The Ballad of a Cursed Dragon

Chapter 1

I don't remember much of Akira Sohma. He was more of an enigma in my life than a father to me. The few times where he acknowledged my existence, he would only repeat a sentence over and over and over again. It became a terrible song that no matter how hard you tried to forget it, it kept playing in your head over and over. The sentence was a song and my father was the broken record that played it.

"Akito is your God before anything else; you were born to love her and never leave her side. Always remember this, Kaida"

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The broken record might still continue to play, but after a few years its song was starting to become broken too

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"Are you planning on bringing anyone Kaida?"

Akito and I were sitting down eating our breakfast. I usually try not to converse with her since most of the time she gets angry with me for any reason but it was a few weeks before our family banquet, by family I mean the Zodiacs. Where all we would do is sit around and do nothing. Well, that's what I always did. I usually never attended on orders from Akito but I guess this time I would. It never occurred to me it was open to non family members, especially since it was always just them.

"I didn't know we could"

"It is usually just the Zodiacs, but this time I decided why not open it to more of us. These people are our family after all"

I quickly glanced at her, this wasn't like Akito at all. She never said it aloud but I know she was always paranoid about us mixing in with anyone outside our immediate family. She saw them as something beneath us, beneath her. Gum under her shoe.

"Well? Are you?"

"I don't have anyone in mind"

"Pity. I would have liked to see what lowly boy you showed up with. Maybe you can go out and look, I know you wouldn't have a hard time attracting one"

I try not to clench my jaw as I look down at my plate. I pretend to eat as she continues talking

"I see it's clear you don't want to go but you are going. You can't isolate yourself from the other zodiacs; they're your family. You not being interested in even talking to them makes you seem rude and arrogant. Being my blood isn't enough to get people to like you, you actually have to try "

She always does this, she says these things to get a reaction so she'll have an opportunity to get angry with me. I've learned it's better to have her angry at me for not talking than it is when she has a real reason to be.

Say something.

She lets out a heavy sigh, "What am I going to do with you. It's quite embarrassing to think someone as pathetic  is of the same blood as me. I suggest you work on your incompetency before the banquet. I won't have you embarrass me anymore"

She gets up from the table and leaves the room. I check the clock and see it's fifteen past eight, leaving my half eaten Shokupan I head to the car. Just a regular morning, I think to myself. Just a regular morning to start off my equally regular day.

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Every morning I go to the small café located five minutes away from the house . I spend about thirty minutes either catching up on my given homework or reading a book. It might seem boring to anyone else but my mornings are what I enjoy the most. Here, in this small corner café I get to pretend to be anyone I want. To the workers I'm a regular but to everyone else I'm a struggling writer, a food enthusiast tourist, an underpaid teacher, a stranger. And for the thirty minutes that I'm here, I can pretend along with them. Because once those thirty minutes are up, once the invisible timer goes off, I'm me again. Kaida Sohma, a member of the cursed Zodiac, bound and chained to forever please and serve one person. To never fully know what it's like to be whole because a part of me, a part I have no control over, yearns for my God. For those thirty minutes, I pretend to feel whole.