Warnings: Smut.

Seven months had passed since Mei started dating Hitomi. The young man was due to graduate and would probably return to his homeland. For the first time in her dating life, Mei wasn't sure she was ready to let go. Especially when she could move to Japan with her boyfriend. She still remembers her college sweetheart she dated for two years. Her first long-term relationship and subsequent heartbreak. Looking back, she hadn't been serious at all. She was simply enjoying herself and indulging with someone she liked. Falling in love the first time was so easy and sweet. But the feeling of just enjoying what they had going on hadn't been reciprocated. The relationship turned sour once her loverboy realised she didn't want to take it to the next step.

This time, whatever was going on could keep unfolding, provided she just followed her current loverboy. That idea sounded crazed once voiced to her Mother over a phone call. Was she going to leave everything and cross the seas for a man sixteen years her junior? Was it despair? She surely didn't feel pressured to keep the relationship. She wasn't even sure they would marry. Yet, she didn't want to stop indulging with Hitomi. She didn't want to spend her weekends and some evenings alone anymore. She didn't want to enjoy restaurants and the opera alone. Was she just lonely? Was it the reason she was thinking about following the young man around?

Mei had been going in circles for days. The idea of losing Hitomi was making her sick. Her will to turn around her whole life for him and leave her parents was madenning. The bedside clock read four pm while she was bundled under her bedsheets. The curtains had been drawn in her apartment for two days already. After experiencing a panic attack on the teaching job she started less than one year ago, Mei had been on sick leave for three days. ***

Mei's phone had been turned off for three days. She was running away, virtually. She was hiding under her cover, waiting for the storm inside to pass. Her bells had been ringing multiple times in the evenings. She didn't answer. She was exhausted. She had exhausted her tears and thoughts.

Mei's apartment door burst open, sending her into yet another panic attack. Firefighters invaded her bedroom as she was short-breathed on her bed. The two paramedics approached her.

"Can you hear us?" Asked one of them, crouching down next to her.

Mei nodded her head, wide-open eyes filled with panic while staring into the paramedic's eye.

"Can you follow my instructions?" The paramedic kept going. "Inhale… Exhale… Inhale… Exhale… Follow me. Just like that. You are doing good. Keep breathing slowly. Inhale… Exhale."

Once she calmed down, tears started rolling down her face.

"Your boyfriend called the emergency line since you weren't responding to anything and experienced a panic attack three days ago. Although you seem to be alright, you might want to get medical advice if your panic attacks keep happening."

With these last words, the paramedic stood up and the crowd exited the apartment, leaving Mei in a head-to-head with Hitomi.

"Seems like it was more fear than harm." Said the man, attempting to smile from the bedroom door. Fear. Mei was scared. But not of the panic attacks.

"Do you want something to drink? I can make you something." Asked him.

"Flavoured water." Answered Mei with a hoarse voice. She hadn't used it in well over two days.

Hitomi turned around and walked into the kitchen area to retrieve the desired beverage from the fridge and a glass from an upper cabinet. He didn't have to return into the bedroom since Mei was emerging in the living room. She had never been that dishevelled. Her undone tresses were hanging around her form. She sat on a chair by the island countertop that served as a dining table.

"Do you want something to eat? I can order for you. The restaurant you like must already be taking orders at this time." Hitomi enquired while sitting on the chair next to her.

They were almost sitting shoulder to shoulder. He tentatively brushed her hair to the other side. Mei took the gesture as her cue to lean on his shoulder. They sat in silence for a few minutes. Mei's silent tears were staining Hitomi's shirt.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Asked him while wiping her cheeks with the palm of his free hand, the other warped around her.

"I don't want to break up." Came Mei's murmured answer.

"What do you want?" He asked further.

"I…" She couldn't answer. She couldn't ask him to stay. His parents were waiting for him to join the family software company. And he was still young. Freshly graduated, with all his life ahead of him and so much to experiment.

"You can take your time."

"I can't." Mei straightened her posture. "You would have already left by the time I can decide what I want."

"Whatever happens will probably be for the best. If you can't decide, maybe you should let things happen on their own."

They were looking into each other's eyes. Mei's alarmed eyes into Hitomi's resigned ones. Now that she was looking, she could see the fatigue pulling on his eyelids. He had been thinking as well. And it seems he couldn't decide as well.

"Can you stay tonight?" Asked Mei.

"Of course." Answered Hitomi.

They could think tomorrow. Or never.

Movements on her side woke Mei up. Hitomi was getting out of the bed.

"Good morning. It's my bad for waking you up. I thought I could make a quick trip to the bakery nearby, for breakfast."

A quick to the bakery. He did that the morning following the first night she spent at his place. Their very first night together. Seven months ago during a cold December night. They were playing board games when Hitomi made a joke about how he was living a high school fantasy of "having an alluring teacher at their place". The joke fell flat and they resumed the game.

"Are you well awake?" Asked Hitomi after kissing her forehead. "You can sleep in. I will wake you up at ten if you are still asleep."

"I would rather come with you. Let me use the shower first?"

"Okay. I will open the curtains and clean around, then."

Mei got out of bed and walked into the bathroom, passing the kitchenette where their baguettes were lying in the sink. After agreeing to postpone the talk, Hitomi ordered dumplings and sushis while Mei was taking her shower. After their early dinner and Hitomi's shower, they decided to switch the television to a popular musical channel. They wanted some background noise that would prevent them from thinking. The time flew by and their emotional fatigue caught them at ten pm, when they decided to go to bed. The short walk from the sofa to the bed seemed to have taken away their tiredness, as the both of them couldn't sleep. Spooning, Hitomi had been tracing circles on Mei's abdomen while breathing in her hair lotion's perfume. The pressure of their repressed feelings inflated their desire for each other. While Hitomi was rummaging through the bedside for protection, Mei had an idea. A flip-a-coin idea. They would let fate decide the course of their relationship on that very night. Decide whether or not their union will bear fruits. It was crazed. But they were equally crazy in love, if not more. So, they loved one another, burning more than they ever did. Singing their favourite melodies with every breath and maneuvring their favourite dances with everything they had, the taste of the other constantly on their tongues.

In the end, fate decided to keep the lovebirds together.

This is the end of the prologue and Hitoshi's Great Grandmother. I didn't think it would be this long. I planned to have 3 chapters for this part. The ending feels rushed. Also, I was debating whether or not I should make it longer with the Grandmother and the Mother's story. But it wouldn't be a prologue anymore (technically, it would still be a prologue since their stories would precede Hitohsi's). Also, I grew too eager to start the story I originally wanted to tell before this prologue popped into my mind.

Therefore, I will publish the main story in the near future and will either:

- attempt to cram in the Grandmother and the Mother's stories,

- make another fiction in the series for them. Since their stories are gloomy and graphic, I don't want to write them in detail. The fiction might be a one-shot interlude.

I hope you enjoyed reading my first fanfiction ever.