[Warning - Violence]
--
*A WEEK BEFORE THE START OF THE UNDERWORLD WAR and Yohan's Retirement*
*POW* *POW* *POW*
Lance tirelessly punched the defenceless and powerless young man to a pulp while his spineless group of slaves, in the name of friends, cheered for him, making themselves comfortable on that basketball court.
It's not new for Yohan to get rounded up and beaten up, but this day was special. After successfully crushing his nose and breaking a few ribs, Lance spat on the tired Yohan.
"Come on, Yon! Aren't you gonna fight back? You're the fiance of the dear Vampire Princess and the son-in-law of the vampire lord... Come on!"
*CRACK* A powerful kick landed right on Yohan's abdomen, leading him to bleed internally. He squealed, rolled and let muffled cries in pain, but Lance and his friends were just getting started, emboldened and encouraged by Yohan's painful moans.
"Aaaah... I'm gonna crush his throa—"
"LANCE!" a majestic feminine voice echoed from behind, startling and freaking out every spineless moron in the place. Diana, with her deadly stare, walked towards Lance and his boys, holding a hell of fury.
"Lance, what the fuck are you doing? He said he wouldn't marry me... He backed off, okay? I heard from Father—"
"Where's the fun if he backs off on his own? And who the fuck is he to do gentleman fuckery for me? Do you know what others say? He gave up, honouring our mutual love and decision. FUCK! I want others to see how powerful I am!"
The contempt in Lance's eyes towards Yohan nauseated Diana. She always knew he was a douche, but seeing him spewing empty pride on a pointless thing, frustrated her.
"I won't take it, Diana... It must be like I FORCED HIM TO GIVE UP. LANCE ROACH beat the shit out of his girl's fiance and FORCED HIM TO LEAVE!"
The disgusting self-pride was a bit too much for everyone around and Diana rightfully glared him to death. Her dead, cold eyes pressured Lance to let Yohan go.
But Lance had a tad too much arrogance under his sleeve, forcing Diana to act quickly. She turned to a nearby slave of Lance and smiled at him.
"Your name is Hogan, right? Come here..." she sweetly invited him, and the naive guy obeyed with a nervous smile and came closer.
*BAM!* The sound of the skull cracking was heard aloud, as Diana crushed his skull, making him scream in pain, and forcing Lance to stop whatever he was doing.
"Lance, I hope you take your lovable slave to the hospital quickly... otherwise, he may die—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know... Boys, let's leave!" Lance dragged his spineless troop along and vanished from the basketball court, taking the wailing Hogan along.
Upon confirming that Lance and his troops truly left, Diana approached the struggling Yohan in pain. Her mind was basically blank, feeling no remorse or no pity for Yohan.
Instead, she wanted him to get more hurt; And she didn't know why.
"Are you gonna complaint to Father?" she asked, with her eyes observing the bleeding from Yohan's face and the tears in his humiliated eyes.
"Hmm... No. I'll say I tripped on the stairs—"
"Good. Because, you know... You deserved much more than this. If I was in his place, I would have ripped your eyeballs and would have fed it to my dog—"
"Thanks. Thank You for not being in his place, then..." Yohan grunted with a passive-aggressive tone and his joke was more anger-filled than funny-intended, while he pushed himself up and stood on his own.
His eyes refused to look at Diana and the tears dried up quickly as they were replaced by the bleeding blood. Diana frowned and felt a mild disturbance in her heart; a feeling she always felt whenever she saw him hurt.
"You could have stood up for yourself, you know... You know that he's not right for me, right? He's a walking example for spoiled brats."
"Tch! You already know that, ma'am? Must have been a very thoughtful decision, if you ask me..."
"Yes, I do. And it seems you know that too. So, why?"
"What else do you want me to do, ma'am? Ask your hand forcefully?" Yohan's flickering patience and his growing tiredness became more visible in his answers and that ticked off something in Diana.
She grew more frustrated for reasons she didn't understand and she felt a boiling rage on hearing Yohan's answers.
"You should have never accepted it, then! Why the heck did you even agree to my father's proposal? How can a scum like you even think of marrying me?"
"I declined it now, didn't I? Ma'am—"
"Stop calling me, ma'am every second... You—" She grunted and tightly shut her eyelids, calming herself. But her heart raced more, as she was tempted to ask one question.
"You should have killed yourself before declining the proposal... Lance was right, you scum... Do you know what others will talk about? Do you think it's going to be easy—"
"So, you want me to die... Right?"
Like a vacuum inside a tightly shut bottle, the atmosphere had nothing but silence and some whispers from a few ravens. Diana stared at Yohan, who kept his face turned away from her, refusing to meet Diana's eyes. Whether it was respect or disgust could be only known to Yohan.
"Tell me, this... Do you hate me?"
Yohan spat a saliva of blood and chuckled to himself, hearing the question. A smile of understanding and sadness concealed with a plastic mask, as he enjoyed the 'joke'.
"Hmm... Who am I to hate you? I'm a nobody, right?..."
"Then, tell me this..." She proceeded to get closer to him, bringing her face towards Yohan's, leaving only a few inches of a gap between them.
"Do you think I hate you?" Diana asked with a feeling of longing in her eyes and a curiosity in her tone, but Yohan was too fed up to take notice, so he answered it straight without any thought.
An answer that came straight from his heart without any meddling. And an answer which went on to be prompting Diana all throughout her life to ask the same question herself over and over and to everyone she met, only to confirm all of them had the same answer.
"YES. I DO"
--
Reminded by the haunting past as a nightmare, Diana Jones woke up from her bed, panting and full of tears. To her next, was a cold, pale corpse of a man, lying on the bed naked and drained of blood.
Seeing him, Diana slapped herself on the forehead as he remembered what she had done last night in a drunken stupor.
"Guess, I should have settled for goat's blood... Anya! Clean this up for me, please..."