Hirokazu

I looked out at the sea of books, the musky scent of their worn pages filled my nostrils. I breathed in happily. This was my place, my quiet place where the rays of sunlight reached me, even though I didn't go outside. After that incident.

Although I met Jae, that's probably the only upside to my wanting to see rice fields at age ten.

"Hiro, where were you, you disappeared in a second!" Jae came up behind me and placed a gentle set of fingers on my shoulder. I didn't stiffen like others might've done, I smiled and turned round halfway to look at her over my shoulder.

After being brought up in the palace for the past three years, it really had worn off on her. She was treated like a princess, and I treated her like a sister.

Jae placed her hand by her side and fiddled impatiently with a strand of her hair like she always did when she wanted to ask me something, or she had something on her mind. Her dark eyes wandered around the room, taking in exactly where they were.

"What is it?" I asked, crossing my arms and turning to fully face her. I grinned and our gazes locked.

"You look so much like a girl, it's kind of scary." She said, grinning back, sticking her tongue out childishly. I sighed and pulled a clump of my dark hair in front of my face. It didn't seem feminine.

"What's wrong with it? This is the traditional style of my ancestors! There's nothing girlish about it!" I complained, letting the hair fall back against my cheek.

My humour had returned, even after that dream I had. About my mother's death. And besides, it was obviously not real because half of it was placed in a faraway place from the book my father gave me. It was about his family's abbreviated history. I couldn't exactly say that it was all true though, I'd had my fair share of sneaking around. I knew all about the giant lakes called seas and oceans. Of snowy planes full of creatures called ice-bears. Of lands of endless sand dunes, with a relentless sun that only the deadliest could survive in. I sighed and was once again lost in dreams of the outside world.

"Hiro?…Hiro?!" Jae shook me gently. I blinked several times and looked up at her, Jae's face melted from annoyance to concern. "Hiro, someday you're going to regret drifting off into the clouds all the time."

"It's going be jinxed if you go around saying it like that." I teased, forcing a warm smile onto my face. Even if I told Jae about my feelings and how I think my training wasn't going down the right lane exactly…I looked away and grimaced, I couldn't bare it until she figured it out.

If word got out that the Tainted Prince didn't even know the extent of his power, and he'd been alive for the past thirteen years—had been practising so much that he'd been getting nose bleeds and dizzy spells, along with paranoia and visionary dreams—and still didn't know…I sighed.

But I ignored those dreams, they were dreams—my mother wouldn't really die, would she? She was only thirty-eight. Mother had many more years to go.