Re-

Alessia: Re STRICT

(💦Last Year's Piece💦)
(💦昨年の作品💦)

The former underboss of a dangerous mob spills all the secrets she's been hiding from the local temple maiden.

She plunged her shivering right hand into the water almost as cold as what her heart would've been. She then lowered her shivering, thin body into it. Placing her left arm on the white marble edge of the tub, she let the water soak up all her troubles.

From the start, she knew that "Kasumi" was the same as her. Someone who lied about their true identity. Someone who lets herself be walked all over by the world.

Someone who knew deep inside that this "front" was not going to last.

She removed her left arm, nothing more than an icy, steel shell where warm flesh, solid bone, and strong muscle, and flowing blood once stood.

Cold.

Mechanical.

Void of all human touch.

When they told her that the arm really fit her, she almost punched them.

"Oh, your arm is just like you."

Because that is not the case at all.

She, now known as Alessia, is feared across the country as the most powerful female gangster alive. All this meant nothing to her, it only made her feel empty.

I'm at the tip of the pyramid. What now?

Then she met Kasumi.         

And only then, she was satisfied.

Even though her life was at stake, she held on, remembering her smile. Alessia knee one thing about Kasumi that nobody else did.

That smile was nothing more than a plastic cherry blossom.

Yet it was still worth holding on to.

That smile was a sin that Alessia knew all too well. One that she could immediately pull out from all the rest.

She penned down everything on a piece of letter paper. Amazing, yes, that such a lightweight, fragile and delicate vessel, can hold a whole sea of emotion.

Kasumi. Here and now, you and I, you are the same as me, and we both have a life of at least a million lies told. However, for someone like you, go out there and tell the truth for once.

Because your real smile is beautiful.

Your real face is more beautiful.

But your real heart, that is a diamond that no mine, no amount of pressure on any coal could ever dispense.

Free it from its shackles, and free yourself from this prison.

The letter was found by Kasumi's elder cousin, who set it alight. As the paper burned, so did rage in her soul.

It wasn't surprising, that a demon lived with a little angel.

Although alike, Alessia and Kasumi were an entire world away.

They couldn't feel.

They could only imagine.

So they could never truly know.

And as a result, they could never truly love.