Vampire Knight Fan Fiction ❯ Painted Veil ❯ Beloved Flower ( Chapter 1 )

No copy infringement intended: All rights belong to Hino Matsuri.

I take my beloved flower from home. Its roots now blossom into a garden outside your window.

• * •

The strength in her fist subdued. She desperately clenched her hands but watched in starry fascination at the deadening of power fall almost wickedly at the order.

“This is the only way it can be done.” Rooted behind his table, Haruka stared grimly at his documents. His somber crimson eyes unable to meet those of his daughter's. “I know you are angry—”

“You know nothing!” Astounding her-self by the murderous scream that echoed straight from her pained heart. “You know nothing…” Yuuki whimpered, all too soon tears soaked her satin and ebullient face. “Is your title, your power, all you care about? Your people, your job, your popularity—is that all you see?” She screamed.

“Lower your tone, Yuuki.” Haruka felt his own emotions rise in apprehension. ”I know how hard it is, but it's important.”

“Do you see me at all, otou-chan?” Tear-free, Yuuki gazed at the dominating pureblood.

“Of course, I see you, Yuuki.” Haruka slowly moved out of his chair. “I see you clearly.”

“You don't.” She snapped violently. “You don't see how much your decision is hurting me, or that I'm a grown woman who doesn't want to be sold to protect your honor. No, otou-chan…” The pain was too brutal. He was too brutal. Now everything was unbearable. “In less than a minute, you turned me from your daughter into a commodity to keep your label.”

Then she tore away from the room. Her heart wavering and shrieking blindly but she was surefooted, her head and shoulders straight. The only trace of ache was the betraying tear falling from the corner of her eye. The door sealed into a booming echo, locks clicked solidly, further barricading Haruka's calls from breaching the enormous halls outside.

Guards flattened against walls as Yuuki strode without a single glance at her vigilant army. When she reached the screen doors, her sturdy hands nearly cracked the portal off its hinges. Yuuki descended the stoned stairs, let her beautiful silk skirt pool around her legs and drag across the mud, no more caring of her physical mien.

The court ladies gaped at their red-eyed princess. Her flaring long hair fell bountifully over her shoulders and lean back. The pins dressed precisely to sculpt each hair lock fell to the ground. She was little ways toward the heavenly garden her mother spent years nurturing, but before she drifted in the comforting scents of jasmine, roses and sakuras, she lost will and sundered on the grass, heaving and punching her heart as sobs chocked out of her vocal cords.

Birds in the sky traversed over the palace, crept in the garden and sat clamoring on branches, lured by her sobs. Maids galloped together, demanding what had unsettled her. 

Yuuki refused to answer and turned away. So she sat like a lonely infant, searched the mysterious blue sky that spurned her questions like always. Then she wept some more, listened to the hallow thought of having to leave home, her family, friends, leaving behind all the memories of living in the palace since she was a babe.

It was too real.

Her father had done this to her. Against her will, he turned a treaty between two rival countries into kinship. The most horrible thing Haruka could do was send her away to a foreign region forever. As if exiling her out of her beloved home.

In spite of the tickling tears that left an unremitting trail on her young face, in spite of her lavish gowns and sophisticated home, in spite of being blessed born a royal pureblood, in spite of the calm and loving life she led, Yuuki could easily give up everything and live a peasant's life than live elsewhere.

There was utter turmoil clouding in her soul, its black waves coarse and repugnant. She wanted to scream at the sky, at all living things and curse them for glimpsing into her pain. Yuuki sputtered into sobs again, feeling her body sway from the terrain of hostility for her father and for being born a damn pureblood.

She hated everything then. How beautifully pure and strong the sky gleamed, how wonderfully soothing the birds sang, and the buzzing chorus of concerned maids combined with her father's calls, who would rather take care of his social status than his only daughter.

• * •

“You should have consoled her.” Whispered the lithe figure standing against the brilliance of the noon. She shifted and glanced back at her riveted spouse.

In the shadowed office, the window light faded as she did and only the jeweled pins ofher hair glowed, indicating she was still standing there or Haruka would have no clue.

Juuri's flowering kimono glistened for a second and darkened like the rest of the room. In the looming silence, she came toward his desk and murmured, reading into his gloom so meticulously, it made Haruka cringe and resent himself.

“She is your only daughter. You'd rather lose her?”

“I don't want to lose her.” His words drifted laboriously.

The mere notion of losing Yuuki tormented Haruka. He held her preciously in his arms when she was born, loved and taught her nearly everything he knew, prided and gave her the best things the world could offer. Yet having to let her go so suddenly, so quickly after years of being together, it was like cutting a ventricle of his heart.

“This decision wasn't easy for me. I can't let our people down.” He urged his feeble soul. “I can't.”

“Losing your people's trust is not an option and giving your daughter to a country that was once considered a rival denotes you are investing trust, faith and hope for a new beginning between two nations.” Juuri's gentle hands caressed his sullen cheek. 

Another effect of his strenuous decision was losing appetite. The hollowness of his face was glaring. He had decided a long time ago and only recently informed Yuuki about her imminent future. During that time, Haruka sat tortured, watching his careless daughter bounce vivaciously around her home, unknowingly.

His heart bruised when she smile that cruelly innocent smile but also prided in the knowledge of the values he bred in his potent daughter.

Her long fingers cupped his check. Slowly Juuri tilted his head against her own as she knelt. “Before you send her away, make up with her.”

“She hates me.” His eyes stung and he rubbed them with numbed fingertips. ”She doesn't want to see me.”

“You're her father, of course she'd want to see you.” Her warm lips caressed hischeek. “Haruka, trust me.”

He knew Juuri was right, but when he stood in front of Yuuki's room, her sullen looking maids were already filed outside of her quarters.

“Hime-sama hasn't come out in a week. Ousama, she doesn't eat.” The cowering maids whispered.

“Yuuki.” Haruka touched her door, “Please, open up. Let's talk.” Despite he didn't expect an answer, he waited for a while, tracked for movement inside and wondered if she was there at all. “This is unhealthy, Yuuki. You must come out of there eventually. If you don't, I'll order the guards to break the door, and then you'd wish you had opened it when I asked you to. You don't want to cross me.”

He stood in the silence, letting it saw him. Haruka turned around and beckoned the guards. They tore her door, but Haruka left the scene a long time ago. His resistant child didn't eat, sleep, talk, or leave her room. Compared to Juuri's motherly persuasion, Yuuki's stubbornness was unbeatable.

The evening before her last day at home, Haruka summoned her. She came unwillingly, brought by guards and maids into the hall. Without looking or addressing at her father, Yuuki glumly glared at the ground, contemplating his words.

“This is ridiculous. You're treating yourself horribly and making us uncomfortable. You're leaving tomorrow and you keep refusing to do what you're told. You can't keep this up.” Haruka warned, pacing all corners of the room. “You have to understand that I did it for our nation, for our people. I offered what was most important to me.”

“Were you threatened to give me away?” She sneered suddenly. “Did they hold a knife to your throat and order you to sell your daughter?”

“I didn't sell you.” Haruka grounded his feet and looked upon her critically. “It is a marriage.”

“Not to me.” Her crimson eyes held rage like none he'd seen. “This is considered selling a slave to another country.”

“Yuuki!”

“I will not swallow my voice today. You refused to listen to me and pushed me into a corner. I'll never forgive you!” She pushed between the wall of guards and shot into the halls.

• * •