Chapter 0 : Prologue

| Book I : Flowers of Spring

from the "Seasons of Youth" series

...🌱 🌸 🌱...

...•| SPRING VERNAL |•...

The sky over Hiraya Town was painted in a cruel, mocking shade of pink.

It was April 1st-a Sunday-and the rest of the world was waking up to the frantic, celebratory heartbeat of spring.

Outside the iron gates of the graveyard, cherry blossoms drift through the crisp morning air like confetti, dancing on the breeze and coating the asphalt in soft, pastel layers. I could hear people laughing in the distance, planning jokes for April Fool's Day, or rushing to prepare for the first day of the high school term tomorrow. Life was moving forward, stubborn and relentless, demanding that everything wake up from its long winter slumber.

But inside these gates, the colors bled out for me.

To my eyes, the world didn't possess gradients of rose or gold anymore. It existed in a dull, monochrome wash of gray.

Standing before the smooth, cold slab of granite, I felt entirely detached from the calendar. I was a ghost haunting my own skin, a boy whose internal clock had stopped a year ago, frozen in the dead of winter.

I looked down at the engraved name on the stone, the letters sharp, permanent, and devastating.

"I wish it was just an April Fool's joke," I whispered.

My voice felt like a fragile thing, brittle as dry twigs, swallowed instantly by the quiet rustle of the surrounding cypress trees. I squeezed my eyes shut, half-hoping that when I opened them, the grave would vanish, replaced by her bright, crinkling smile and the sound of her laughter. I wanted to be the victim of a cruel, elaborate prank. I wanted her to step out from behind a tree, laughing at how easily I had been fooled, wiping away the tears I refused to let fall.

But my grieving reality couldn't even be fooled. The cold stone remained. The silence that followed my words was absolute, heavy, and sickeningly real.

There was no punchline waiting at the end of this day. There was only the permanent, unyielding fact of her absence. She was gone, taken by an incurable illness that had slowly, systematically stolen the color from her cheeks until there was nothing left but a quiet, final breath.

A rogue petal from a nearby cherry blossom tree drifted over the cemetery wall, landing softly on the dark granite. I stared at it. It looked entirely out of place against the dead stone-a bright, vibrant speck of life mocking the stillness beneath.

I reached down with a trembling hand, my fingers brushing the cold surface as I gently flicked the petal away. I didn't want the world's renewal here. I didn't want the pink hues of April intruding on the only place where my frozen heart felt justified.

I let out a ragged breath, watching the faint mist of my exhalation disappear into the air. Even the weather seemed confused, trapped in that awkward limbo where the morning frost refused to fully yield to the sun. It suited me perfectly.

They say April is the month of rebirth, but for me, it was just the anniversary of a silence that never ended.

Tomorrow, the gates of Hiraya Eraya High will open for the final year of my high school life. I would have to put on the uniform, walk through the crowded corridors of Class 3, and pretend to occupy space.

I would be surrounded by classmates who joked, teachers who lectured, and a world that expected me to participate in the collective illusion of youth. They would see a quiet boy sitting by the window, a shadow that didn't speak unless spoken to, a classmate who had drifted away from his friends until he was nothing more than an afterthought in their social circles.

They wouldn't see the vacuum inside me. They wouldn't understand that while my body was moving into April, my mind was still trapped in that sterile hospital room, listening to the rhythmic, agonizing beep of a heart monitor slowing down to a straight, continuous line.

I jammed my hands deep into the pockets of my black coat, looking up at the sky.

The sun was rising higher now, casting long, sharp shadows across the neatly arranged plots of the graveyard. I felt an overwhelming sense of vertigo, a terrifying awareness of the gap between my internal stillness and the external rush of time. How was I supposed to survive an entire year of high school when every morning required an exhausting amount of energy just to open my eyes? How could I face a future that she would never see?

"How do I start tomorrow?" I asked the stone, my chest aching with a familiar, dull throbbing.

The grave, predictably, did not answer.

A sudden gust of wind swept through the cemetery, shaking the branches overhead and sending a flurry of pink petals cascading over the graves like a gentle, silent snowfall. I shivered, pulling my collar tighter around my neck. The wind felt like a push, a gentle but unyielding pressure forcing me backward, toward the iron gates, toward the town, toward tomorrow.

I took a slow, deliberate step back, my shoes crunching against the gravel path. I hated leaving her here, even though I knew she wasn't truly in the dirt. But staying wouldn't bring her back, and the sun was making it impossible to hide in the shadows much longer.

With one last, lingering look at the granite monument, I turned my back on the garden of the dead. I walked through the iron gates and stepped back onto the asphalt of Hiraya Town, where the pink cherry blossoms continued to fall, completely unbothered by the boy who walked beneath them, carrying the weight of an entire winter in his heart.

The school term was coming, the seasons were turning, and I was entirely unready to bloom.

...🌸...

...🌱AerixielDaiminse🌱...

***Download NovelToon to enjoy a better reading experience!***