Rearranging Fate | Tokyo Revengers x OC

29 • House of Memories

Father had always been a royally aesthetic person. That was probably one of the few—by few, she meant countable with one hand—redeemable qualities the man had. That was probably why his house resembled a vampire's mansion in that mystery-comedy cartoon Mirai liked to watch every Sunday morning, complete with the fact that it was quite isolated as well.

The tiles were cold no matter the season, but Reina found the coldness soothing, especially after being punished. At the very least, the coldness of the tiles numbed the pain in her back more than the rotting wooden floor of her room. The walls were also cold, always either dark grey or dark brown, never black but never light. The color was a huge contrast to the beige or cream tiles, which were never white but never dark.

Her room, if she could even call it that, was the attic-turned-storage, as if she was some more tragic version of Cinderella. It was surprisingly decent, she supposed. She just needed to ignore the spider webs and dust she couldn't reach, as well as the smell of rotten wood. It was fine. Insects never bothered her, and neither did the smell. The room was big enough and had most of what she needed. A bed, a wardrobe, and a bathroom were there, and the bathroom even had one running, though the water was a bit murky. When Mirai came into the picture, Reina shared that room with her.

Unsurprisingly, she never really got much of a chance to enjoy her room. In fact, Reina was sure she slept more times in the library, the punishment room, Harui's room, or just anywhere else but her own room.

Harui's room was better, but not by much either. It was located just one floor under hers and more spacious considering it wasn't used as storage, but it was only provided with the bare necessities. Some father he was, that was for sure.

Reina knew she was dreaming, she had dreams like this every once in a while, usually on Victoire's or Father's death anniversary. But it wasn't rare to dream of this house whenever life got the better of her. Reina had learned to just walk around and enjoy whatever memory her brain was trying to show her, maybe even use her willpower to see Victoire if she could.

"Please teach me! I want to survive! I want to protect them! Please teach me how to do that!" There she was, little Reina with her disheveled and dirty hair, with bandages wrapped all over her body and bags under her eyes, with that oversized ripped shirt that once belonged to a now dead man. And there she was, Victoire being chained up after failing to defeat her, though 'fail' was the wrong word to use.

"The hell're ya sayin', kid?"

"You purposefully lost, right?" Little Reina raised her head, and Reina never knew how a child could look so angry and desperate. She hoped Mirai never had to make that face. "I don't...I just...Father always...I don't want to be at Father's mercy. If I was stronger...if I had the strength to protect Nii-san and Mirai without obeying Father...I want that kind of strength. You can...you can teach me, right?"

Reina never wanted to be monstrously strong, much less the strongest in the world. All she wanted was to have enough strength to protect herself and hers. Just enough.

Throwing her head back, Victoire's cackles echoed in the cement room. "You want me to train you? Is that it?" Tilting her head forward, she leaned her face until their noses were almost touching, a splitting grin on her face. "I don't like charity, kid. What'll you give me in return?"

"Huh?"

"Don't tell me you wanna make a deal and not have something to give. I'll have you know, your knees mean jack shit to me." Victoire scoffed, leaning back with her chin raised, glaring down at little Reina. "Come back after you think of something worth my time."

"I'll let you out!" The girl blurted out the first thing that came to mind, her voice rising in panic. "I'll let you outta here! So please!"

"Lemme outta here?" Victoire scoffed again. "You think you can do that without Daddy dearest knowing?"