Hanako Norene's Past

Chapter Four

When I opened my eyes, I was momentarily blinded by the bright white light. After a few moments of staring off into space and occasionally rubbing my eyes, I could finally see properly. I looked up and saw Kazumi's purple eyes looking down upon me. I then realized he was struggling to hold me in his arms, which made me feel a little bad for him. "H-hey, Kazumi.. you know you couldve just woken me up... You look like you're in a lot of pain.." This had always been something I hated seeing. When one of my loved ones was in pain, I had always tried to take it on my own shoulders, making sure they wouldn't suffer for themselves. I looked back up at Kazumi once I heard his voice again. "Hanako, you just lost almost everything you ever loved. The least I could do was let you sleep a little longer and be at peace.." I glanced aside and smiled a bit as he put me down on my feet carefully. Kazumi had always been a caring friend, like me. I had always admired that trait about him, he was trustworthy and so much like me, we could relate. I finally snapped out of my thoughts to here Kazumi finishing up a sentence. "-And you go find a place for us to stay for a while. I'll go and get some food." I watched Kazumi turn away and walk towards the place to get food. I was kinda relieved he was getting the food, considering how chaotic it was over in those parts.

I turned my body fully and skipped away from the people gathering around the soldiers for their serving of food, my bronze eyes scanning the area. After a few more minutes of aimlessly wandering, I came up to a small little house. One of the windows was shattered, and when I opened the door it made a loud and frustrating creaking sound, but I didn't care. It was surely better than sleeping outside, where citizens would more than likely be screaming all night and begging for food. When I walked inside, I looked around, trying to take note of all the positives and negatives about this house. So, this will give us shelter. We don't have any proper supplies in here though, but my scarves can take care of some of that.. Alright I guess this is good enough!  I could hear Kazumi's yelling from the crowd, I think he was lost. I walked over to the shattered window and carefully peeked my head out of it, making sure the sharp glass didn't tear my skin apart. "Over here, Kazumi!" I yelled at the top of my lungs so he could hear me over the loud crowds and waved my arm around in the air. Kazumi looked up at the sky and noticed my arm, running towards the house. He lightly kicked the door open and walked inside, looking over at me. He had a managed to take a couple of baked potatoes, one of the few that were even being served. I walked over to Kazumi and took one out of his arms, smiling. I rose the baked potato up to my mouth and took a small bite out of it. "Thanks.." "You're welcome! They may be a little cold and stale, but at least it'll keep us alive longer.. A-after all.. our parents told us to be strong." Right when I was about to take another bite of the baked potato, Kazumi grabbed my hand, tightly.

I looked up in surprise, my bronze eyes locking with his purple eyes, I knew what he was about to say was serious, and I had to be focusing, big time. "Listen to me, Hanako. I know it's hard to be strong right after your parents died right before your eyes. It makes you want to curl up in a hole and just await your death like a man. But we have to keep living, we have to protect each other. We have to prove to our parents that their deaths were not in vain, and that they were to protect future soldiers of the military." I took everything Kazumi was saying into consideration before grasping his hand tightly, nodding just the slightest. "We will eventually, Kazumi... I promise you, we will be strong and survive. But right now, we have to focus on even managing survival in this hell hole of a wall." After that, I glanced over at the window and realized that the sun was setting. Beautiful  shades of pink, orange, and purple filled the sky, surrounding the sun.  It balanced everything out, making it seem peaceful when really it was just a city full of chaos. I shook my head and took a few scarves off from around my neck. "Hey, whatcha doing?" Kazumi spoke as I folded up a few scarves, placing them on the floor. They looked like pillows, which was what they were suppose to be for the time being.

"Well, we don't really have anything better to do, so we might as well get some sleep, aight? I'd rather sleep on some comfortable scarves than the hard floor, wouldn't you?" I looked up at Kazumi after a few moments of silent, tilting my head in confusion as he took a minute to even figure out an answer to such a simple question as THAT. The silence was finally broken by Kazumi's answer. "Yeah.. I guess.." After that, the awkward silence between them returned as I put down a few more scarves on the ground and took a needle out of my jacket and a small container of black thread. I sewed the scarves together and tossed the needle aside before drawing my knife that was strictly for self defense, slicing the scarves that were stitched together in half. "There.." I gave one half of the blanket to Kazumi and wrapped the other one around myself. After placing that last few scarves on the ground so we had something decent to lay on, I instantly laid down on my little scarf bed, looking over at Kazumi. I yawned a little bit before whispering softly.  "Sleep well, Kazumi.." I rested my head on the scarf pillow I had made and slowly dozed to sleep. Kazumi looked down at me and frowned, speaking quietly. "Sleep well, Hanako.." Kazumi was surprised Hanako could go to sleep so easily, without any signs of sadness or anger, especially after losing her parents.