...She knew this person…
Ai Shizuka stood frozen as her blood ran cold from head to toe.
This person… dressed in dusty pink… was exactly as Ai remembered. Gentle and delicate with a small frame, an expressive set of blue eyes with a beautiful heart-shaped face and a soft light brown hair that flowed past her waist. A perfect representation of feminine excellence.
Yet this person… this person… was also the beginning of everything that went downhill.
Ai Shizuka clenched her eyes shut in pain, unable to withstand the flood of emotions roaring to break free, fighting to gain control of her rationality.
Please stop, Ai begged incessantly in her mind. She couldn't think, she couldn't see, she couldn't hear and she lost the sense of where she was as the waves of unforgiving memories flooded her mind, cutting her off from reality.
"Ai, Rini will be staying with us for a while", Jin's masculine voice spoke to her as he brought out a delicate woman from behind him.
Ai Shizuka subconsciously raised an eyebrow at the sudden proposal. The young woman that appeared from behind him seemed timid and extremely nervous. But she was also very beautiful, dressed in pale colours and exuding a gentle demeanour. Her small delicate frame was shaking slightly with heaving breaths as she stuttered out a greeting.
"She is a family friend of mine. She will be receiving medical treatments here…", Jin proceeded to explain, telling Ai about the sudden arrangement here.
To be honest, Ai was not comfortable then. Call it female instinct or what but she slightly felt wary about this. But at that point, she just simply brushed off her feelings, thinking that she was possibly intimidated by Rini's alluring beauty and was in fact too possessive of Jin. Either way, as a person who was also born with the weak body constitutions, she also felt sympathetic towards Rini for having such burdens.
Plus, due to Ai's adamant request, Jin was already doing a favor to her by having her as his one and only wife despite the fact that it was not a social norm to agree to such requests. So to give a refusal over something small and invalid as instinct would simply mean she was going too overboard...
Ai Shizuka nodded in agreement.
Time flew by. A week turned into a month, a month turned into a few months. The short stay continued to linger longer. But nothing seemed to be amiss since the young woman that they took in was sickly and feeble, with even worse constitutions than Ai. But unlike Ai, who was sheltered since young and had always received the top grade medical care, Rini's family background then had seen much more humble. She and Jin took care of Rini together and at one point, Ai felt like she found a new sister that was close to her and trusted her.
"Madam! You can't enter!", a young servant girl rushed forward and blocked her way. She wore a simple uniform of the Omaru household and seemed to be very flustered.
Ai Shizuka frowned in confusion, "Why not?".
"M-my lord is b-busy currently…", the girl bit her lips as she stuttered out, averting her eyes away guiltily.
The frown on Ai deepend. For the past 2 years that she had been married to Jin, the man had never turned her away no matter how busy he was. Even though he never really showed his approval, he also never showed his disapproval either. To put it simply, he just let it be.
Ai found it weird, she was about to question the girl again when suddenly she heard a soft moan and the sound of things falling down. The servant girl grew even more flustered and started trembling.
Ai Shizuka stiffened immediately. Those sounds… they came from Jin's study room...
"Leave...", Ai choked out as her pale golden eyes turned to glare at the servant girl, "And do not tell about this to any other…".
The servant girl nodded her head rapidly and scurried off in a rush, obviously too frightened to be in the same vicinity as Ai Shizuka.
Ai took a trembling breath, forcibly trying to calm her shaking heart as she struggled to push the door open, afraid to see what was to come. Her hands were frozen stiff as if the whole world had been freezed over and the voices in the room grew more urgent, with the overlapping sounds of soft moans and the occasional grunts from a man.
Ai closed her eyes and kicked the door open. The scene that awaited her made her heart sink. The clothes and shoes were scattered all over the floor and books and stationeries were thrown in disorder. Bodies of two people intertwined intimately on the study table, uninterrupted and undisturbed by the external sounds, were fully immersed in the activity they were doing.
The body of the female was exposed and her slender legs tightly wrapped around the male's bare torso while the broad muscular back of the male faced in Ai's direction.
[ Author: Fak. This scene is fucking hard to write. Wuwu :'( ]
The tearstained blue eyes of the female gradually came down from looking at the ceiling and landed on Ai.
Upon seeing Ai's shocked and murderous glare, the female immediately struggled to push the male away. After a while of constant pushing, the male seemed to break free from the haze of passion and groggily turned around. His eyes seemed to be unfocused and it took a while before clarity set in and recognised Ai.
Jin's dark eyes widened in realisation. Guilt, regret and some other emotions she couldn't identify flashed across his eyes as Ai closed her eyes in pain and let out a heart-wrenching cry.
Ai Shizuka clenched her chest in reality. She dared not open her eyes as she was afraid that her emotions of hatred, anger and betrayal would be leaked out.
Ai Shizuka's jealous heart grew darker by the day, unable to suppress the hate and anger that she was feeling inside. Ai in the previous life was willful, overly-sensitive and possessive. If she loves one person, she would single-mindedly be devoted to that person and that person also must be that way. Convincing her not to get jealous was like talking to a mentally-challenged mule, both pointless and plain stupid. In another word, she was also that type that could be easily led to a wrong path if one was not being too careful.
The scene faded out and another wave of memories appeared in her mind. It was a few months after the incident at the study room.
"Get out!! All of you!! Out!!! Out!!!", Ai Shizuka yelled as she threw the dishes off the table in violent anger, chasing the servants away. Just another day of Jin refusing to see her. She picked up the half-broken bottle of liquor from the floor and simply drank it as tears heavily blurred her vision.
"Hehehe… why can't you love me only? Why? Why??", she asked madly to the lonely silent air in a mix of tears and laughter, painting the perfect picture of a maddened obsession. Her thin body lay among the broken debris of porcelain as they mercilessly cut through her soft skin. Yet she was unable to even feel a sense of external pain. The tales of how the first Madam of Omaru household is insane raved the streets of Shinto. Everyone took pity on young general Omaru and his new concubine for having to deal with such a disaster. Yet they spit on Ai's name in disgust.
But all these… did not matter to her. She only wanted Jin. Others simply wouldn't do.
A pair of strong arms lifted her off the ground, cradling her to the warm broad chest. The red dragon emblem of the Omaru defence shone brilliantly on his chest and Ai lifted her eyes with hope and happiness.
But…
It wasn't him...
Cyan blue eyes gazed down at her in sadness, evidently taking pity on the sorry state she was in. He gingerly wiped her tears away and his lips moved urgently. But Ai Shizuka couldn't hear anything as she stared back at him woodenly, floods of tears flowed even harder, shutting her into her own self-made prison.
The scene blurred out and Jin stood beside a delicate woman as he rubbed her bulging belly gingerly, happiness evident on his face. These two painted the perfect picture of harmony, except… Ai Shizuka rushed forwards with drunken steps and blocked their way.
"I...I hate you so much, Rini Morioka!! Why don't you just die!"
Those words that were spoken in a drunken agony, she also didn't know how much she would come to regret them in the future.
"Please Ai, just talk to me how can I make you feel better?", two small delicate hands tried to grab hold of her clothes as the soft trembling voice begged her incessantly.
"Noo!! Get out! Don't touch me, I said get out!", Ai Shizuka tried to pry away those hands in anger, struggling to make the woman let go.
"AHHHH!"
A pained scream and a lost footing, the fragile body that was carrying the weight of an unborn child had fallen down. Ai Shizuka tried to reach out to her. But it was too late. In the eerily silent room, only the shocked face of Ai and the large amount of blood that pooled on the pristine floor remained.
There was so much blood.
Two weeks later, the unfortunate fate of the concubine who drowned herself in a river spread through the streets of Shinto like a wildfire. She was missing for a few days until her body floated near the river banks. But even then, the poor girl's body was so mangled and beyond recognition that the coroner could only identify her by the clothes that she was last seen in.
The news put a sour taste in everyone's mouth and the one who took it the hardest was Jin Omaru. His grief at her loss was unparalleled and evidently the blame befall on Ai Shizuka. She was the one who caused the miscarriage and ultimately also the main cause that made Rini took her own life.
"Kneel.", Jin Omaru yelled the moment she stepped into his study.
Ai Shizuka choked back her tears as she fumbled to kneel. No matter what she says or does, his inevitable hatred would be upon her.
"...Jin...", her voice shook slightly.
"You will address me as master!"
The response was immediate.
Ai Shizuka hanged her head down, trying desperately to hold back the tears that were threatening to fall. He would always hate her. Nothing else would matter.
Jin was silent for a while before he asked her slowly.
"Why… why did you have to...", he couldn't continue the question as the large waves of emotions choked his voice.
"I-I…", she barely stuttered.
"ANSWER ME!", Jin Omaru's voice boomed as he suddenly loomed in front of her, startling Ai to a point that she started to shake in fear. He forcibly pulled her head back by the hair and roughly lifted up her chin. But his reddened eyes that were staring at her were full of shaky emotions, flickering between pain, disbelief, worries and a deep sense of helplessness. But as fast as it was, those emotions disappeared as if they were simply a trick of an eye.
Ai Shizuka's heart hammered erratically, both from his closeness and the heavy sense of fear. Despite her own circumstances, she shakily tried to reach out to hold her husband's face, wanting and hoping to take away the pain that once marred his face.
But before her hands could even reach him, a palm raised up and struck her across the face. Her thin frame fell limply to the ground from the large impact.
Ai Shizuka widened her eyes in shock and pain, staring unblinkingly at Jin from the floor as blood started to pool from the corner of her mouth. He was looking at the hand that struck her in disbelief and perhaps her eyes were playing a trick again: she thought… she thought she saw a glimpse of concern on his face. But it was only a mirage…
"What's so wrong about me having another wife, Ai Shizuka? At my age and status, every other man has harem full of women. I doted on you and pampered you alone but you… you just had to…", Jin trailed off as his footsteps slowly faded into the darkness.
The emotions of self-hatred, guilt and sadness weighed down on her, making it hard for her to breath, until…