My name is Valentine. I am the 2nd illegitimate daughter of Onaguchi Isa, head of the Isa family. My mother, Kinami, was a concubine or more specifically the mistress of my father. She died by the hands of the jealous and evil legitimate wife of the Isa family and also my stepmother, Arya.
Arya who was and is not loved by my father but is respected because of her family’s power and wealth. Although she has never said it to me directly, she truly despises me and my mother to the core of her bones and has made it very clear that my place in this family is to be a pawn and thrown away.
Along with Arya and her hatred came her repulsive children, Mia, my oldest sister and the 1st daughter of the Isa Family, and Itoh, my oldest brother and heir to the Isa Family. From birth, just like their mother, Mia and Itoh had hellacious thoughts of me and did everything in their power to make me suffer.
As the years went by, the two’s horrendous pranks and behavior grew worse. Arya, being the carefree mother she was, never ridiculed them for any of it. She simply dismissed the issue saying
“They’re still growing, let them be”
But in truth, she pushed for them to do it more. Out of the two, Itoh was much more mature, but his way of bullying me was far worse, maybe even to a more extreme level than anybody else. He may very well be worse than Arya at some points...no I take that back, Arya is much crueler while Mia’s actions were that of a child.
My father, Onaguchi, on the other hand, didn’t involve himself when it came to the three and me. He simply looked away as if it had nothing to do with him, when in fact it did. If my father hadn’t gotten overly drunk on the night of his wedding with Arya, he wouldn’t have an illegitimate daughter and maybe he wouldn’t have forced himself upon the young palace maid.
Yes, that’s correct. This is how I became a child of the Isa. From a lonely, sick, and drunk man whom forced himself upon a helpless 17-year-old palace maid at the age of 22. It was always so confusing to me as to why my oldest siblings and step-mother treated me so cruelly. I always thought it was because of my unique blood-red eyes... but that didn’t quite make sense either because my father also inherited these eyes.
So, I began a quest to find out why I was treated so unfairly. I asked Miss. Akiko, my care-taker. Mr. Kito, my teacher, and Niema, my maid. But of course, none spoke a word of it because of Arya. I had been prepared and ready to simply conclude that I was just hated for being loved by my late grandmother until my mother’s closest friend, Natalie, told me the truth. Natalie was also a maid in the empress palace.
Her and my mother had entered the palace together at the age of 16 and became very close to the love of books and poetry, a new form of writing in our era. Natalie, in my mother’s eyes, was considered an older sister. Even though they were only three months apart, my mother had a lot of respect for her and so, of course, I grew up thinking and calling her my aunt.
I was a very curious child when I was young so of course, I wondered how my mother could call a person with no blood relation to her sister. Mother, being the warm-hearted person she was, simply took my hand, looked me in my eyes and with a warm smile said
“Family isn’t made up of blood-related people. It’s made of people you love and hold loyalty and respect for. Always remember that Valentine.”
“Yes, mama”
Mother truly loved her family, but even family couldn’t save the traumatic experience she had gone through and that’s why others called her weak. After finding out about the pregnancy, my father forced my mother to enter the Isa manor by threatening to hurt the people around her.
Mother was always stubborn, but for me, she laid her pride down and entered the Isa manor as a mistress so that she may give birth safely, but in truth, the Isa family manor was the most unsafe place for her. Especially since father being the coward man he was, allowed the people in the manor blame and ridicule my mother about the whole incident. Not informing anybody that it was he who forced himself on my mother, him who forced my mother to enter the manor, and him who had placed the name illegitimate daughter on my head.
Father had never admitted to any of the horrible things he has done when it came to me and my mother. An truthfully I never believed he would. But I was fine with that. I was fine with being treated like an outcast. I was fine with being isolated and bullied by my so-called loved ones because I always believed that I wouldn’t be trapped like a slave in this big empty manor forever like my mother and Arya.
No, I always kept hope inside of me and the thought of finally leaving the manor then having my own family with a man who loved me and cherished me as if I was the only important thing in this world. With this thought and dream of mine, I was able to continue living in this cold lonely palace. With this thought, I was determined to survive until my Angle takes my very last strength. And with this thought in my mind, nothing could stop me from achieving my well-deserved happiness.
Well, that’s what I believed at least until one fateful day when the people I called family sold me to a brothel owned by a delinquent-fied, or I guess the correct term is a yakuza organization called Akita.
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