Chapter 1 – Just One More Day

Mae Yokozuna stood at the shrines of her parents. Her father had just passed away in a fire a month before. The funeral and all the papers were finally over. She was free. But she was alone. Would anyone even miss her if she suddenly disappeared? She doubted it.

The letters had stopped. It had been nearly a year since the last had come. Remus had told her that he couldn't love her and that he was sorry. He had never even come to visit her. Lily and Miranda had, but there had been tension. After Remus's letters stopped, so did everyone else's. Sirius had been the only one to give a reply to her desperate letters when she was still trying to keep in contact. It hadn't helped—it hadn't even explained what was going on. She hadn't felt any relief.

But she didn't feel much of anything anymore. She didn't feel hurt. She knew she should be in pain, because she had loved him. But he had moved on, so she wasn't sure that she loved him anymore. She was just numb. The numbness just wouldn't go away either. She wasn't sure she wanted it to go, though. She didn't want to be in pain.

Mae left a small branch of cherry blossoms on each grave and walked away through the rows of headstones. She just wanted to get away from them. She had enough pain in her life. She didn't want to remember her parents as they were just then—just corpses left behind in their wake.

There was nowhere she could go now. She had sold the house, and she didn't want to live in Japan with her grandparents. Then again, she didn't want to move to China to see her mother's family. She hadn't seen them in years. She didn't want to be reminded.

What she really wanted was answers. She had so many questions, but no one in the Orient would help her. Several had tried—her grandparents and her best friend. Hiro was the only thing there that didn't remind her of her parents. She was thankful for that.

Hiroshi Nagamiri. Lily and Miranda had met him when they had visited. He had been a gentleman, even if he didn't speak very much English. But she herself had only just learned it a year before they had moved to London that autumn.

Mae left the cemetery feeling just as hopeless and helpless as when she had come. With a sigh, she slid into the vehicle to hear the blaring stereo.

As if commanded, Hiro pressed a button, and all was silent. But only for a while. "Feel any better?" he asked apprehensively, speaking in their common language, Japanese.

She gave off a hollow laugh and answered in the same language. "Better than a month ago? Yes, definitely. Than this morning? No."

"Then why did we come here?"

"I wanted to say goodbye before I left."

"You're leaving?"

"Yes."

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know."

"You're going to him, aren't you?"

"Remus?"

"Yes, the British one."

"I don't know."

"When do you leave? How much time do I have left with you?"

"Just one more day."

"Then, you're gone forever?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

They sat in silence for nearly ten minutes.

"You miss them all, don't you?"

"I do."

"But him the most?"

"Of course."

"Then, go to them."

"They spurned me."

"Haven't you heard there's a war going on in Europe?"

"I know about Voldemort."

"It makes sense, then, why they did."

"How?"

"They don't want you to get hurt."

"That's stupid, though. I can't be happy without him—not even happy to be alive."

"He thinks you'll get over him."

"He can't believe that."

"I think he does."

"Can I sleep at your house tonight?"

"Yes, of course," said Hiro. He turned the key and the engine roared.

They reached Hiro's house fifteen minutes later and went into the beautiful oriental cottage. Mae slept in his bed while he slept on the floor. He didn't mind, as the difference was minimal.

She couldn't help but think of Remus then. It was night when she really missed him. She didn't cry anymore, though. She had at first, but she had quickly gotten over it.

Was he all right? There was a war going on there. Was he even alive anymore? Would Sirius or Lily have sent word if he had died? She wasn't so sure, but she thought Sirius would.

She had wandered the dark streets when she and her father had returned. How many nights she had done that, she didn't know. That was how she had met Hiro. He had helped her relax into a more normal world.

And to think she was leaving him the next day. She didn't want to leave her best friend, but she couldn't stay in Japan. She had nothing there—except Hiro.

Just one more day and she would be making her way across the world. She didn't know her destination, but she would figure it out. She had to go somewhere else. Perhaps America? Perhaps Spain? Perhaps Wales? The destination didn't matter whenever she compared it to the place she was at now.

She loved being with Hiro and everything that went with that, but she couldn't stay in Japan. Japan was her enemy. Japan hated her. Japan had made everything go wrong. If she and her father had stayed in Great Britain, would he still be alive? Would she and Remus still be in love? Would Lily and Sirius and Miranda and James and Peter—would they still be her friends? Would things be different?

Well, she certainly knew that things would have been different. She was positive of that. But would Remus have told her that he couldn't love her if she was already in the war with him? Would he not be afraid of what he was? Would he still love her?

If she went to England again, would he love her again? Would she get her friends back? Would she have a chance to live the life she wanted to live? Maybe she should test the theory. Would it really make much of a difference, though? If he still spurned her, she had already dealt with that pain. She might be able to survive it. Or maybe she would be able to have peace. Either way, she'd go back.

Just one more day and she'd be gone. One more day and she would be going back to England to confront the man she had thought she had loved and those she had thought were her friends. Just one more day.