Prologue

Prologue

“Every person has another whose finger is connected with their own by a red thread. This thread is called ‘the thread of fate’. The legend says that this is the way to find your fated person” my grandmother was reading.

“Granny, that’s a beautiful story. I want to hear it every time when I visit you” I said.

My Granny smiled and nodded. “It doesn’t matter to me so you can hear it every time. I promise I will always read it for you, alright?”

“Yes!”

“Mother! What are you reading for Nao again? Not one of your myths right? If she starts to believe in them it will be your fault!” Mom didn’t like it when granny read something for me, but she never could stop her.

“It wasn’t anything bad! Just the ‘Labyrinth-Myth’. And don’t forget that you also loved to hear about it.” My granny just laughed. “Like the mom, so the daughter.” My mom smiled. “Nao get ready. We have to get back now.”

“I don’t wanna! I wanna stay with granny!”

“You know that you are not allowed to do that. Grandmother is sick and so you can’t stay in the hospital for too long. When she is back home you are allowed to stay at her side as long as you want to. Promise.”

Actually, at the latest I should have noticed my granny’s fragility, but as a little kid, who would notice?

“Okay, then I will quickly give her a kiss.” I turned to my grandma.

“Yeah honey, do that. I am waiting outside with daddy.  Take your time. We have to talk to the uncle doctor anyway.”

“Come here girl.” My grandma lifted me to her bed. “You’ll come to visit me again , right?”

“Yeah granny, and you’ll be home soon, right?”

“Of course! Promise.” She smiled. I gave her a big kiss and ran out of the room, down the floor to the exit. There I hid behind a big plant to scare my parents. They were still talking to the doctor when they slowly came around the corner. “I don’t think that your mom will live for long anymore. Her sickness is getting worse day by day, or rather hour by hour.”

“We didn’t know it would be that bad.” My mom was sobbing. “What do we do with Nao? We can’t just tell her that her beloved grandma will die. She’s just eight! If she finds out she’ll be under shock. She loves her grandma too much and she wouldn’t understand it!”

“I totally agree with you there, Aizawa-san. It would be best if you wai…”

“Daddy, Mommy… granny will go away? Where gramps is?” I sobbed.

“Nao” Mom and dad slowly came towards me. “NO!!!” I yelled, “granny isn’t allowed to go”.

I ran out of the hospital. I ran down the street without looking where I was going, and I didn’t stop until I fell down. Even though I shouldn’t have understood everything as an eight year old kid I saw how bad my granny looked in her sickbed, fragile, her skin crumpling up, weak. But it didn’t interest me back then. I doubled up on the cold street and sobbed. Something slowly walked towards me and cowered beside me as if it wanted to cheer me up. I looked up and saw a baby cat. I sat up and started to pet it softly. While sobbing I finally could say some words. “Kitty, kitty, you know… my grandma isn’t feeling good. She will go away. She will leave me. I won’t have anyone who’ll read beautiful stories for me.” While I said that I started to cry because I heard my own words which made me even more sad. The cat started to purr and snuggled up to me. “Are you trying to cheer me up?” with the care of the cat my tears slowly sealed. I continued petting my new friend and didn’t even notice how much time already passed when suddenly a hand was before me. “Here, a hanky. Your whole face is covered with tears.” I looked up. A little boy, around my age, was standing in front of me and grinning. His light brown hair swayed in the wind. Thanks” I pulled myself together.

“Why did you cry?”

I told the kid the same I told the cat which made me cry again.

“My grandparents went away, too. And I am not crying. Please stop crying.”

I wiped the tears with the hanky. “Really? And you didn’t cry?”

“No, I did. But now I am not anymore. I’ll put magic on you, which my grandma showed me, so that you’ll stop crying.” He smirked. Then he bended down towards me and spoke: “All your worries should fly away” At that time I moved my head upwards and our lips touched. “Haha” he laughed. “It was planned to be on your forehead.”

“Thanks” I said again and this time I seriously felt better. I turned around to the cat but it was gone.

“Where is the cat?”

“Cat?”

“Yeah! She was just like my favourite fruit, the Mango, the same colour, and she had funny stripes, dark stripes. She was with me the whole time and cheered me up.” I proudly said.

“That wasn’t a cat!” He laughed. His green eyes brightened up. “You call that animal a tiger” he was obviously proud to know that. “How big was it? Like you?” he sounded interested as if something in my answer was really important to him. I thought about it.

“I don’t know. It looked big but at the same time like a baby” I murmured.

“Hmm” the boy remained silent as if he had to think too.

“Nao?” my parents came around the corner. I stood up and cleaned my clothes.

“I am here.”

“Nao!” my mom ran towards me and hugged me tightly. “Never run away again! You understand?” I saw how scared my parents were and got a bad conscience. The only thing I thought about was to calm down my parents but how should I have done that as a little kid. So I just apologized in a childish little voice. “I am sorry.”

“Nao!” My dad immediately hugged me too. “I am sorry honey. Everything will be alright.”

“I am not crying anymore!” I grinned at the boy.

“Then we can go now.” They let me go and I ran towards the boy. “Thank you.” I gave back the handkerchief.

“Nao, hurry up!”

“I’m here. “ I went back to my parents.

“Good bye Nao” I heard the little boy say but before I could turn around to ask for his name he was already gone. I just saw his back for a second before he completely disappeared. I felt a soft brush on my arm. When I looked where it came from I saw the green eyes of a black cat, no, a tiger which had the reverse combination of colours. He looked pretty sad. Then it turned around and left towards the direction the little boy disappeared to.