[Prologue] A Hope Shines In Midst of Injustices

|Notice: Please do not extend the accuracy of medical conditions here to the real life one as I only wrote it based on what I know about them and a little bit of drama|

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"Fufufu! I finally got my hand on the newest light novels right now!" I held my bag full of light novels upwards. It was really a lot of work to find all of them but it paid off as I could finally catch up to the newest volumes of my favorite Novels.

You may be wondering.. who am I? Why am I speaking to myself? Well I basically am just me! Hahahaha! That's a good saying. Well on real term my name is Kyoraku Nozomi, I am 17 years old right now. I lived with my big sister Kyoraku Ai who is around 21 years old.

We had no parents, we had no relatives, but we have each other and that is the most important. My big sister worked as an apprentice doctor as she studied in Medical School. She aspires to became a great doctor.

Me myself? I am earning money myself by doing commissions in art and other little things. I aspires to become a great help for this world in the future!

Is it a big dream? Of course! Will I be recognised as a hero? Maybe! I don't care either way. I just want this world to be a better place for everything that I cherish and I will cherish live happily. I have a great dream if I must say myself.

"I'm home!" I finally arrived in front of my home. It is a normal two story house that was given by the government because of my big sister's work. It is not big but it has everything we needed here.

"Welcome back" I heard a gentle voice coming from the inside of the house. There I saw a woman that still looks like she is seventeen sipping her tea while reading a book. She has a long hair that she lets to flow freely, she wore a set of glasses that she used to read. She wore a casual black and white t-shirt while wearing shorts.

Meanwhile myself, I had a short and messy hairstyle.I don't need to wear glasses to read. I wore a normal plain blue t-shirt with some gray shorts. I also sometimes wear a hat that I used when I'm going out.

"Are you done buying them?" She asked me and I only showed her the giant bag I am holding. She was looking at the bag with a concerned face.

"Can you really read all of that?" She was clearly concerned that I would waste my own money buying this much Light Novels.

"No problem, I'll read all of them!" I just assured her to not worry about it. She didn't respond instead just pinched her forehead while sighing.

"Well whatever you say.. Go place all of that in your room and came down for breakfast" She said while waving her hand away from me.

"Okay!" I just enthusiastically climbed up the stair to my bed while carrying my book

"Fuah!" I opened the door to my room and I felt the gush of cold win hit me. It felt refreshing after getting hit by the heat of summer almost 7 hours.

*Drop*

"Hmm! Soft as always!" I laid down on my bed but as I closed my eyes I suddenly heard..

"Nozomi! Come down! Let's eat!" It's the voice of Big sister. She is shouting quite loudly..

'Well I'll lay down later..' I said while getting up and going downstairs. Well let's see what are we eating.

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"'Thanks for the food!'" Me and my big sister said together. In front of us were our normal everyday food. Only white rice, shrimp tempura, and some crunchy nori that was sprinkled with only a little salt. It was overall simple yet delicious.

I first grabbed a shrimp tempura then also grabbed a nori with my chopsticks then wrapped the nori around the tempura carefully. I then ate it with a few bites of white rice. The taste was simply divine!

"Hmm~! Tasty as usual!" I nodded in approval of the dish. Her cookings were extremely good every time. It was honestly surprising how great she is with cooking.

"Good! Eat well!" She said while grabbing some nori for herself. We ate like this for quite a while until we finished eating.

"'Thanks for the food!"' We finished our meals like this. Then we just casually picked up our dishes and I washes them. It's a normal everyday thing for us to do things like this. She cook I clean, She works I do the chores, and etc. We complete each other.

"Fiuh! Done!" I nodded while seeing my work to wash the dishes. The dishes were as good as new.

"Thank you, Nozomi" My big sister said while she is back to reading her book.

"You're welcome!" I said while giving her a thumbs up. I looked at the time which is around 14.30 in the afternoon and because tomorrow is still my summer vacation time, I could just chill and read my light novels.

"Then I'll go to my room!" I said while dashing towards my room.

"Slow down!" I heard my big sister said. But I just ignored her and climbed the stairs as fast as possible.

But as I'm on the middle of the stairs suddenly my vision goes blurry. My body suddenly loses it's balance. Because of that I accidentally.. stumbled and fell down the stairs.

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<Kyoraku Ai's PoV>

"Hmm~" I'm just peacefully humming a song I particularly liked but then I heard something O never wanted to hear...

*THUD*

A loud thud could be heard from inside the house. I immediately placed my book and hurriedly moved to the source of sound.

"Nozomi!" At the source of sound I saw something that shocked me.. Nozomi lying there with blood flowing out from his head. I immediately wasted no time and called for help.

*Ring~*

"Hello may I help you?" I heard a professional sounded woman on the other side of the phone. I just wasted no time for chit chats and went straight to the point of my call.

"Ambulance, emergency! Address *******. Please send an ambulance ASAP!" I just said my detailed address quickly but understandable as possible.

"Understood! Please wait for 3 minutes!" She said handling all of that professionally. After that I immediately focused back on my little brother. I immediately picked him up and applied pressure to his wound on his head.

"Why are you gotta be such a fool.." I said while my mind was in an adrenaline rush.

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<Kyoraku Nozomi's PoV>

*Beep~* *Beep~* *Beep~*

I slowly opened my eyes to only close them again because of the blinding white light. It was honestly making my head hurts. But slowly and surely I opened my eyes once again. I squinted my eyes nonetheless but I could at least kept my eyes open.

I slowly looked towards my side. Left and Right. I looked at both of my sides slowly. My head is really painful right now. And every time I moved it the more painful it got. From my left side I could see a giant window that was obviously closed because I felt a chilling cold that was obviously from the AC.

On the window was a plain white curtains that do not do a good job at covering the lights of the sun that was coming in. At the corner of where the window is I saw a white chair that was placed back to the wall.

I then shifted my gaze towards my right and I saw a small desk. On top of the desk was a few notes and books. Next to the desk was a monitor or more precisely a heartbeat monitor. The room was empty and was silent with only the occasional beeping sounds could be heard.

I then slowly shifted my gaze back upwards towards the white blinding lights. It was bright.. too bright even for my eyes. And so I just decided to sat up.

"Hmph!" I muster out as much strength as I could to sit upright but it was really painful. It was hard but I just kept on pushing through. Somehow after around 30 seconds of struggles I managed to sit upright.

"Hmmm..." I looked at the door that was on my right. It was a pure white door with a small glass panel to see through it. I just stared at it silently without making even a single noise until suddenly the door opens.

"Nozomi!" Someone suddenly dashed forward and hugged me tightly. So tightly that it begins to hurt.

"Can you release me now? It kinda hurts" I said softly to her. She then just realises it and immediately released her hug and walked backwards a few step.

"Ah, Good Morning, Nozomi-san" I heard a greeting from a professional sounded voice behind my big sister. He wore a white coat alongside a suit with a blue tie. He has a stethoscope hanged around his neck and a pen on his chest pocket.

"Good morning?" I greeted him back with a little confusion on my face.

"You have been unconscious for almost 24 hours, Nozomi-san." The man said. He opened the curtains to let the blocked lights in and the room was bright and shiny even though the lamps were enough.

"Ehh..." I was honestly a little surprised by it. I mean I do have some blood and heart conditions that could make me unconscious.. but for a full day? It's impossible that I slept that long..

"Tell me what happened to you that you could fall down the stairs?" The man asked me. He was ready to write anything unusual about it.

"Hmmm.. Nothing much happened but when I went upstairs my vision suddenly gets blurry and my body just loses it's balance.. that's it" I explained my experience. It was a simple explanation because that is literally what had happened.

"Unusual loss of balance and blurry visions.. Please sit up straight" He said and approach me while wearing his stethoscope. He placed the stethoscope on my chest and hear my heart beat something that even I sometimes cannot feel.

"..Abnormal heart rhythmic. Do you feel any chest pains recently?" He asked again while writing down something on some kind of a report.

"Sometimes, I guess" I said vaguely but I still remembered about some occasions where I had just random severe chest pains.

"Hmm... This is going to be complicated. I have a thesis about what happened to you but we needs more evidence." He said while rubbing his head. He placed his pen back into his pocket and hanged the stethoscope back around his neck.

"What about it, Ishi-san?" My big sister asked the man which is named Ishi. He looked at me with a bit of concern in his eyes but hid it pretty well.

"I may have quite thought your little brother here could have a heart disease. But I will need more evidence. So tomorrow at 12 A.M I will schedule a CT scan to gather more evidence" He said while writing a note on a piece of paper he ripped from somewhere I don't know.

"I have wrote my number there in case you need to contact me. Do not worry the CT scan was covered by your insurance" He said giving the small note to my big sister. But then I also voiced a question.

"Do I need to stay here overnight?" I asked about it. He only thought of it for a bit before deciding.

"No need. You could go home. But make sure to not eat any foods 4 hours prior to the scan and make sure to drink only clear water. Make sure to also take your prescribed medication in case something happened" He explained to me in detail. I nodded in understanding then he just walked straight out leaving me and my big sister in the room.

"Nozomi.." My big sister looked at me with a worried expression. But I just looked at her with a warm smile while giving her a thumbs up.

"I am going to be fine! After all we promised to grow together after all!"

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"Why.. *sob* *sob*" I gently caressed the hair of my big sister that is crying while hugging me. I could not cheer her up.. I failed to do it. I could only gave her a fake 'I'm fine' smile. It was a genuine hardship to cheer her up.. it was a true feeling of love for someone. But to see it all fall because of one stupid cell.. It is kinda infuriating.

"I wonder why.." I muttered and looked up to the ceiling once again. The once bright light of the lamp has dimmed down a little bit making it less painful to stare at.

It was a sad moment.. To understand what happened, I will just tell the simplified explanation. Basically I am right now in the hospital, the same room as last time with the same doctor.. apparently he was the Chief Physician of the hospital.

We went on with our CT scan and it went well luckily. But just right after I finished scanning.. suddenly my vision once again became blurry but instead of losing balance, this time I felt a severe pain on my chest. It was so severe that I almost fell unconscious because of it. But it is not over.. moments after the severe pain I suddenly.. coughed out blood.

No coughing out blood is an understatement of how much blood actually I coughed out. It was at least almost a quarter of a water bottle worth of blood. It was a lot.. and it was terrifying to see. And so now here I am in this room.

But this still doesn't explain why my big sister is crying profusely in front of me. Well.. it has been more than 24 hours since the CT scan and the result was.. saddening for the least to say. Based on the CT scan I was diagnosed with a rare disease Cardiac Sarcoma or basically.. Heart Cancer.

To brief out what Heart Cancer really is.. well as it sounds like.. a cancer that forms on the.. well heart. But what made this Cancer really harsh is the life expectancy of it.. I was estimated to have around only 4 months left to live.. and that is why she was crying..

"Come on stop crying.." I tried to say to her but..

"It is fine.. you know?" My voice started shaking. Tears started to dwell in my eyes. I know it.. I am also hurt by the discovery. But I need to toughen up. For her happiness, for her future so she wouldn't"t dwell on it for long.

"I will be fine.." My voice returned to it's normal state and my eyes temporarily stopped tearing up.

'4 months or less.. well I will use my time as best as possible!' I made a simple resolve in my mind. I would cherish my time as good as possible.. the last remaining time for me to actually live to see this world.

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It was never meant to be like this.. I had a dream back then. It was a dream.. a beautiful one.. yet I knew it will never actually happen. The last time I thought about the dream was around 5 years ago when I was 12. It was the time where our parents decided to just say 'fuck it' and dumped us somewhere with no money, no place to stay, nothing..

And so for a couple of months we needed to move from place to place, searching for available jobs and home. We were in this search together. In this time as well that I promised I wouldn't actually leave her side. We learned to survive, we learned to thrive.

And so after a 5 months of moving from place to place we finally found a place.. or spesifically a job that also offers a place to live.. It is a government job as so it also has high salary. My big sister is actually a very talented person being able to master her job in 2 weeks.

And so our condition reached today's point where I could live cozily but not with a lot of luxuries. We have worked hard to reached today. As so I won't let anything break my promises to her. It is a promise for myself to shine..

"*sigh* What a pain.." I stared at the star-lit sky. It was beautiful, the sky was bright.. brighter than the city below me. I sat down as I looked under me as the ledge between the roof and open space. The city was bustling with bright lights and laughs. I looked forward to the vast city and smiled.

"It is beautiful isn't it?" I said to the person that suddenly appeared behind me. He only stared at me in silent while also gazing from the roof.

"Go inside, we need to prepare you for tomorrow" The person said to me with an indifferent tone. I did not feel the need to answer the person as so I just kept on talking with myself. Not long after I then heard the voice of a closing door.

"The vast city, the bustling city, and the beautiful city.." I said while reaching my hands forward. But it only went as far as I extended it to be..

"Not only this city.. The world. The world is beautiful, the world is a vast place, and the world is a bustling place. It was mesmerising." I said while standing up once again. In those moments my abnormally pale skin could be seen. My tired eyes and tired body. I was really skinny and looked really malnourished. I looked pathetic..

"Sadly I will never see it again.." I slowly walked back towards the door and just slowly went downstairs..