Chapter Text
A man stands alone in a room. In front of him is a grand mirror floating in the middle of a small fountain. The man takes a bow, a sly smile gracing his purple painted lips.
“Ah… my dear beloved,” he begins in a smooth tone. “My noble and beautiful flower of evil.” He stands up straight, the mask on his face concealing his eye movements but not his smile.
“Truly, you are the fairest in the land.” He takes a step closer to the mirror. “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the most…” He doesn’t finish his sentence. The man doesn’t seem to want to. He turns to leave. The mirror stays, but a face not belonging to the man flickers in its reflection.
It was freezing, and Yume had neglected to grab her jacket when she left the restaurant.
Yes, Hokkaido tends to get cold during the winter especially, in Sapporo, but this was a uniquely frigid night. Yume didn’t care about that at the moment. She had bigger things to worry about. Her priority was getting home and calling her cousin so she could have a place to stay far from her parents.
She shouldn’t even be calling them parents after what they pulled tonight. They didn’t deserve such a title reserved only for people who truly cared about their children.
Yume wasn’t a child though. ‘I am an asset,’ she thought bitterly. ‘Just an asset to be sold to the highest bidder.’
The snow crunches under the weight of her heels. Every breath she let out was highlighted by the cold air. Yume pauses for a moment, looking up at the dark, cloudy sky. There will be a snowstorm tonight. She remembers seeing it earlier on her phone’s weather app. A snowstorm meant even if her cousin said yes to staying with her—she would need to wait a while.
Perfect. Stick with the people she wants to be as far away from.
Oh how badly she wanted to scream into the night, curse out whatever god crafted her to live such a controlled life. Even if it would only give a momentary relief from the pain, it wouldn’t be permanent.
Yume lets out a shaky breath. It was getting cold and all Yume had was a qipao, tights, and three inch heels.
She could always go back to the restaurant, where it was warm and there was good food. But that restaurant also hosted all the problems in her life—her parents and that bastard they had brought into her life without warning. Possible hypothermia was preferable to dealing with that.
The teen stops in her tracks. She could make out a sound, something similar to the hoof steps of a horse. Not even one horse, multiple horses. Yume turns her head in the direction of the sound, green eyes narrowing as she tries to make out in the darkness whatever it could be.
In the distance she could make out four black horses running straight towards her. Yume blinks a few times. Then rubs her eyes. Then blinks again. Horses? In the middle of metropolitan Sapporo? She must be going insane. Perhaps she’s finally cracked and has started hallucinating. That was what the logical part of her was trying to whisper. The other part knew though that her senses weren’t deceiving her. Those horses looked very real and so was the black carriage they were dragging along.
“Shit.” Yume turns and starts running. She ran as fast as she could despite the fact she was wearing heels and that horses were always going to be faster. She didn’t care though. She was not going to be trampled to death by a quartet of horses.
The hoof steps were getting closer. Yume ran faster. Beneath her feet the snow kept catching on her heels, causing her to stumble a little. She curses as she perseveres. ‘Not today, Satan. You are not taking me away like this!’
It was getting harder to run. Yume knew she had to stop somewhere to take these heels off but the horses wouldn’t stop. It was either she twists her ankle trying or be run over, and one sounded more appealing than the other.
Another stumble. Her foot had caught on a crack she wasn’t paying attention to. Yume prepares to catch herself but it is too late. Her face hits the pavement, causing everything to go black.
It was dark. Not in the way that it would be dark if her eyes were closed, but in the way that she was somewhere else. Completely aware of everything going on yet at the same time not.
She groans softly. Her head hurts so much. Everything was ringing and she felt so damn nauseous. As of now it was too dark to even tell if her vision was blurry.
Yume shifts a little, trying to get comfortable. She moves her head up slightly only to be met with a wall. The teen knocks her head against what seems to be a wooden surface and hisses in pain.
Her leg juts out to kick the wood, then again, then again. At least the blurriness was from how dark it was in wherever she was trapped.
“Come on!” she yells. “Work with me here!” No matter how many times she kicks the wood it wouldn’t budge. Even if she was still in her heels, whatever was blocking her from getting out should’ve moved a bit. Either this prison was nailed down with titanium or…
Yume scoffs at the mere notion of the idea, purging it from her mind as quickly as she came up with it. “A magic prison. How ridiculous! Magic only exists in fiction.” She laughs a little. The more reasonable answer was that she was in the hospital after that fall and was having some coma induced dream.
The black haired girl sighs. She kicks her leg out again, harder this time. Another sting of pain shoots through her body, making her groan in response. The coma theory is out the window now. ‘Great… I’ve been kidnapped.’ A kidnapping was more realistic than that other option.
Another hard kick is delivered to the wood in front. This time there’s a sound, the sound of the wood shifting. Yume’s eyes lit up in the darkness. She kicks again and the same sound rings out a little louder this time.
The teen is preparing to give another kick before hearing a voice. “Whoever is there, quiet down! People care comin’ and I gotta be quick!” Yume furrows her brows in confusion. It wasn’t her kick that made the wood shift, but whomever was on the other side of it. She straightens her leg and lowers it. Perhaps this mysterious person is trying to save her.
The creaking quickly becomes louder as her savior uses whatever strength they got to attempt to pry the wood off. “Ugh! I need to grab a uniform before I’m caught! Hehe, time to pull my secret technique.”
There’s a fwoosh, followed by a victorious cackle. “FINALLY! Those uniforms are finally MINE! Mine, mine, mine~!” The lid comes off to reveal both a bright light that made Yume cry out and a figure.
It was a cat. At least what seems to be a cat. The creature was gray with a white chest and bright blue eyes. That would’ve been normal if it weren’t for the blue flames coming out of his ears like fiery hair tufts. If it weren’t for the splitting headache Yume would be worrying about the logic of that.
The creature was laughing victoriously until its eyes met Yume’s. “Eh? EH?? You should be asleep!” it yowls. Yume doesn’t answer.
“Well, whatever! I am Grim the Great,” it proclaims. “And I need those damn clothes so hurry it up, human!” The creature is once again met with silence. The fire in its ears flickered. “HEY! STOP IGNORING ME WILL YA?!”
Yume's eyes narrow. Her hand begins reaching down.
“Did you not hear me the first time?! I am Grim the Great! A future mage! The most powerful creature to grace this- what are you doing?”
While it was yapping, Yume had taken off one of her heels. The black shoe was now clutched between her hand, the heel pointed in the creature’s direction. “Shut. Up,” she hissed. “My head hurts so please—shut up.”
It points an accusing paw at her, clearly annoyed. “You can’t tell Grim the Great what to do! I am the one who tells ya what to do!” Yume closes her eyes, taking in a deep breath. Her father’s words rang through her mind. ‘Be quiet and demure… be graceful… be polite… be deli- Oh screw that bullshit.’
Her father wasn’t here to scold her. She was basically a free woman. She can do whatever she wants and he would never know.
Yume opens her eyes and draws her arm back. She then flings the heel at the creature as hard as she could. “MY NAME IS YUME LI AND YOU WILL SHUT THE FUCK UP!”
The creature yowls in fear and jumps out of the way, narrowly missing the projectile. “Are you crazy?! I will roast ya for that one, lady!” Yume gives a slow laugh. Her extended hand reaches to the side to grip one side of the wooden box. The other hand does the same motion. Using the sides as an anchor, she lifts herself up.
“I am giving you ten seconds to run, you little shit,” she speaks in a detached tone. “Ten. Nothing less, and nothing more. My patience has officially run out with you, rat.” The creature gives her a look of disbelief. Yume ignored it as she tried to get the picture across his tiny mind.
She inhales deeply, a hiss lining her words. “One…”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Two.”
“Y-You wouldn’t!”
“Three!”
The creature now seemed to get the picture. With a fearful screech, he turns around and starts running. “PLEASE, SPARE ME! I GOT SO MUCH TO LIVE FOR!”
Yume stops counting. Carefully, she begins to fully emerge from her wooden prison. Her foot meets a cold, marble surface. She gives the surface a few taps before setting her other foot down. One hand continues to grip the wood as her other reaches down to take off her remaining heel. Even with the nausea and the splitting headache, she still needed to chase whatever that thing was and show what it means to insult someone from the Li Family in such a manner.
With a staggering step, she goes after the creature. It shall know the fury of Yume Li soon enough.