Thorned Rose // chae hyungwon (#31)

Thirty-eight

14 years ago...

Yiwon

I giggled as I got chased around by my servants and they are having a hard time catching me, it is one of the things that I am not bored of the things that I grew up with. I am the only child of my family which is known to be the biggest company in the business world and it is considered to be an empire and I am the princess of the Minatozaki empire, even though I am not of royal blood but the money that my father makes is enough to make me a princess.

I have no idea why we even had so much money to spare and I live in a palace but I know that is boring for me, I don't have any siblings and I don't have any friends as well, my parents didn't allow me to play with anyone of my age and the only people that I get to play are my servants and they are way older than me and they work for my parents.

So I don't have anyone in my life and my parents are always busy because they have to make sure that the empire doesn't crumble into pieces, they have to make sure that we still get to live in this lovely palace, so they are always working but my mother doesn't work all the time and I am able to see her at night when the servants had ended work and she will be there to read me my favourite stories and tuck me into bed and she would kiss me on the forehead and stay with me until I fall asleep.

I, on the other hand, my father is a very busy man and he has a reason to be busy, he is the emperor of the Minatozaki empire and he has to take care of a lot of things, I don't get to see him very often but I know that he loves me very much. He would send me gifts all the time so much that I have a room which is only filled with his gifts and nothing else, it would consist of the latest toys that just came out on the television and sometimes I would have tares that are Limited Edition and I am the only one who owns that toy.

The only thing that my father didn't do is that he never spoke to me for more than 5 minutes and I would see him on the television more than I see him in real life, he is like the actual emperor of Japan and I lived my life like that without actually interacting daily.

"Will Otosan come home when it is my birthday? My birthday is tomorrow which means that it is in a few hours when the clock strikes twelve." I asked my mother when she is here to tuck me in bed. "He told me that he will come home but every single year he would just send over a voicemail and I would receive my birthday present by mail."

"He will, he promised you that he would come back and so he would come back and we would have dinner together." She told me, hugging me tightly.

"He said that last year and I stayed up all night waiting for him to come back but he didn't come back, and he gave me the same teddy bear that I have gotten the year before," I said to my mother. "Does Otosan not care about me at all? Does he even love me?"

"He does love you, if not he would not be working all the time to make sure that you get into the best schools and you would have the latest toys and you will have everything that you need without even asking for it." She grabbed my hand. "You might not understand it but you will realize in the future how much your father loves you and all the things that he has done for you, he has sacrificed all the happy things just to make you happy."

"But I wanted a father, not a piggy bank or a CEO who appears on television all the time to boast to people how rich he is. He is my father but he isn't here for me at all, he is just the emperor of the Minatozaki empire to me and I just have his surname."

"Sana... That's very mean of you, you can't talk bad about your father like that. He is your father and he loves you a lot, forget about everything and focus on this year. He is going to come back tomorrow and we are going to have a huge celebration, you are going to be 10 years old and there are going to be a lot of things for your birthday." She smiled. "So be happy and wait for the good news, you will finally believe that your father truly cares about you."

"Fine." I feel satisfied with the answer. "I will be waiting the whole night and I will not go to sleep until he comes home with the birthday present in his hand."

"That's my girl, go to bed now." She kissed me on the forehead and she waited for me to fall asleep before she got out of the room, she switched off the lights for me as well and I slept so well due to the sleepless nights that I have forced myself to stay awake so that I can catch a glimpse of my father.

I was awoken by a loud sound a few hours later and I woke up, happy that it is my father but it doesn't feel right. I got out of my bed and made my way out of my room while maintaining my silence and I walked to the edge of the stairs where I could see my mother on the ground floor and she is walking backwards slowly and my father is walking towards her with something sharp in his hand.

I know that I shouldn't be seeing this but I continued to observe the both of them until I saw blood splattered all over the floor and my mother dropped to the floor, not moving an inch and my father slowly made his way to the counter where he got some tissue papers to wipe the knife and he stuck the knife into my mother and then he cried. "Somebody help, my wife has been stabbed. Somebody help me!"