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Chapter 3: “The Boy with Blood on His Hands”

Yume’s perspective

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Yume had been taught to never stare.

Never raise her voice.

Never speak unless spoken to.

Never question.

Never feel too much.

But when she saw him—sitting alone under a withered sakura tree, blood on his sleeves and a crushed flower in his palm—she forgot all those rules.

> “You’re bleeding,” she’d said.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t thank her.

He answered like someone who’d been wounded too many times to care anymore.

> “Then don’t look at me.”

But she did.

Because he was the first person who looked more caged than she felt.

---

That night, after returning to her chamber, Yume lay on her silk mattress, wide awake. The candles had long since burned out, but her thoughts didn’t.

She thought of his eyes.

Not cruel. Not wicked.

Just... tired. And empty.

> Like a boy who had learned to survive in a world that didn’t want him to.

She thought of how her tutors described him:

“Born from scandal.”

“Raised as a blade, not a prince.”

“A necessary evil, not a royal.”

But none of those words matched the boy she met.

> He hadn’t bragged. He hadn’t smiled. He hadn’t even asked who she was.

He just sat there—haunted.

---

Yume rolled over and whispered to herself:

> “He’s the only real thing I’ve ever seen in this place.”

Not the crown prince.

Not the nobles who faked kindness with poison-laced smiles.

Not the lessons, the dances, the dresses stitched with gold.

They were all illusions.

But Rikuya? He was raw truth wrapped in silence.

And truth was rare in the palace.

---

The next morning, her lady-in-waiting scolded her for the dirt on her sleeves and the missed etiquette rehearsal.

“Do you want to shame your future husband before you even meet him?” the woman snapped.

Yume said nothing.

Because in her heart, she was no longer thinking about marriage or courtly duty.

She was thinking about a boy with blood on his hands and a flower in his palm.

And wondering...

> Who held him when he cried as a child?

Did anyone?

And worse—

> What would become of a boy who was only loved by strangers?