The smell of incense is very delicate. The wind carries it far; far away...it's the same wind that blows today restless in the back yard of a Japanese house in Tokyo, where the burial of a young American boy took place. Four people showed up: his parents, a young, beautiful, teenage Japanese girl and one very old man who was wearing a Buddhist monk costume.
No one said anything. After a couple of moments of collecting ones taught, they all left except for the girl. She got down in front of the shrine and started crying. Not far a mysterious young girl dressed like a miko was watching everything from behind an old oak tree. She looked at the girl once more and than disappeared.
Inside the house, the boys parents were packing they're luggage and were ready to go
when the mysterious miko girl was stopped by the boys father, who had a note-book in his hands.
"Cho."
"kono tabi wa goshuushoosama desu.(My regrets.)"
"Cho,take this and give it to Suzuran...Gavin wanted her to have it,can you be so kind to give it to her?"
"Hm."
She glares at the man, than she takes the note book and rushes out side.
"Thank you verry much…"
The man said but he was sure she didn’t listen to him.
The girl turns her back, looks inside the note-book that was filled with drawings of the boy and with some photos of her older sister and the American boy.
„Junk. "
She said and than ran off with it to the altar and started to cast a spell.
“Honoo-rei-no-sou-no-mannen!” the said and than flames destroyed the note-book.
The teen-age girl was still seating next to the tombstone and she sniffed the smell of something burning. It was from the altar. She rushed to see what was going on and she spotted her youngest sister Cho burning Gavin’s belongings.
“Cho, stop!” Suzuran screamed but it was too late.
“Suzuran? W-What…“
“H-How could you? Why did you do this?”
She couldn’t stop asking her sister with tears in her eyes. Cho answer nothing to her sister.
“Look at me dammit! I’m talking to you!”
She grabs her sister’s hand and ads:
“Why don’t you just admit your mistake?”
“Sister…”
Cho turns back to her sister and stares at her, but Suzuran pulled back her hand and said with anger in her voice:
“Just get away from me! I don’t want to you to talk to me ever again, do you understand me?” Suzuran than turns her back and leaves the altar.
“I-I am sorry…”
Said Cho but she suddenly changed her attitude after she looked at the ash left of Gavin’s note-book.
“No. It’s better this way…”
Twenty years have passed. In central Tokyo, in our days, there is a big, beautiful 300 year old Japanese house. Before it was used as a house hold, it used to be an altar, and there still is proof of it in the back-yard, where remains of a shire still exist.
The garden is most beautiful, but the flowers in it ran wild, since no one laid foot there for 10 years. But this is going to change, because this morning the new land owners just moved: a beautiful Asian woman and a short teen-age girl.
The woman has long, straight, black hair that she wears in plaits. Her face is round, her eyelashes long, and she has some big dark brown eyes. She's wearing a long black skirt and a green sweater. Her name is Suzuran Hanamoto.
The girl looks about 12 years old, but she's actually going to be 15 in august. Her name is Yuri Hanamoto, but she doesn't like to be called like that. Most people call her Raven. She has black short messy hair, big golden eyes and she's wearing a Black Fishnet Crop-Top and Gloves and her Black Buckled-Leg Trousers & Platform Boots.
Raven looked a bit sorrow about moving and she kept asking questions to her mother while unpacking:
"Mother, why do we have to move here? I don’t like Tokyo. You know that I hate big cities."
"No really…"
"Yes."
"I'm sorry Yuri, but I finally found myself a new job here, and I hope you do realize that this is a big thing for us." Replied her mother calmly.
„I understand, but why do you keep calling me Yuri?” Asked Raven
„Am I not supposed to? It’s a very nice name. You’re grandmother picked it for you.”
„Bleah, I don’t like it!”
„If you say so Yuri-chan...”
„Hey!”
„He he.” Suzuran smiled.
„Mom...why can’t you ever take what I say seriously?”
„Don’t worry my child, after you move out of my house you can change your name in anything you’ll like, but until than, you’re Yuri-chan.”
„Yare yare...The house is big isn’t it? Why is it so big anyway? I mean, there were only two children in your family, right?”
“For one family yes, but for two…”
“Two? What do you mean by that?”
“You see, a period there were two families that lived here: my family and a family of Americans.”
„Really? You never told me that. How were they like?”
„Very nice people, they’re family name was Jones.Although,at first it was hard for them to cope living here,they learned the japanese language and our traditions. Wait, come with me, Yuri. I want to show you something.”
Suzuran grabs her daughters hand and takes her upstairs.
They stop in front of a door and just when Suzuran was about to open it, Raven asks:
“What is it?”
“You’ll find out soon. Look for a green note book.”
“Why?”
“Well, it has a lot of photos from when I was your age and…”
Suzuran stops and than burst into tears. Raven rushes to her mother and asks:
“Mother, are you all right?”
“I remembered that I don’t have it anymore...”
“What? Never mind that. It was just a pile of junk.”
“It wasn't junk, Yuri!”
“Than what was it?”
“Those were my memories.”
"Uhm...sorry...What's that?"
"What? Where? "
“Over there.”
Raven points at a wooden table and fetches a photo from the floor.
“It’s a photo.” She says.
"What? Let me see it.”
Suzuran took the photo and smiled: “It’s them.” She said.
“And...That’s you right?" Asked Raven, pointing to a beautiful teen age girl, that looked a lot like her mother, just with very long hair.”
“Yes, that’s me."
“And this is aunt Cho, right? She looks so much like me! But, why is she wearing a miko suit?"
"Well, after our parents died me and Cho lived here, with our uncle, who was a priest.And, we had to be mikos or altar child according to the tradition. Cho was still an altar child when we took this photo, she was just 12 years old."
"That means you were a miko, right? You were 3 years older than aunt Cho."
"Yes...but I never liked that...Cho on the other hand seemed to enjoy it."
"I see...Who's the guy next to you?"
"He is...I mean was Gavin, we were class mates and very close friends. But he died when he was 16."
"Hm.”
"Tomorrow it's going to be 20 years since he died..."
Suzuran starts crying so Raven rushes to her mother to calm her down.
“Mother, don’t cry.”
“I'm sorry, you're right...but it's just too much for me. Maybe it would be better if we would just finish unpacking.” And she gets out of the room.
Raven wanted to stop Suzuran. But she didn’t.
She figured out that the boy’s death must be the reason why her mother was behaving this way.
She looked at the photo once more and thought: “They must have been very close.” After that she went downstairs to help her mother.
P.S. You don't get anything. ^^' Thanks for reading my story anyway! Pls don't get mad
