How Kishi Won

Chapter 0

     Creeping up the stairs, I peeked into my mothers room. The smell was still the same. Nothing had changed. Realizing no one was in the room, I ran in and laid on the tatami mats. Tear stains covered the white pillows. It must have been my father. Crying again.

     He had always hated my mother. He hated her milky smooth skin. He hated her jet black hair. Her fox like eyes. He hated her cherry red lips. He hated her calm and confident demeanour. He hated her tall and thin frame. He hated her intelligence and strength.

And after she passed, he had one more thing to hate. How lonely he felt without her.

My father was never the loving type. He had married my mother for political reasons. He was daimyo marrying the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. My mother was the daughter of a powerful daimyo and she grew up to be strong and intelligent. My grandfather loved her very much and he didn't want to give her away to just anyone. 

He held a contest for her hand. My father realized the influence of my grandfather would help him rise through the ranks, so he participated in the contest and won. They got married and he was good to my mother for some time. But after a mere two months, he took in another wife.

My mother was a proud woman and she would not stand for this disrespect. She forbid my father and his second wife from entering the part of the castle she lived in. She was required to eat dinner with them and work with my father on the affairs of the household, but other than that they had no relationship. Now you may be wondering, how did I come to exist? I was born to my mother a year after my father and her got married. 

I was the result of an affair my mother had with a expat from an large empire who dealt with spices and silk. My mother loved my biological father very much. They both were interested in poetry, art, and literature. They would spend days together discussing politics and literature.

My biological father soon had to leave back to his empire. He begged my mother to flee with him but she refused. My mother was heartbroken. Soon after he left, my mother realized that she was pregnant and she gave brith to me. It was obvious that I was not the child of my father. My father was furious with my mother but he let go of all that anger once he saw me.

Although my father was not a good husband, he longed to be a dad. He and his second wife were unable to produce a child so he took me in as his own. My mother let my father take care of me as his own, but she never let his second wife touch me.  

My mother loved me deeply and she never wanted me to forget the roots of where I came from. She never let me feel ashamed for looking different. She told me how much she loved my brown skin and my light brown eyes. She helped me feel good about looking different from the other children.

My father also let no one disrespect me. He claimed me as his child and let no one else tell him otherwise. Now that you know my family, lets continue on to the story.