Solitaryloner: Actually, this is a collaboration between CrazyVividDreamer and I. But she didn't mention it in the first chapter...
Anyway, I do all the even chapters. She does the odd ones. Here's Chapter Two. It's not beta read, so please excuse any mistakes.
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Time passed by swiftly, and to Len, in what seemed like a blink of an eye Miku was sixteen. Sometimes, he wondered where those brief nine years of his life went to. He scarcely noticed those years, whipping so swiftly past.
Sixteen year old Miku was a lovely girl, he grudgingly admitted that. Not that he wanted to say anything which would let the girl think he was getting...fond of her. Honestly, Len didn't know whether or not he liked the child. She did provide him some entertainment when he was feeling bored - he had to admit that books did not make very interesting companions.
Especially not when he had read all eight thousand books in his library before. Several times. Enough times that he could memorise the contents of every single book. With a sigh, he pushed himself away from his table, letting the book he had been reading rest on the polished mahogany surface. He was starting to feel rather hungry, but he didn't feel like calling one of their servants to attend to his needs.
He wanted to eat Rin's cooking. Rin's food had a distinctly different taste from the rest of his unemotional servants, and he knew that Rin would not come to him if he called, unless she was in the mood. The girl whom he treated as a sister...she insisted on getting her due respect, even if she was created to be his servant. Len just played along with her whims. He admitted Rin's stubbornness was amusing. Sometimes.
''Rin?'' he called as he walked out of the library, looking for the servant girl. Perhaps she was out in the garden, playing with Miku. With that thought in mind, Len changed his direction, making his way to the outside gardens. That seemed probable - after all, Miku loved to play amongst the flowers, and Rin would always accompany the slender tealette there.
Sometimes, Len wondered who Rin's master was. Him, or Miku? Rin spent so much time with the girl that, on occasion, she refused to obey Len, instead choosing to listen to Miku. What the young girl wanted, Rin would comply, all the while smiling like an indulgent adult. At the thought, Len rolled his eyes - he had told Rin before that she was spoiling the child.
Rin had ignored him. That was fine by Len. He was nothing to the girl, after all. She was just a foundling, a child he found on his doorstep. To be honest, he wasn't even the one who found the infant Miku. It was Rin. Len had absolutely nothing to do with her, and he was determined to keep it that way. Past experience taught him that interacting with humans...it did nothing but harm. He was much better off living alone.
He walked past a window, and he paused. Cold blue eyes stared back at him, his blond hair loose around his face, for once. Rin sometimes remarked that, whenever Len let his hair down, he looked a great deal like her. Of course, Len never quite knew how to reply, for that was the truth, so he usually just kept quiet. Miku said before that she liked it when Len let his hair down. You look less stressed then, she said.
And, as always, there were those horns. Slowly, Len let his hand reach up, his slender fingers wrapping loosely around one of those horns. His fingers inched up the hard, brittle length, brushing lightly against the tip - there was a sharp, stinging pain, and Len brought his hand back down. A tiny drop of crimson blood was beading on his finger. He must have cut himself when he touched his horn...as he always did.
It wasn't that he was masochistic. It was just that, whenever he saw his horns, he just had to touch them. It was an almost irresistible urge, and he didn't understand why himself. The tips of the horns were so sharp that the slightest brush pierced his skin. Even after all these years, the tips of the horns didn't dull, and he wondered whether they would remain with him for the rest of his life. Was he immortal?
Perhaps he was. Perhaps he just lived a very long life. After all, the main part of the deal he had made with the witch was that he got rid of his ugliness. Now, he was flawlessly handsome, and no woman who sighted him could ever resist the sight of him. In fact, this was one of the reasons why he chose to lock himself away, in this castle in the middle of nowhere. To stay away from all human contact, if possible.
The only human he had ever interacted with, in a long while...was Miku. In a way, she was like his child. A child he didn't want to have. Rin was the one who took care of Miku's every single need. Len just stood by the side, watching the tealette grow up. True, he provided her with shelter and food, but he didn't do anything other than that. After all, he wasn't the one who had wanted to take the baby in. Rin was the one.
He glanced at the window once more, at his reflection. There was no change whatsoever between his looks then, and his looks now. In the nearly two decades Miku had been living in his home, Len didn't age at all. He still looked the same as he did, all those centuries ago - he still looked eighteen. The age he had struck that bargain with the witch. That deal...it had taken place about three centuries ago, it seemed.
Until now, the witch had yet to come and collect her side of the bargain. Len still had no idea what the witch desired, in return for her helping him to become handsome. Nor did he actually care what price the witch would demand. He had nothing left with him, anyway. No family. No friends. No love. He was all alone in a world where people had forgotten about him. He was just a legend, hidden somewhere far away...
He wondered if people still spoke of him and his apparent foolishness, all those years ago. If people in his old village could still remember what he had done. Who he was. What kind of stories had sprung up around him? He knew that his story was a legend - he was the Beast, who lived alone in an isolated castle, sealed away from all human contact. People had likely forgotten about him, though. After all this...
That was just the way Len wanted it. He didn't want anyone to know about him. He was a mystery, an enigma, and that suited him perfectly. So long as he was left alone and undisturbed, Len was fine with anything. Len closed his eyes and turned away from the window, walking down the passageway. I wonder where's Rin...he reached the front doors, opening them quietly and slipping out.
His gaze searched the garden. Sure enough, there was Rin, pushing Miku on a swing. The tealette was laughing, her long teal hair fluttering in the breeze, and Rin was laughing along with her. The two of them seemed as though they were having a lot of fun...Len leant against the doors, watching the both of them. The swing was something Rin got the servants to construct, for young Miku's entertainment.
She was grown up now, but Miku still used the swing set. Len stayed still, not moving or saying anything, and suddenly the swing came to a halt. Miku dug her heels into the ground, her green eyes wide as she finally noticed him. ''Len!'' she shouted joyfully, immediately jumping off the swing and rushing over to him. Rin followed the girl, albeit at a more sedate pace. Len sighed and got ready for Miku.
He really didn't know why he never put up a struggle around her. He really had no feelings whatsoever for the child - he didn't care about her. She meant nothing to him, after all. Still, he didn't move, and Miku jumped right onto him, clinging on to his back. The same way she did when she was seven. The girl had barely changed - she grew taller, prettier, sweeter, but in terms of behaviour she hadn't changed.
''Get off me,'' Len said grouchily, as usual. Miku's grip on him just tightened, and she looked around to face him, pouting childishly. Len was reminded of her when she was seven years old. Whenever he told her to get off him, she would show him this exact same face. He wasn't sure whether her childishness annoyed him, or whether it amused him. Sometimes, it felt like a very strange mixture of both emotions.
''I don't want to,'' she sang liltingly, leaning her head against the top of his head, carefully avoiding his sharp horns. Len just sighed some more, looking to Rin for assistance. The blonde girl was watching the scene unfold, a knowing smirk on her face. That face which resembled his own so. Len had no idea why Rin would look knowing, and he actually didn't really care why. He just wanted Miku to get off his back.
''Miku, Len's getting irritated,'' Rin said playfully, reaching forward to tug lightly at the tealette's hair. It was tied up into two long ponytails, and Miku frowned as Rin did that. Len knew that the child didn't like it when someone pulled on her hair. That teal hair was ridiculously long, and Len had told Rin before to cut it. Still, the long hair remained, and he suspected that Rin had gone against his orders just to annoy him.
''But I don't want to get off,'' Miku sighed. ''It's been a long time since I clung on to Len!'' she pouted some more, showing both of them her puppy-dog eyes look. It didn't work on Len, since Len tended to ignore the feelings of most people, including himself - but he knew that Miku's pitiful look worked well on Rin. Rin then turned to stare at Len, beseeching him to give in to Miku for once. Len just let out a huff.
''Fine. For one minute, since I have nothing else to do. But then you're getting off,'' his voice trailed off into a faint mutter. ''I have no idea why you like to cling on to me so much. I'm not a teddy bear. And you are no longer a child, annoying brat,'' even after all these years, he still referred to her as that. Annoying brat. He felt that it was a name which strangely suited her. She was annoying. And she was a brat.
''Miku,'' Miku responded irritably, her arms looped around his neck. ''My name is Miku, Len,'' she leant her chin against his shoulder. ''Not annoying brat. You know that,'' she reached out, poking at the back of his head with her slender fingers. Len reached up to slap her hand away - he might tolerate her clinging on to him every once in a while, but that didn't mean that he was willing to suffer any other indignities.
''Len, you let your hair down!'' she exclaimed gleefully, ignoring the way he sighed, clearly exasperated. ''I like your hair when it's down. It's so soft and nice to touch,'' he could tell that she was beaming, though he wasn't sure how he knew. It was just a sense, he supposed. ''It makes you look less tensed up. More relaxed, you know?'' she laughed sweetly, her slender fingers running through his blond hair.
''Don't touch my hair,'' of course, Miku didn't listen to him, nor did Rin actually do anything to stop her. Len heaved a heavy sigh - of what, he wasn't quite sure - and stormed off back into the castle. The annoying brat was still clinging on to him, and he wondered how she managed to do that without falling off. She had a strong grip, and he thought that no matter what he did, she wasn't going to let go without a struggle.
These sixteen years he had lived with Miku had been longer than the rest of his three centuries. Until now, he still didn't know how to interact with the girl. When he was human, he didn't have any younger siblings, and he was quite a loner, since other children shunned him for his ugliness. All he knew was coldness, the numb that came with solitude. Even now, he still...didn't quite know how to talk to others nicely.
Like they were his friends, and not his enemies. Rin was his only friend - his sister, even - but even so, sometimes he didn't really know how to talk to her. He didn't know how to take the sharp edge off his words. Years of self-imposed solitude had turned him into this. Someone cold, aloof and distant. He didn't talk to others, so others didn't talk to him. Only Rin and Miku ever bothered to start a conversation with him.
Rin was fine. He had known her for three centuries, after all. She had been his companion all these long, lonely years. Miku was different. Sometimes, he idly wondered what her name meant - he had never asked Rin, and Rin never told him, so he didn't ask. Miku was a stubborn child, and all these sixteen years of her life she had not left him alone. Even if he indicated he wanted peace, she completely ignored him.
It was irritatingly amusing. Len didn't want to have anything to do with the girl. Rin was the one who taught her how to speak and write. To read and sing. Len just...watched. But he never saw anything wrong with that. After all, I'm not the one who decided to take her in. I had absolutely no say in whether or not she could live in my home. ''Miku, please get off me now,'' he gritted his teeth, stopping in his tracks.
Perhaps she sensed the annoyance that boiled under his cool exterior. Anyway, sulkily she did as he said, clambering off him. Even though she was already sixteen, she was still a petite little girl - about the same height as Rin. And Rin was a good head shorter than him. ''Why don't you ever want to talk or play with me, Len?'' she asked, pouting. Len paused - the question sounded eerily familiar, for some reason.
Probably because she had asked him that before. Hundreds of times. ''Because you're an annoying brat,'' he answered simply. That was his usual answer, after all. Miku just huffed, then folded her arms across her chest.
''I am not an annoying brat,'' she answered hotly. Then her green eyes widened, suddenly sparkling with some new idea. Mentally, Len groaned. ''One day, Len,'' she announced, ''I'm going to make you fall in love with me!'' she clapped enthusiastically, then ran away from him. Probably off looking for Rin again.
Len gaped after her, startled by her unexpected words. Slowly, a smirk crossed his lips - a brief smile, so brief that it was almost unnoticeable. But a smile, nevertheless. He hadn't expected for her to say something like that to him, but it greatly amused him. How strange. It had been such a long time since he last smiled.
You want to make me fall in love with you? I'd like to see how you will do that, Miku.