Kawazakura Town. A small, insignificant suburb, surrounded by equally small, equally insignificant suburbs, all of which were dwarfed by the renowned cities surrounding them. Tokyo, Kyoto, Nara... amongst so many well known places with so many well known sights, of what importance was this small town, or its residents? The answer, in short, is that they were of no notability whatsoever. They were normal people living normal lives in a normal town. They were born, they grew up, they went to school, they graduated, they went to work, and started families of their own. Some found the happiness they sought in life, and others did not. But, in any case, there was nothing out of ordinary about the city of Kawazakura, save, perhaps, the countless species of Sakura trees planted around the river running through its center, which earned the town its name: River Cherry Blossom Town. No matter what the season or the weather, at least some of these many trees were always blooming, showering the city in a gentle, pinkish rain. To the inhabitants of the city, that was just another ordinary thing in their ordinary lives. And so the people of the town lived on, just a sequence of disconnected points in space that sometimes met, sometimes joined for a time, and then were separated just as surely as the cherry blossoms eventually fell from the boughs of the famed trees upon which they bloomed, their lives short, beautiful, and, most of all, perfectly ordinary.

But sometimes, even ordinary things can seem miraculous, can't they? The blooming trees were always so glorious as they were reborn time and time again, reaching for the heavens over the tranquil river of Kawazakura. No matter how sad their eventual end, they continued to bloom, day after day and year after year. Wasn't that, in and of itself, extraordinary? Mundane though it might have been, perhaps there was a cycle through which sadness eventually might be defeated by joy, and hope might one day rise from the ashes of despair. And, perhaps, old dreams long since ended might restart where they had first begun, and might, rather than falling to pieces before the eyes of their lone dreamers, struggle forward to grasp the heavens themselves, and connect two of the single points long since severed and alone.

This is not a story of magic, or of adventure. This is a story of the mundane, of the miracles that, rare as they are in daily life, make all the difference to those they connect.

This is a story of the red string known as fate, and of the two points it connected and held tightly together despite the sorrow and despair that threatened to tear them apart.

This is the story of the extraordinary dream called "hope."



The sounds of revelry were heard almost throughout the entire city. Kawazakura Town's traditional fall festival dedicated to the newly bloomed fall Sakura trees, and to viewing their petals beginning to fall over the river, was quite possibly the town's most important ceremony. Almost every denizen of the suburb - a number which was still rather considerable despite its small size - attended. Many came dressed in Yukata, some even wearing very traditional Kimonos. They gathered in the small, flat glade by the banks of Kawazakura river, and beneath the pinkish flowers and the light of the full moon, they enjoyed themselves to the fullest until a very late hour, with countless festival shops and games to attract their fancy, and the fireworks show at the end of the celebration to commemorate the new season, and the new blossoming of the flowers that, despite their only recent blooming, would soon fall away and be carried off on the gentle current of the river over which they grew.

The girl in white didn't care about that. Perched on a small outcropping at the foot of the bridge that spanned the stream - predictably enough named the same as both the river and the city - she sat clad in the school uniform of the previous term - as it was one of the few sets of clothing she had that hadn't simply been shoddily repaired when what it needed was to be replaced, due to her rather limited personal budget - an outfit which would be replaced the very next day when the fall term was to begin. The thought of it brought a sigh of helpless irritation. While she hadn't particularly enjoyed her short break from classes, it was one less bothersome thing to worry about, and she wasn't particularly looking forward to being forced into an environment whose occupants loathed her almost as much as she mistrusted them.

While she might have once numbered herself amongst the joyous and carefree masses frolicking in the fair below, that had long since changed. She would never set foot in that festival again. That much she had sworn. At the thought of it, a sort of fire gleamed for a moment within her dead green eyes, and she gazed down at the yellow ribbon in her hand with the sort of disgust generally reserved for capital criminals and abominations. But, despite the venomous glare she shot at the seemingly insignificant object, as though exorcising it of some great evil with the sheer force of her hatred, she not one moment later wound it into her hair, tying off a sort of ponytail on the left side of her long, dark tresses, around which the ribbon spiraled like a double helix.

She had been wearing her old uniform then, too, for almost exactly the same reasons. She'd looked rather out of place in the gaudily colored sailor suit, sitting alone on the rocks beneath the bridge and crying her eyes out when all the rest of the city was rejoicing just below her. But despite this, all of those coming and going from the festival had been far too preoccupied to notice her lone, small form sitting in solitude over the river, and none had heard the sound of her quiet sobs over the shouts and laughter that wafted up from below. Everyone simply ignored her problems and went on as solitary dots, leaving her alone, a single point in space unconnected to anyone else. Everyone save one person, that is.

"Hey, are you okay?"

"No," The girl muttered icily under her breath, blinking away the memory as she rose to her feet, dusting herself off as though contaminated, although whether it was by the spot or by the memories it held was hard to say. Reaching out idly, she soon grasped one of the falling cherry blossoms as it wafted slowly downward towards the river far below. Glancing down at it, she gave a mirthless smirk, a twisted smile that was, quite simply, not.

She had tried to smile then, too, and had failed. The tears that still flowed from her eyes were a dead giveaway that she was lying when she nodded and tried to pretend everything was okay. But despite this, the speaker had drawn closer, his face concealed by the darkness of the evening and by the droplets that blurred her vision. And, as he continued to speak, kindness in every single cadence of his voice and in each reassuring touch, she had felt her sadness evaporating like melting snow. For that instant, as he led her down the hill and into the crowded, wondrous fairy-land of the festival, she had finally managed to accomplish the feat she had sought to achieve before: she had smiled. It was as though she had been reborn, as though through the simple kind gesture of wiping away her tears and inviting her to join him in the festival, the boy had led her down the path not to the small, well-lit glade below, but onto the road to recovery from her despair.

"There is no such thing as rebirth," She said at last, gazing down at the solitary flower petal as she spoke. Whether she was talking to herself, the flower, or to the ghosts of the past that haunted her was not clear, but the utter contempt that filled her voice could not be mistaken. "There is no hope of recovery."

"Why were you crying?"

"Because I'm useless. A useless being has no place in the world. A useless being should just go and die. I... I should just go and die, b-but I can't. Dying is scary. I'm too useless to even die properly," the girl had said tearfully. To her surprise, her comforter had reached out and grasped her chin gently, turning her gaze upward from where it had focused intently on the ground below.

"Hey, don't talk like that. People can change, can't they? I'm sure that if you just believe in yourself and work hard, you could do something great. Give yourself some credit, and believe in yourself. I've only just met you, but I can already tell you're someone worth believing in."

"Humans are Humans, and can never hope to change what we are. How can you believe in a caged bird with broken wings? How is a tree that does not bloom something worth believing in?" The girl hissed. "Our fate can't be so easily escaped. We stand up, we fall down, we are crushed-" In an instant, the girl's pale hand was clenched into a fist, and the soft flower petal gave a quiet crunch as it was ground into countless tiny fragments by her frail but iron grip.

Then, she spread her hands, and flung the scattered shards of the blossom to the breeze, letting it take them and whirl them away toward the rushing water that flowed far, far below.

"And we plummet helplessly into oblivion."

"Will you promise me? To believe in me always?"

"I promise."

"Liar."

"Then... say the words with me."

"Liar...!"

"Alright. Tell me if I say anything wrong, okay, Asuka? 'The world at times can be-'"

"Liar! That promise meant nothing, was nothing. And that so-called gift... the only thing you've given me is a reminder of my curse," The black haired girl snarled, her hands clenched in fists of rage as she gazed down with a righteous vengeance at the ground where the two had stood so long ago, and at the place where they had in the same night parted, never to meet again.

"I don't just hate you, I forget you. Leave me alone, forever!"

The fireworks had begun to burst overhead, but as Asuka spun about on the ball of her foot and strode away, leaving the festival and all of its accursed memories behind, she no longer cared. And yet, made plainly visible in the flashing, multicolored light above her, was the single golden ribbon that she still wore, even as she crossed the bridge, out of the light, and into darkness....

Can one such as me possibly be "loved?"

Next Chapter...