"Why don't you show a better result, you beast!" a woman, plastered in brands like Gucci, Prada, and Dior, kicked on her daughter who was writhing on the floor, "You get another 99, I will kill you."
"But mother...," the girl looked up, to get a glare from the woman.
"You're just too focused on that...programming...thing of yours! You don't have to pay attention to programming! Just pay attention to literature!" the woman stomped on the girl's left hand before saying, "the left hand is useless for literature."
Dye looked at her left hand, which was as good as new. She couldn't feel the pain like she used to, but sadly, she couldn't program in Hyouka until she reached a high level. She didn't know how high she should go right now, but she wanted to program again...
'I want to be free...,'
The girl looked at the book in front of her, bored. It was telling about poems and such. She could write a sophisticated poem without even batting an eyelid. Like, seriously, it was child's play.
But no matter how good she was at literature, her mother would never let her touch the computer. There was one moment, her mother called a professional to fix a bug. No matter how much her mother shrieked, she fixed the bug. In the end, she was beaten up, because 'mother had to pay compensation fee to the professional'.
She wanted to let her hands flow, but her handspeed was just fluent..., her mother had broken her left hand, and the doctor said it was impossible for her hand to ever return to normal.
'What getting run over by a bicycle? You stomped on my hand yourself, and just treated it after the heels' mark faded away!'
Dye could never forget those painful days, those days where she felt as if she was in hell. Literature was like a heavy stone being crashed onto her. Those days hurt, and her heart suffered day by day. Later on, she escaped her house, and made Hyouka.
Hyouka was like her life. Everything in it. How she designed the world, little by little...
It was beautiful...
In her head, she thought, 'How can someone as broken, as dirty, as imperfect as me, create such a beautiful, perfect world?'
Dragons, Elves, Humans, Gnomes, Ogres...those characters from fairytales she read during Literature. The only reason that she seriously studied Literature was for this very world. Ghosts, mythical horses, she even placed powerful weapons that defied the heavens...
'Perfect...,'
Although she didn't seem like it, she was elated when she got the chance to come to Hyouka, come and enjoy the world she created. It was like the Earth, but it was also everything she could ever dream of. The hearts of people were still vile, greedy, and vain, but she felt free...much better than how she was before.
Dye had never thought that she would accept the name Dye Red. It was only her pen name, the name she used to write fanfictions and stories of her own (not only to appease her mother, but to her own enjoyment as well.). The times with the boys were the happiest. Although they could be unruly and childish, she somehow felt content...
And happy...
How could she ever forget life...
Life was everything...
And in Hyouka, the boys gave her life.
Those days she suffered, she enjoyed in this life. Sometimes, she couldn't even believe herself. She lived her life to the fullest, even though there was not a single computer in sight. For once in her life, she felt happy, she felt full.
For once in her life, she wasn't 'Liang Feifei' but she was 'Dye Red'.
For once in her life, she was doing whatever she wanted to do, instead of doing whatever everyone wanted her to do.
She was very happy, very glad.
The boys, felt like brothers...at the same time, they also felt like sons.
Dye couldn't hide the satisfaction in her face, from today onwards, she wasn't Liang Feifei.
From today onwards that name was abandoned.
In Hyouka, there was no Liang Feifei, there's only Dye Red.
And she would live the life she wanted, as Dye Red.