Hakumei! Nothing Less Than Illustrious

Brief Note: The entire story will not be in this past-tense format. This is just to get the ball rolling. It’ll be a present-tense story, so be aware of the switch come the next chapters. Also, italics are Suki’s thoughts. Please enjoy the story- onegai shimasu!. (Destini/Benihime)
 

Chapter One: Nothing Less Than Illustrious

  
“5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I never realized how much easier it is to count backwards than forward. Counting backwards is simple since, you’ve heard them all before. When you count forward, you think you ahead and go too fast. You skip and forget numbers and generally get a bit confused. You know, it sounds odd but…life is sort of like that. Sometimes I feel like it’d be easier to relive my past than to continue forward, not knowing what to expect.”
 
Aoki Suki is 16 years of age. She’s your average high school student- average grades, average looks, and average routines. She doesn’t have average thoughts, though. In fact, you could say her thoughts are a bit unorthodox. She does live alone though. There’s no one to tell her that her thoughts are wrong, so she abides them.
 
Suki lives alone because she has no parents. This isn’t odd for children of her age, but what is weird is that she has no idea of who her parents are. Most kids cannot make it anywhere if they stay at home with their parents. The morals of this world have changed drastically and kids are expected to obey very strict rules. So they move out. Suki was born alone, and cannot remember the accounts of her younger life. She does remember being drifted to several different foster families until she was the age of 15. Since at 15 you are technically allowed to live alone with record of an emergency contact, she left her family and found a place to stay.
 
She lives in a school housing unit. It’s a small apartment, ran by the high school. As long as she has efficient grades, she can live there, free of cost. Getting food and other amenities is her responsibility though. Her best friend, Sasaki Sachio usually buys her lunch and the family has her over for dinner. You could say she’s a part of the Sasaki family, expect she lives elsewhere. Suki confides in Sachio fully and he does as well. They often walk to school together and discuss things that are bothering them, have all the same classes, sit at lunch together discussing the happier tales in life, continue their classes, and leave school discussing their hopes for the future.
 
They are so accustomed to each other, they even look alike. They have been friends for a while, though. They met in elementary school. Suki had different parents often but kept the same best friend. They followed each other through schools. Suki believes that having one permanent link in her life made the moving and switches less difficult.
 
“I am highly indebted to the Sasaki family. They’ve fed me, clothed me, and anything else you can think of. They’ve accepted me as one of them. Although I do love them, it all makes me kind of sad. I feel like I should have my own family who does these things for me. I wish I could go back and see how I came into existence. People find me depressing because I don’t look forward to the future. I don’t even have clear connections with my past. I constantly have odd dreams, my thoughts are a bit off, and I can’t remember things that happened to be days at a time. Sachio says it’s just bad short-term memory, but I think it’s more than that. I wake up and things are misplaced, and the place is ransacked. Nothing’s ever missing though. Not to mention I’m naked when I get up! I can never even find the pajamas I threw on. Something’s going on. I know it, but I’m so far off track, I would even know how to figure it out. I don’t even want to go to Sachio with this. He wouldn’t understand and will probably never want to speak with me again. I just wish I knew something about anything.”