When she was a child, all she cared was finding ways to relieve her boredom. Being holed in her room because of her frail, sickly body, she learnt how to appreciate books. As a child born of high herritage, she received generous treatment from her peers and adults alike; more so when her father found out that she had a high aptitude for magic.
Overwhelmed with obligations and responsibilities at such a young age, she never knew the basic joys of a child; which is probably why she unconsciously yearns for it. Hiding her sadness under a timid facade, she contiously interacted with teachers and peers alike as if it was the most natural thing ever. Little she knew, all these pent up frustration will soon haunt her.
Childish tantrum-... was it really wrong for her to act like that?.. She's had enough and wanted to have some of the happiness that she never felt. She just wanted to play with other children even though she knew that her body was very fragile. She wanted to be treated like anyone else; not an outcast, an outlier, an oddity.
...
Inside a tiny room lit by a candle, two voices can be heard having an argument. A gravelly voice which belonged to a middle aged man spoke... Slowly, a brittle, quivering voice, started to resonate inside the silent room. It came from a small girl on the verge of tears. All of a sudden, the conversation stopped and a loud noise echoed across the room.
...「this is the problem with you!」
...「uuu-」
...「you never listen to anything that I say!」
...
Love what you're reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
The little girl bit her lip to stop herself from crying. Caressing her left cheek with her left hand to somehow ease up the pain, she stood there motionless for a couple of seconds, mouth slightly open and tears accumulating in her eyes. The middle aged man, her father, had slapped her. She had crossed the line so her father took matters into his hands; using an old-fashioned discipline. A few moments later, his daughter hastily left the room banging the door loudly.
The room had gone silent after the ruckus; one can faintly hear cicadas chirping outside the windowless building. The eerie atmosphere along with the faint glimmer from the candle left the man with a terrible feeling of guilt. Realising his mistake, the man ran after his daughter to apologise but he stopped halfway; he couldn't face his daughter that he raised his hand to, even if it's for discipline.
Days after the incident, their parent-child relationship started to grow more and more distant. The girl, realising that friendship and social interactions were useless after her argument with her Father, started to succumb to introvertedness. She started avoiding people; if someone struck up a conversation with her, she would reply in the briefest possible manner. Because of her cold attitude towards people, she garnered aversion from her peers. All of her so-called-"friends" had started avoiding her; she was often alone during break times; not that she particularly cared; but, because of that, she learnt a valuable lesson of not just trusting anyone.
However, as grew up she realised how immature she had been; gaining more responbilities made her reflect from her past behaviours. She was ignorant back then, thinking that the world conspired to hate her very existence just because her Father didn't grant her childish wish. Becoming aware of the flaws of her reasoning, she realised how stupid it is to take the pent up anger onto her loving Father; it didn't solve anything whatsoever, it only tore their relationship apart. Seizing the initiative to apologise from her past actions, everything started going back to normal... the way it's suppossed to be... slowly and steadily... their parent-and-child relationship might've started a bit late but they were both happy to get back on good terms... and yet!.. and yet!..
...
...
...
Where did everything go wrong...