Chapter Text
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Alone in my bed,
With all these thoughts in my head
And living silently inside
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✧*̥˚s t a r t *̥˚✧
“Mademoiselle ! La famille Agrest a envoyé le contrat de fiançailles.” An iPad and apple pen were thrusted in front of her, a scowl on her lips as she read through the contract.
“This is the same exact thing I sent him last night. Tout ce que j'ai à faire est de le signer, oui?”
“Oui,” Her assistant affirmed, watching as she signed it quickly. He quickly left, leaving the fifteen-year-old girl to herself.
Glacier blue eyes peered out the plane window, a sad smile on her lips as she waved goodbye to her birth city Jiangxi, China.
She slipped off her casual black blazer, smoothing out non-existent creases in her white blouse and black accordion skirt. Her fingers played with her black brooch bow, biting her lips as she kicked her legs, black pumps swinging.
She felt frustrated tears escape her eyes as she remembered the day before.
“Chao-er,” Her mother had called in a cold tone despite the affectionate nickname, “You must understand that your only role in this family is to raise our reputation and hand over your position as needed.”
She gritted her teeth, “Yes mother.”
And she held her ground against the fifteen discipline whips that she had been punished with, gritting her teeth as the barbed wire tore at her flesh and ripped out her skin, refusing to flinch when she heard the gasps of worry and the mumblings of pity from the servants when blood fell from her back like a waterfall.
Her father’s seemingly cold eyes watched as his only child refused to bend under the barbed wire whip, fingernails digging into his skin and tearing crescent-shaped marks as he clenched his fists.
His heart wrenched in pain with every strike of the whip.
“Husband,” His wife called out. “The guests will be arriving in the next thirty minutes.”
Finally, his cold face forced an emotion out as his lips curved up slightly into a smirk, “Gabriel Agrests and his model son?”
“Yes husband,” His wife answered as she hooked her arms around his. “What shall I do with our daughter, husband?”
He hummed for a while before answering, “Clean her and bandage her. If Agreste brings his multi-talented son then I shall show off our multi-talented daughter.”
His wife giggled, “Husband is so great.”
“Of course, wife.”
Suddenly the gushing woman’s face turned cold as she looked back at the workers running to tend to her daughter at her husband’s words. “Take her to the family doctor and have him heal her as best he can and wrap her up. “ She seemed to contemplate her next words very carefully. “I want her dressed up elegantly but modestly in an hour.” She sneered, “The Pearl of the Yu family must not be tainted after all.”
Even her husband could sense the jealousy that coursed through her words as his wife tilted her chin up proudly, unhooking her arm from his and walking away in long graceful strides.
He sighed, showing a rare motion of compassion as he watched his daughter. She could barely stand up with the blood pouring from her back like rain. An attendant had covered her with a beige and gold shawl and he couldn’t help but scoff at the irony. There lay his daughter, covered in precious stones and silks as her long hair draped down like a black waterfall, her glacier blue eyes lay cold and dormant, and her pale body shivered from the cold.
He took off his dark blue blazer, handing it to an attendant, as he walked into the bloody courtyard and picked his daughter up in a gentle bridal carry.
They walked past four courtyards (one of them being his wife’s, another his own, another a courtyard where guests stayed, and the last being the main courtyard) before finally making it to a fifth courtyard where the medics stayed, right beside the sixth courtyard and the scholars it held as well as the seventh courtyard which released beautiful music because of the musicians inside.
“Thank you, father.” Her voice was hoarse from not using it for a long while and there was a trickle of blood from the side of her mouth as she talked with her injured tongue.
His wife was a cruel woman. He was a cruel man.
In truth, the affection he showed his wife was fake. He did not love her or favor her. He despised his wife and her family for forcing a marriage based on a lie upon the two of them. He hated the woman with a passion but felt no desire to accept any outside lovers, therefore he put on the image of a loving husband.
The only woman he loved in his life was his daughter. He loved her the same way any good father loved his daughter thus he hated his wife and her cruel actions tenfold.
“Father, I’m so tired.” His precious daughter’s head rolled onto his chest, blood staining his white dress shirt as the guards stationed at the fifth courtyard opened the gate for them, two running inside to inform the medics of their arrival.
“Master Leopold,” The head medic exclaimed in shock as he watched his master gently place his bleeding daughter on a cot to rest on her stomach. “Did Mistress Arabella…”
Leopold Yu sat down in a seat beside the cot, resting his elbows on his knees as his hands enveloped his face and he released a large sigh. Leopold and his daughter, physically, looked very much alike. From the hair so black it looked purple to the eyes as cold as glaciers, no one could mistake the two as anything other than father and daughter. It was uncanny how similar they looked. Some believed them to be siblings that were far apart in age. The only things the fifteen-year-old girl had gained from her mother were her skin so pale it made her look ill and her elf-like pointed ears.
“That woman does not know moderation. What period does she think we live in?” The distressed father looked from his daughter to the Medic. “Giles will…will she be okay this time?”
Momentarily, Giles forgot that the man in front of him was someone who had built a multi-billion dollar corporation within four years starting at the young age of 24. At that moment, the man in front of him was just someone who dedicated his entire life to his daughter.
With gloves on, Giles watched as a nurse cut away at the shawl and the remaining clothes on the young girl’s back with a sterilized scissor. With glove-covered hands, the nurse carefully moved the clothes away from the entirety of the girl’s back.
Finally, Giles leaned over the girl's back and peered at the wounds, poking and prodding on certain areas to see how both the flesh and the girl would react. However, if it weren’t for her steady breathing Giles would’ve presumed her unconscious with the way she didn’t react to a single thing he did.
“She’ll be okay,'' he hated the words he said next. “Ophelia has been through worse than this.” With a sigh, he turned to his employer, “Ophelia Mateo Dubois-Yu will be okay.”
Wiping her down, cleaning the wounds, and bandaging the girl took no longer than half an hour. The tools they used had been sterilized not even a minute before the duo had arrived.
“Papa?” Immediately Leopold was at her side, knowing Ophelia only called him papa when she was most distressed. To his surprise, she gave him a bright-eyed smile. “I’ll be okay.” He felt himself choke up as she closed her eyes for another five minutes, breathing in deeply to control his emotions. “Papa, please help me.”
Leopold assisted his daughter as she struggled to sit up and place her feet on the ground. “Father, I believe you are late to greet the Agrestes.”
His eyes furrowed as two attendants grabbed either one of his daughter’s arms and assisted her toward the changing rooms. “I’ll be there in half an hour.” A shadow guard dropped from the roof, nodded, and left once more- bleeding into the darkness.
Eventually, he left to return to his courtyard and change his clothes before walking out with the fakest, real-looking smile.
“6 more months, my daughter.” Leopold’s eyes grew old closer and closer as he and his bodyguards got to the main courtyard. ‘6 more months and I will finally be able to rid my daughter and me of that gold-digging whore.’
“Husband!” A flash of hate struck his heart. He breathed in deeply before walking to the woman. “Our guests have arrived.”
‘Where is the concern a mother should have for her daughter?’ He shook himself from his stupor as the woman hooked her arms into his. “Very well, it is only right that we greet them.”
With heads raised, and backs straight, the couple walked into the greeting area. Waiting for them was the famous Parisian Designer Gabriel Agreste and his equally famous son, Adrien Agreste.
✧*̥˚f i n i s h *̥˚✧