She likes to think of her life in the simple, easy-to-distinguish lines of black and white.
She's smart, possibly intelligent if the slip of paper stating the level of her education has anything to do with it.
She's been prodded and poked her whole life, always reaching out for some unattainable level of perfection.
She is beautiful, in a strange and cold way. At first glance, any young man would be interested. One glance is all it would take to spell their doom.
She knows her power, and perhaps that is what is most frightening about the young woman seated so casually on the plush couch. The sunlight streams in, highlighting the auburn strands of her hair in a golden hue. If any individual wasn't paying close attention, they might say the unusual glint in her icy blue eyes is one of reminiscing. But it isn't.
They've spent the entire day together, and she's beyond certain he is the one she wants. It has nothing to do with his wealth- his grandmother will hand that over without a fuss, she'll be sure of it. It has nothing to do with his poor, sick mother back in France. It isn't because her parents can't find anyone else who could possibly live up to her standards for a husband.
It's because he is the embodiment of perfection, and she will have perfection.
She studies him through her opera glasses, and a cold smile snakes its way up her mouth.
He doesn't realize who he's dealing with; not yet, anyway. But he will. If she had her way, she would be slow and deliberate with her movements, but she doesn't have time. Just like him, she is a pawn and she's been forced to move.
But she can play him later. It will hurt him at first, she knows that. Ripping away from his home here in Japan isn't desirable- she'd much rather have him leave on his own desire.
But there isn't time.
Thankfully, she knows how to play him, like an instrument. And one day, years from now, he will sing the very song she wrote beginning this day. He won't know how to do much else.
She is like a spider at the center of a complicated web, and she knows how to move each strand to her own whims, slowly entrapping her victims until they know for certain they can't live without her.
It may kill him in the end, but he will love her.
She'll make sure of it.