Prologue

19th July 1998. Hasetsu, Kyushu, Japan.

The Katsuki house, hidden under the large shadows of the trees and the fumes of the hot springs surrounding it, was silent. The birds that sat on top of the cherry blossom trees were quiet as they perched on top of the pink boughs. But the sound of a loud banging from the house quickly sent the birds flying towards the top of the hill where the ruins of the Hasetsu castle was.

Inside the house, a woman was desperately trying to bar the doors and the windows. Her bleached blonde hair had long fell out of its ponytail. Her three piercings in her ear gleamed in the sunlight that peeked through the boarded up windows.

"Mari!" a man shouted from outside, banging on the door again. "I know you're in there!"

Katsuki Mari, her face covered in a thin sheen of sweat, quickly ran up the stairs to her little brother's room. She flung open the door, revealing her brother and the small knapsack of items that he had packed. She raised a questioning eyebrow. Five-year-old Katsuki Yuuri nodded and heaved the knapsack onto his back.

Under her brother's bed was a small silver framed canvas, depicting his room with all its furniture, doors and pictures that hung on the walls. Mari, being a talented artist, had painted the canvas herself, along with most of the paintings that hung in Yuuri's room. She pushed it into the middle of the room and pointed at it.

"Get in." she ordered her brother.

Yuuri's big brown eyes widened in fear. "Mari-neechan, what about you?"

Mari shook out her bleached hair. "I'll be fine, Yuuri. You're the one that matters the most. Now get in. Come out only when I come to get you, alright? If he finds you, hide in the framework and don't make a sound. Remember to hide in the framework."

"But Mari-neechan-" Yuuri started to say, but it was interrupted by a crash down the stairs. The door just broke apart and they could hear footsteps and rummaging down the stairs.

"Hurry!" Mari screeched and pushed her brother towards the painting, but not before giving him a hug and a peck on the cheek. "I love you, Yuuri."

"I love you too, Mari-neechan." he said and stepped into the painting. The last thing that Mari could see was the tips of his dark hair before he fell in, shrinking to fit inside the canvas. She had just pushed the painting under the bed when the bedroom door flew open.

"Where is your brother, Mari?" the man shoved onto the ground and pointed the gun that he had threateningly against her temple.

"I don't know!" she lied. "I don't know where Yuuri is, I swear!"

The man bared his teeth, distorting his handsome face. "You're lying!"

He fired a bullet into Mari's right leg. The entire house trembled with Mari's tortured screams. Blood flowed steadily through her pant legs and onto the wood.

"You did this to us, the two of us! If you just tell me where your brother is, I'll spare you." the man howled. "I'm in love with you, Mari. Just tell me where your brother is and I'll spare you. I love you so much and I don't want to do this to you."

Mari barked out a delusional laugh as white stars danced across her eyes. "Love? Is this what you call love? You're obsessed with me. It was never love and it never will be. I'm not in love with you. I have-had, a freaking family! I will never be with you, Hoshino, I would rather die."

"But you do love me, Mari. I know you do, but you couldn't because of them. Your family. I got rid of your parents already. If I got rid of your brother, we could be together, Mari! Tell me where he is."

"You'll never find him." Mari smirked through the pain. "You will never, ever find him. Not in a million years. Yuuri is all I have left and I won't let you hurt him like you hurt my parents."

The man's scream reverberated through the room as he threw his head back in anger. "I will find him, Mari. I'll hurt him even worse than you hurt me."

"Dream on." Mari coughed.

The man's trigger finger pulled the trigger. The bang reverberated through the house and the cherry blossoms and then as quickly as it came, it was gone, leaving the man standing silently, tears flowing down his face and Mari's bloody body lying limp on the floor, staining the wood a dark crimson.

The man, Hoshino, realising what he had done, quickly raised his gun to his temple and fired, leaving two crumpled and bleeding bodies on the floor.

Just a few feet away, under the bed, imprisoned in the silver-framed canvas, Yuuri was crying. His chubby little hands covered his ears as he sat on the ground, rocking himself back and forth.

He would never see his Mari-neechan again.

And so Yuuri laid there, right where his sister had left him.

Imprisoned inside the painting.