The merciless ringing sounding in my ears, I rested my head on the bench with a blank expression as I tried to focus on the lively scenes before me.
My eyes lingered on a building nearby, where a woman walked hand in hand with two children. A dark-haired man slipped behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist, and the four of them had beautiful smiles on their faces.
For a second, I just stood there, watching them.
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
The sudden voice jolted me out of my reverie. My instincts swung into action before any thought, my scythe drawn out of my storage ring, its edge swung through the air almost immediately.
Instead of an enemy, I found a boy about my age standing a few paces away. His hair was a soft ash-brown that caught the sunlight, and his posture was almost too relaxed for someone who'd just had a weapon pointed at him. He raised both hands slowly, palms outward in mock surrender, a wry smile tugging at his lips.
