Empress Natsume ✓

LIV

"Are you sure you're not a girl?"

The boy glared at the girl who's been annoying him for the past few hours. This girl said nothing but complaints on the way, and now she even dares to suspect his gender?

Natsume stared at the Jade like boy with doubt. His skin is like a porcelain, white and smooth, almost translucent. eyelashes are long and thick, willow like eyebrows, pointed nose and those pinky lips...

She let out a sigh and looked up to the gloomy dark sky. Heavens ah, heavens, you're truly unfair. Why did you make a boy that is prettier than a girl like her? Her line of sight strayed to the pretty boy again with a hint of jealousy.

It's raining for almost an hour now but the rain showed no sign of stopping, it has gotten worse instead. They're currently taking a shelter in a ran down small hut in the middle of the forest, there were holes on the doors and windows, the roof is not that strong and there are small holes too.

A thunderous sound followed soon and the girl who's just three steps away from him is now sticking to him like a leech. Her hands are wrapped around his arm.

Ahh... Noble blood girls are truly hateful, through and through.

He looked down at her hands with a look that says 'you better let go before I break your hands'. Natsume was a little bit intimidated with the look he gave her, yet she didn't let go. What can she do when she's more intimidated with the roaring thunder from the sky, rather than this pretty boy's glaring look.

With a pitiful expression and a misty eyes, she looks at him.

"I'am scared of the thunder, what if it suddenly struck us?"

Not far away, a bright lightening descended and a sound of roaring thunder can be heard that is more louder than than the previous one. Frightened, Natsume screamed.

Because she is sticking to him, his eardrums suffered. This time, his patience did really ran out, he forcefully pulled off her hands from his arm, grabbing both of her cheeks with his right hand and putting a bit of force on it, causing her cheeks to redden.

"Look here, you damn spoiled girl. I'am not here to babysit you! I can kill you right here and now and no one will care even if you scream at the top of your lungs!"

"Thenh wha ah you heh?"

Natsume can't pronounced her words properly with both of her cheeks being held  forcefully. She looks a bit cute while talking, looking more curious as he continued to remain silent.

After a few more seconds, he let got of her cheeks but not without pushing it away.

"Why are you so violent?"

She mumbled under her breath, rubbing her now red cheeks.

"You better not act with me like that again if you don't want me to do something worse than that"

"Why...?"

His mouth twitched. Good god, isn't this a common sense?

"Because I'am a barbarian! Mark that on your lamebrain"

Natsume tilted her head to the side, looking even more confused.

"A barbarian? Then... Why did you save me from those bad uncles?"

'Bad uncles' Addressing a barbarians like that is not quite right, 'Bad guys' should be the right words.

"Do you think that I saved you from them?"

Natsume nodded.

"Didn't you?"

He didn't actually meant to save her. They were a group of barbarians who like raiding villages or towns. It's been two weeks since their last raid and they didn't passed by a single village, just wandering in the wilderness, so their storage is running out. When his group passed by a village, they happily raid it.

Unfortunately for them, the people in that village is not that rich with a minimum of foods and valuable things. Apparently, the villagers just got raid last week. Their boss got angry, killing a handful of villagers and asked for more fortunes from the head villager. It turns out that the head villager is out for a negotiations for trades in order to earn back the money they just lost from the barbarians last week.

Their boss was unwilling to just retreat, even though he knew that Lord Takahiro might brought a reinforcement with him from the other allied villages if he caught wind of his place's situation.

When he saw how Natsume dressed differently from the rest of the villagers inside the head villager's house, he immediately knew that she is the head villager's daughter, on top of that, she's an only child.

And so, they have taken her as a hostage and retreated to the mountains that they perfectly memorized for their advantage, so that even the head villager brought men twice their number, they can just ambush them since they didn't know this mountain well. The mountain can be reached in just a day from the Takahiro village. They had left a message that if Lord Takahiro wants his daughter alive and unharmed, he must meet their demands.

The pretty boy in the group, who they have raised harshly has a selfish thought. He's been planning to leave the group and this might be the perfect time, to escape along with Natsume so he can easily reap the rewards. To appear in front of Lord Takahiro, pointing a sword at her beloved daughter and threaten him to give the money to him. After he got the money, he will escape from a far away place and live his life independently, maybe rob some rich people every now and then to make him rich?

"Think about it, if you brought me back to my father, he might give you a reward!"

He snapped out of his thoughts when he heard Natsume's voice. He pause for a moment to think about it. That's right ah! Why would he still need to threaten Lord Takahiro when he can peacefully brought back Natsume and receives a reward? He's just making it hard for himself if he goes for the threat.

"That makes sense"

The rain stopped and the darkness enveloped them. He stood up, breaking one of the windows to make a fire. Not long after, he heard Natsume whined.

"Older brother, I'am hungry"

His eyebrows twitched. 'Who's your older brother?'

"We didn't eat the whole day, aren't you hungry too?"

He reached for the lapels of his outer clothes and brought out two tomatoes about the size of his fist. He gave one of it to her, and she happily ate it away. After all, he still needs her to look fine and healthy when he's going to hand her to her father .

The next day, he woke up with little arms around his waist. Annoyed, he pushed her away, making her head bumped on the hard floor.

"Awww..."

Natsume whined, holding the back of her head.

"Such a grumpy person..."

She mumbled under her breath.

"Get up, we need to go now"

It's still dark, the sun barely rises from the east.

"So early?"

"We need to go now if we don't want to get caught by them. I'am sure that they're still tracking us"

Yep. This is Natsume and Yuta's past, the following chapters are also about their past.