Chapter 1

Japan, 1990

Keiichiro Yamaguchi and his gang had just had a big fight with a rival gang. They lost big time. Keiichiro didn’t even remember what the fight was originally about. They were always butting heads with one gang or another. There didn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason to it. Sure, he liked fighting as much as the next delinquent. But he liked to either have a reason for it or have some structure behind it, like a boxing match or such. But his boys were getting the living daylights beaten out of them every other day by these rival gangs, and he was getting tired of it. 

After their last fight that night, Keiichiro had rode off on his own, on his motorcycle, to the pier. He looked out at the water and contemplated where his life was headed.

He just didn’t have the drive to be the gang leader he used to be. He used to want to rebel against Japanese conformity and against school rules and live on the edge of the law. But nowadays, he found himself just wanting to… play it safe. He wanted to be able to live a nice, comfortable life… maybe find someone to spend it with. He didn’t want to waste his days away, getting into trouble. He wondered if he should disband the gang entirely and risk losing the only friends he had. 

As he was thinking this, he heard a voice call his name from around the street corner. It was his girlfriend, Miki. She was the kind of girl who tried to be popular by following all the latest trends, no matter how much money she had to spend or how she had to make it. She had a hot body and a cute face and voice. But she was shallow. At the time they started dating, Keiichiro was desperate to get a girl to like him and to lose his virginity. He didn’t dislike her, but they didn’t exactly click, and the more their relationship went on, the more he felt like he was faking it.

“Where have you been?” She yelled, as she approached. “We had a date, remember??”

“Oh, shoot, I totally forgot!” Keiichiro exclaimed. 

“No kidding!” She rolled her eyes. “You ‘forgot’ last time too! Guess I’m just not important enough to remember!”

“Look, I’ll make it up to you, ‘kay?” As much as he was tired of this, he couldn’t bring himself to break her heart. Despite their lack of companionship, she seemed pretty attached to him. He couldn’t do that to her.

He was just about to graduate high school. Or at least, he would be, if he wasn’t such a delinquent who was likely to get held back. Was this where his life was headed? He didn’t even have career plans or a school picked out, and in Japan especially, this made him an absolute disgrace. There was no way he’d be able to pass tests to get into the best colleges to get a proper career. He hardly ever did homework as it was. He skipped class a good chunk of the time. This gang had taken over his life. These guys were good friends. It was just the lifestyle they happened to be drawn to. They all felt like outcasts and had trouble in school, so they all… stopped trying. He wished he could go back and fix it, be a better student… a better son. If only he could somehow turn things around in this last semester.

Just as he thought that, a shooting star fell from the sky.

England, 1890

“I can’t marry Roger Ellington, mother,” Evelyn Mortimer exclaimed, as she paced around the elaborate drawing room. “He’s cold and unfriendly.”

“That’s because you haven’t had the chance to get to know him yet,” her mother advised, calmly.

“I don’t want to get to know him,” Evelyn argued.

“This isn’t like you, dear,” her mother said. Her daughter was usually so compliant.

“Well, it’s not every day that I’m engaged to be married to a man with a heart of ice,” she replied, with her arms crossed.

“Your father and I have made up our minds, young lady,” her mother said sternly. “You’re going to marry that man!” Now that she had the last word, her mother left the room.

All her parents cared about was social status and money. They didn’t care if she was happy or if she loved the man she was to marry. Evelyn couldn’t stand it. She didn’t want an arranged marriage with a man who didn’t care for her. She wanted to find love and marry a man who was sweet and funny and loved her with all his heart. Not only that, she didn’t want to conform to strict societal standards. She wanted to roam free and live life as she chose. She sighed and looked out the drawing room window.

Just then, a shooting star flew by.

The Victorian girl and the Japanese punk, in different times and places, both wished for change upon the same star. In those moments, a miracle occurred. A bright light shone and momentarily blinded these two young people. Once they opened their eyes, everything had changed.