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Chapter 1: The Villain Who Watched the Cherry Blossoms Fall

From the novel: Even Villains Fall in Love

> “Monsters are not born… They are chosen.

And I was chosen before I could even speak my name.”

—Prince Rikuya

---

The cherry blossoms were in bloom.

A gentle wind carried the petals across the inner palace courtyard, dancing like drifting memories through the silent stone corridors. Beneath the wide sakura tree near the servants’ quarters sat a boy, no older than ten, staring at the sky with wide, storm-gray eyes.

His name was Rikuya, and though royal blood pulsed in his veins, no one ever called him “prince.”

Instead, they called him:

Bastard.

Shame.

The King's Mistake.

But to one woman—Nana Aira—he was simply “my little one.”

“Here,” she said gently, wrapping a soft shawl around his narrow shoulders. “You’ll catch cold again if you sit under that tree all day.”

“I don’t mind,” Rikuya muttered, voice too quiet for a child. “It’s the only place where the sky feels... open.”

Aira smiled, brushing his messy black hair aside. “Then let it stay open for you, my prince. Even if the world tries to lock it away.”

He didn’t understand her kindness back then. He only knew that she was the only one who never flinched when he spoke, or lowered her gaze when he walked by. While other nobles saw a cursed shadow, she saw a boy who didn’t choose to be born this way.

But far from this corner of the palace, another boy sat in a hall of gold.

Crown Prince Auren, son of the Queen, trained in music, swordplay, diplomacy, poetry. Surrounded by tutors who praised his intellect and servants who bowed in reverence.

Every morning, the court bowed to Auren.

Every morning, Rikuya bowed to a blade.

---

At age eleven, Rikuya was pulled from his bed before sunrise.

Not for lessons, not for feasts, but for combat training.

He was thrown into the Wraith Battalion, the royal army’s shadow unit. While Auren learned ballads, Rikuya learned to kill in silence.

The instructors didn’t teach him to protect. They taught him to destroy.

“No prince of shadow needs mercy,” they’d bark.

“Your body is the kingdom’s sword. Blades don’t feel.”

He came back each night with bruises, cracked ribs, bloodied knuckles.

Aira would hold him tightly, whispering lullabies meant for someone younger. But in those moments, he was younger. A child clinging to the only warmth he knew.

> Until the night she didn’t come.

He waited by the cherry tree.

And waited.

And waited.

But no shawl was wrapped around him that night. No voice scolded him for sitting out too long.

In the morning, he heard the whispers.

They said she’d interfered. That she’d shown too much affection. That she was taken away.

He asked where.

They said she had been “disposed of.”

---

That night, something inside Rikuya shattered like glass underfoot.

He did not cry.

He did not scream.

He simply stood before the cherry blossom tree, petals falling like ash around him, and whispered:

> “Then let the world call me what it wants.”

“If they wanted a monster, they’ll get one.”

From that day, the boy disappeared.

And the King's Fang was born.

---

🩸 Scene: “The Two Sons”

Set after Rikuya’s nanny, Aira, has been executed.

---

The palace garden shimmered under morning light, dew still clinging to white lilies and marbled statues. In the distance, temple bells sang across the capital, calling nobles to court.

In the center of it all stood Prince Auren—golden-haired, wrapped in silk and pride. Surrounded by tutors, guards, and smiling nobles.

His laughter was the kind that made others laugh too—even if they didn’t understand the joke.

Rikuya, by contrast, stood barefoot near the courtyard gate. His training robes torn, hands bloodied from morning combat. No guard flanked him. No servant offered him water. He had just returned from a mock battlefield—another of the king’s games to sharpen his blade-child.

Their eyes met.

Auren’s laughter faltered.

“...You,” the crown prince said slowly. “The… other one.”

Rikuya didn’t answer. He stood still, like a blade waiting in its sheath.

Auren walked over, curiosity overtaking his pride.

“You're Rikuya, right? Father's… other son.” He said it like reading a foreign word.

“Mm,” Rikuya answered. It wasn’t a yes. It wasn’t a no.

Auren tilted his head, looking the boy up and down. “Why are you always covered in dirt and bruises?”

Rikuya looked down at his knuckles, where blood was already drying.

> “Because unlike you,” he said quietly, “I have to fight to prove I belong here.”

Auren blinked. “But I study law, diplomacy, and history every day. Father says I’ll be king one day.”

> “And I kill,” Rikuya replied, voice flat. “Every day. Father says I’m only useful if I’m sharp enough.”

Silence.

For a moment, even the wind stopped moving.

Auren opened his mouth, trying to find something noble to say—but no amount of poetry could erase the truth between them.

One was raised to rule.

The other was raised to serve or die.

> “You’re lucky,” Auren finally said, unsure if he meant it.

Rikuya stared at him. Not with hatred. Not with envy. Just... emptiness.

“No,” he whispered. “You are.”

---

That night, Rikuya stood before the mirror in his stone-cold quarters.

He removed his bandages, revealing the bruises.

He stared at the broken skin. The blood. The cracks.

And he whispered, as if speaking to the memory of his nanny:

> “One day, they will all bow.

Not because they love me.

But because they fear what I’ve become.”

---

⚔️ Scene: “The Weapon They Forged”

Rikuya’s First Blood.

---

The sky was dark with smoke, the air thick with the iron scent of blood and burned cloth. Screams rose like prayers that went unanswered.

Twelve-year-old Rikuya crouched among corpses in the valley trench, his sword still too heavy for his arm but held with iron grip.

The commander barked: “Rikuya! Advance with the shadow unit. Clear the northern barricade.”

He didn’t nod. He didn’t flinch.

He just moved.

---

The Wraith Battalion—a division of young or unwanted sons trained to kill without hesitation—rushed forward like whispers through grass. No flags. No fanfare. Only death followed them.

Rikuya led without words.

He moved like water—cold, quiet, cutting through the enemy flank before they could scream. His first kill was not the hardest. It was the third—an enemy soldier barely older than him, begging in a dialect Rikuya barely understood.

The boy dropped his sword. Held his hands up. Eyes wide. Crying.

> “Please…”

But mercy was not taught.

> “Blades don’t feel,” his instructor had once said.

So Rikuya closed his eyes—and ended it.

He felt nothing.

---

Hours passed.

Blood crusted on his hands like old paint. His shoulder bled from a spear wound. But he didn’t stop. Not when the archers fell. Not when half his squad lay dead.

By sunset, the northern barricade was a graveyard, and Rikuya stood atop it like a ghost wearing a child’s face.

The commander stared, shocked.

“You… you actually did it,” he whispered. “You cleared it alone?”

Rikuya dropped his blade. It made no sound as it hit the dirt—only a soft thud, like a sigh.

“I did what I was made for,” he said flatly.

---

That night, under a silent moon, he washed the blood from his hands in a cold stream. But the red never truly left.

It had seeped beneath his skin.

He stared into the water—and for a brief moment—saw a boy reflected there.

Not a killer.

Not a prince.

Just a boy.

> He hated that boy.

Because that boy still felt.

So he closed his eyes. And when he opened them again…

> Rikuya was gone.

Only The King’s Fang remained.

---

🌕 Scene: “The Hero They Never Wanted”

Rikuya returns from the battlefield.

---

The city gates opened just after dawn.

Rikuya rode through them, bloodstained but upright, flanked by only a handful of surviving soldiers. Their armor cracked, their eyes hollow. But they lived.

Behind them, hundreds of enemy corpses lined the roads—proof of a victory no one believed possible.

The guards at the capital walls stared in stunned silence.

Some whispered his name like a myth:

> “The King’s Fang…”

“He returned?”

“A child… did all this?”

Then someone in the crowd shouted:

> “He saved the borderlands!”

Another voice followed:

> “He held the valley! My son’s regiment survived because of him!”

Then—

> Cheers.

Not from the nobles.

Not from the palace.

From the common people—farmers, laborers, tailors, mothers, sons.

They didn’t know the cruelty behind his orders.

They didn’t care that he had no title, no crown, no smile.

They only knew that he returned when others didn’t.

That day, Rikuya became a war hero in their eyes.

---

He stood on the steps of the palace, still in bloodied armor, watching the people throw flowers in his path.

Red petals—like the blood he spilled.

Inside the palace, however, the court was silent.

No reward.

No welcome.

Only the old king’s cold voice echoing from the high throne:

> “You did your duty. Nothing more.”

Not a word of praise.

Not a moment of warmth.

Just another order:

> “Rest three days. Then prepare for the next march.”

---

That night, Rikuya stood alone at the cherry blossom tree.

One hand held a flower offered by a little girl from the crowd.

The other, still wrapped in blood-soaked cloth.

He stared up at the stars and whispered:

> “They cheer for someone who doesn’t exist.

I only live when I’m fighting.

And when there’s peace… I disappear.”

---

🌑 Scene: “The Brother Without Applause”

After the cheering fades.

---

The palace gardens had emptied. The crowds were gone.

Rikuya stood beneath the sakura tree, still in his blood-soaked armor, clutching the small red flower a child had given him.

His shoulder throbbed. His knuckles were split open. But none of it compared to the hollow silence inside him.

> The world had cheered.

But he still felt nothing.

“You look more like a ghost than a hero,” came a familiar voice.

Crown Prince Auren stepped forward, robes of silk brushing clean marble. His face held the polished smile he had mastered in court—but his eyes were distant. Tense.

“I thought you wouldn’t return,” Auren continued, pausing beside him. “They said you were dead. Then suddenly… songs are already being written about you.”

Rikuya didn’t answer. He stared at the flower in his palm as if it weighed more than his sword.

> “You came to see the hero?” he asked flatly.

“I came to see my brother,” Auren replied.

That word hung in the air like a blade.

Rikuya turned to him, slow and sharp. “We’re not brothers.”

Auren looked away for a moment. “I never asked for this divide.”

“No,” Rikuya said. “You didn’t have to. It was already written—for you to be the heir… and me the shadow you step over.”

The silence cracked like ice between them.

Auren finally said, softer, “You’re not just a weapon, Rikuya. You don’t have to be.”

Rikuya laughed—not with joy, but with something empty. “That’s rich coming from the one who watched while they made me into one.”

Auren stepped forward, his voice low. “The people worship you now. They cheer your name more than mine. But you don’t smile. You don’t even let it in. Why?”

Rikuya looked him dead in the eye and whispered:

> “Because they don’t cheer for me.

They cheer for the monster they think protects them.

But when peace comes… that monster has no place.”

---

Auren looked as if he wanted to say something more—something brotherly.

But he knew… the gap between them was carved too deep.

He turned to leave.

As he walked away, Rikuya said quietly:

> “When they crown you king one day… remember the kingdom you sit on is built from the bones I buried beneath it.”