beautiful people she'd ever seen, but was well aware that this could just be an illusion she was trying to put on.

"Please, Miss," Kyouko began, rising from the muddy ground she was kneeling in, "allow me to explain-"

"There's nothing to explain!" the witch hissed, her golden hair turning to spears and her brows furrowing. "You're stealing from me! Give me one good reason why I shouldn't smite you down, right now!"

"My husband is very sick," Kyouko said, calmly. "He claims that the only thing that can make him feel better is your rampion."

"Oh." The witch smiled, her hair softening into even, straight locks. "Well, in that case, I suppose I can make you a deal."

Kyouko was nervous, but she asked, "What is it?"

"I'll let you have my rampion," the witch began to smile cruelly again, "but in return I want you to give me your eldest child."

"I don't have any children," Kyouko told the witch.

"You don't?" Kyouko shook her head, and the witch's eyes widened. "How despair-inducingly awful for you! Here, I'll change the deal a little!"

Reaching behind her, the witch plucked some kind of fruit from a bush and handed it to Kyouko. "We'll make a little game out of this!" she laughed, beaming. "You can have my rampion, and on the next full moon, eat this fruit. Eventually, you'll fall pregnant. Now, here's the kicker; if the child you give birth to is a girl, you can keep her. If it's a boy, he's mine!"

Kyouko nodded her head frantically. "Thank you," she bobbed in a half bow, and then turned and ran.

As she scrambled over the wall, she heard the witch scream, "And if I see you in my garden ever again, Kirigiri Kyouko, you can bet that both you and your precious Makoto will be killed!"

...

Kyouko never told Makoto about her encounter with the witch, or about how the witch knew their names, or about the fruit that would let her conceive. She just gave him the rampion and nursed him back to full health, and on the next full moon she ate the fruit, and years later, after they'd both forgotten about the witch and rampion ordeal, Kyouko fell pregnant. Instantly filled with fear as she remembered the deal with the witch, she went to the local midwife, who told her that she was sure her child would be a girl, and then sent her to an apothecary, who sold her herbs and gave her a diet that would ensure her child would be a girl.

However, she gave birth to a boy.

Makoto, who didn't know anything about Kyouko's deal, was thrilled. He named their son Hajime and thought he was the most wonderful child in the world.

He was heartbroken later that night, when the witch broke down the door to their home and took Hajime after screaming at Kyouko and cursing her for trying to hide her son from his "rightful mother". The witch's curse meant that no matter how hard they searched, they'd never find their son, and the only way they'd ever see their son again was if Hajime himself searched for them.

The witch took Hajime to her home, and he grew up into a somewhat blunt boy with a bad sense of humour. However, the witch grew increasingly more paranoid that one day someone would take him from her they way she took him away from his parents, and so built a tower deep in the woods and locked him in it. He wasn't very happy about it, but she told him that was the way it had to be for him to be safe, and he believed her.

The tower had no door, and the only way anyone could enter was by calling, "Hajime-kun, Hajime-kun, let down your hair!" This would result in Hajime allowing his long brown hair to tumble down and down and down until it reached the base of the power, and the witch would grab on to it and scale the tower (although as Hajime grew older, she would just tie his hair around her waist and get him to pull her up). However, Hinata was bored, locked in the tower alone with nothing to do, and eventually he took to learning to play the guitar. He was truly gifted with it, and the forest was often drowned in his beautiful music. The music would attract foreign animals and exotic birds, which provided very good game, and so hunting parties would often take to it, riding on their strong horses and armed with bows and arrows.

The King's daughter, Chiaki, would often be asked to lead hunting parties through the woods, but she always turned them down and went alone. This was partly because she prefered her own company, and partly because she knows of a clearing where she can hear the most beautiful music. Sometimes, she goes to the woods and sits in the clearing, letting her horse graze, and just listens to it, surrounding herself in it. Whenever her father brought up marriage, Chiaki would think that she should like to marry whoever plays that music.

One day, when Chiaki was idly laying in the clearing, something spooked her horse and it suddenly bolted. Chiaki ran after it as fast as she could, but she was very tired and not as good at running as the horse was. She soon found herself lost in an unfamiliar part of the woods, but she wasn't scared because she could still hear the music. It was faint, but it kept her feeling safe, and so she decided to follow it. Soon enough, she found herself at a tower. For a while, she just sat in the shade and listened to the music, until a long brown rope seemed to come down, carrying a tall, beautiful woman with it. The woman hummed along with the music and skipped away from the tower, and after she was gone, Chiaki looked around the tower base for a while, but no matter how hard she searched, she couldn't find a door, or any way to make the rope fall down. So she sat down in the shade again, and listened to the music until she fell asleep.

When she woke up the next day, it was to the sound of shouting. Blinking sleep from her eyes, Chiaki watched as the tall woman from before stood at the base of the tower, and yelled, "Hajime-kun, Hajime-kun, let down your hair!"

Chiaki stood back in amazement as the rope fell down once again, and the woman tied it around her waist, and was hoisted up into the tower. "Hajime-kun must be the musician who plays so beautifully," she thought, resolving to sit down and wait until the woman had left, and then climbing the tower. She'd finally meet whoever it was that filled the forest with such beautiful harmonies, melodies soft and gentle and wonderful. Chiaki could hardly hold back her excitement, and she waited eagerly for the woman to leave. When she finally did, Chiaki's heart stopped for a second, and then as soon as the woman had left the clearing, she ran to the towers base, and sure enough, when she called, "Hajime-kun, Hajime-kun, let down your hair!" the rope came down, only when Chiaki grasped it she realised it wasn't coarse like rope, it was soft and silky, like hair.

When she finally climbed through the tower window, she realised that it was soft and silky like hair because it was hair, hair that belonged to a boy about her age, who was staring at her with shocked and beautiful, but bored, olive eyes. Chiaki couldn't look away from them. She didn't want to. It made sense, she supposed, for the boy who played the world's most perfect music to have the world's most perfect eyes, and for his eyebrows to furrow and shape his face in the most perfect portrayal of confusion.

Chiaki didn't know how long they were in silence for, but finally he said, "You're not Enoshima," and she realised that his voice was just as soft and melodic as the music he played.

"Sorry," she said in reply. "I'm very sorry. I'm Princess Chiaki. I've been waiting a very long time to meet you."

The boy still looked confused. "Why?"

She blinked a few times. "Because you play the most beautiful music in the world."

"Oh, I do?"

"Yes."

The boy paused for a minute, before gesturing to a chair. "I'll play some for you now, if you want."

Chiaki could barely hold in her excitement. "Oh! Please!"

And so he did, and after he played he sat there idly strumming and Chiaki learnt that his name was Hajime and that he'd lived there his whole life and doesn't really care about the outside world and he'd never met anyone other than Enoshima, the woman who looked after him, and as she listened to his words Chiaki found herself more and more determined to come back, so when she finally did leave she kissed his cheek gently and promised to come back tomorrow, and she did come back. She came back again and again and again and everytime she did she felt herself fall a little bit more in love with Hajime, and she taught him to play her favourite games and he taught her how to play the guitar, though she could never play it as well as he could, and she told him about outside and they talked about far away lands, about oceans and deserts and places neither of them had seen, and on cold or rainy nights they'd lose themselves in each other, making plans to leave this tower and this kingdom and see everything there is to be seen and live everything that life has for them to live and get married and get as far away from here, where Chiaki was imprisoned in responsibility and Hajime was imprisoned in his tower, and slowly, that bored, lifeless spark that lingered in those beautiful olive eyes started to soften, and it made Chiaki the happiest person in the world.

However, she wasn't the only person to see how alive Hajime looked.

When Enoshima noticed, she realised something must have been going on, and she was furious. She grabbed Hajime by his hair and sheared it off before throwing him from the tower. Scared and lost in a world he'd only ever talked about, he tried to find the city Chiaki had almost talked about, but while he was looking for her, she was riding through the forest to find him, and when she found the tower, and she called, "Hajime-kun, Hajime-kun, let down your hair!" like she always did, his hair did tumble down, and it was only once she reached the top of the tower she realised his hair no longer belonged to him.

Enoshima flung herself at Chiaki, screaming, and she bit and she tore and she claw and she scratched, until Chiaki fell backwards through the window, landing in a thorn bush, her skin lacerated, gash, grazed and mutilated, and she struggled out of the bush, running, blinded by her wounds.

She could have wandered through the woods, blind and bleeding, for years, but fortunately, and old man found her and took her into his home, where he treated her wounds. He and his wife let her stay with them, and promised she could stay for as long as she wanted, and Chiaki thanked them.

On warm days, the woman would help her find her clearing, and she'd sit in the shade with her while Chiaki hummed the melodies Hajime used to play that would fill it, until, one day, she hummed and heard it played back to her on an old guitar.

"Can you hear that?" she asked the woman.

"Hear what?" the woman replied.

"The guitar," Chiaki said, getting to her feet, shaking slightly.

"I can't hear a guitar," the woman insisted.

"Is there someone else here?" Chiaki called, both to the woman and to whoever was playing.

"No," the woman said, but another voice, a familiar voice, a voice Chiaki had been desperate to hear for an eternity, said, "I'm here," and she let out a relieved laugh and held open her arms and Hajime embraced her, his touch warm and welcoming, his kisses soft and plentiful. Chiaki felt herself crying, and she felt his tears drip down onto her faces, and as they fell on her eyes they healed her blindness, and not only could she see again but she could see him again, she could see her Hajime again, and she was the happiest anyone could ever be, and Hajime smiled like she'd never seen him smile, and later, when she introduced him to the couple who had been taking care of her, they smiled and they cried and they held him too, because he was their son and he'd been gone for years and Hajime had never felt so wanted.

That night, Chiaki and Hajime sat outside his parents' house, and they looked up at the moon and realised that they could do all the things they talked about in the tower, and see all the things they wanted to see, and go everywhere they wanted to go, but as they held each other, and they kissed softly, and they whispered sweet nothings in between their gentle caresses, they realised for the first time that there was nowhere they would rather be than right there.

author's note: sorry ive been gone for a while things have been crazy and im busy revising for my mocks in feb but im going to finish this as soon as i can. i tried to write this chapter like a children's book and it was really hard so sorry its not great. originally this was going to be little blue riding hood, with kamakura as the big bad wolf and komaeda as the grandpa, but when i was reading through kamakura's wiki i knew i had to do rapunzel and im not sorry. however literally the day after i saw frozen i was like frick i could have done frozen because nanami and kirigiri as anna and else is perfect and then you have hinata as the kristof dude and komaeda as the weird talking snowman that makes everyone feel uncomfortable so maybe just maybe if im still into danganronpa next chirstmas ill write that. i also really want to work on my hunger games au but i havent had time to re-read the book yet so im a little eh about it rn.

anyway thanks for reading and waiting it means a lot to me and i hope to see you all soon!