To think, it started on a cold, snowy winter day, and it began again on a very similar day; a very blustery, busy, and almost miserable December day.
Almost like fate.
After all, it wasn’t as though she purposely went back to that place. If anything, she wanted to avoid it. In fact, that’s exactly what she wanted to do; the longer you stay away from that place and the less you think about it, the less you’ll miss it. And that way of thinking had kept her away from that place for this long.
The house. The very place she lived at for years; the place she had made so many memories at, good and bad; the place, as odd as it seems, she was happiest at.
It didn’t matter now, though. She had her own life; her own family. The house was nothing more than old memories now.
…right?
Haruka shuffled down a snow covered street, her black hair whipping in all different directions in the winter wind. The more she pushed her hair away from her face, the more hair that ended up in her face. It was really annoying, adding on to her already horrible day, even though it was just a small, insignificant problem.
She would just have to get over it, like she got over everything.
She continued walking for a few more minutes, when she stopped, feeling a slight tug on her jacket. “Mommaaa?”
Haruka slightly jumped, but instantly recovered and looked down at the small girl that had been walking by her side. “Ah, y-yes?”
The girl tugged on her jacket again and sniffed. “I-I’m cold.”
This, the girl, was Adelaide; a small girl about four years old. She wore a pink dress with a large sweater pulled over it, which she kept tugging at with her other hand. Every so often, another cold gust of wind would cause one of her pigtails to whip around her face and, annoyed, she would shake her head to move the hair out of her face.
Adelaide sniffed again and continued to tug on her mother’s gray jacket. She repeated, “I’m cold. I wanna go home.”
Haruka sighed and grabbed her daughter’s hand. “Just wait a bit longer, okay? We’re almost home, Addie.”
Adelaide shook her head again and looked away from Haruka. “I wanna go home now. I’m cold. And hungry. A-And I wanna see daddy!” She looked back up at Haruka and stomped her pink snow boots on the ground, taking a few steps forward. “Nowww!”
Haruka gently pulled Adelaide back toward her and frowned. “Just a few more minutes and we’ll be home, I promise. J-Just wait, please.”
She let go of the small girl’s hand for a moment to rest her hand on her stomach, looking back at the street. Really, she wished she could get home faster. She was tired and her feet were absolutely killing her and arguing with her four-year-old daughter didn’t help.
Again, she would just have to li—
“Bye momma!”
What?!
Haruka turned to look at where Adelaide had been standing, only to find that she was now running down the sidewalk, away from her.
“A-Adelaide! Ugh!” Managing all of her remaining energy, Haruka half ran, half waddled after her, glancing left or right every so often. That area looked so familiar yet so foreign. She could have sworn she had been there before, but she couldn’t remember when.
It probably didn’t matter much.
Eventually, Adelaide stopped and Haruka slid to a halt in front of her, trying to catch her breath. “A-Adelaide! W-What were you t-thinking, taking off like t-that? You could h-have slipped and hurt y-yourself!”
But Adelaide just stared past Haruka, smiling. After a minute she pointed forward and said, “Look, momma! It’s the house from the pictures!”
Immediately, Haruka whipped her head in the direction Adelaide was pointing, her green eyes widening.
The house.
The very place she had been trying to avoid for years.
…the longer you stay away from that place and the less you think about it, the less you’ll miss it.
…
But it’s not that easy.
Especially if you stumble upon the very place you had been avoiding all this time.
