One Piece (Love Story) [Part One]

Chapter One Hundred and Twelve [Rewritten]

-Chapter One Hundred and Twelve-

-Flashback-

"Skylar! Hey, Skylar, where are you?!" Sora called out, head turning left and right as he wandered down the manor's winding halls in search of his younger twin. He looked from the painted portraits of various people—mainly late family members with the occasional family portrait—that rested comfortably on the walls to the occasional vase of flowers that were seated atop their respective tabletops...

He hated this house.

Hated how big it was for a family of only five...but at the same time...he also loved it. He loved how easy it was to hide oneself away inside a house so big whenever they needed to. It was always so easy to just disappear for hours on end and never be seen again for the rest of the day—just like Skylar was currently doing.

"Please come out!" he pleaded after a moment of silence. "Cloud and I have a gift for you!" he tried enticing her as he continued his search. He didn't know exactly what had gone awry in her lesson today seeing how he wasn't there to witness it. Some days their father required them to attend that day's lesson together and other times he insisted on one-to-one lessons. He claimed that they all didn't need to learn the same amount of information that the others had to learn—he claimed that a Marine Admiral must know more than a lower-ranking Marine does...or at least that's how he'd usually put it whenever he would drag the youngest of his children away. Sometimes Sora wondered if their one-on-one lessons were just an excuse to prevent them from sticking up and helping one another whenever one of them would show signs of struggling to answer a question.

Father certainly hated it whenever he'd catch them helping each other...he especially hated how his youngest would always help her older twin due to the boy's tendency to constantly fall ill and miss out on lessons due to being bedridden. It wasn't his fault that his immune system was so much weaker than his sister's...it wasn't his fault that something as simple as a fever would leave him bedridden for days on end to the point that he could barely do more than sleep and deliriously mumble to himself.

"What is it?" Sora halted the second he heard his sister's familiar delicate voice. Quietly did he watch how on all fours she crawled out from underneath one of the tabletops—her dress dirty and tattered with dirt in the shape of boot prints. It looked like it might have been beautiful once, but now it looked like something you would expect a commoner to wear...at least that's how his mother would put it if she was to see the condition that the dress was in. No doubt she'd laugh at the sight before sneering in disappointment at how filthy her youngest child appeared.

"Oh, sis..." Sora's gaze sadly softened the second he saw how Skylar's left eye was swollen shut, a nasty purplish-yellow tint to it as a cut ran across her cheek—a bruise was already starting to blossom on top of it as well. It seems that today's lesson really didn't go over well at all.

"You know I wish to be alone before night falls and the party begins..." she quietly whispered, slowly pushing herself to stand up on shaky legs that looked as if they could break at any moment. There were bruises and cuts starting to form on them as well...it seems he went all out this time around. Sora bit his quivering lips as his eyes started to sting with unshed tears. Looking down, he couldn't help but feel like a coward as he no longer wished to stare at the disheveled state of his little sister. He knew all too well what she was referring to...

Their birthday party.

It was the same every year—an extravagant party thrown by their parents under the guise of celebrating another year since the twin's birth when in reality, they just wanted to show off any new purchases or renovations that have been done to the manor. Whenever it got close to one of the children's birthdays, their parents would always end up spending the money on themselves instead of buying gifts or arranging a real birthday celebration. With swollen chests filled with pride, they'd invite friends and comrades and anyone else of similar status over just to boast about their new purchases or arrangements made to their home. It seemed they got some sort of pleasure in taking the attention away from the children when it came to their supposed special day while simultaneously acting as if that wasn't the case...