You'll Find No Shining Stars (Satoru)

[Satsuki "Satsu" Akiyama]

Satsu was sitting on the front steps of a tea shop smoking a cigarette, a habit she'd picked up around her home. Her mother and father both smoked, so she did. She missed being home, honestly; it was the draw-back of time travel. She wouldn't complain about getting her chance to help change the future, but she missed being able to talk to her mother.

She sighed when she saw a couple walking by, blowing more smoke into the chilly air. She was wearing a thin yukata ((summer kimono)) that had fallen off of her one shoulder, and she shivered. It was cold, but she didn't want to go back inside. Inside was lonely, lonlier than she wanted to admit.

[Satoru Matsumoto]

Satoru was sitting in the middle of Diagon Alley, near a joke shop. The wind blew ever so slightly through his messy hair, as he thought to himself, and took in everything that was around him. He heard someone coming up close to him, too close. Satoru, without opening his eyes, stood up and began walking away from the one who came close to him. He heard them follow, and so he opened his eyes, and kicked backwards, causing the man that was following him to fall to the ground.

He looked down the street and saw a woman, who Satoru was curious about. She was sitting all alone, outside, and smoking that cig-er-ette that he heard about on the streets in Japan. It must have been fate that he would kick his pursuer and see the woman there. Satoru walked down the street and stood in front of the woman. "Does your smoking represent a deeper need to be accepted by your parents, who I assume smoked, and therefore to make yourself seem more like them, you smoke as well?" Satoru asked, having little information to go off of, and so this explanation was not as likely as it would be if he had observed her for a little bit more.

[Satsuki "Satsu" Akiyama]

The average person would probably be deeply offended and annoyed if some random stranger came up and asked them a personal question. Satsu just laughed it off and smiled up at the man. The way she saw it, it was probablyl fate that she met him there that night. She'd been lonely anyway.

"Most people introduce themselves before asking random strangers deeply personal questions," she pointed out. "I'm Akiyama Satsu...Satsu Akiyama in Western order."

[Satoru Matsumoto]

Satoru smiled at her reaction. He hadn't realized that he should have introduced himself first. It wasn't like he met anyone who wanted to know what he was very often. There was a good ten people who asked for his name, and he wasn't supposed to tell his name first, at least since he came to England. In Japan there were a good amount of people who wanted to know him, and he felt accepted there, somewhat, though he hated his orphanage.

"I am Satoru Matsumoto in the Western order; however, when I moved here I was given the name Elezar Breywen. I will respond to either," Satoru responded before chuckling, "Was my deduction correct?" Satoru liked when he was right, because that meant he was a little closer to knowing what he was supposed to, gathering all his information to form one goal that the world was tell him.

[Satsuki "Satsu" Akiyama]

"I like Satoru better," she admitted, moving over. "Sit with me. I was lonely."

She pulled up the sleeve of her yukata so that it yet-again covered her shoulder. It was cold out that night; winter was truly setting in. She'd been out of her depth for so long that it was starting to feel like it was normal, but at least she had a friend now. At least, she hoped that she did; it would be nice to have a friend or two.

"I guess you were," she mused. "I haven't ever thought about it, but if I do...yes, I'm sure that you're right."

[Satoru Matsumoto]

"I prefer it as well. It was my given name by my real parents," Satoru stated with a nod before taking the seat she offered.

Satsu seemed very intriguing. Perhaps he may even have a friend, a first real friend. Satoru never had friends, even in Japan at the orphanage, and especially not in England, when the only people he liked were his adoptive parents. Satsu actually didn't yell at him for his questions.

"Really?" Satoru asked slightly surprised, "Good, good. Very interesting. The fact you let a stranger sit with you in times like this, means that you are lonely and looking for company, and yet you separate yourself from those inside. Why?" Satoru knew why he wasn't inside, and that was because being in the fresh air was great, and it felt more like home than anything else ever did.

[Satsuki "Satsu" Akiyama]

"What happened to them?" she asked softly. "If you don't mind me asking."

Satoru seemed very nice, and he was the only other Japanese person that she'd met in England. She'd spent much of her life as the foreigner working with people on their native soil, so she should have been used to the feeling by that point, but she never managed to get totally used to it. There was that part of her that really, honestly hated it.

"The thing with my parents is that they work a lot. They always have, and my mother can be very critical. It always felt like I wasn't good enough, so I strove to be more like her," she explained, or at least attempted to. "I guess that doesn't make much sense, but that's as best as I can explain it. I don't thinkt that I can explain why I was so willing to sit with you, though. They," here she paused to gesture towards everyone inside. "Are throwing a party. I was invited, but it's mostly their friends and family. I am neither, so I felt out of place and came out here. Beyond that, back home, there are stars, and those stars are the same everywhere. Usually, when I get to feeling homesick, that helps, but here...no stars."

[Satoru Matsumoto]

"My parents?" Satoru asked curiously. It was odd that anyone asked him about his family. No one ever really cared. "They died. I was a newborn." It wasn't that interesting. He still didn't understand how anyone could want to know what happened with his family. Now him understanding other people's lives was normal. He supposed there was some give and take in this.

It was true that she was the first one of his homeland since he left the orphanage and was forced to move here. While he was bitter about leaving, he was happy to leave the orphanage. He never wanted to go to school and they were going to force him eventually, just as Voldemort was forcing him now. He didn't like school. Everyone was unorganized there, or wasn't organized right. It caused him not able to focus during class except on the organization. At least now he could perhaps have a friend that was from Japan as he was.

"No, that makes a lot of sense," Satoru stated, "It is quite normal for a child to want to impress a parent and emulate them in the process." Satoru looked at the building she indicated with the party. He listened to her closely, trying to understand her. He hadn't yet met someone like her who didn't slap him across the face and actually talked to him. "The stars are always there. Just because you cannot see them, does not mean they are not there. You cannot see air, but you know it is still surrounding us. If you were to close your eyes and imagine the stars and think, you would realize that you are never alone. The stars never desert you."

[Satsuki "Satsu" Akiyama]

"You're very new to this whole social interaction thing, aren't you?" she asked with a laugh. "It tends to be a give-and-take situation; you don't just get to ask personal questions without them being asked in return, usually. Does that make sense?"

She was really bad at explaining things; that had always been her mother's biggest gripe about her. She was sure that Yukiyo loved her, but nobody had ever accused Yukiyo-hime of being uncritical. Growing up, Satsu had learned that her mother was the most critical of the people that she cared for the most.

"That's a nice way to think of it," she agreed, glancing upward. "I wish I could see them, though. What made you talk to me? I guess it's odd that I just thought of that."

[Satoru Matsumoto]

"I've never had anyone take an interest in myself," Satoru replied with a half-shrug, "I don't remember anything about my parents. All I was told was that they were killed, along with one of my brothers." There was the confirmation about the give and take in this conversation. He supposed in order to get the information easier, he'd have to give up information of his own. But he didn't mind it at all, it was actually quite interesting to have a conversation like this.

Satoru almost was envious of her having a loving family, even though her parents had some problems. He sometimes wondered how his life would have been if his parents weren't gone. But they were. It was fate. The world chose to make him loose them, and so that was how it was supposed to be.

"Yes, the stars are pretty if one can see them," Satoru answered, though he didn't rely on sight to see the world, mostly saying it to agree with her, "I was nearly robbed, I stopped the robber, and saw you. Such an event made it clear this was what I was supposed to do tonight."

[Satsuki "Satsu" Akiyama]

"Everyone should have at least one person that takes interest in them," she remarked. "It's nice to know that you're cared for. Let's make a promise, then; I'll always be your friend if you're mine."

She offered him her pinkie finger to link with his and seal the promise with a smile. It was childish, but Satsu had her moments. Well, more than moments; she could be out-right juvenile at times. She'd always liked the idea of pinkie-swears, since the red string of fate that connected people that were meant to be together was tied to their pinkies. Call it silly, but she believed very much in destiny.

"You spoke with me because you saw me after being nearly robbed?" she asked. "I could have been anyone. I guess that I'm equally guilty, though; I spoke to you."

[Satoru Matsumoto]

"I suppose my adoptive parents did. They just tried to change me," Satoru commented before looking at her pinkie curiously, "I... I promise." It was still really odd. And her offering her pinkie was odd. Was it some sort of ritual? It surely wasn't one he heard of, but since he did want to learn more about her, he held out his pinkie in the same way that she did, not knowing how the ritual was going to go.

Satoru believed in fate, oh yes, he was a big believer that everyone had a purpose and everything happened for a reason. Him seeing her after almost being robbed was fate saying that he must approach her. That, and he felt some sort of pull towards her in the distance, but that was just fate pulling him over here. What fate wanted, he was not sure yet, nor was sure that he would ever know for a fact.

"Yes, it was very obvious that it was destined for me to almost get robbed, incapacitate my attacker, see you, and engage in conversation with you," Satoru explained, "If you were meant to kill me, I'd be dead, and that would've been my fate. I wasn't going to avoid it, for it was meant for me to see you and come."

[Satsuki "Satsu" Akiyama]

She burst out laughing at the look on his face. He was so serious! It was funny!

"It's not some sort of magical ritual, Toru-kun! It's called a pinkie swear; some muggle thought it up. I was told that it was after they heard about the red string of fate. Have you heard of that?" she asked.

The way he thought of it was pretty intriguing; he seemed like a straight-forward, honest type person. She didn't encounter many of those, so it was appreciated tremendously. His staunch belief in fate was what honestly intrigued Satsu, though. She believed in fate, but she believed that it was forever changing. She didn't think that anything was fixed and set in stone, which was probably why she was so skeptical of the red string of fate.

"I guess I can't argue with that," she admitted. "I've always thought of fate as something that's forever changing and not set in space. You don't, though?"

[Satoru Matsumoto]

"A pinkie-swear?" Satoru said raising an eyebrow, "Are you sure there is no other formal gesture in this... swear?" He wasn't completely convinced it wasn't a kind of ritual, as it really seemed like it was one. Perhaps he was just ignorant of such odd gestures to show that one promises something. "The red string of fate? I am not familiar with it. If I were to guess it is something similar to this pinkie swear, with a red string? Red is traditionally the symbol of either blood or love, and being attached by fate, would mean either those attached by a red string die together or are destined lovers."

Satoru found it odd with all of her little rituals. First this pinkie-swear and then something involving a red string of fate, connecting death or love. It was really odd, but it was interesting. It gave him a better view on people, whether people in general or just Satsu. He wasn't sure why fate had brought them together on this day.

"Fate is always set in stone. However, if one believes they can change fate, they are just fulfilling what is destined to happen either way. The way you think affects your decisions, and fate has already accounted for these actions and thoughts you create," Satoru answered looking at the dark sky above them.

[Satsuki "Satsu" Akiyama]

"There's no formal gesture; pinkie swears are usually done by children," she admitted with a laugh. "The red string of fate is an old Japanese belief. The story goes that it connects the pinkie fingers of two people that are destined to meet. Traditionally, it signifies some sort of romantic link. I just think it's silly, personally."

She got the distinct and uncomfortable feeling that he thought that she was weird. She was, admittedly, but she felt even more so at that particular moment. She wasn't sure if Satoru was unadjusted to being around people or she was just strange, but she was determined to be friends with him.

"I guess that's one way to think about it. I believe in fate, but it scares me," she confessed softly, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her chin on them. She was still cold. "I'm not even sure why. It's one of those irrational fears that I just can't put into words if I tried."