Episode 35
"And you're back? hmm interesting..thought you wouldn't come back after slapping me and running off like that" Alex left the door open behind him and walked in sitting comfortably on the couch.
Zhuang didn't say anything and just came in "Do you want to eat anything in particular?" he made way to the kitchen.
"Heh? what are you playing at?" Alex got up and followed upto Zhuang's back "Not that I mind but I sure am intrigued"
Zhuang turned back to Alex walking into a close proximity, he was lowkey expecting that Alex would slowly move back into the corner but no matter how much Zhuang closed up, Alex didn't move back at all, instead he walked in closer and Zhuang ended up moving back himself
"Say, were you trying to intimidate me?" Alex chuckled "It might have worked on others before but..." Alex moved his hands and slowly wrapped his hands around Zhuang's neck "I'm not afraid of you.." Alex whispered literally strangling Zhuang with a pleased face.
Zhuang didn't really stop him even though it got suffocating at a point and he got a little pale and flinched, but did not struggle. Alex retrieved his hands that left strangling marks around the other's neck "You should tell me to stop you know, I can kill you" Alex shrugged.
"I'm not.... intimidate...not intimidating you" Zhuang took a breather "Just want to know if you want something"
Alex was a little dumbfounded then burst into laughter soon enough "You're really something.." He couldn't stop laughing "Mmmm then, how about sweet potatoes?"
"Okay" Zhuang said and got in the kitchen getting to work, though Alex was standing right next to him watching with quite amusement "Hey..?"
"Hmm?" Alex replied attentively.
Zhuang placed his hands on Alex's waist and suddenly lifted him, Alex was shocked for a moment there, he didn't get what was going on at all, Zhuang seated him on the shelf
"You're bothering me standing there, just sit here" Zhuang said with a straight face.
Alex was speechless for a while, he was still processing what just happened.
"I bought mangoes too, make me mango juice" Alex said after he had adjusted to his new position.
"Did they not teach you to say please in school?" Zhuang asked while washing the potatoes.
"They did and I use it very carefully too" Alex replied "It bruised.." Alex pulled at Zhuang's collar looking at the strangulation marks.
"Why did you do that?" Zhuang asked.
"Are you freaked out hmm?" Alex counter questioned
"It surprised me" Zhuang replied honestly.
"Do you know what else I'm capable of?" Alex tugged at Zhuang's shirt pulling him towards himself and tied legs around his waist while remaining seated on the shelf and whispered in his ear "I want to strangle you even more, hit you, humiliate you.."
Zhuang's eyes widened hearing that.
"You afraid..?" Alex asked parting with a smirk.
Zhuang looked him in the eyes "Well...same"
"Eh?" Alex was dumbfounded
"Eh..." Zhuang was dumbfounded too
"No wait...what do you mean by 'same' exactly?" Alex asked with a twitching brow.
"I want to hit you too, tie you, punish you and so on...." Zhuang mumbled "shit..I said it.."
"No..way...don't tell me...you....?" Alex was shook.
"Yeah" Zhuang nodded
"That means....." Alex gulped.
...a battle of super sadists.....
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Haru chan, he was son of a single maid, a little older then all of us, it was back then when it all started..me, Kei chan, Mari chan....and....Aoi chan..."
I brought the medical kit and sat before the woman, taking her injured hand and cleaning the wound while she whispered on.
"Aoi san? what did she have to do with any of that?" I raised a brow.
"Well, Haru chan was like this elder brother we all looked up to, even Aoi chan, she was pretty fond of him..I remember Aoi chan was such a constricted and shy person back then..but he easily got through her.." she smiled a bit, then flinched as I touched her wound, shy? haha? her? nah...
"So what happened to this fated person of Mari?" I asked trying to be gentle with her hand.
"He's dead" She replied and my eyes widened a bit
"What? I'm sorry!" I suddenly felt the need to apologize for some reason.
"Mari chan really loved haru chan, she even promised him that she would protect him and when she grows up she'll make him hers..but you know..Mari chan is an alpha right? he was an omega...with fated alpha omega pairs...one way or the other, someone gets hurt, always.." Her expression went soft
"I'm sorry..if I'm being rude..but..what happened to him? how did he die?" I gulped nervously after pulling some courage to ask the question.
"I guess we were only around ten back then...Kei chan never got along with Haru chan, to term it appropriately...jealousy, Kei chan was supposed to be the elder brother for Mari chan but Mari chan always paid more attention to Haru chan to the point that she forgot Kei chan's birthday because she was preoccupied with Haru chan.." She let me tie the knot of the bandage before retrieving her hand.
"What did Kei san do?" I asked.
"He did what only a child would do..a silly revenge, Haru chan took something important from him and he did the same. They did not know back then what suppressants meant, they were only told that they were important to Haru chan because he was different from them..nobody expected them to understand, they were alpha children anyway...just like Mari chan never understood how much pain she put Haru chan through just by being around him, she cannot understand ofc, how could she understand the curse of a fated pair? She was only a child" She got somewhat emotional.
I dared not meet eye with her, hearing all that I could only guess what followed next..I didn't like my guess at all..
"Kei chan didn't understand either, he was a child too, an alpha child, how could he understand?" She clenched her fist " He hid Haru chan's suppressants, that day Mari chan and Aoi chan insisted that Haru chan play a little longer with him even though he kept saying he didn't feel well..but how much say does a servant's child have? That time master was home too...Mari chan insisted that Haru chan meet her dad..."
"He went in heat didn't he..?" I whispered with a lump in my throat.
"We were children...we didn't deserve this.. neither did he..we were there, mari chan, me, kei chan and Aoi chan... we saw..we saw...helplessly, we saw the world of an alpha..we saw an omega child violated.. the world of alphas became a disgusting entity.."
Her eyes teared up as if she was reliving the memory
"You were children..." I whispered, though quite understanding that words like these don't really matter, what they all saw that day matters
"Afterwards, Haru chan was in a critical condition...taken to a private hospital.. Mistress paid the maid so much that her next three generations could live without working, all to keep her mouth shut.. Haru chan was...he.." She couldn't hold back her tears any longer, they streamed down her cheeks as she bit her lip hard
"He committed suicide right?" I couldn't help tear up as well.
"He couldn't live with himself..he ended his life, we thought he was getting better..Aoi chan was with him that day, only she knows what happened, we only found out about it from the elders since we weren't really allowed to visit him in first place...not that we could face him anyway..we stood there frozen when all of it happen, we were traumatized just by watching, no one could save him even though he reached his hands towards us so many times, in hope that someone would reach him.." She wiped her tears from the back of her hand.
Aoi san was there.. ? I guess if i see things from this perspective, her self contempt makes sense...no wonder she didn't want to be an alpha...this probably happened before she met me..and then maybe after meeting me she even came to hate herself even more because she almost put me in trouble back then, didn't she...?
"Mari chan, couldn't maintain her sanity after that, the day she got news of Haru chan's suicide, she tried to choke Kei chan to death, she blamed it all on him, he had hid the suppressants, we finally understood the importance of those things..we grew up before we should have..all of us..went through treatment.." She confessed, well, things like these don't just vanish from your memory no matter how much treatment you get...no wonder they are all fucked up..
"So they sent Kei chan abroad to live with his birth mother?" I asked.
"Yeah, Mari chan tried to harm Kei chan many times over..not just that..she's warped up enough now to try to do the same thing that happened to haru chan with Kei chan...it was revenge back then..but now it's even more warped, she's trying to replace Haru chan with Kei chan.. He shouldn't have came back..he even got better through treatment, now he's back to square one.."
She looked upon him with a genuine worried face.
"What about you? Why are you so obsessed with Mari?" I asked
"I have loved Mari chan since I first met her, it was before Haru chan, she really was a beautiful and amazing person...It's the cruel fate that has made her this way, you have no idea how much she suffered, how many nights of screaming in her sleep, how many panic attacks, self harm, suicide attempts, she didn't become this warped in one day...it took her years, her parents were always pathetic, she had lost both Haru chan and Kei chan...even now, she can't sleep without being on pills, she wears heavy makeup to cover her dark circles and scars...it wasn't one day..years were cruel on her, he died while she lived, her biggest curse.." She replied.
"Do you still love her?" I asked again
"I don't know anymore..I thought, if I used my love for her, one day I'll be able to save her..but I don't know if she can be saved anymore, she's not the same person I fell for, she's become someone else...and I'm scared of her.." She replied with a silent shiver
I'm such an ungrateful person...these people, they've lived through real hell and I've been bickering my whole life even about the tiniest issues. These people...even my dad..they're the real warriors..their scars and silence stand for how strong they have been,
All of them, they've fought such wars..I'm starting to understand the world you hate so much Aoi san, you didn't want to belong to such a world did you? You really are pure..even I admit it...
"Yuki ...san..I don't know if I should say something like this or not but...let me help you..somehow, I don't exactly know how but..somehow.." I couldn't help but want to say that, I don't blame anyone here, everyone has been through something that made them this way..least I can do is hold out my hand to someone who needs it
She ended up smiling a little "It's okay, it's not me that needs help, I'm not much of a sane person either so I won't break that easy..but Kei chan.." She extended her wounded hand to Kei san and gently brushed his hair "I want to protect him.. that alone gives me a reason to not break, even though I'm dead scared" She giggled a bit
"With...Kei...san...what did she..." I couldn't ask her too directly but I wanted to know how bad the situation was really..it was plenty bad from the looks of it though..
"I'm not...If I had known I would have stopped it..I only know of one time..when they abducted Kei chan.." She tensed up again, wait what? kidnap?! "It happened right after the defaming video"
"Wait! hold right there! I know none of what you're saying! what happened in kidnapping?! what defaming incident!?" I sprang up, what's going on at all?!!
"They didn't tell you? I guess everyone is protecting you so hard then...." She mumbled
What does she mean by that? protecting me? who...
"Who do you mean?" I asked
"Who else, your dad and...Aoi san..." She replied as if it was something really obvious "I guess they're hiding alot of things from you..guess you are really loved.."
"Tell me everything.." I said with clenched fists "Everything that's happened so far behind my back..!"
"Alright but are you sure you want to hear it from me? wouldn't it be better if you ask Aoi san?" She interrupted.
"No it's okay, I won't be immature about it, if they've hid things from me, they must have their reasons, I've learned not to judge too quickly, I'll try putting myself in their shoes.." I replied
"Grown, haven't you?" She smiled "Sit down, It might take alot of time to start from the beginning.."
I sat down patiently...it's time, I face everything..
Afterwards, Yuki san told me everything, Mari's plans, about my dad's previous occupation and the attempt to defame him, Kei san's kidnapping and recording..what happened to him in the warehouse, what happened to him in his house..half way though I almost felt like I would throw up but I had decided to hold myself back...to be strong, like my dad..and like Aoi san...
I listened through everything..till the end, coming in terms with my own weaknesses too.. Weakness in failing to protect these people I love...
"Yuki san?"
"Hmm?"
"I want to meet Mari"
Her eyes widened, her face said it all, how terrible this idea was..but I can't falter at this..
I have to see her...face her properly, no matter what, I can't let what happened to Kei san happen again..I have to protect him, for his sake and for dad..
I promised didn't I? I'll unite them..no matter what...!!