Suishou Hakuchou had been content in her sheltered life until the only world she knew was tragically torn apart by a car crash. With her body so badly broken and horrendously disfigured, it would have been better for her to be spared her parents' fa...
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Hakuchou's POV
The day had started out mockingly innocent.
A familiar, homely melody of violin wafted from the front seats, which I recognized easily as Sakurai Akane's newest single "For My Blackbird". My mother hummed along peacefully. I, having been exposed to Sakurai's music since I was out of the womb due to my mother's obsession with said artist and other contemporary violinists, subconsciously hummed along as I looked out the tinted back window of our glossy white Honda. Watercolor orange blended with with soft sheer magenta to create a lightbox that projected birds and trees as shadow puppets I could admire from the safety of our secluded car interior.
"Stop kicking my chair, Hakuchou," my father's gruff voice broke the harmony that my mother and I had created with the radio. Caught in the act, I realized that not just had I been humming, I had also been subconsciously keeping count with the song. It just so happens that in this case, I had accidentally been swinging my legs back and forth, my usual way of coping with anticipation.
"Sorry Tou-san," I said cheerfully, immediately switching the beat into an internal metronome, my legs dropping immediately into passivity. There was no way I wanted to ruin my father's special day; life as an office worker was the epitome of mundanity in Fukuoka city life. I turned my face back to the window just in time to see the sun dip below Mount Fuji, obscuring the world in a cloak of black velvet except for the blinding white streetlights and monotone car lights.
Yesterday at breakfast, my father had announced over our bland bowls of white rice and natto that, he, out of all the two hundred employees at the company office he worked for, had somehow managed to win a raffle of three tickets to the final match of the Football Frontier, which would take place in Tokyo. This was a strange but funny miracle considering the fact that he hadn't even bothered to enter the raffle due to his usual, almost comical bad luck, and that our family had never considered we'd ever be watching this match live as none of us had been following the matches of the Football Frontier.
The Suishous weren't a soccer family, or a hardcore fan of any competitive sports for that matter, but nevertheless my father was still delighted that he would be able to attend this event. Soccer always had a contagious presence in Japan, after all, being a timeless sport that had its roots deep in our country's history. Not to mention, those of his coworkers who were too poor to afford tickets would probably ask him details for the next three days, and who doesn't like attention? As for me, there's no reason why I should refuse a prestigious offer if it was free, even if I'd probably have no idea what was going on and accidentally cheer when the wrong team scored. Not like we were siding with any team, really, but my dad was preparing to cheer for Teikoku because they had apparently dominated the football world for decades, not that I would know of course. Heck, I don't even know which team was Teikoku, nor what the name of the other school was for that matter.
