Regardless of my current circumstances, I actually enjoyed my time with Meiko, being the type of person to look for the smallest fragments of happiness in a sea of doom. She was a kind person, she felt like the older sister I've never had.
Today I helped her to prepare breakfast for both of us since my ankle seemed to be operating perfectly, and she seemed to be either a regular or a resident in the castle, judging from how used to the mansion's kitchen she seemed.
"So how are you and…Gakupo, er, related?" I asked munching on a bite of the waffles we had just prepared.
"He's my cousin." She mumbled with her mouth full, unladylike and without a care in the world. That was one of the things that I liked the most about her, that she seemed natural unlike most of the fake ladies out there in the world. She did whatever she felt like without a second thought about anyone else's opinion.
"Really? Relatives? B-but you don't have the wings, or… You're not also a… are you?" I stuttered feeling intimidated by the shocked glare she was attacking me with. No wonder they were relatives, their similar glares alone were enough proof.
"Wait, is this some kind of joke?" Meiko asked. I shook my head quickly, afraid that I had offended her.
"Oh my God, Luka! You're really so dense!" the brunette exploded chuckling. I didn't exactly understand what she said, but she seemed amused rather than offended and that alone was good to know.
"He's a human, Luka! A human! " she continued laughing, tears started flowing out of her eyes. "I can't believe even you took in the villagers' legend about the fearsome beast!"
"Well, no one ever told me otherwise." I replied embarrassed, staring down at my tense hands moving around nervously on my lap.
"I can tell you the real story if you're interested! Our families used to live together in this mansion like one big family, I can even show photos!" She energetically added, placing her arm over my shoulders, almost pushing me out of the chair.
After cleaning up whatever mess was produced by our cooking, Meiko took me to the white room with the piano I had sneaked into earlier, which she liked to call the Art Room.
"Have a seat." She told me, pointing to the only available place to sit on in the dusty room; the ivory piano stool.
"Well, this room is impressively white." I commented sarcastically, as I inspected my surroundings, pretending I had never been in here before.
"He used to say it helped him spawn creative ideas without being under the effect of any external party. Bullshit if you ask me. Maybe he just liked the color." The brunette replied, digging through a drawer or another. The way she put it had me wondering if this room was solely his.
"Here!" She finally said, dropping three heavy photo albums onto my lap. the three photo albums spitted all the dust they had been storing into my face causing me to cough. Meiko started flipping through the white and black photos until she found one that she was satisfied with.
"That's us." She said, pointing to a photo with two youngsters, around the age of fourteen. The male was dressed in a formal suit, had his shoulder-length hair in a ponytail, and wore a hat on top of it. The female had her hair styled in a beautiful updo and was dressed in a lavish dress. "Back then they had been planning to marry us off when we were older, but we were really just friends, and we still are. Not that they'd approve of a marriage anymore."
The youths in the photo seemed rather happy. It was hard to believe that they were the same people I knew, it made my heart ache to realize the drastic changes they had been though. The boy did not have wings or horns, he had a calm face and a pleasant smile that complimented his neat gentleman look instead. The girl's face was beautiful with a charming smile and a princess-like look, she had both her eyes (unlike how she had her left eye bandaged now), and the skin of her neck seemed perfectly clear, with no sign of the scars she now had.
"And that's from when we were younger, I was taller than him back then. Good old days when I could win any fight over him." Meiko sighed for exaggeration as she showed me a family photo, with two innocent children around five years old standing in the front, the girl pinching the shorter boy's cheek.
"These are some really beautiful photos, your happy smiles in them are so infectious." I commented, a smile stretching on my face. "Where are your families now though?" I wondered.
"It's a long story, but I don't mind sharing it, since I rarely ever get the chance to chat with anyone but Mr. Grumpy Bear! Do you still want to know?" I just nodded my head at her, looking into her eye and almost seeing a glimpse of the loneliness she suffered.
She paused for a minute, seemingly to try phrasing her thoughts into understandable sentences.
"It was on the day Gakupo became seventeen years old that weird wound-like markings started showing on his back. His personal tailor was the first to notice, being the one to take his measurements and so. These wounds got worse with time and started opening up, allowing some black feathery figures to slowly emerge. Our families were petrified. They tried visiting physicians, priests, and sorcerers, but no one could do anything about it. They tried everything from different medicaments, to prayers and spells, they even tried cutting off the wings surgically, but these vicious things kept growing back only larger."
"In the end, they were convinced that both Gakupo and I were possessed by demons. Him for his constantly-getting-worse 'devilish' appearance, and me for standing on his side and refusing to adopt their beliefs. They thought I had been brainwashed by him. Their attitude together with the villagers' reactions to Gakupo's sight forced him to avoid human contact. He would often hide in the mountains, leaving me alone as our families started avoiding us too. Eventually, they left the mansion with different random excuses, one by one."
I couldn't even begin to imagine how hurt and lonely did Meiko feel as she explained it to me. My heart sank in my chest as a new realization started forming in my head. Perhaps even my kidnapper was merely a victim. Perhaps I was the one hurting him and treating him awfully without my knowledge. Because of his awful attitude- and well, also attacking my family and kidnapping me- I was totally blinded that I hadn't considered that he was also a person who had been through tragedies like every other creature. Had I been selfish to never consider that even villains could be hurt? That even they could deserve understanding sometimes, or that they were just frail humans after all?
There I was again with my bad habit of blaming myself. I shouldn't have been feeling guilty for standing for myself! He may be hurt, but that shouldn't give him the right to hurt me, right?
"Are you spacing? I thought you wanted to listen!" Meiko complained in a funny tone, tapping my forehead.
"I'm sorry! I was just musing!"
"I know. Don't exhaust yourself over something so old, we're already over it anyway." She winked with her healthy eye. I hesitated to answer, not knowing how to explain my sympathy without hurting her pride or how to apologize for bringing up her sad past.
"Can you play?" Meiko asked to distract me as she noticed how anxious I seemed, tapping the beautiful piano with her hand.
"A little."
"It's dusty, and probably in need of tuning, but do allow yourself to try."
My fingers started traveling across the black and white keys caressing them, trying to play a melody of hope, something to lighten up the mood, with the slightly off-tuned instrument.
"Do you live in the mansion?" I asked, still playing the piece I had chosen. That had been one of the questions I had been thinking about for a long while.
"I had a small house built for me only a five-minutes' walk away from here because Gakupo didn't want me around him since the incident –the day when he attacked me-, probably because it revives his guilt no matter how hard I try to convince him that I don't blame him for it. But I do spend most of my time here in the mansion, because it means so much to me, and honestly, because Gakupo can't possibly run a house on his own. You know how men are." Meiko sighed tiredly, running her hand through her short hair. " He's like my younger brother, I need to help him when I see him messing up."
"That's so sweet of you!" It touched my heart how dearly did Meiko think of him like a brother, but truth be told, my mind was still stuck on the word 'incident'. I didn't ask her about it afraid that it would hurt her further, but in my mind I could see Gakupo having a crazy anger fit and attacking her for some reason or another. However, what astonished me the most was how forgiving did Meiko sound about it, how she excused him even when he harmed her. I couldn't understand how could her family abandon her or call her a demon, for she seemed to me as the true image of a guardian angel.
And just like that, noon passed in the blink of an eye, as we chatted and took turns playing whatever musical pieces we could remember. Meiko seemed to have a notable skill, however she said her fingers were 'rusty' and needed exercising, as she hadn't played anything in a long while. Later she excused herself as she said she had to go shopping for lunch ingredients in the nearby village, and she promised me to have someone deliver the message I had written for my family the day before.
The letter only explained that I wasn't harmed in any way and how I had been missing my each and every member of the family. I couldn't think of anything else to write, but I thought it would be good enough to stop them from worrying about me until I figure out a way to go back to them.
At the thought of my family, my mind drifted from one sliver of memory to another as my fingers continued dancing subconsciously to the rhythm of my heart. I hadn't noticed until quite some time later that it wasn't only the sound of music that was tangling my feelings and thoughts with its sweetness, but there was also singing. A deep velvety voice was also there, singing harmoniously along the notes with familiar words, making my heart melt. As my mind slowly digested the new acoustic delight my ears were starting to get addicted to, I turned my head quickly to confirm what I had finally noticed; I wasn't alone in the room.
Both the music and the vocal charm came to an end as my eyes met his deep sapphire ones once more, and silence enveloped the room again. It wasn't the uncomfortable type; but the peaceful one. I was just slightly disappointed because the beautiful mental state I had been in eventually broke.
"You seemed deeply focused and I didn't want to interrupt your performance just to call you for lunch." The tall purple-haired man half-apologized, if you could call that an apology, that is.
"You play beautifully. You had my soul in the palm of your hands as your fingers voyaged along the keys ."
"Thank you. You sing charmingly too." I admitted as I turned to face him, tucking a stray lock of my salmon hair behind my ear, and feeling heat starting to rise across my cheeks. Geez, what was wrong with me?!
"That's it? No 'What is a sick beast like you doing in his own room?!' or 'Knock the door first you vicious devil!' this time?" he asked mockingly
"Watch your tongue." I warned menacingly. There he was again, giving me that stupid dizzying fangs-showing smile and trying to make me sound like the guilty one. I admit that I had been mean to him, but did I see him apologizing for kidnapping me or hurting me family?
"Alright, I might have been slightly wrong about you, but I won't hesitate to unleash the stream of all the curses I know at you if you try to anger me." I added, using my index finger for overemphasizing effect. "But since I'm in a good mood today, I'll let that one slip." I grinned with implied arrogance.
"Where have you learnt that musical piece?" he asked, apparently ignoring my put-on show. A glimmer of curiosity, or perhaps interest, was shimmering against his sapphire orbs, making them look like the starry night sky itself in all its beauty, the mess of his purple hair, wild as ever, glorifying the many shades of blue twirling in his irides.
"Now that I think about it, my mother used to play it for us when we were young." She would also sing along the music, that must have been why the song sounded so familiar to me.
"The woman who gave birth to me also taught me how to play it at a young age." He said, the cold way he used to refer to his mother reflecting how he felt towards her.
"You should take better care of this place though, perhaps if the place was cleaner and the piano was perfectly tuned you might want to spend time here again." I suggested, caressing the dusty piano once more. "It could help you relax."
"I do want to spend time here already, I'm just…not fit for it anymore." He said, raising his hands timidly to look at his own deformed fingers and claw-like nails with pity. "But I will have the piano tuned for you soon, if you enjoy playing it."
It broke my heart to see how sad he seemed at the thought of his long-lost talent. A hobby is indeed one's window to vent off through, and losing one's ability to let off negativity could cost dearly. I imagined how heart-broken I would have been if I were to live forever in a house with no garden for me to take care of or spend time in. It would have sounded stupid to others, but because it was what I enjoyed doing the most, it would have hurt me quite badly.
"Maybe they'll get more flexible if you train them, I mean…maybe they'll get accustomed to… you know, play, and paint again.. your art is beautiful! I mean was! Eh!… maybe your hands aren't so different from…" flustered, I tried to put my feelings into words of comforting as I stood up from my seat, but what came out instead was complete rubbish.
Gakupo's expressions hardened as he exhaled loudly, clearly offended by my disastrous words.
"I honestly mean well!" I tried to defend myself, grieving over my own inability to explain myself.
"I'll let that one slip because I'm in such a good mood today." He finally spoke, mockingly copying my words from earlier. "I swear to God, sometimes you 'accidentally' manage to piss me off more than Meiko could ever premeditatedly do."
"I'm not apologizing until I hear you apologizing though." I added coolly, crossing my arms in front of my chest.
"Then I'll say it." Gakupo bragged. "Sorry, not sorry!" he continued, blowing up all my expectations of a heart-touching moment of apology. I was almost ready to apologize back, God!
"You are a pain in the neck, do you know that?" I rolled my eyes at him, leaving the room and heading to the dining room.
"Then that little neck of yours will be in constant pain during lunch today. I promised Meiko I'd sit with you because she said she had something to talk to us about." He commented as he walked past me, as if racing me there.
"No ladies first, Gakupo?" I teased, stressing his name. He sighed.
"You are a pain in the neck too, do you know that, Luka?" he wondered in response, trying to irritate me.
"See? I told you you do have a lot in common, like how you're both a pain in the neck!" Meiko's loud voice could be heard all over the staircase as she chuckled upon hearing our little conversation.
"Remind me to finish her off some time." Gakupo casually told me as he waited for me to catch up with him.
"Sure." I answered, mind-blown at the direction the relationship between my kidnapper and I was starting to take.
UPDATE: A/N: I'd like to thank the two reviewers who pointed out how giving in did Luka sound when she should have still been angry with Gakupo. I'd like to tell you that Luka did definitely NOT forgive him yet, I just wanted to give that idea a whole chapter for itself. Also, the ending of the previous chapter was there to serve defining the change Luka will be going through later. I will say no more because I don't want to spoil things xD I hope you don't give up on this story yet.