Chapter 1 - Prologue

Love

An emotion so subjective, yet substantial in the minds of people.

Throughout my life, I have never understood this subtle emotion called love.

But upon my hands, a hard-cover book tells the tale of the fleeting love of two main characters.

The image depicts a handsome male dancing and holding hands with a beautiful female underneath a cherry blossom tree, where their faces are close to each other.

As I continue reading the book narrating the story of the two people and their love for each other, I wonder...

How would it feel to love someone like that... be it to family, or a significant other?

Is there a person out there who would show an emotion like that to me?

Still... who exactly are the two characters that I'm talking about?

They are the main protagonists from a well-known novel:

Ways of the Mystic

It is a popular romance novel that caught the attention of young adults on the Korean peninsula. A story filled with romance, fantasy, swords, and magic. Compiling explicit drama through a journey resonating with a medieval era. The main couple of the novel included the Heroine, Seraphina Blakestey, the only daughter of one of the 4 Grand Duke families in the Izora Empire, and the prince of the Izora Empire, Augustus Rutherford.

The first fated meeting in the book introduced the Eight-year-old Seraphina Blakestey.

The young girl was sitting on the porch of the Ducal Family Garden, deep in thoughts that readers couldn't hear. Her wavy-long white hair reached her underarms, emphasizing her pale skin that resembled snow. Her iris mirrored the luster of ruby. Eyelashes fixated and invoked that any woman wish they had with a pointed nose and arched and pointed eyebrows. As she sits on the porch, her sharp eyes that view the garden can pierce right through anything. Her posture deemed the quality of elegance and attitude that showed off confidence towards anyone despite her age. A white gown made of silk, and short end white heels. Surely, the perfect definition of winter was presented from the image of the young girl.

It was the prologue that gave the fated meeting between the ten-year-old prince, who visited the ducal estate this fine evening.

The young girl turns toward the direction of where the boy was walking. The young boy she saw mesmerized her.

Delicate, brushed back-blue hair that represents night itself. With sapphire-like eyes. Sightly tan skin that showed substantial training under the sunlight while practicing the sword. A pointed nose, with a sharp narrow eye that showed indifference towards everything, and medium-thick eyebrows. Wearing a long black suit coat on his shoulders, a long-sleeved button-up that was rolled up to his forearm, suspenders over the button-up, black textile shorts that surpassed the knees, and black leather shoes with white socks. An unprofessional attire for his visit, but his bright smile showed confidence as he walked the passageway.

The ten-year-old prince turned towards the direction of the garden and saw the elegant girl sitting on the porch, admiring the beauty that surrounded the young girl. Both children interlocked gazes with each other and neither blinked until the ambassador that accompanied the prince called out to him to return to the carriage that they came from.

This chance meeting was the start of their love and the beginning of the story.

As the story progressed, their encounters became more imminent, and their relationship deepened. Encounters soon became expected between the children as they wondered about each other every step of the way.

But behind one of the pillars that supported the roof that was guiding the prince towards the entrance of the Ducal Estate was ten-year-old Lysander Blakesty, hiding and watching the scenery unfold. The splitting image of Seraphina is embarked on Lysander. Short wavy hair, skin as fair as white, the left irises being light hazel brown, while the right being completely white, waiting and observing the interaction between the two people.

With continuous traumatic and unnerving events, he became the cold ruthless villain in the story.

Lysander Blakesty was one of the 3 villains of the story. In the novel, he is responsible for creating internal conflict inside the Empire. Deliberately creating events that would shatter the respect of the citizens, create an economic crisis, and in the end, try to create the downfall of the Izora Empire. The main cause as to why was never revealed, but it certainly was from a personal grudge towards the Empire if he was willing to destroy it by his means.

To nurture this downfall, he created all sorts of devious plans to bring chaos to the Empire. Be it political or economic. But every time he does such things, it will inevitably end with bloodshed.

And among all, speculations arose that Lysander wanted to use Seraphina's power to accomplish this unknown goal.

Seraphina was loved by the spirits due to her pure mana nature, a mana so pure that no magicians could ever use it.

But by having pure mana, she was unable to use magic, but in return received the blessings of the spirits.

This ability to summon any spirit on command was inevitably impossible for other people to imitate, one had to be chosen by the spirits themselves if they wanted their blessing, but Seraphina could borrow and be helped by a multitude of spirits with no contract like any other magicians.

After her powers were known, many tried to use her power for their lofty goals, and many speculated that Lysander was one of those people who wanted to use her.

At the age of fifteen, Lysander Blakesty took the rights of the Blakesty Ducal Family seat and became the new heir of the Ducal estate after allegedly murdering his father, eliminating anyone under the formal duke, and those against him.

Shortly after attaining the position, Lysander locked up his sister. Many nobles wanted to use her ability to gain wealth, power, and fame.

Many people suspected that he was going to use the power of the spirits to spur chaos in the Empire, forcing it to crumble into pits and leave it a desolate and perished land. But not once did he ever use the power of the spirits, he always thought things differently than what other people suspected...

During his childhood, his mother was assassinated under the direct order of Count Avington, the father of the poorly assassinated women. The duke became heartbroken knowing that his one and only wife was murdered.

He genuinely loved his only wife, only having one person by his side, unlike other unfaithful nobles. But this incident brought immense grief to the heart of the duke. His grief was his downfall, and soon his personality changed drastically not because of the grief, but because of something else...

He began to avoid anything that resembled her characteristics, including his children. After neglecting his six-year-old son, Lysander was targeted by many other assassination attempts by the same person who assassinated his mother for reasons never foretold. But for some reason, the duke never took action towards those who harmed his son.

Nobles who knew of the duke's neglect aimed at the future heir and manipulated the boy into doing crude deeds for their benefit, yet not once did his father care about the suffering of his child...

Once Lysander became fifteen, his father was cruelly murdered in his bedroom, and during the crime scene, Lysander was there carrying the corpse of his dead father. Lysander soon took the ducal seat, imprisoned Seraphina, and became the cold person he was.

Rumors began to spread throughout the whole kingdom of how he was the duke who murdered his father to attain his position and someone who wished to create chaos in the Empire.

But after being locked up for three years, the fifteen-year-old Seraphina decides to run away with the help of her fellow summoned spirits. She escapes the hellish place filled with terrible memories of his brother's misfortune, and the negligence and the death of her father, she runs away to a nearby village with nothing in possessions.

With no place to go, she wandered the street for weeks, sleeping on the roads, and almost starved to death until she finally met the prince again in a faithful encounter. The two reminisced, and shortly after the prince decided to take her into the palace to help Seraphina in her dire situation.

But despite the prince hiding the young girl from his brother's grasp, her location was figured out due to the wide network organization under the young duke's control.

Confrontations after confrontations between the prince who wanted to protect Seraphina, and the crazy duke who wanted her back, they decided to finish this dilemma with a single match with their life on the line. They fought on an empty plain, swords clashing against each other with no rest. Slashing each other with no sign of stopping. In the end, the prince won with a final stab in the duke's heart ending the life of Lysander.

It was a story with multiple combinations of genres. Of course, the story doesn't focus on nor end with the crazy duke and Seraphina's relationship. It was just a plot that increased the leading couple's relationship, power, and influence. There are many more interesting parts than this are what other readers keep referring to, like War and Magic, and all sorts of fantasy plots.

But the young duke stood out to me...

He faced many hardships, but in the end, suffered miserably till his death. His actions were of course considered inexcusable, but he quite reminds me of myself... Someone who is neglected by his parents, someone who shows no remorse or attitude towards anyone, and someone that many people hate.

Yes, I'm just a reader like any other who read the novel.

Just someone called Choi Do-Woon.

But it is not like anyone will remember me, I will be dying soon.

Diagnosed with an incurable illness, I am destined to die on the Hospital bed. Always sat up and looked out the window, with my weak, thin, shriveled-up body, ruffled brown hair that I had not touched for God knows how long, and deep brown eyes that showed no sign of life.

Throughout all, my parents abandoned me in this forsaken hospital. The same parents who dedicate their lives to nurturing you and giving you wisdom as they bring you into the world put me in the hospital and abandoned me without a care in the world.

Yes... from the moment I was born, I knew I was... different.

My ability to express emotions, or even feel them, was non-existent. At Times when I was supposed to show a smile, I was unable. Situations where a normal child would usually cry were impossible for me. And times when I was supposed to be angry did not click on me. I was just unable to show them.

Yes... I was just like a wooden doll, unable to show emotions. Unable to understand the actions of people caused by instances rather than logical causes. Unable to understand the human concept that makes them who they are. Everything in my life was like a gray world of misery, where I suffered this accursed fate given to me. But with the cost of my emotions, I gained intelligence.

Everything was so simple to solve... everything was so simple to learn... and everything I saw stuck in my head. Whatever I read, I would recall with a simple thought. And whatever I heard; I can repeat it word by word.

I was young and naive when I first showed my intelligence to them, thinking that they were to be proud of my accomplishments. But the opposite occurred...

"Mother. Look at this."

Being in the kitchen as my mother was cooking dinner like any other evening, I showed her a piece of paper, filled with mathematical equations only taught in college.

As I was playing outside the house to relieve my boredom, I saw a piece of paper flying down and land where I was, crumbling up as if to vent their frustration. I picked it up, and soon the mathematical problems and equations that it showed mesmerized me. I had never seen so many numbers, or even letters, in one place before. I tried to understand the topic with context and soon was able to solve it. I showed my mother, whom I thought I trusted at the time, to see if what I did was impressive.

"What is this..."

But rather than showing a happy reaction, my mother's face distorted. She covered her mouth and soon she angrily tore the paper into pieces right in front of me and told me to go to my room. Why did she react like that? I keep asking that question even now. After that incident, both my parents began to treat me differently...

As I grew older, they noticed this intelligence, but unemotional trait of mine. They despaired over my unchanging face whenever we did something as a family, from going to the park to going to the store, to even just walking down the road hand in hand.

All they wanted was a son that they could love, play, and have fun, create unforgettable memories together, and live a happy life. But what they got... It was something that lacked human integrity.

They saw me as a monster.

Every time they see me, they look at me with disgust. Their facial expressions showed no sympathy towards me. Unusual and sensual movements in the body that showed hesitation and retort, the tension and forcing of their facial muscles was noticeably clear to me even as a child.

Ah... I can see it. They do not love me. They despise me.

Yet, despite them hating me, I could not respond. I am supposed to be angry, but I am not. I am supposed to be sad because they do not love me. But I was not...

For one night when they thought I was asleep, they began conversing about me in the living room. The lights woke me up, and I heard the voice of my parents resonating through the door. As I opened my door and began walking towards the living room, I heard the way they talked about me with absolute disgust.

"What is wrong with that child? How can he not express any emotion? Why does he always read those complicated books? Why can he not just act normally like other children his age?"

My mother continued to rant about me to my father, crying on his shoulder as if my existence only showed despair to them.

"Don't worry, we can always try again."

As I continued to eavesdrop on their conversation, I could hear them saying how they wanted another child that was not me. How cruel of them to abandon their child for another one, yet it still did not bother me...

It was at the age of around... two. My mother gave birth to twins. One boy and one girl. I remembered looking through the glass window on their incubators in the empty white hospital where they were born. The size of their body was remarkable to see, how can a human grow so big from a size this small?

I remember thinking that when they were born, I was going to feel my first emotion, hatred. I knew that they were going to replace me, and my parents were going to abandon me. That is what I initially thought, but... After seeing their faces that showed abstinence towards the world they were just born in, I knew I could not blame them for this petty reason.

When I saw their smiling faces, I felt something within me get warm... When I looked at my reflection through the window that separated the hallway of the hospital and the incubator room storing the newborns, I saw my face smiling...

Rather than hatred, my first emotion was happiness.

I do not understand. Why am I feeling happy? Aren't I supposed to feel another type of emotion? I kept trying to reject this initial feeling, but soon I grew accustomed to it. This feeling... puts me at ease, and opens my eyes out of that gray world that I was in.

But it only lasted for a moment... My parents came to me as if something were bothering them. Once I saw them my world became gray and empty just like before.

"We finally have children that will be normal, I do not want you to mess this up. I do not want you to fill their heads with craziness just like you. So, start acting like a normal child."

What they wanted me to do was simply play pretend. I needed to act like a lovable brother, they thought that by me hiding my true self, we could be a perfect family to the people outside.

But to be able to fulfill that order, I needed to show emotion. Showing emotions to them when I cannot even feel them myself was an impossible feat for me. But it was the first favor that my parents had asked of me.

"If I do this, they'll start trusting me more..."

I said this aloud, hoping to gaslight myself into thinking it was true.

And so, I began to read books to accomplish this. I thought that by reading books regarding emotional directions and acting, I could show something to them even if it was fake.

Yes... words after words, manual after manual. It took a long time to create this perfect facade. Reading, and putting it into action, I would see and practice my learnings without fail to see if I achieved what I wanted to do.

I created a new me with emotions so real... yet so fake. I created the perfect impression of a "dependable brother" for my siblings. Whenever they smiled, I would respond to it with a forced one. But... every time I do, there seems to be a sort of reaction occurring in my heart...

Every time I see them happy, my heart aches, my body feels cold, and I would avoid direct eye contact with them. It felt wrong to see them this happy for someone who is acting.

Yes... that is when I noticed, this is what they call guilt... An emotion that brings negative meaning to oneself, and hurts the person mentally as they did something wrong...

My first memory of guilt... was truly unpleasant...

Despite feeling like this, I always thought that my parents would start feeling gratitude for fulfilling this favor that they entrusted me and that they would start accepting me like them.

Naive.

Despite doing this task, they remained distant towards me as they did when I was a child. How ironic... Despite feeling guilty towards my siblings, I did not express sadness, nor anger, from the rejection of my parents. That is when I realized...

"Maybe... I should give up on earning my parent's love, and earn my siblings..."

Even if it is acting, I want to show these emotions to my siblings. If I can make them happy with this, then I can serve my purpose as a brother they can depend on, without caring about what my parents wanted.

So, to achieve this goal, I decided to read more books about such topics. The more I read, the better I understood the needs of my siblings. As they grew up, I began to pay more attention to them. The more time I spent time with them, the more I felt the need to be around them, and the more I felt pleased by them being with me.

By the age of fourteen, I have already graduated college with a master's degree. People considered me a "prodigy". A human who knows everything and acquires knowledge with ease. People thought that my parents and siblings were proud of my accomplishments. But it was clear that these accomplishments made my parents hate me more.

"A child like you could not even make their parents happy with a simple smile. What makes you think this will?"

"Knowledge is only worth celebrating to those who know how to use it. That does not pertain to you."

Those types of words would normally hurt a person... but to me, they were plain... words. I just carried out my role as the dependable brother to whom my siblings can look up. Yes, that's what I keep telling myself to think.

But shortly after graduating, I began feeling weaker and weaker, my body seemed to give up on me from time to time and would constantly make me feel dreary. I went to the doctor to see what was going on. Sitting in the office, looking down at my chair to see what my verdict is.

"It seems that you have cancer, and at the late fourth stage no less. We can hospitalize you and try to slow down the process, but..."

"..."

Cancer... I thought so. No, maybe not. I indeed felt like it was a serious illness due to the symptoms, but it was more serious than I thought. The only thing I can do is accept this proposition.

"...I see..."

They cannot cure me, it was inevitable. I rarely took care of my body, so this was no shocking matter. But why does my heartache about the thought of me dying, and leaving my siblings behind? Soon, the doctors hospitalized me and began my treatment, and that led to the present.

But I did not let my illness just keep me at bay as I simply waited for false hope. I began reading, and reading, and reading... I filled my head with all the world's knowledge to ensure that life in this broken body could be worth it till the very end.

Reading was my only way to comprehend the world around me. It had the answers to every question I had and the lessons to everything I wanted to learn. It made me comprehend this cruel world that made me different.

Every day, and every night. I would only look at books while I sat on this forsaken hospital bed to understand the values that this world built upon.

But countless days of just flipping through countless random books just didn't uphold me any sort of justice anymore. Why should I continue to remember when death is near me? What sort of knowledge will help me realize the cruel thing I already know about myself? What new things will help me become a human being?

I soon gave up on the idea of attaining knowledge and simply had no other thing to do, other than to look outside the hospital window with my lifeless eye. Looking at all the people and cars that travel by, seeing the infinite faces and expressions that I cannot show even if I try...

Waiting for the darkness to engulf me. And then maybe I can sleep eternally and not be a bother to anyone.

All alone...