ch 3

Kaoru pov

I was seated in front of a large hall as an old and morbidly obese man sat in front of me drinking a cup of rancid luxurious alcohol in a sadistic smile.

There were large shoji doors surrounding us and a elaborate shrine behind him with a beautiful golden statue of Lady Okuninushi smiling gracefully.

It almost contrasted with the malice that tainted his face as his cruel crescent eyes hidden in unnatural saggy and fat pieces of his own skin,looked at me, inspecting my form.

A wooden tray of fish and a half bowl of rice was placed in front of me. Looking over to his table in front of mine ,full of different luxurious food, I believe okaasama still believes I needed to maintain my form.

Honestly, I was famished. I was the daughter of a concubine. I didn't go completely hungry but it didn't mean I had much.

Ever since it was decided that I was to be married to this man, I've been having to make do with a bowl of miso and herbal tea meant for fertility and smooth skin, nothing else, for days.

"Child. Come closer. Let me see my bride to be."

He says chuckling to himself as his voice echoed eerily in the halls.

I felt my nerves wrack like thunder shocking my beating heart as I bit my lips feeling the stinging pain.

I still very much didn't have any will to this at all.

The atmosphere was like a thin iced blizzard.

I..... didn't want to marry this old man..

But... what other choice do I have?..

I stood up holding the tears in my eyes that felt as if a rushing waterfall stuck behind a thin board fully aware that the slightest loss of control would unleash it.

My guts turned along with my heart that scrunched away as if the bitterest thing was tasted in my mouth whilst I walked towards him.

He gazed at me quietly as I felt invisible weight on my form.

There was an awkward silence in the room as he didn't say a word but all of a sudden the quiet was pierced by an irrited click of his tongue.

"Not very pretty....my..such a plain girl..you should eat less. A lady as such is much too useless."

He says in very evident spite as he sighed to himself.

In a sudden moment my heart trembled in rage but I knew I couldn't ever let that out.

He scoffed as he then stood before me.

He was taller and twice my size, looming over me, inspecting me like an object to buy from a merchant.

"Tch, if it wasn't from the Sengoku clan, I wouldn't even have accepted such a plain girl. You should be very grateful that I the great Lord Genji had decided to take you as my concubine."

He tells me arrogantly as his chubby and heavy hands squeezed my wrist and forcefully pulled me towards him.

"Still.... let's hope you could bloom..."

He giggles cruelly lifting my chin harshly to face the frightening grin on his face.

He looked like a Buddha statue from an old horror film as the subtle candle light and shadow cascaded his face.

My teeth gritted and chattered under my forced subtle smile.

I hated this with my life.

I wanted to run away from all this as far as I could. But... where would I even run to...

I had nowhere to go...I didn't know anything.. barely able to read and write...all that and not much else..

Suddenly outside the shoji, we heard a loud bang that reverberated through the wooden floor as my so called bethrote jolted in his shock stepping back unconsciously stumbling over the table of luxurious food behind with a loud thundering thud.

Disgustingly enough as the sound of food being mushed under his weight.

.....

(Ryo pov)

What happened before his capture was still mystery to him. But, in a rampant instinctual knowingness, he was fully aware he had to get out of this unfamiliar place..

He felt completely exhausted that it was if carrying a large boulder as he ran every footsteps worsening his panging head ache.

Nonetheless, he ran as fast as he could even if the air he hastily took to his lungs pierced and scarred him painfully inside his throat.

He wasn't stupid enough to wait. As he ran frantically controlling the panic shuttering in his nerves, yesterday's events slowly began to be return.

He tried to steal from the maidservants of that damned nobles to get something to fill his stomach before he died from starvation.

He nearly succeeded if it wasn't for that stupid village chief trying to curry favor his stinky self and pointing the whole village at him.

Running away from a mob of villagers spiting and yelling at him for curse he barely understood wasn't a very odd occurrence.

To a certain degree he was used to it enough to know where to run but with those trained soldiers, he was caught and knocked out at the last minute.

The boy cursed under his breath. It was only one coin!

Slowly returning to his senses, he noticed that he couldn't find the way out of this maze like house. He's never seen a place so big.

It was almost surreal. The village he lived in was extremely poor. A home this big seemed like a dream or in this case a nightmare.

The wooden halls were only surrounded by wooden floor carefully cleaned without a speck of dust and countless shoji door framing the halls in many angles like a maze.

He was slowly getting disorientated and tired lacking the energy to run because of not being able to eat in days.

To some point, maybe he wasn't even sure how he survived.

Losing to exhaustion, he stopped running and leaned on a nearby shoji desperately catching his breaths as he felt like he was almost about to die of suffocation.

He didn't know what to do...It was just a constant instinct in head screaming for him to run...

An instinct that told him with every fiber of his being that he didn't want to die..

In that moment of silence only accompanied by his breaths his heart was pushed with adrenaline as he heard the sound of birds and a river nearby. He was atleast close.

With that sudden rush of energy he began running once more, stopping once again to catch his breath nearly giving up hope, he found it.

An open shoji door that led out into what seemed like a luxurious garden.

With joyful relief in his heart almost reminiscent on the satisfaction of imagining the cruel villagers experiencing the suffering he had, he ran as fast as he can.

Watching the light outside with focused eyes only for a shadow to look over a figure of a woman in red stood in front of the door with am imposing form.

In sudden moment, the boy was shocked enough to misstep and fall to the floor.

Collecting his thoughts, he found himself facing a woman glaring at him with her infuriated tinged eyes as her noble kimono swayed in the subtle wind.

He recognized her. She was that demanding noble that came to his village!

As her soldiers were about to kill him back then with the eager support of the village chief, she stopped them at the last moment, a bloody cut already on his neck.

Without any regard of avoiding his wounds, he remembered her harshly pulling his chin to face her. As she looked at him with a contemplating face full of sadistic thoughts.

"Pretty thing... it's a waste you were born a lowly mutt..."

She tells him with an arrogant smirk.

"You, soldier. What happened here? Why are all of you on a head hunt for this mutt that I had to make my own tea?"

She looks over a soldier who sheathed his blade and bowed in respect on the ground.

"He stole from your maidservants, Lady Maiko. We wish to enact punishment on someone who dare disgrace your name."

The soldier says firmly.

Maiko simply thought to herself for a moment then suddenly scoffed.

"What importance are two maidservants? kill them and have the head displayed outside the village. The ruckus you caused destroyed the masterpiece of pottery meant for the engagement ceremony."

She orders still inspecting the boy's face with harsh hands that would like bruise his skin whilst pointing at a shattered vase that fell from a well crafter wooden box probably due to the commotion.

The boy wanted to struggle but with the spears crosslinking and pointing to his neck, he wasn't so foolish.

"Shall we do the same with the boy, my lady?"

The soldiers ask tightening the spear on the boy's throat.

The noble didn't say anything for minute as if suddenly thinking of something.

"I suppose."

She says nonchalantly almost as if the man wasn't offering to kill the boy on the spot.

As the boy gritted his teeth starting to struggle refusing to await death whilst the soldiers began pressing the sharp edge to his neck, the woman suddenly interjected.

"No. Don't kill him. I see a use for him. What a fortunate thing."

And that was the the last thing he heard say as he passed out.

.....

In the present moment the same noble lady glared at him in rage as soldiers began to imposingly surround the two.

"You dare harm your master, after I have you the grace of serving a member of this clan !"

She says in a voice bellowed throughout the halls.

The boy glanced around him at the soldiers that outnumbered and outsized him to the chance of a sparrow to live though a piercing arrow.

He gulped uncertainty filling his veins as his heart pumped violently instinctually sensing death.

But nonetheless he decided to run, he tried to run faster and faster than he ever thought he could. The future of death still loomingly sure behind him but no less did he refuse to die.

No less did that tiny voice of instinct cease to scream for him to live only for a spear to violently piece through him as he felt himself cough blood and fall to the floor in pain.

"What are you waiting for! Kill him!"

The noble screeches echoing in the halls.

The boy tried to struggle despite the weight of losing too much blood added to his exhaustion and hunger.

He failed. He couldn't help but question himself. Was it really the end?

He knew it would always come soon almost chasing after him like predator to a prey.

Finally perhaps he finally listened to those villagers and died. He wondered will it finally all be over?

But for the first time, he fully understood that he didn't want to die.

At this moment of death, he realized that there was no peace in dying like this and submitting to the ones that did all this to him.

He didn't know how to describe this certain fire like thing in his chest that wanted to sear throughout his body and burn everything around him to the ground.

To all that put him in this pain, he wanted them to know exactly how it felt.

Then maybe he could finally know if he was any less than them at all or were they all just swine laughing in the same pen.

He hated everything that touched the earth and sky of this land. He wanted to scream it out and and let away the boiling pain that made him suffer every moment of his life.

"No! Please don't kill him!"

A voice suddenly yells throughout the halls. The shoji doors opened revealing a little heaving girl in a white kimono embroidered with pink cherry blossoms.

She suddenly ran towards the boy pushing away the soldiers with her little strength that if the soldiers didn't simply oblige they wouldn't even move at all.

She pulled the spear away from the boy as her long ebony hair messily swayed in the momentum with her loose locks.

"Kaoru! What are you doing! He harmed you! Don't be foolish."

Maiko retorted in bewilderment.

The girl, Kaoru as the boy heared, looked at him as if thinking of something.

To which he slowly realized was checking if he was alive.

"Kaoru! Hah.... you're too kind sister. Don't worry I'll get you another gift. "

Maiko responds to the girl's actions.

Kaoru in the boy's blurry sight had a troubled expression as if she didn't know what to say.

Ever so swiftly she bit her lips then faced her sister almost as if coming to a decision.

"I'll take him, Maiko-Oneesama. Please let me have this before I'm given to that disgusting pig. I don't know how much time I have before father gives me away."

Kaoru says with a sudden blank expression with a voice devoid of emotion politely pleading to her sister.

"He's a rabid dog!"

Maiko says trying to reason out with the little girl's actions that seemed rather strange to her.

"I'll keep him under control.."

The little girl tries to explain but looking over to her sister that didn't seem in anyway convinced...

"..T-thank you Oneesama! I'm truly grateful! For your gift. I beg of you."

She says but the boy couldn't bother to hear as he lost consciousness again.

.....

The next moment he awoke, he laid exhaustedly on a futon barely concious as the same little girl watched him silently.

He has the thought at the back of his mind to bark out like some rabid dog as usual but he didn't quite have the energy.

So he just decided to hazely watch her back.

She was whispering something.

'so he was stealing from the maidservants?..'

'One coin seriously?...'

'Dry season..... drought...'

Suddenly without the boy's voilition his stomach growled like rumbling thunder reverberating through the halls.

Before he passed out again, he hazely saw the girl's face make an expression of realization.

....

The boy awoke again as the morning light shone in the whatever little shed he was housed in. Getting back his senses, he suddenly smelt a tempting aroma as he felt his hunger sear and want to be satiated.

The scent of freshly cooked rice and bit of red meat and vegetables in a warm stew filled the room.

He turned looked around finding himself alone and a steaming bowl of fragrant rice porridge beside him.

He didn't even have to think before hastily grabbing the bowl ignoring the heat on his palms as he began gobbling it like the starving thing he was.

And he could only think it was heavenly as it was like the kamia that cursed him finally felt a shred of pity.

When he finished, his stomach was more glad and full than he ever felt in his life.

In the silence, he found himself unable to say a word. Not because he couldn't or he didn't have a choice but because he didn't know what to say.

Oddly enough he felt a warm feeling he couldn't place. It was nothing like the painful fire he first felt that made him want to burn everything to the ground but...

It felt like the rare moments when he finally finds himself warming a campfire during the harsh cold winters in the village after a long struggle...

It was odd....it was...a sense of satisfaction but it wasn't like before..

It was different from the satisfaction of imagining making the villagers feel what he felt...

What it means to be the cursed little orphan boy they spited day and night...

It felt oddly....a sense of satisfaction but he could never find himself to describe it...