Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ A White Evening ❯ Chapter One ( Chapter 1 )

Notes Chapter one, everyone! I dunno if somebody's actually reading this, but still, as long as there's someone who does, I'll not stop faithfully posting here. I hope I'm doing well. Please just tell me whether you find it good or not. Thanks for the review, Chester!

 

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Chapter One

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November 30, 2000

Manchester, England

 

"Sir."

Yuri woke with a jerk and quickly sat upright, blinking away the drowsiness from his eyes. He was still sitting in his desk, his office already dark save from the desk lamp on his table. Stacks of folders, file boxes and papers cluttered the space around him.

"Sir, it's already ten."

He looked up at the young woman standing before his desk, and recognized her a second later as Dianne Payne, his workaholic, devout and friendly secretary. Her curly dark hair was tied in a high ponytail, making her bright expression more noticeable than ever. Yuri inwardly wondered how she could still look refreshed after a day's work.

"Dianne," he said, by the way of a greeting. He picked up his wire-rimmed eyeglasses from the messy heap on his table and wore them hastily.

A small frown creased Dianne's beaming face. "Sir, don't push yourself too hard. It's bad for your health."

Yuri eyed her sternly. "That's my line. Why are you still here? You know I'll be on overtime today. I told you that you can be off the usual time."

"I'm your secretary, sir," Dianne said at once. "I'm the one who's supposed to assist you." With that, she turned her back to him and went to a corner of his office to retrieve something. When she returned, a mug of black coffee was already in her hands.

"No sugar?" Yuri confirmed.

"Yes,sir."

"Three spoons?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you," he finally said, receiving the mug and taking a sip from it. "Dianne, I order you to go home right now or I'll get twenty percent off your salary."

Dianne seemed to blink in surprise at this, then she smiled to herself. "Of course. Then I should be going now, sir. I advice you to call this a night too. Your mother will sue me once she knew you lost weight when she returned."

Yuri smirked at this and raised a hand to officially dismiss her, and he watched as his secretary left the room quietly, shutting the door behind her and leaving ear-splitting silence in his office. He was thankful to have someone like Dianne to be his secretary; she understood him clearly and knew the moments when he needed time alone. And right now was one of those several instances.

He observed the dark liquid in his mug absently. I had that dream again. It had began once more. Every once in a while, he would dream about snippets of his past experiences, and it gave him an unexplainable, bad feeling. Especially whenever he dreamt about his memorable moments, like the one he had just now. The worst thing about it, though, was that it was her who he had seen in his dream. Again.

At this thought, Yuri sat up his seat in sudden realization. His eyes quickly flicked to the calendar propped on his desk. He mused when he saw the date that day.

"Of course," he said aloud to himself, relaxing and leaning back on his executive chair, raising his mug before him so that the coffee's aroma wafted through his nose. He swiveled his chair towards the large glass window behind him, which ran the width of the entire wall and overlooked the skyscrapers outside Smith Industries Complex. He stared at the jet-black sky, and at the bright lights coming from the other buildings, head lights, and street lights. Even from the inside where the heaters are switched on, the chilly December breeze was evident in the air. The winter season was Yuri's most favorite time of the year. He never failed to watch the first rain of snow, no matter what time of the day it is. And that year's first snowfall was about to take place in any minute.

Yuri heaved a sigh and raised his coffee higher to a toast. "Happy thirteenth death anniversary...Mary."

Slowly, snow began to fall down from the night sky.

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"Welcome to Glasgow International Airport. Please make sure all valuables are not left unattended. Thank you."

Yuri sat on one of the airport's benches and rubbed his knuckles on his temples to relieve his pounding head. Lack of sleep, stress from tremendous paperwork and a plane ride weren't a good combination at all. And, to add up with all the crankiness, he happened to sit beside an extremely fidgety middle-aged man during the flight, and he hadn't given him any chance to take even a minute of sleep.

He inserted a hand to the inside pockets of his brown leather jacket and pulled out his phone to contact anyone he could ask if he already had his car parked outside. After a few rings, someone answered the other end of the line.

"Smith Manor. May I help you?"

Yuri paused, for he cannot remember anyone who had the speaker's voice. "Actually, yes," he answered, nevertheless. "Who is this?"

"Who are you?" the speaker answered back, somewhat rudely.

Yuri's brows raised an inch. "This is Yuri Smith."

A faint gasp was heard from his phone's receiver, before the speaker suddenly said out loud, "Young Master! It's me, Jordan!"

Jordan? Yes, it's familiar. Where could he have heard that...oh yeah! "Oh, Jordan," Yuri said, finally remembering who he was. Jordan was the family butler's son, who was about a year younger than Yuri and had somewhat taken a deep admiration towards him.

"Young Master, it's good to hear from you again!" Jordan said excitedly.

"Me too," said Yuri truthfully. He had some kind of trust with the butler's son. "I'm already here in Glasgow. Is the car already here?"

But Jordan seemed to ignore his question. “How's it been, Young Master? I haven't heard from you for a year!”

Yuri restrained himself from sighing. “Pretty busy. So—”

“But I know you can cope with it. You're one bloody genius—” But disturbing noises began to erupt from Yuri's receiving end after this. After a short moment, it became normal again.

 

“My deepest apologies, Young Master. This is Alfred speaking,” an old, melancholic voice spoke. It was the Smiths' butler, Alfred.

If Yuri had only been an expressive person, he would have probably hugged the old man for saving him from building more headaches talking with Jordan. “Alfred.”

“You're in Glasgow right now, I see,” Alfred said. “The car's there since one hour ago.”

Yuri could now hear Jordan's protests from the background and he closed his eyes for more patience. “Right. Better be going then. Thanks Alfred.”

“It is an honor. By the way, Madam wants you back as soon as possible.”

“…Mother?” Yuri said, surprised. “She's there?”

“Yes,” Alfred replied coolly. “She didn't want to inform you because she said it was a surprise.” From how he sounded, Yuri was dead sure that the old man was finding his mother' silliness disturbing. He inwardly smiled. Not a bit had they changed.

“Very well,” he said, “I'll see to it.”

He could almost see Alfred's crooked smile. “Thank you, Young Master.”

 

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Yuri silently watched the snow slowly building up in his window as he was stuck in the daily traffic jam along the main streets of Glasgow. Lately, he had been so busy that he hadn't noticed the three years since he left the Smith Manor in Derby to settle in a flat in Manchester. He had last seen his mother four months ago, and his father almost a year. He never realized how long the intervals were for normal people; a man like him should be used to it ever since childhood. That was the way a family like them live.

After several minutes, he had finally reached his destination. His car came into a halt before a pair of tall iron-wrought black gates, and immediately a guard in stand by approached him.

“Welcome to the Gannet Mausoleum, sir,” he began once Yuri pulled down his window, and he paused when he realized who he was. “Oh, Mr. Smith!”

Yuri nodded at him. “May I?”

“Of course.” The guard then hurried back to his small guardhouse to push a button. The gates began to pull apart automatically, and Yuri closed his window before entering the silent sanctuary.

Nothing much has changed, he concluded, once he found a parking place and had gone out of his car with a huge bouquet of wild tulips in his arms. It was already winter and not even a single flower can be seen in the fields right now, so thank greenhouse technology for that. He observed his surroundings subdued in a thin layer of snow as he walked silently towards a white platform ahead, which held the tombs of the family lineage of the Gannet family. A number of concrete gravestones also dotted the pathway, which were either the family's commemorated non-relatives or other sub-families. He wouldn't care that much.

He found the entrance open when he walked up the front steps of the Gannet Head Family graveyard, and he scanned the names engraved in the marble gravestones as he passed by them with an unreadable expression. He finally came into a halt before the grave that was second from the left-most corner of the mausoleum and stared, hard, at the name etched on the sable marble with gold, coiled letters.

Mary Louise Gannet

Born: October 8, 1978

Died: November 30, 1990

 

Yuri's hold on the bouquet of tulips tightened. Ten years. It's been ten years since Mary's death. Time really goes by too fast for him. Ten years weren't still enough to heal the wound, to replace the hole that was only filled by her. He had only known Mary Gannet for a year, yet he thought he could never be happy again if she would leave him. And she did. And he was indeed never happy again.

He kneeled on one knee and laid the flowers before her grave, then remained in that position to observe the tomb more closely. He couldn't imagine how hard he had cried when he and his family attended her and her father's burial ten years ago. He was never the emotional type, but strong men also cry. In fact, crying is the bravest act of a man. He couldn't believe how life can be taken that easily. He couldn't believe how a mere car accident would rob Mary of her life. And his temporary happiness.

He closed his eyes and stood up, taking one last long look at Mary's grave before turning around to leave.

For once in his life he had felt grateful that he lived, that was in his mind since he had Mary as his friend. Now that she died, he still felt grateful to be alive. That was because she had made him see the beauty of being alive.

 

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Wee!! Finished Chapter One!!! Okay, now what do you think about that? Well, thanks for reading!