A bottle smashed beside a young Akeno.
'I wished I never had you!'
Everything was a blur, how did it come to this? It still seemed like a dream.
But no, it was reality.
In a run down wooden house on a demolishing site in the middle of nowhere, that was home.
It was Akeno's place called home.
And it was, in her opinion, the most shittiest place on earth.
A miscarriage, a death and a car accident was enough to drive her mother up the pole.
She hated
Hated
Hated it there.
How did it turn to this, what happened? Everything was like a flash of colour, a thin slash of blood, one moment it was there and the next moment it was gone.
Her life wasn't always like this, but it was like this from as early as she can remember. She had the ever so faint memory of a large apartment flat, a beautiful mother and a successful father. A small fragmented memory of a screech of tyres and a bloody body, and a broken down mother.
That mother was Kobayashi (nee. Sakamoto) Sana. A once beautiful woman, now what's left of her beauty is simply in pictures.
The small girl crawled out of her so-called living room, a few stools, an old computer and a wooden plank that she calls a "table".
A small Akeno walked outside and climbed onto the roof of her wooden shack. Catching her distorted reflection on a piece of broken glass. She certainly has inherited her mother's beauty, but it was deeply hidden by the gashes and bruises on her face. She flopped onto the barren, wooden roof.
Stars.
Shining ever so brightly from the sky above. Giving her a ray of hope in this stupid, selfish world.
It was then when something caught her eye in one of the pits below, the shape of something she saw the boys and girls from outside the demolition site often had in their hands.
A book!
She scrambled off the roof and ran to a pit of rubble, she slowly climb to the bottom and reached for the book.
It was thick! It was dry! It was in perfect condition! Maybe one of the demolishers left it there!
She flipped through the book, there was no Katakana or Hiragana that she has self taught herself, but it was written in a completely different language altogether! She held it far away from her dirty rags, not wanting to soil it.
Slowly creeping back into her house she went to her "room" and put the book in one of the holes in her wall and covered the wall up with rubble from the outside. She then went to sleep on the bare grounds, smiling to herself as she found something that can keep her company.
The next day at the crack of dawn Akeno woke up and climbed to the top of a lone tree with her book.
As the demolishers started piling in and her mother started complaining about the noise Akeno hopped on to the sheet metal wall with cat levels of balance. But one worker, who was searching for his book he left there yesterday saw Akeno with the corner of his eyes, the kind man smiled to himself, and went back to his mates.
Akeno went into the city, jumping from roof to roof trying to find a good place to read. Usually the locals in her area pay no attention to her as they go about her daily lives, in fact, it seems like as they were secretly avoiding her. But she didn't care, as long as she was able to entertain herself she was happy. But this specific day she lost her footing on a railing and fell.
Akeno felt a comfy thing underneath her, a soft thing that carved to her shape.
She opened her eyes to see a little boy and his mother.
'Hey, are you alright?' The boy asked. 'You fell from pretty high up, I'm afraid you died, but you're okay! What's your name?'
'Kobayashi Akeno.'
The boy's eyes widened. 'So you're...'
The mother shot the boy a stern look.
'Hem, hem. The name's Genji. Fujihira Genji. My mother is Fujihira Hana!'
The mother spoke up, although stern, her voice was soft and loving. 'We should get you washed up, look how dirty you are.'
Unknown at the time, but right that moment between two six year old children, strung up a beautiful friendship. As Yukihira Hana was cleaning up Akeno's wounds, Genji looked for clothes that Akeno can wear. As Akeno was coming out of the bathroom Genji goggled at her. Akeno smiled at him and he blushed and looked away, fast enough so that the slipper Fujihira Hana threw at him hit the back of his head.
At the end of the day Akeno strolled back to the demolition site, but this time with a smile on her face and a spring in her step, she climbed over the metal fence and carefully walked on it, her eyes automatically diverted to the hole again, and her day just got that bit better, another book, face down, in the hole. She jumped inside the hole and picked it up, this time the book was in Japanese, she flipped through it, and another big smile broke out on her face, it was a school book! A maths book in fact! The girl who never once went to school or got any education in any shape, way or form found out a new thing that she loved. And that was studying.
The years went by quickly, with her meeting up with Genji, going home and finding a new book, studying and repeat, and before she knew it she was enrolling in a prestigious Junior High in her area, Miromi Private High it was called, and it was the most prestige school for miles around.
Fujihira Genji on the other hand, only was able to make it to a bad college in a rough street, the further they went on, the more obvious the difference the two best friends have in studying level.
Akeno being top of her year, no, top of her school at everything she does, while Genji has a 20% attendance record and is the lowest of his year, even in the school he went to. But Genji was trying, his bad health and the influence from the people around him was pulling him down from what he can achieve, if he's not skipping school to vandalise some park he's at home sick, but he tries to keep up with Akeno so he doesn't disappoint his family. But most importantly, he doesn't let down Akeno. The child who was once praised a child prodigy along with Akeno, is now long forgotten in other people's eyes, and was long ago abandoned by the Fujihira Genji we know of today.
But in their third year disaster struck. Fujihira Hana's rapidly deteriorating health reached it's worse, and in two months time, she passed away in the small Fujihira flat. Although Akeno's mother passed away from alcohol poisoning years ago, this hit her harder, Fujihira Hana has always been who Akeno acknowledged as her real mother and for her to pass away so suddenly like that struck a massive hole in her heart.
Akeno fell in a state of depression, and for the first time in her life her grades fell from A's to F's. She didn't bother with anything in school anymore, she didn't partake in any school events, and she even skipped school for three months one time.
Genji at the other hand was nearly eaten away by the guilt that his mother's last impression of him was a good for nothing knacker that never went to school. In a sudden rush of emotions, he promised while cleaning his deceased mother's grave that he will pull his grades up, he will take part in school events, and he absolutely will give everything a shot, like what his mother told him to. He dug out the prodigious side of himself that he seemingly lost long ago and dusted it out, he had exactly four months left to prove himself, to prove that he wasn't a disappointment, to prove that he can and will contribute to society.
Here started the turning wave for Genji, he started to study tirelessly, work out each day, from small things like pushups to a ten kilometre run every day, but he always found time to spare to help out the business owners in his street, help them set up their shops in the morning, sweep the front and help them close down each night. Not to mention help the drug addicts break free from their addiction.
Kobayashi Akeno on the other hand went silent, no one heard of her for a long time and in a span of two months she was kicked out of Miromi. But she didn't care, she wanted to die and be in the arms of Fujihira Hana again. She slowly turned to alcohol for help and became antisocial.
Day came and day went, and before you can say the name of this webnovel another two months has passed, and third year is about to come to an end. Genji isn't exactly the top of the year, but his education has increased drastically. A popular boy amongst everyone, from the druggies and lowlifes to the posh and spoilt, he was idolised by most of the younger children in the area and many of the elders love him, everyone in the area knew his name, but he didn't feel fulfilled yet, there was something nagging him, a warning siren, like something is about to go terribly wrong.
On the last few weeks of school Genji went and checked up on Akeno, to his surprise he heard that she's been booted from Morimi and no one has heard of her for weeks now. Guilt started taking hold of Genji again.
Why didn't I check up on her earlier?
Is she okay?
Where is she?
He feared the worst, and immediately took off to look for her, he knew every nook and cranny of the area he lived in, he went and knocked for every one of his friends and the group of boys went around the entire place looking for her. Some went around to the worse parts and some went to the place where only the richest lived, still to no avail.
Genji ran up and checked on his apartment, deathly quiet, not a shadow in sight.
He was already in despair and was just about to give up when one of the boys called him.
'Big G! I see a speck on one of the steel shafts in the abandoned building site! I'm not sure who it is though!'
A new spark of hope ignited in Genji, he quickly grabbed a drink and ran to the place where Akeno resided, all those years ago.
He climbed the padlocked up rusty gate and came to a stop in the uneven site, seven out of the eight boys were already there, the eight arrived shortly. 'So Big G, is it her?' he panted.
'My eyesight isn't the best but yeah, I think it is!' Genji shouted over the wind. 'Hey, Kobayashi! Can you hear me!?'
The small figure didn't budge, she didn't look down at all.
'Shit! She's too high up!' Genji cursed.
'What do we do bro?' One of the boys asked. 'The winds today are exceptionally strong, if she stands up there for too long a strong gust aught to come and sweep her off!'
'I'm thinking, I'm thinking, I don't need a backseat driver okay?' Genji muttered underneath his breath. He racked his brain trying to think to a solution, but out of all times his mind popped blank at that moment.
'Hurry up Gen! She's already swaying! I don't think she can stand up there any longer!' Another boy yelled at him.
It was then when Genji heard a faint yelp and the clunk of something hitting metal. When he looked up he saw a small white hand, gradually dipping.
Adrenaline kicked in, and with a roar of rage and with a small run up, leapt on one of the pillars. Like a demon Genji lept, climbed and pulled himself up the floors one by one, he held his breath and didn't breathe until he reached her.
The like a knight carrying a princess he slowly made his descent with all of the boys cheering him on.
At the exact time in a relatively good off neighbourhood, a group of childhood friends jabbed pencils into a piece of paper to find out which high school they will attend.
And our story begins from there.