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"May I help?" A young boy at the age of six, with bright blue eyes gleaming with elation and filled with utmost glee, peeked his head between the slightly ajar door, scanning the inside of the busy kitchen.

The cooks within the kitchen, nearly dropping whatever that was they were holding, were startled by the question that had merely flew out of the boy's mouth seconds ago.

"Well, may I?" The blonde boy questioned once again. Giving no regards to their surprised and disturbed expressions plastered on their faces, he stepped foot into the kitchen and ignored the hushed gasps that left the mouths of a handful of cooks.

Blue eyes were illuminating, sparkling, with the enthusiasm of interacting with the cooks in the kitchen. "I want to learn how to cook."

It sounded as if he wanted to learn how to cook.

But that wasn't the case.

He just wanted to spend time with them.

He wanted to spend time with them even though they were below him.

"Master, what are you talking about. You don't need to dirty your hands with such useless things."

"Right, that's why you have servants."

"Shu-sama, you're coming here too often. You should be spending more time with the others, not with...people like us...What will the others think of you."

By others, Shu was sure the cook meant other aristocrats-people that were labeled in the same social class as him. But honestly, he didn't care what the others would think him. Besides, he and his brother would always head into villages that were inhabited by the poor. And of course all the servants weren't aware of that fact at , he and his brother had a strong suspicion that their mother was on to them.

"But..you guys are-It doesn't matter!...Social status doesn't matter to me!" He knew his reasoning wouldn't be relevant to them. He knew that aristocrats, such as himself, should look down on the poor as well as the middle. Disdain and disrespect was what most aristocrats showed towards those who are inferior to them. But to him, it didn't matter. It didn't matter to him of what social class someone held. He just wanted friends-other than rich arrogant brats-to play with.

Before he could think of anything else or say anything else, the head chief approached him.

"Master, the world we live in is where social status, social class, matters to almost everyone. Even though people such as ourselves are middle class, we're still looked down on when we are in the view of aristocrats..."

Lost in thoughts for a moment, the chief trailed off.

"...I believe that they are more cruel towards the poor rather than the middle, I pity them..."

The head chief, shaking away the thoughts, continued.

"Don't you understand that already? In this world, the ones who are filthy rich look down on others-"

He could hear it. Shu could hear the hatred in the chief's voice when he said filthy rich.

A cook frantically interrupted,"Ah! Don't get us wrong. We don't hate you or anything like that. We are all happy to serve your family."

The chief nodded and chuckled,"I apologize for my rudeness but social status means everything. You, an aristocrat, shouldn't even be getting along with people that are below you."

"But-"

Not letting Shu finish his words, the head chief gently patted the boy's blonde hair with a sincere smile. "Why don't you go play with Master Reiji? Breakfast will be done in a few more minutes."

Shu backed away a bit, letting the head chief close the kitchen doors. The sound of the doors shutting echoed throughout the large hollow hallways that had lead the blonde to the kitchen. Staring at the closed doors with a downcast expression, the boy just stood still as a gloomy feeling took over him.

He felt it. He felt the dark gloomy feeling in his chest once again. And did not like it one bit. He didn't like the gloomy emotion he was feeling right at the moment. Nor did he even want to experience the feeling at the moment.

Rejected.

He was rejected yet again.

Numerous times Shu, along with his younger brother, had attempted to become friends-get along-with the servants and the people in the villages, yet they had all kindly rejected both of them countless of times.

The young boy and his younger brother were rich, nobles, aristocrats. They shouldn't even be befriending the poor in the first place. And yet Shu had kept on trying anyways, regardless of the expected rejections he knew he would receive. It didn't stop him from continuing his attempts of befriending the lower class.

But unfortunately, it also didn't stop the same old gloomy feeling from resurfacing.

"Rejected again?"

"Reiji...do they hate us?"

"How should I know? I always get the looks of fear whenever I try to talk with the ones in the villages. They're probably all afraid of all aristocrats-"

"More like afraid of you...," the blonde boy chuckled.

"Anyways," emphasizing the word anyways, Reiji sent a small glare towards his brother. "I have already given up. Getting along with someone below us is impossible."

"...You're probably right, but...," Shu gazed at the grand door in determination and said,"...just one last time..."

"Suite yourself."

It was impossible.

It was a ridiculous and an absurd idea.

...

"Shu, tomorrow is our first day of school as second year students, you better not be late." A young man with purplish-black hair and piercing red eyes addressed his older brother, as he took a seat on the edge of his own bed. "Are you listening to me you sloth."

"Reiji you're annoying..isn't that what the servants are for...,"Shu groaned. The blonde was about to go straight back to sleep when Reiji interrupted the sloth with a kick on the side of the bed.

Shu was lying in the comforts of Reiji's bed with ear buds plugged into his ears. "Don't worry, they'll wake me up on time...,"he reassured Reiji as he closed his blue eyes to a new serene music that was starting.

"How can I trust you when you always came late to school during our first year." The younger brother let out an exasperated sigh. He muttered out loud so that it was audible for his brother to hear, "You sloth."

"If you're that worried, why don't you wake me up yourself."

"I refuse."

Waking Shu up was absolutely impossible for Reiji. Once, Reiji had ended up with broken glasses. It had been the first attempt of waking Shu up as well. It was the very first attempt! The first attempt!

Again, Shu let out a breath of annoyance,"The servants will wake me up."

"How spoiled of you."

"Might as well use them, especially the maids-"

"Shu."

"Geez...I was only joking..."

Shu Sakamaki and Reiji Sakamaki were rich, a noble, an aristocrat. Their family was the most richest family in the area they lived in. Sheltered in a large mansion, fit for any wealthy family, they lived in the city. They also owned another mansion in the forest, which they had use when they were kids. It was their vacation home.

It was their vacation home that they never wanted to visit again.

...

In the background, a tranquil tune from a violin and a piano was being played.

Both instruments being played by boys at the age of six.

"...What a gorgeous view..."

Not far from the big city, was a large forest painted in different shades of green. Majority of the trees had dark green leaves, while a few of the trees had light green or even lighter than light green leaves. There was even a tree where each leaf on the tree was a different shade of green, ranging from the darkest shade of green to the most palest green.

"..."

That one exotic tree, as well as the wooden houses that surrounded it, was reflected in the blue eyes of a woman with blonde hair. The view wasn't quite far nor was it too close. It was a perfect view for the woman. Standing on the outside balcony, the woman placed her hands on top of the pale railing and admired the view.

Suddenly the sound of the violin stopped, but the sound of the piano was still present.

"-Mom, mom...mom."

The woman's eldest child, who was older than his sibling by a month, appeared next to her. Shu tried calling out for her, however, with that peaceful smile on the woman's lips, it was obvious that she was in a completely peaceful trance.

Curious as to what his mother was staring at this time, the eldest son followed his mother's gaze. Obviously enough, Shu wasn't as tall as his mother, however he could still somewhat see what his mother was so transfixed on.

An exotic tree. Just as always, Shu thought. He didn't understand why his mother would always take over his and Reiji's bedroom, like right now, just to stare off into space on their balcony. His mother had a balcony of her own, so why didn't she use hers instead?

Reiji, who was playing the piano, kept on producing calming music.

Beatrix Sakamaki was Reiji's and Shu's mother. She, who would always lecture her sons about not interacting with the lower class, was a hypocrite. Lecturing her kids on people they should be interacting with, agreeing with other nobles that the lower class were an eyesore, when she interacts with the poor herself.

As her sons would do so in secret, she would also sneak off into a certain village she was quite fond of.

It was that same exact village she was staring at right at the the moment; the wooden houses that surrounded the exotic tree. A dear friend of hers, who was definitely not an aristocrat, lived there.

Beatrix was dreaming, dreaming of the day when she wouldn't have to hide the fact that she interacted with-

"-Mom! mom, mom!"

"-Mother!"

The piano nor the violin was being played. Only desperate cries was heard. The blonde's daydream having been interrupted by her sons, she was no longer daydreaming. She turned her attention to her sons in mild irritation, slightly annoyed at them for disrupting her daydream.

"What is it?"

"Fire, there's a fire!" Shu gripped the vertical stone bar with one hand, while his other hand pointed his mother in the direction of dark-gray and red-orange.

The moment Beatrix Sakamaki laid her eyes on where the fire was, panic consumed her on the inside. But on the outside, she was composed and acted like a cold-blooded person murderer. Burning fire nor the odor of dark-gray smoke fazed her on the outside.

"Mother?"

"Mom?"

Her sons turned to their mother with questioning yet fearful expressions. And in return, she smiled.

"A fire? It is fine, is it not? It will not reach us."

The calm smile sickened both of her sons, but eldest son was the one who lashed out.

"-That's not it! There're people living there, people like us! Why aren't you doing anything, why aren't we doing anything about it?"

"People? People like us? Shu, listen closely. They are merely servants, pawns, tools, that we use." Cold eyes stared down at Shu, making the young child freeze up in shame and fear. The boy's fuel to argue ran out in a flash, letting someone else take over.

"Shu is correct mother. Lives will be lost-"

"Quiet."

Beatrix shifted her cold icy glare away from Shu and focused on Reiji, causing the boy to tense up in fear as well.

"-Beatrix-sama, Shu-sama, Reiji-sama, lunch is ready!"

"Beatrix-sama, lunch is ready!"

Stern blue eyes turned back into calm ones.

"You heard them, lunch is ready."

As her sons ran to the dinning room, Beatrix stayed put and turned back to the view of destruction. The smoke was much darker than a few minutes ago, and the fire was burning much stronger and brighter than ever.

"...I will cry. Especially that daughter of yours that you adore so much..."

On the inside was where Beatrix Sakamaki lost all her composure.

Inside her head, she mentally hoped the fire would just disappear already.

"...I want to help, but I cannot...Please do not die..."

Social class really mattered to almost everyone.

...

The middle class lived in the city along with the rich. Middle class people were able to afford a normal home, and live normally. Some would side along with the nobles to rise in rank and such while others would side with the poor, sympathizing and offering money to them.

The rich, however, thought that people were either rich or poor. They thought that it was either one or the other. They thought they were the most important people in the world, looking down on those who were below them in social status.

Though there are some exceptions.

Such as the Sakamaki family.

The richest family living in the area.

"Sleepy..." The blonde let out a yawn and drifted off to sleep.

Reiji's eyes started to twitch with annoyance. "Hey wait a second, this is my bed, my room. Wake up."

"Zzz..."

The purplish-black haired boy sighed. It was useless to try and awaken the sleeping beauty up. Reiji was about to head to Shu's room when he remembered ear buds were still plugged in the blonde's ears.

Unplugging the ear buds from his brother's ears, he muttered," Honestly, why am I even doing this. Don't fall asleep with ear buds in your ears, it might damage your ears."

Finished with his task, he gently shut the doors and headed to Shu's room for the night.


"Hey Yuma..." A young girl around the age of sixteen with, slightly wavy, platinum blonde hair and slightly dark pink eyes, lied on the top bed of a bunk bed. She shifted around in her bed with her pink eyes wide awake as if it was the afternoon.

She was restless. After all, tomorrow was going to be her very first day of high school along with her friend Yuma.

"How can you sleep like this!" The boy she was addressing to was peacefully asleep on the bottom of the bunk bed. He was the same age as her but, compared to the girl, he was much taller. Brown messy hair was tied up in a messy bun as he slept.

"Mhm...Zzz."

Friends since childhood and parentless at the age of six, the Yuma and Yui lived with each other in the village. The villagers were really kind and generous, treating each other as if they were a blood-related family member. Everyone was all very lively, despite being disrespected by the classes above them and the tragedy of losing three odd, but dear villagers.

"Maybe food might wake you up...Hey Yuma do you want food?"

Sometimes they would go hunting for food such has berries and nuts, but most of the time it was gardening. Their village had a large garden that supplied everyone with veggies and fruits. If they wanted meat they would have to head into the city to buy some, but the two rarely went into the city.

...

"This is stupid, I don't want to go into the city!"

A boy, struggling to break free, was trapped between his parents with one arm being secured by his mother while the other was secured by his father.

"It'll be fun, my mom says it'll be fun," a girl argued cheerfully as she walked alongside her mother, holding her mother's hand and swinging her mother's arm as well as her own arm back and forth.

"Why can't Yuma be more like Yui-chan," Yuma's mother muttered.

"What are you talking about dear, won't it be weird if Yuma started to act just like Yui."

In return, Yui's mother laughed," Yuma-kun, be good boy and listen to your parents for once, okay?"

"Yeah Yuma, listen to you parents for once."

The little blonde girl didn't mean to provoke the boy or anything like that, but her comment ticked off the boy anyhow.

"Shut it!"

But the naive girl continued on, oblivious to the boy's anger.

"Hey Yuma, weren't you the one who wanted meat for dinner today?"

"S-shut up! Just shut up already!"

Regardless of his struggles, the boy winded up in the city anyways.

Yuma didn't understand how they, his mother, his father, his friend, and his friend's mother, thought. He didn't understand why they believed in the idea that all aristocrats weren't all that bad at all. The thought, that idea, never crossed his mind. In his perspective, all aristocrats were spoiled to the core.

Each and every one of them were spoiled.

...

Her friend seemed perfectly sound asleep and food wasn't going to wake him up. It wasn't going to be an easy task of waking him up, but she needed someone to share the anxiety she was feeling.

Suddenly perfect idea hit her.

It was a fact that Yuma loved gardening. He was way more enthusiastic than Yui whenever they tended to the village's garden. But since there was no room to plant a garden of his own, he could only dream of having own of his own.

"I'm sorry Yuma...," Yui muttered to herself as she climbed down the small ladder and kneeled down on the floor beside Yuma's bed. Leaning closer to his ears, she whispered," The rats are destroying your garden! They're eating the cherry tomatoes!"

The tactic that would usually work did absolutely nothing right now.

"Huh?"

It certainly didn't wake him up. But as she inspected his face for any sign of being awake, she noticed Yuma's eyes were shut tightly like he was having a bad nightmare.

"I wonder if..."

...

"M-Mommy...e-everyone left already, s-shouldn't we be going too?"

"You two kids go, we'll try to put out the fire until help comes," the blonde's mother and her friend's parents continued gathering dirt into the wooden bucket.

"What help, they aren't going to help us,"the boy's eyes was focused only on his parents.

There was huge mansion located around their village and it was occupied by an aristocrat 's parents. Yui's mother as well as Yuma's parents believed that they would actually give a damn and rush to their village to put out the flames or alert the fire-fighters in the city.

The three grown-ups and two kid remained in the village while the other villagers had already fled. The three adults used dirt to try and put out the flames. But their attempts were vain considering that only three people were trying to put out the flames. Fire just burned glowed brighter than before and burned stronger.

"Mom, Dad, let's get out of here already!"

"Haven't you heard Komori-san, you two kids go somewhere safe."

"Hurry up and go now."

His parents kept at it, gathering dirt and dumping it in the flames. He, who couldn't handle the heat of the blazing flames, felt like flames were burning him alive. He didn't understand how the three adults could withstand the heat.

"I'll h-help t-too," the blonde, lightheaded from the sweltering heat, clumsily gathered a small pile of dirt in her hands and dumped it on a small fire nearby.

"Yui, that's dangerous. Please stop it, stop it, and get out of here."

The blonde, ignoring her mother's pleads blindly continued her actions of gathering dirt and dumping it on nearby flames.

"Yuma, please take her somewhere safe."

Throwing his now unconscious friend on top of his shoulder, the boy complied and ran. As the boy ran to safety, behind him, the fire burned more stronger and blocked the adults exit routes.

"Well, we might not make it out alive, but I still believe that help will come. Don't you two think so as well," Yui's mother continued putting out the flames.

"Of course," Yuma's parents continued dumping buckets of brown into hot fiery red. Desperately, the three adults continued to put out the fire, believing that help would come their way.

All three adults believed that help would soon be on its way, even until the end.

But it was heavy rain that cleared the fire, not the aristocrats they had believed so strongly in.

"Why...why do you believe in them so much..."

He then remembered his parents and Yui's mother desperately putting out the flames."...Even until the end, why is it that you all still believe that..."

"Waaahhaaahhhhh...aaaahhhhhwaaaaaaaahhhh!"

The heart-wrenching sound of sobbing and agonizing screaming came from his friend that collapsed on the ground beside him.

The intense feeling of heat was gone and was replaced with coldness.

The sight of blazing red fire was replaced with heavy raindrops.

The smell of gray-dark smoke was replaced with the fresh smell of rain.

Kneeling on the wet dirt, in front of a collapsed house, Yuma trembled as his tears and Yui's tears contributed in turning the dirt around them into mud. Yuma was sure that the aristocrats from the mansion would have been able to see or smell the smoke and it irked him that no help came from them.

"They don't care about us-the lower class!"

"ahwaahh..mommy!"

When all the villagers came back, everyone banned together to rebuild the houses. They regretted fleeing away and not contributing in putting out the fire. All the houses didn't make it out alive, but an exotic tree that the blonde's mother had planted still stood tall in the middle of the burnt down village.

...

Yui didn't want her friend to remember those awful memories again. So with a frown, she picked up her own pillow and slammed it down on Yuma's face.

"Ow-fucking Yui!"

The girl failed her arms around in panic," Are you okay, did I hit too hard? I'm sorry!"

"Tch, why did you wake me up." His tired eyed glared at the blonde.

"I-I mean, how can you sleep like that! Tomorrow is our first day of high school as first year students, Yuma! How can you not be worried!"

Yuma let out an exasperated sigh, laying back onto his bed. "Seriously, you worry to much."

"We're supposed to be worried together!"

"Whatever, I'm going back to sleep."

"Wait, no. Don't-

"Zzz..."

"Yuma, wake up!"

She badly wanted to shake him by the shoulders and slap his face over and over, however that would just make her feel like a terrible person. But, it would make her an even more terrible person to let her friend sleep with a nightmare haunting him.

And so she smothered Yuma with her pillow until he would stay awake.

"Quit it Yui!"

"Let's worry together!"

"Hell no, do that yourself!"