Where the Flowers Bloom - a YatoYota fanfic (New)

Prologue - Yotasuke

It hadn't really hit Yotasuke. The fact that his mother was dead. Is dead.

But it hit him now, as he stood in the middle of the cemetery. The yellowing grass was sad and dying, patches of it as dead as the corpses buried under it. Tombstones were scattered haphazardly as if someone had tossed a handful of pebbles with a careless hand to choose where the graves would lay.

Yotasuke now stood before one of those tombstones, this one newer than the rest, yet just as simple. Takahashi Emiko, it read—his mother's name.

She had never been the best mother, but she had tried. Had encouraged Yotasuke when he started art as a hobby, only for it to turn into an obsession—something she had taken pride in, rather than something Yotasuke enjoyed doing.

Tilting his head back, Yotasuke closed his eyes, the dull grey sky seemingly in sync with his emotions, or the lack thereof. Numb. Everything felt numb. Like he was watching his life from behind a screen, detached and unfeeling. The tears were gone, had disappeared before he had even gotten the chance to shed them.

He just wanted to go home, to sleep. Sleep made the time pass by faster, made it all blur together like melting ice slush. It made his eyes feel less dry and was a distraction from the fact that he was failing TUA.

TUA was something else his mother had wanted him to do, and now she wasn't even here to celebrate the fact that he had gotten in.

Turning away, Yotasuke padded away from the freshly dug grave and headed towards the car waiting for him. His father was already gone, most likely knocked out cold at a random bar after trying to find a solution at the bottom of a bottle. At least he had thought to send someone to send Yotasuke home.

When the driver dropped Yotasuke off at home, he entered the dark house and slipped off his shoes before slipping off into his room. It would be a while before his father returned, and he would savour the silence brought by his absence.

There wasn't enough energy left in Yotasuke to get his futon out, so he curled up on the floor in a corner, the room as dark as the rest of the empty house, the art hanging from the walls dull, leeched of their colour.

Sleep tugged at his eyelids, calling him into its soft, merciful embrace.

Except it wasn't merciful at all.

In a dream.

Peering down the long, dimly lit hallway, you can't help but feel confusion. Where you were eluded you, the fact flitting along the edges of your mind like a goldfish in a pond. Something about the decor rang a quiet bell in the back of your mind, but the ring was so soft you barely registered it.

You decided this was nothing to worry about and decided to venture deeper into the house, your slippered feet treading lightly as you thought it would be best to find out who lived in the house you were currently in. The halls of the house were lined with paintings, and most of them were well done, but for some reason, you didn't particularly like them.

As you looked into the nearest room, you noticed a man sleeping in a futon, the one next to him, however, was empty, with its sheets rumpled–as if someone had just slept in it not too long ago. Since there was someone awake, you decided to try and find them.

Continuing down the hallway, you pass a couple of rooms, like the kitchen and living room as well as the dining room.

Perhaps the person that's awake is in the living room?

With this line of thought, you meander into the living room. Its furnishing was old and traditional and devoid of the person you sought. Shaking your head, you pass by a shoe rack with three pairs of shoes. Two of the pairs of shoes were men's, though one was smaller than the other, and the other shoes were a woman's.

This wasn't of much importance to you, so you continued to peek into a kitchen, where it was once again obvious that no one was in there you thought it best to explore the rest of the house to see if the person was there.

The next room you come upon is mostly empty, with more art on the walls, though you couldn't see them clearly due to them being blurry, and a futon in the middle of the room, ready and made. A hint of discomfort fills you as you enter the room, and you change your mind, it wasn't necessary to enter it–so you left.

A melody catches your attention, it sounds like a woman humming, and it echoes off of the walls of the hallway. Turning in the direction of it, you follow the mournful tune to the bathroom. When you opened the door of the bathroom, the humming stopped, and as you looked around, at first glance it was empty.

Until it wasn't.

Because somehow, along the way you had stopped seeing colour, the world around you in muted shades of grey. Nothing was in colour, except for that dark shade of red, bright compared to its surroundings.

Walking towards the shower curtain, you pull it back to reveal more red.

Red, red, red.

Blood, blood, blood.

Death, death, death.

A woman lay in a pool of blood, her own blood. Gloves pulled on and cleaning supplies lay around her, as if she had been cleaning the shower. Your fingers tremble as you reach out a hand to steady yourself on the wall before realising that blood covered that as well.

Stumbling back, your eyes focused on the blood dripping slowly from your fingers, the world narrowing as your attention snapped back to the woman.

Mother.

She was your mother.

Was your mother.

Because she was dead, and wouldn't ever come back.

Yotasuke snapped awake, body recoiling as if he could physically run from the nightmare. As if it was something that could hurt him.

A soul-wrenching, gut-tearing, and hair-ripping ache swelled up, and for the first time since finding his mother's body, a sob escaped Yotasuke's tightly clenched lips. His eyes squeezed shut, barricading the tears from escaping.

No, he wouldn't cry. He wouldn't let himself. Even if it wasn't healthy. Because maybe, just maybe, he had known that she wasn't the best mother.

A/N: This chapter was short because one, I didn't have much to add for the prologue, and two, I have a freaking fever and feel like absolute shit, so I decided to work on this instead of school work because I don't like school _^_

This was pretty much the same as the old prologue, but that's okay since my main focus for this will be the pacing since it was practically nonexistent in the OG version. Like, c'mon, kissing in chapter 7? 

But anyway, thank you for reading! I'm already working on chapter 1, so it shouldn't be long before I post it (I always say this, so hopefully it's true this time ;-_-). And please feel free to point out any mistakes I might've made!

-Lucky