Queen of Hearts

Prologue

In the darkness of the night, as a group of students chatted happily amongst themselves about the events that had occurred during the Japanese exchange that they had participated in, they failed to notice how one girl sat alone, staring out the window, with tears dripping down her face.

No sooner than when the tears had finally begun to dry, a fresh wave began. And the girl embraced the pain that clung at her heart, the hollowness that had slowly begun to fill her soul, and the reality: that she was alone.

From now on, she would be alone.

A face of a boy with chocolate coloured hair and matching bright eyes surfaced in her mind, making her stifle yet another sob. She was left alone, in more ways than it were necessary. But she couldn't help it. She couldn't help the feelings of joy when she talked to him, touched him, or even stood by him.

She hadn't meant to find love on the exchange. It was meant to be a way to escape Japan, to get away from the overprotective clutches of her parents, if only for a little while.

Love. She'd only known him for a few weeks, barely anything really, in her seventeen years of life, but yet it felt like a passionate fire, burning inside her. She wondered if he felt the same. They'd exchanged the words, but the girl was not stupid. She had been taught from a young age that actions spoke louder than words. She had learnt the hard way.

Once the plane arrived at its destination, back in Kobe, everything in her life would return to being dull, boring. Every sense of adventure would vanish, and she would return to being Honoka Fujimoto; the girl who had been raised to be nothing other than perfect.

Honoka Fujimoto was always alone, locked away in her own home, feeling as if she did not belong. She had felt as if she belonged when with the chocolate haired boy. When they had spent those many hours in the school rehearsal room, her playing a violin and him singing, it had seemed like home.

Of course, she had a real home, back in Kobe, where her parents resided along with the butler and all the housemaids, but there she was overlooked, forgotten.

In the rehearsal room, she had felt like she fit in, for the first time in her life. So far from Japan, and yet she was so happy. It was then that she began to believe that staying in her home country was not her destiny - it was not who she was meant to be.

She rarely talked to anyone outside of her home. Who was there to talk to, anyway? She was well aware that her peers despised her for her family's wealth, even though none of it was her fault. Their jealousy led them to hate her. At first their hurtful comments may have stung, but she had become to accustomed to it now that she just didn't care.

The girl was not about to start a conversation with the rest of the exchange students, the same people who had insulted her for performing at their brother-sister school just for attention. She doubted they would bother her much anymore, due to the fear of the chocolate haired boy's anger, and the threat of the darker haired boy with the dark brown eyes. The Beast.

She had learned to hide her deepest emotions from the world from a young age. She was an expert when it came to harbouring secrets. The moment she'd first seen the Beast, she'd known that he was hiding something.

The girl gripped the edge of her skirt with both hands as the memory came to mind. The last thing she'd said to her new friend, the dyed light brown haired girl who had chosen to show her around the school from the beginning, was to go after another boy. This boy was different. He was visibly more closed up, with a cap hiding the majority of his features, but it had not been enough to hide the sheer brightness and fierceness that had radiated from his blue eyes.

She wondered when her friend would realise that the blue eyed boy and the Beast were the same person.

When she'd looked at the boy, even seeing his face from a distance, she'd instantly known. She couldn't explain it, but she'd stared at his face and something in her mind had clicked, and instead of seeing the expression of a stranger, she'd seen the face of the Beast. She'd avoided telling her friend, for she wanted her to figure everything out on her own.

The girl wanted her friend to have the best surprise of her life. And to be happy.

She stared down at her phone, at the blank screen. Through the small, dark mirror that the phone made, her forlorn expression and gaunt face stared back up at her. Of course, being on a plane meant that there was no signal available. She had no clue what had happened with her friends, and no way to contact them yet. But her spirits were high, and she had hope.

It was true that Honoka Fujimoto was always alone. But she was also Kameron, the girl who felt like she finally belonged somewhere, even though she knew that it would not last.

At least between her and her friend, one of them deserved a happy ending.