Aoi starts staggering and walking towards the apartment's entrance while grasping nearby objects to prevent herself from falling. As she walks past her parents her mom grabs her wrist and tries to pull her back, but Aoi just wrenches her wrist from her grasp. The force Aoi uses is a little too strong and it causes her mother to fall into her husbands arms.
"DON'T TOUCH ME!" and she proceeds to walk out the door.
"Just let her go Okaa-san and let her calm down a little."
"NO! I'm going to follow her and make sure she gets it into her head that she needs to be normal and have a happy life with a husband and kids! I'm not letting this go any further!"
Her husband just sighs and shakes his head as he follows his wife out the door. When they get outside they see Aoi already shakily walking towards the pedestrian bridge on the river. She walks up the stairs and walks along the bridge and stops in the middle looking at the night sky reflecting off the river's surface sighing to herself how she got herself in this predicament.
Aoi's parents saw her stop in the middle of the bridge and look down. They sped up their footsteps thinking that she was going to jump. A distraught look flashed across their faces not because of the height of the bridge from the water, which was only a meter or two from the surface of the water, but because their daughter never learned how to swim.
When they reached a couple meters from where Aoi was standing she saw them in her periphery and she shouted in a hoarse voice, "Don't come any closer! Just give me some space. I just need some time to think..." She sniffled a little and a couple tears could be seen falling down her flushed cheeks.
"Just come over here Aoi-chan. We're sorry we pushed you so far. Just please don't jump." Aoi's father voiced his concerns.
"OH! So just because you found out I was gay you immediately think I'm going to kill myself?! I'm not that idiotic!"
"No! It's not like-"
"What? It's not like what?! So... you find out I'm gay. We have an argument, and now I'm standing in the middle of a bridge and you think I'm miserable enough to jump?! Let me tell you something. I love my life. Yes, it's not the best because I have parents who will have a hard time understanding my sexuality, but I still enjoy living!"
Her parents breathed a sigh of relief, but that was soon short lived because Aoi, who's still drunk, trips on her own feet and tumbles off the side of the bridge right into the river with a splash.
"AOI!" "AOI-CHAN!"
"Call emergency services Okaa-san! I'm going to jump in and get her!"
Aoi's father takes off his shoes and dives feet first into the river to look for his daughter.
Meanwhile, Aoi has already lost all hope because as soon as she hit the surface she felt a force pull her into a black abyss like a whirlpool devouring everything in its path. She feels herself pulled further and further down into the water, much farther than the actual depth of the river itself.
~~~~~~~~~~
At dawn, orders being given could be heard along the shore of the river drowning out the sounds of a lone woman sobbing and wailing about her missing daughter. A man with a towel wrapped around his shoulders was standing besides her hugging her shoulders while tears silently fell down his face.
"Where did she go? Why does this have to happen? *sniff* Please... please be alive Aoi! UWAAAAA!!!"
"Sir, madam, we regret to inform you that even though we've searched a full 20 kilometer length of the river with sonar and divers we still can't find your daughter. At this point it's best to assume for the worst." A police officer came over to inform them of the situation and prepare them for the worst.
Aoi's mother started wailing uncontrollably while hugging tightly onto her husband's shirt. Their world which revolved around their daughter just crumbled. The pain they felt was something parents should never have to feel. Her parents never imagined the scenario that started this whirlwind of events would end up with them losing their daughter.
"Thank you for the hard work officer. *hic* We're grateful for the help you've given us in trying to find our daughter. We're going to stay at her apartment here and *hic* wait to see if she'll still come back to us. I know you told us to expect for the worst, but we're going to keep our hopes up and pray for her safety. Let's go Okaa-san."
"If I knew this would've happened, *sniff* I would have considered her feelings more. I shouldn't have been so adamant on forcing her to our beliefs. I just want my baby daughter to stay alive and be happy. I didn't want this... never this." Aoi's mother starts crying loudly again after reflecting on the results of her actions and bias. "It should have been me! UWAAA-"
"No, Okaa-san, we don't know if she's gone or not. Don't be like this. They said they couldn't find her, but it doesn't mean she's gone. I think God will be looking out for her if she's still out there. Just have faith in Him to bring her back to us."
Her parents reach her apartment, and the husband tells his wife to stay at the entrance while he goes in to stop the AV running still in the background. The AV was the start of this chain of events and he doesn't want his wife to be reminded of everything that's happened in the past twelve hours and cause her to fall further into a more depressive state than she's already in.
He turns on the lights in the apartment, and reaches the bedroom and turns off the video player and television and comes back to his wife. "Come on Okaa-san, let's go in and wait for her. You still haven't slept. We'll clean up her apartment after we've gotten some rest."
They have hope, but they won't see their daughter for another ten odd years.
~~~~~~~~~~
'Is this how I'm going to die? No love... no marriage... just... this? I don't want to die God.'
She feels herself being pulled into the darkness but doesn't experience the usual suffocation one would suffer when being drowned. In all actuality, she can still breathe, but there feels like that there is a pressure pressing down onto her making it hard to breathe. It's almost like what one would experience when your heart beats too fast due to adrenaline and your blood can't supply your organs with oxygen.
Her body spins around and she can feel herself behind pulled head first into the darkness. Her eyes are open, but she can't see anything ahead. Just when she's about to lose all hope thinking she will eventually either keep falling until she starves to death or come to a sudden stop effectively ended her life at the bottom of a trench, she sees something.
A round object appears in the distance she's falling towards and it grows closer and closer until she sees what looks like the view of when you are underneath an aquarium looking up and you can see the light being refracted through the water. Gold, a bright turquoise blue, and hints of green can be seen.
All of a sudden, she is rushed right into this object and comes face first into water that's glistening in a bright morning light. It chokes her almost immediately and it nearly saps her of all her strength, but when she tries moving around she can feel loose sand underneath her bare feet. Grasping her toes into the sand and trying to push herself up the incline which she believes is the direction of the shore, she desperately tries paddling and kicking herself to her salvation.
As she reaches shore, she's crawling and coughing up what water was forced into her lungs. Aoi sits on her elbows and knees coughing and gasping for air, while she notices right in front of her a pair of feet with cute toes and toenails brightly reflecting the sun and skin that's tanned into a golden bronze color. When she looks up further, she sees toned muscular legs with skin that looks so soft that you'd suspect that they've been moisturizing for years. Her hips aren't too wide and her butt isn't overly large but it has a nice shape and size that could be easily grasped in her hands.
Further up you can see a one piece linen tunic that's a light beige color loosely hugging this girls muscular form and underneath it are breasts that give shame to her miniscule ones. They have to be the size of her favorite AV star's breasts if not a little bigger. Aoi keeps looking up and sees a cascade of shiny and wavy wheat blonde hair that reaches just above the girl's navel. When she sees this girls face, she's stunned.
She has the looks of someone with the naivety of youth just reaching the cusp of adulthood. Luscious, olive coloured, pouty lips that are spread into a grin showing her teeth that resemble the white of a pearl shining spectacularly under the sun. A small but cute angular nose with perfect proportions sits above her mouth, and above that are her eyes. Each one surrounded by a fan of eyelashes each that look like they could blow you away from the wind alone when she blinks. And her eyes are a bright emerald green that shine with a luster akin to the gem itself. Her height is at about 160 centimeters, just slightly shorter than Aoi.
Aoi is dumbfounded with how beautiful this girl looks and before she faints from the adrenaline calming down in her body, she murmurs loud enough for the girl to hear, "Kirei..." before her vision goes black and her body slumps to the ground.