The Villainess Will Not Bring Dishonor To Her Family

131 - Faded Smiles

Kenta's Point Of View

Rei was a kid that grew up in the mountains, and every year our families would spend winter together. Well, partly. Rei and I always would, but sometimes my parents and siblings visited other families. It was a game of alliances after all.

I married up. My family wasn't particularly prosperous or glorious, but my mother was a chui. Rei was from a prestigious and highly honored family of water aspected magicians.

Since my family was strong and athletic, and Rei's was too, we would often run about in the snowy garden and compete. Be it sprints, climbing, lifting or so on. She was a bright child.

"Hah! You will lose today Ken-Chan!"

She jumped up from one of the branches to one that should have been way out of range for her.

"What?! Never!"

I burst out and pulled myself up on the branch I was grasping at and reached for the next one when she turned on the branch she was grasping and flashed me a grin.

"Eheheheh, let's see if you can keep up then. Loser gives up a manju."

She turned it into a competition. Of course...

"Better be ready to lose your dessert!" I growled back at her and jumped for the next branch. When she stopped climbing a while later she had reached what we usually thought of as the top. I climbed up next to her and was faced with a sparkly and bratty grin from her.

"Hai! Your dessert is mine now Ken-chan!"

While I remember her as being quite cute back then and at times miss the nickname she used, back then I wasn't having it. A certain amount of pride is expected from my family, and losing when there was a possibility to win was not something I was going to swallow.

There were two parts to the competition. Who went the furthest and who got there first in case of a draw. Since this was what we considered the top point, it was a sprint game. I turned it into a dare.

I remember Rei's golden lion eyes widen as I moved up past her, but she didn't move.

"...Ken-chan that's dangerous, the branches aren't as flex-"

I remember her worried warning quite clearly, the crack of a thin branch under my foot... and the drop and lift in my stomach as I fell backwards. I think I hit just about every single branch on the way down before falling down into the thick snow with a low crunch-like sound from the snow.

"Kenta!"

I could hear Rei's scream as I got a sense of what happened. Most importantly, I was alive. My breath was ragged and painful because of the impact with the branches, but other than being painful I remember concluding 'It could have been springtime' and 'Oooooow'.

In the end I didn't move until Rei flipped me over. She had just started learning medicine back then, and she was the one that had determined the safe height to climb. She couldn't hold a sword properly even if she tried, but she noticed things that I would never have noticed. She could guide me through the garden with a blindfold on, and guide me with a blindfold when I trained against a dummy. We had lot of silly games like that.

Rei had looked so worried, which I think was because one of the branches had torn into my kimono and ripped my skin. If an adult hadn't arrived she might have panicked and have used her obi to put pressure on a wound that didn't need it. I remember feeling stupid and a bit bad for being a sore looser, so in the end I'd tried to make her smile.

"Manju is still mine though," I had insisted with half a smile through the pain. I remember how her golden eyes had glimmered and a small grin crossed her lips.