"what will it take for you to love me?"

an ignorant child sought out the only inquiry which gave purpose to her meaningless life. a life so vacant of importance that it could compete to the value of a bug.

"should i become like your treasure?"

she grabbed for dear life onto his trousers expressing her desperation in wanting to have his presence around her.

"if i do, then will you call my name dearly like you did them, and watch me with warmth in your eyes?"

pearl like tears meandered down her blemished face, but nonetheless, the child was the personification of ethereal beauty.

a uniquely twisted beauty as a stench so rotten, resembling that of a decomposing body, dispersed from the ailing child, an indication of her hereditary illness declining her life span.

ah yes, there was always a consequence for every opportunity in the world. simply a give and take condition that the universe was unwillingly bestowed with.

like how the mermaid gave away her celestial voice in exchange for legs to live with the love of her life. this child was blessed with fervour so intense, so intense that it was almost a bloody curse.

no, in fact it was a malediction. for the child's intense passion was to obtain the elusive affection of her father. there were those that said love made people irrational, and the child perfectly represented that idea, like an actress acting off of a script.

but this was the same man who mercilessly committed genocide, be it if they were innocent or not, the same man who was deprived of his loved ones at an early on his life and the same one who lost all sense of rationality at a young age.

so did he love his child? if he were to act without rationality, then he must have loved her, right? so why? why was that man glaring down at his child? with no tenderness that you would see when a father looked at his child? why?

he gazed down at her pitiful, weeping figure, the one grabbing onto him for comfort, his coal eyes had no warmth like you would see when lighting up a fire. rather, they were cold with no emotion. like a black hole, he completely assimilated the sight of her break down.

yet despite witnessing her paltry self he remained stoic, a unemotional man who held no regard for his child, she was nothing more than an impudent bug in his eyes and will always remain as such.

"will you hold me in your arms... without pushing me away?"
himawari begged with all the courage she could muster. this was her first and last plea; she had never asked for anything else.

"such a thing won't happen until the day i die." he didn't hesitate to silence her impertinence. manjiro didn't even blink at the sight of his usually obedient daughter crying with despair.

"why is that? i'm your daughter, fath-"

"you fool." his eyebrows twitched into a frown as her eyes widen in absence of hope.

that piercing contempt. a cruel voice crept into her ears. yet despite his enraged self, he remained as beautiful as a porcelain doll. and with that, the child shakily unclenched her feeble grasp on his trousers.

"there was never a day i considered you my daughter."

alas, all her efforts rendered futile for her king, her father, manjiro remained heartless to the very end. but there was one thought going through her head endlessly.

'why are you so hypocritical..?'

the deepest of despair flooded himawari's eye....

-"SUNFLOWER CHILD"
CHAPTER 23
CURSED DESTINY-
𝓽𝓱𝓮 𝓮𝓷𝓭.

❝ 𝙍𝙀𝙄𝙉𝘾𝘼𝙍𝙉𝘼𝙏𝙀𝘿 𝙄𝙉 𝘼𝙉 𝘼𝙉𝙂𝙎𝙏 𝙁𝘼𝙉𝙁𝙄𝘾 ❞
(•͈⌔•͈⑅)

╔══⊹⊱❖⊰⊹══╗
𝟭
╚══⊹⊱❖⊰⊹══╝

'HUH?!'

the child's face morphed into despair as the baby bottle dramatically drops on the ground. it rolled further and further away from the child like how some people ran away from their problems.

'what's this? why did i suddenly think of that fanfic?'

she recalled the angst fanfic which was ranked worst in the history of fan fiction to ever exist. it was just an incoherent angsty book, very fitting of its hackneyed plot.

'did i recall that book because the child that died in it... has the same name as me...? what a shitty curse, dammit! get out of my brain stupid book!'

the child swatted her hand about aggressively, cursing her misfortune to express her enragement, though, to an outsider it would've have been a rather amusing sight.

"hmm? oh, bother. how clumsy, she keeps dropping it."

the only caretaker in the room was awaken from her slumber by the abrupt noise of the bottle, she bent down to pick up the bottle and moved closer to the unattended, laying child and placed the bottle in the child's hand.

'babies don't have good grip, you imbecilic numbskull!!'

"don't be a nuisance and quietly drink your milk."

despite being a caretaker, the name itself was a bit of stretch for such an unbothered, idle lady who wore an exasperated expression at the child's 'clumsiness' whilst muttering curses under her breath to convey her vexation. 

but to the point where she picked it up from the ground and gave it back to the child without even washing it. was she just taking advantage of the fact that himawari was an orphan who didn't have no mother to swing by and pummel the bitch down over her child's welfare?

"uwaa!" the child once again dropped the bottle and sobbed superficial tears to depict her boredom.

"what's wrong? ugh, i already have my hands full with all this sewing!"
she hissed at the child's constant movement, clearly in denial of her obvious discomfort of laying on the ground.

"here, let me get that for you."

"nyo!" the child babbled as she swatted her palm to express her lack of approval.

'i don't want this, it's not what i want! do you really think a damn dirty bottle is what i need right now?!'

"are you bored with it now?"
the lady paused with a finger beneath her lips as she thought and then proceeded to nod. she picked up the child and laid her down in the worn out crib.

"let's lay you down."

she then walked out of the room without looking back leaving the child unattended, not that it made a difference with her previous, little nap time.

'is she going to the head of the orphanage? if you're coming back with another bottle, don't bother.'

"uaun..."
the child wobbled in the crib, orchid eyes glimmering like a gemstone, quite fitting for the materialistic soul.
"auu."

the child brought up her limbs to her line of vision only for her to be met with small feet and small palms, she clenched and unclenched them and squirmed about in the crib.

'ha... i'll never get used to this.'

she recalled crossing the road after grocery shopping in the middle of the night and suddenly waking up to all of this. there seemed to be a bright light, and a honk right before she succumbed to the darkness.

'this makes no sense! me, suddenly becoming a baby? and to top it off i'm an orphan again. this is crazy.'

the door was slammed open startling her and breaking her out of her inner turmoil as the previous lady came bursting in, clearly absentminded of the fact that small children were sensitive to loud noises. or maybe she just wasn't concerned, yeah it'd most likely be the latter.

"the head said our budget is low. you'll just have to play with this."
she handed her the now empty milk bottle.

'ah, this girl does this all the time!'
she questioned the caretaker's degree, like didn't she study child care or something?

"i won't coddle you if you start crying. i'm busy right now!"
the lady scornfully yammered going back to her chair and actually sewing up a piece of garment rather than resting up.

'how cold! i'm a baby... she could be nicer to me...!'
the child gazed over at the lady whilst tightly gripping the bottle. her iris hues glimmered vibrantly with suppressed pearls of tears, enhancing her ethereal beauty.

'i guess not every child is treated as one. from being a homeless orphan in my previous life, it's at least nice to be reborn as an orphan in an actual orphanage with a home to live in...'

the blobs of tears she repressed no longer were able to be bottled in as she comically cried her heart out at her undesirable situation.
'but why did it have to be at an orphanage on the brink of abandonment where i'm the adoptee of the most abhorred criminal organisation's leader...!?'

𝚃𝚘 𝙱𝚎 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚞𝚎𝚍 ➪

𝗩𝗼𝘁𝗲, 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘀𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶'𝗹𝗹 𝗴𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘂 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗹𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗶𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗱, 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗺𝗲 𝗱𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗮𝗲.

@𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗼𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗶𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗵𝗶𝘀𝘄𝗶𝗳𝗲