Between the Lines

10.

He glanced at you. Breaking from the shock you gulped. You weren't sure what to do. You didn't want to cause deaths, your stomach already made a flip at that thought. It wasn't like you've never seen dead body. But to cause somebody's death was whole different matter. Then again, they would come back to your father and tell him where you were.

When you were thinking one of them stood up and once again tried to attack Okita. He was quickly defeated and squirmed in pool of his own blood. You saw his last breath. The same fate met the second henchmen.

The smell of blood reached your nostrils and you had to force yourself to not vomit. You stood paralyzed and didn't hear Okita's voice. Finally he shook you and led you out of the alley. You tugged along not sure where you were going. You stopped in another empty alley as he faced you.

"What was it all about?" Okita said in displeased voice. "So in the end you are some bratty princess who run away from home?" you looked into his eyes, and amusement you saw earlier vanished. His words angered you. But it seemed he would not stop now. "What, did poetry got boring so you decided to look how peasants live?"

He sneered at you. You clenched your fists. He was opening his mouth to say more.

"Or maybe silks were too much to bear?"

"I will not be a cattle!" you raged. "You do not know how it is! You are a man after all!"

"So what? You're really some bratty-"

"In my father's eyes I'm just a cow, decked to be sold," you interrupted. "Smile, bow, make a tea. Smile, bow, bring him food. Smile, bow, giggle at your future husbands unfunny jokes."

You started to rant. Okita kept silent. In your whole life there hasn't been a single person who would hear you out. You didn't know why, but you poured your whole hear out.

"In the end of the day you're just a cow to be sold, and your own father is the seller. Why? Just because you are not a boy! Because your mother was from low class and couldn't give long awaited male heir. You are made to be praised, yet all you see is hate. Maids, servants, henchmen, samurais. They all put on a smile, but you could feel their hateful, yet lustful gazes."

You clenched your fists harder. Nails dug into your hands. You couldn't bear his gaze.

"You think I have everything served on a golden plate. But in reality that gold is just a paint covering dirty, rotting wood. And then you learn how to be a lady. How to smile, how to be polite. How to be perfect slave for your future husband....," you paused." Perhaps I'm my mother's daughter, I refuse to be a slave and I want follow her advice."

"What was her advice?" he asked.

"To live a life worth living, live a life to its fullest, so in the end I won't regret it. She told me that on her deathbed six years ago," you smiled bitterly. "And for me life worth living is not the one of the cattle. So I ran away. Away from my father, from hateful court. And all I want to do now is to live."