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BRING ME TO LIFE
Special thanks to my "History of Dance" lecturer for telling me bout the Gothic Cinderella.
"Shiro-sama, your father wishes your presence at his chamber." the servant spoke softly. He was shaking, trying to avoided the prince's gaze. Although he wasn't really looking at him, the servant did not even want to be in the same vicinity as the prince.
"I'll see him later..." he answered in his cold, toneless voice. Shiro was lying on the grassy patch just behind his room. He was staring at the bluest sky, a total contrast to his burning red hair. It was clear as far as the eye could see. There were no clouds, no obstruction. Freedom, total freedom.
"But, sir..." the servant was cut off when he saw Shiro sitting up from his lying position.
"I said... later." he did not even have to look at the servant to send him scrambling back to the Emperor.
"You should have just gone to see him." A deep, husky voice belonging to Sougetsu, his faithful companion and right hand man. The breeze touched Sougetsu's long hair, caressing it ever so often as the bluish locks danced with the wind.
"I know... hey I didn't hear u come into my room." [1]. Shiro still avoided any sort of eye contact as his shut his eyes, enjoying warm gentle wind. He held his legs as the rocked with the moving air.
"I came through our secret passage." Sougetsu smirked as he took his place beside his best friend. He couldn't help but watch his prince. His striking red hair. How people mistake him as the child of the devil, the beholder of death and even the devil himself. If they could only see how kind and beautiful he is inside. If only he wasn't the prince.
"Right..." Shiro continued to keep his eyes closed as he watched his surrounding with his body and mind.
"What will become of us, Sou ?" Shiro asked disturbing the stillness that was consuming the both of them.
"You will become the Emperor and I'll still be your second in command." He answered firmly and yet there was a sense of uncertainty to his answer.
"I knew you'd say that." Shiro opened his eyes and squinted a little as he tried to adjust to the glare of sudden light entering his brown orbs. Shiro got up and dusted the grass off his silk-white kimono. Stretching his arm, he offered Sougetsu a hand.
"I guess I should go see him." the young prince sounded dejected as he made his way out of his room leaving Sougetsu alone.
"I guess you should." he whispered, allowing no one but the wind to hear his pain and sorrows.
*
"Are you done with the dishes!" she shrieked at the top of her lungs.
"Hai." she answered softly as her head bowed, looking only at the shoes of her step-mother.
"Have you mopped the floor? Sew Miya and Kira's dresses? " she yelled once again as if the person she was talking to stood miles away.
"I have, mother..." she said in her petit voice. It was soft, of course and yet there was anger and hate mixed in those 3 words.
"Don't ever call me mother! I'm not your mother." Fumiko Chikamatsu screamed once again at her step daughter.
"If it wasn't for your father's dying wish. You would not even be in this house. You hear me!"
Reika's mother passed away when she was born. Her father raised her by himself for 15 years until he decided to re-marry. Of all the women in Japan, he had to fall in love with a mid-30s woman, Fumiko Chikamatsu who had two children, Kira and Miya from another marriage. They moved in with Reika and her father.
Not long after that, her father died. Leaving anything and everything he owned to Reika. Unfortunately there was no one to prove or side Reika. And so, all her father's fortune was left under the greedy and selfish hands of Chikamatsu.
"I know..." Reika replied as her heart felt a sharp pain as she remembered her father and her mother. She wanted to cry, to break down since she had nothing left. No one left. But she remembered her father's last words... "Be Strong, Reika. Be Strong."
"I will father..."
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1 Apparently, the only way to get to where Shiro was, was to enter his room first.
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