PROLOGUE: Flower – The world’s most beautiful rose.
────So you can say “farewell” to the person you love, with a smile.
It’d been a long time since then.
Since a girl woke up, surrounded by roses.
Although these roses were all beautiful, the girl was undeniably the loveliest flower. Whoever you asked would say the same.
Her name was “Ai”.
And she was an angel.
But the moment she woke up, there were no wings on her back.
However, it wasn’t the fact that she’d lost her wings that surprised her, or the fact her hair, once as white as snow, had turned as dark as the night, or that her eyes, once as red as the setting sun, had turned as blue as the sky.
It was the fact she could feel the wind freely flow through her body.
She filled her lungs with the smell of the roses and dyed her cheeks red with joy as the wind ran past. But it was only for a moment.
Soon after, from her beautiful eyes fell emotions, as sweet and as beautiful as the twilight sky, yet irreconcilably painful.
Her tears fell like drops in the rain.
A pain as though there was a hole in her chest.
Throb, throb.
The pain was like a heartbeat.
Throb, throb.
Painfully fragile.
Throb, throb.
That didn’t let her breathe.
Throb, throb.
The world’s purest soul, who didn’t know why her heart hurt so much, kept weeping, all by herself.
She sobbed.
Her eyes swelled.
She clawed at her chest, crying all the while.
How much time had passed?
Her heart still hurt. Her tears wouldn’t yet let. But, in the middle of the bloomed roses, Ai stood up slowly.
And decided to leave the garden.
──She wiped her tears away with her palm and saw the world if just a little bit clearer.
❀
A lot of time had passed.
She visited a lot of places.
Met a lot of people, and said a lot of farewells.
But even then, the beautiful wings of an angel would not return on her back.
❀
On the rooftop of the tallest building in town stood a young girl in her midteens. She had black hair and blue eyes, and wore a rucksack with made-up wings on her small back, proudly holding a rabbit plushie in her arms.
As if the stars had fallen, below her, where the darkness of the night enveloped the town in its embrace, were the gorgeous, bright lights of the town.
Looking down upon the bright lines the cars drew with their headlights, from where the wind’s passage fluttered her bangs and howled like a beast, and where the moon seemed reachable by hand.
The young girl’s… no, Ai’s lips, as though amused, curved into a smile.
“What are you looking at, Ai?”
“Hm? The world, Dia.”
“Is it fun?”
“Rather than fun, it’s beautiful. It’s all sparkly. Like looking at the stars.”
“How silly.”
The unattractive words spat out crudely tinged the night with a man’s voice.
No matter where you looked, there was no one else other than Ai on the rooftop. The person, or perhaps, thing she was conversing with, was the plushie in her arms.
A cheeky partner to Ai, contrary to its cute appearance, but an important partner nonetheless.
“So? What’s up?” said Ai.
“I felt a new presence. I’ll guide you, so let’s get down—”
“Okay!” Almost immediately, Ai stood on the edge of the building.
In that moment, Dia spat out, “Hold on. What in the world are you doing?”
“You know what I’m doing,” said Ai, with her lips curving into an even deeper smile. In the small gap between her lips, one could see the white of her teeth.
“No, I don’t. Listen. People aren’t that primitive anymore. We don’t need to get down this way. There’s a faster, much more comfortable and way easier way to get down.”
“This way is also comfortable. And easy. And pretty fast, too.”
“You just don’t know how to keep yourself safe. You seem to have forgotten it, so here goes again. People can’t fly.”
“Certainly, this body is close to a human’s. But I’m an angel, and you’re a demon.”
“Yeah, a fallen angel that lost her wings.”
“Hm… I could also just drop you.”
“Don’t. Okay. Ugh. I get it. I won’t stop you. Do whatever you want. But I’ll also do whatever I want. I’ll come down on the same elevator we used to get up here.”
Dia’s attempts to leave Ai’s arms proved to be futile.
And as Ai mischievously held on even stronger to Dia,
“One and two and three, up we go!”
The young girl, along with its screaming plushie, jumped into the night.
“We’re gonna die, you stupid angeeeeel!”
“Hahaha! It’s fine. Come on, let’s go!”
The angel who lost her wings laughed as she felt the air.
And even as gravity pulled them down, it was as fun as she expected.
Not flying. Just falling.
The young girl fell.
The angel fell.
Towards the world where the humans lived.
To spin new tales of farewells.
❀
Ai was an angel who didn’t have wings.
She had lost something very precious to her.
So, all she had to do, was find it again. With her own hands.
Flower – fin.
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