Chapter Two
"Don't be the nail that sticks out..."

"Why do people treat me differently? What is so wrong with being who I am?"

"Different is a curse, Kurumi. Society will just hammer you back in."

It was as if time had stopped. The only thing that reminded her that it hadn't was her chest moving up and down unevenly as she took staggered breaths. Was her mother actually pointing where the Gryffindor thought she was? Her eyes? But her mother never gave her as much as a second glance when her violet eyes were present. While Kurumi was unaware of this, her mother had refused to hold her after she had been born because her eyes were an 'unnatural' color. Charles had been devastated, especially since it had taken almost a week for Kurumi to get her first taste of skinship with her mother.

Breathing out, Kurumi's entire body trembled as she slowly reached up with her right hand and removed the brown colored contacts from her eyes and placed them in their case. She still kept her gaze downwards out of habit. Each time she had looked at her mother without them in had earned her a prompt slap across the face or worse. Pocketing the case, Kurumi stood by her mother's bedside with her arms hanging like a rag doll's against her hip, eyes still looking down at the floor. It wasn't until she heard the softest of moans from her mother did she lift her gaze towards the bed and eventually fell on her mother's face. What she saw there surprised her and made the sixteen year old's heart feel as though it were about to leap out of her throat.

While her face was essentially vacant of any expression due to her being unable to control the muscles in her face, Kurumi's attention wasn't on her face as a whole but her mother's eyes. The usual stern look in her brown doe eyes was gone, replaced instead with something that resembled longing and affection. For the first time in her entire life, Kurumi was receiving a mother's gaze and it brought tears to her eyes. "M-M-Mother?" Kurumi whimpered as she leaned forward in her seat just a bit to reach for the woman's hand, only to find that her mother had other ideas about what came next.

Shaking, Kurumi's mother struggled to lift her index finger and point towards a brown leather journal on the night stand. Kurumi followed the movement, turning her head, and then looked back at her mother once more. Kurumi didn't need to ask, she could see it in her mother's eyes that she was to take the journal and she did so, slowly running her hands over the binding and looking back at her mother once more.

Hi-ra-i-te*

Hands trembling, Kurumi opened to the first page and her eyes widened. There written in her mother's beautiful calligraphy were the words 'To my daughter' written in black ink. Kurumi could feel the tears welding up in her eyes, hot tears that stung so much that she was forced to shut her eyes for a moment. In doing so, she hoped that it would dull the pain, but it had the opposite effect. Instead of numbing things, they intensified and soon hot tears were trickling down her face like small waterfalls against her alabaster skin. She heard another soft groan from her mother, which Kurumi took to mean that she should turn the page, and looked at the date from a little over a month ago. But that didn't seem to satisfy her mother who moaned again and spelled out a specific date for Kurumi to look at with her chart. Nodding, Kurumi continued to turn until she found the page and her eyes widened. Her mother's once beautiful calligraphy had been reduced to nothing but scratches on the paper, almost to the point of being unreadable. It was an entry that had been written that morning, only hours before Kurumi and her father had arrived at the hospital. Taking a deep breath, Kurumi chewed on her bottom lip and began to read.

August 18th, 2077
I'm sorry to make you worry about so many things. It is not the job of a mother to make their children worry. We are supposed to worry about you. I worry about you all the time. I hope you know that.

Kurumi, tough times are when a human is growing. If you can overcome these times, a beautiful morning will be waiting for you. A peaceful morning full of light, with birds singing, and the smell of the white roses. Don't make the same mistakes I did in life. I want you to be like the air, always present and always wanted. A good hearted person whose kindness overflows and people realize how important you are.

I wonder where happiness is. I wonder what happiness is. Kurumi, are you happy right now? Remember, just being alive is such a lovely and wonderful thing. I want you to live, Kurumi.

Live on for me.

Kurumi had to stop reading now as her tears made it even more impossible to read. The journal fell into her lap and soon her tears began to fall onto the pages. This was it. Her mother's way of apologizing. No, that wasn't the right word, was it? It was something deeper than an apology. It was a confession.

*hitaite means "please open"