NOVEL NEXT Ch 041
It was exciting because he wasn't supposed to do it.
She was thirteen and he was only twelve. She was 'older and sophisticated' and a 'teen'. He was still a child. She lived down the street and he had a crush on her. She seemed to like him back. One night she asked him to sneak out and meet her, so he did. He met her in the alleyway that was between the two apartment complexes they lived in. She was the most beautiful girl he'd ever seen. He didn't mind giving her his first kiss, because they were going to get married and have eight kids and never ever be apart ever.
He called her Mirai.
They sat in the alleyway on the hood of his father's car and kissed and talked and kissed and loved and kissed and knew nothing could ever stop them because this was the red string of fate. The sky was a dull, washed-out grey from the city lights but there was one star that steadfastly refused to be silenced. They could see it up past the hanging wires, past the apartment roofs that loomed overhead, past the wheezing window air conditioners, and past the airplanes that were flying overhead. That star would never give in. It would never surrender. The rising sun could only make it slumber until the next night when it would emerge and laugh and play and never, ever die.
The next morning Kimi was gunned down in that very same alleyway.
His family moved out of the apartment that afternoon and lived in a safe house for several months.
No one could be told where they were going.
No contact would be allowed.
Toshi would never return.