Chapter 15
Chapter 15
LUCA closed the door behind him; chilly air greeted him in the hallway. He heaved a long sigh, closing his eyes as he leaned against the shut door. He bit his lower lip, trying to endure until the hatred boiling inside him cooled from a tumultuous rage to a calm simmer.
“Human greed really is limitless, isn’t it?” A lyrical voice echoed in the back of his mind.
Through his closed eyes he saw her sorrowful face and sweet gesture as she smiled when she noticed his eyes on her. No matter how much he tried not to see—to forget—her dainty wrists and ephemeral smile were seared into his mind. Luca clenched his fists until his knuckles turned white. He slowly exhaled, and walked off.
“Luca,” Nasette’s voice called him to a halt. Luca hadn’t heard the door open behind him.
Nasette is dense yet oddly sharp when it comes to these things. What is he thinking now? Luca wondered but couldn’t bring himself to turn around and face Nasette.
“I’m just going for a drink,” Luca said nonchalantly, hiding his inner turmoil. His real plan was to numb the pain eating at his heart—a heart cracked from many years of suffering.
“I realize I’m acting rash…. Take care of her for me while I’m gone.” Luca walked off with that final remark.
What exactly was Nasette thinking as he silently watched Luca saunter off? Regardless of what his friend thought, Luca wasn’t going to do anything about it. Numbing the pain came first.
***
LUCA went to the nearest tavern and easily found a seat at the counter deep within the shadowed recesses. He ordered their strongest alcohol with the ease of a regular customer. The bartender lifted an eyebrow, but he fulfilled Luca’s order without comment.
The sound of drunken laughter and the groans of the overindulgent filled the room. Soft string instruments mixed with the cacophony of noise. The dim lantern light scattered around the tavern kept most of the patrons from noticing Luca.
He gulped down the amber liquid poured in his glass with a single sip. He ordered another glass—the bartender didn’t bat an eye at his order this time. Luca instantly consumed the second glass as well.
The heat of the drink burned his esophagus as it sloshed mercilessly down his throat. Before he knew it, he ordered yet another glass and another. His breathing was hot and heavy. Luca didn’t know whether it was due to the alcohol or something else, but he couldn’t care less.
It’s been a while since I last felt like this too.
In the past, when he still lacked the proper awareness of his duties and his role as a member of the royal family, he often went to taverns and drank the night away. He couldn’t carelessly drown himself in alcohol in public places or in front of his men now, so he eventually abstained from alcohol.
Does this mean I’ve grown up now? He laughed self-derisively and downed another glass. The drink wasn’t any good. He just wanted to drown himself in something strong. Something encroached on his mind. A numbing sensation spread through him.
Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a woman wearing flashy, tight-fitting clothing. She smiled seductively with scarlet lips at the various patrons. Her hair swayed invitingly, and her thighs were left bare by her short skirt. The woman eyed Luca with a predatory glint. Their eyes met. Her lips curled into a thin smile as she stood and sat beside Luca.
“Is it all right if I sit here?” she purred in a sultry tone.
Don’t ask after you already sat down, Luca thought, but answered aloud, “As you like.”
The pungent aroma of an overripe and rotten fruit entered his nasal cavity. It smells so sweet it’s going to put me into a drunken frenzy. He downed yet another glass.
“I’ve been watching you since you came into this shop—you’re quite a handsome man.” She waved to the others around the tavern, “Certainly a rarity in here.”
I know, he commented internally. The woman fiddled with her ecru colored drink.
“Thanks for that,” he replied to her, then turned to the bartender, “Bartender, another of the same.”
The woman leaned forward, closing the gap between them. “Hey, it’s such a waste for a handsome man like you to be downing that cheap drink masquerading as alcohol. I know a better place than this. Won’t you join me for another drink there?”
The woman gazed at him with inviting eyes, a promise of more to come should he accept. Women always invited him with such eyes when he used to gallivant about like a free man without worry.
“I saw eyes like that just the other day,” he muttered to himself. The girl—Yuki—suddenly crossed his drunken mind.
What part of her childish features gave off such bewitching charm and allure? How foolish. Luca stood, downed the drink he was handed, and gazed down at the woman. “You’ve got better alcohol than here, right?”
The woman’s lips curled into an unsightly smile. “Of course.” She wrapped her arms around his.
***
YUKI was dreaming. Dreaming about her father hugging her. She was much younger than her current age. Perhaps it was a dream of when she was five or six. Yuki was crying in her dream. She didn’t tell her father why. Her small body merely overflowed with such sorrow she couldn’t help crying.
“What’s wrong?” her father kept asking, but she couldn’t answer him.
“Yuki, your dad’s eyes are creepy and gross.” Her friend had said to her earlier that day at kindergarten.
Her friend’s comment upset her. Yuki was sad the father she adored was called creepy and gross. And although her violet eyes were hidden behind color contacts, she felt as if her friend had said the same about her. She didn’t have the courage to tell her father that her friends called him creepy. All she could do was sob in his arms.
***
IN a blink of an eye, the scene changed and Yuki was suddenly wearing her middle school uniform. The dark-red sailor school uniform didn’t suit her ten-year-old appearance, making her hate uniforms. She was sitting in her classroom near the window at dusk. Through the window she absently watched the various sports’ clubs going through their daily activities in the schoolyard.
An inevitable sense of emptiness consumed her. No matter the club she tried to join, she was too small to take part in any of their activities. Her sole support and comfort, archery, was taken from her too. She was barred from taking part in the middle school archery competitions and events because of her never changing stature. Before she knew it, the mere act of picking up her bow annoyed her.
Tears ran down her cheeks. By the time she turned ten, she had grown faster than everyone else and was bigger. However, before long, her classmates grew taller and she was assaulted by an inevitable sense of impatience at her own lack of growth. Fortunately, everyone around her believed she stopped growing at a younger age than usual. Everyone lionized her as an adorable bite-sized girl.
If it had just been her height that stopped growing, she could have accepted it. However, neither her hair nor nails would grow even a millimeter. She was fine when she spent time with others. She had so much fun she didn’t have the time to dwell on it. But whenever she was alone as she was now, she was filled with an indescribable sorrow.
“…That’s why I don’t want to be alone.”
And yet, alone she remained, never moving from the window where she continued to watch people going about their normal lives.
***
THE next thing Yuki knew, she was wearing her high school uniform. The navy-blue blazer was baggy on her, but she thought the short skirt suited her. Friends not involved in clubs laughed with her after school. Every day after school they took a detour somewhere and fooled around together.
Several of her friends who participated in clubs during middle school, didn’t join any in high school and were instead a part of the so-called ‘Going-home Club’ like Yuki. Unlike middle school, she was surrounded by people.
Yuki stayed away from home as much as possible—because when she saw her father’s unusual violet eyes, she was forced to accept hers were the same. A piece of her wanted to always be around others, but deep down she really just wanted to be alone.
Spending time at cafés with her friends was fun, but there was always this encroaching feeling that her existence was utterly ambiguous. When she was alone the ambiguity intensified, rendering her unable to decide which felt worse—being with people or being all alone. In the end, she was unable to do anything but force herself to smile along with her friends. Before long, she learned to smile even when she was crying on the inside.
***
YUKI suddenly woke to tears streaming down her face. She sat up, rubbing at the tears agitating her eyes.
That dream again.
She often dreamed about her unfettered existence. She normally ignored it, but the backlash from suppressing her anxiety brought a new wave of emotions into her dreams.
With no clocks around and no way to tell time, Yuki didn’t know what time it was. Tita slept peacefully in the bed beside her. Nasette slept with his stomach bared to the world on the bed next to theirs.
Yuki had no desire to go back to sleep, so she got out of bed. She walked over to Nasette’s bed and pulled a blanket over his exposed stomach. The moonlight lit the room enough for her to make out the shadowed furniture. Thirsty, she secretly snuck out of the room to find a drink.