Born of the Moon

Chapter One

Party the Night Away

**What you need to know is that Folken isn't dead. That's all. ^^**

I hadn't had that much fun in years! It had been my 19th birthday party the night before and the celebration has progressed well into the morning hours, but what fun! Yuki-chan had surprised me with a party at the new dance club downtown; the one I had been wanting to go to for weeks before my birthday. She had reserved it for the entire night and had invited all my friends, including good ones from elementary that I had lost touch with. It felt so good to reconnect with my old friends, and they all agreed that the food was marvelous. Of course, no nineteen-year-old's party would be complete without the suppliance of a wonderful thing called alcohol. Now that I think about it, I lost track of how many I shot back around the time that the music was started. We danced the hours away and the next thing I knew, I was in my room, laying down and feeling very relaxed while the clock read three thirty in the afternoon. I could see Amano and Yukari twisted in each other's arms on the couch and figured that he must've driven us back to my place. Only when I tried to get up did I notice that someone was holding onto me by the waist. My heartbeat raised and I looked back over to Yukari, whose eyes were now open and watching me.

"Morning . . ." her voice was much deeper than usual. We must've been asleep for longer than I thought.

"More like afternoon . . ." I whispered, smiling. "Who's got their arms around me?"

A grin spread across her face instantly. "Don't worry. It's just Bryce."

Bryce . . . he was my elementary school sweetheart. I hadn't seen him since grade eight graduation. Not I'm suddenly in my bed with him . . .

My eyes had to of widened because Yukari began to giggle. When she was finally able to unwind herself from Amano's arms, she stood up and motioned for me to follow her. I didn't look back.

"He was hitting on you so badly! It was hilarious!"

I could feel myself blushing madly. Apparently after the drinks had been passed around a few times, Bryce had come clean about still liking me all throughout highschool, even though we were at different schools. He couldn't get his mind off of me when other girls began to hit on him, and that the only girl he ever wanted to be with was me. It just took losing me for him to realize it. How Yukari remembered this was far beyond me. She had more to drink than myself, but she always seemed to remember more from parties with alcohol involved than I ever did.

"He was all over you! I've never seen such a strong willpower. He's really cute you know. Why didn't you kiss him at least? Just once?"

It was true that I had never told Yukari about my whole episode on Gaea. I always planned to, but I couldn't find the strength in myself to repeat it all orally. Since then, I've been typing it out, one experience by another. Presently, I'm almost at the end of the Destiny war, so Yukari will be able to read it very soon.

"Because I guess my common sense was still kicked in and it was telling me not to do anything. Who knows."

"Good morning ladies!" Amano came into the room, stretching like a cat. "Some party you had planned out there, Yuki. Thanks for inviting me."

"Well, you've known Hitomi since kindergarten." She smiled widely. "Though considering it's almost four, we'd better get going." Amano agreed as well.

I saw them off, making sure they had all of their things, and thanking Yukari one last time for the fantastic party.

"You're the best friend ever." I said, hugging her.

"Hey, it wasn't like I was gonna let you get by that easily. Besides, you only turn nineteen once you know!"

I watched as her and Amano walked down the three flights of stairs to the foyer. It was a good thing that I knew everyone in my apartment building, either way I'd still be walking around in my hung-over state. I could only imagine how horrible I looked. I just felt better knowing that no one would really care if they saw me like this.

"See you two later!"

I returned to my apartment in a cheerless mood, amazingly. Like I had made clear, the party was a blast, but I couldn't help but feel that I was missing something.

I found myself seated in the kitchen at my desktop. I was in a writing mood suddenly and I wasn't about to let the inspiration go to waste.

I ended falling asleep again because a warm hand on my shoulder woke me to a face full of keyboard keys.

"Urg . . ." I shifted to face the person, and found them to be Bryce. I had totally forgotten about him. "B-Bryce! Oh God, I'm so sorry I forgot you were here! Um, do you want something to drink? To eat?- Are you hungry?"

He laughed at me, smiling and showing the grin that had matured from the last time I had seen it.

"What's so funny?"

"Just that you sound really nervous for some reason. You weren't nervous at all last night . . ."

I sighed loudly and I knew that he could tell that I was slightly annoyed with is presence.

"Maybe if I remembered anything from last night, I'd be able to give a sarcastic answer to that."

"C'mon . . ." He surprised me by hugging me, pressing himself up to me quite closely.

"Bryce, let me go right now."

"Hitomi . . ." I could feel his hands slowly inching up my T-shirt.

"I'm only going to warn you once." There wasn't any hesitation on his part. "Dammit, Bryce!" I yelled, kneeing him between the legs rather hardly. He yelped, immediately clutching his 'package'. Hastily, I grabbed the coat I didn't recognize that was laying in the corner and pulled him by the arm, dragging him until he was outside my doorframe. As he moaned in a most certain pain, I threw his coat over him and didn't give him a second glance before slamming the door and locking it.

I headed for the bathroom to look myself over right after locking every lock I had on my door. My hair was handing in a mess of knots down to my jaw line and my eyes were bloodshot with dark bags from lack of sleep underneath them. With a pounding headache on top of that, I would've considered this an average hangover.

Retreating back to my room, I fell gracefully to my awaiting bed. As I woke up again at seven thirty, I decided to go out for sushi at the sushi bar across the street. After taking a quick shower, picking out some new clothes to wear and basically making myself presentable to the public, I was out the door with another year of my life gone, and my heart aching with an undeniable pain.

~*~

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